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Comment by aj7 | Hacker News Reader

A lot of you may not be aware of the deep, seething hatred a large number of Americans have for the educated elite. Not only are they perceived as having money and power now, they are blamed for the developments that take away people's jobs in the future. This hatred is so widespread that it was no trouble to convince people, used to flu shots and polio vaccines, that the COVID vaccines were dangerous or a hoax. You usually don't run into these attitudes in Silicon Valley, in college towns, in academia, and in the "better sections" of large cities, so many successful technologists are unaware of how deep-seated and widespread this attitude is. So politicizing climate change, COVID, etc. was very easy, there was a built-in audience.

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You are not wrong. I do not know how widespread it is, but I do agree that it does seem widespread enough to let people latch onto ideas they would otherwise not even consider. I don't know if I agree with the characterization of "better sections" of large cities, but it is hard for me to say anything categorically one way or the other on that issue ( I have conflicting anecdata ).

If there is any hope for those hoping anti-intellectualism won't come for them, remember that current resentment appears to be primarily reserved for the rich ( I have a very unscientific way of determining the current sentiment ).

No. Not the rich. Not at all.

The educated. (Example: Making a criminal out of Dr. Fauci)

It’s the educated that resent the rich.

This is an interesting take. A fairly elitist take at that. You do realize that generally the people who live in the non-“better sections” (as you put it) of large cities generally vote in line with how the super highly educated elite people that live in Silicon Valley vote.

You are right. I was focused on the bubble that persons with good tech careers live in— they almost never come across the resentful 33% in their lives.

By the way, those “resentful 33%,” in their own way, are not wrong. I saw a YouTube of what a young woman did when home from college. She sat in a cramped enclosed office, 20 feet off the ground with a narrow 18” (450mm) shelf with three crappy looking PC’s. She was plowing about 100 acres of farmland, riding in this combine. If farming can be automated to this degree, of course manufacturing can.

I'd say it's more because of the anti-white anti-male anti-Christian virtue signalling competition that the social elite do, which seeps into all cultural products including entertainment and media. It makes low status traditional white men feel alienated from all of society except for Fox News and Donald Trump. The feeling of societal alienation leads to fascist sentiments as Hannah Arendt figured out.

That's the explanation for the phenomenon, but it doesn't mean I have sympathy for these people. They are perpetuating white supremacy and domination without realizing it. I simply wish our culture didn't create such a hostile climate for white men for purely pragmatic downstream reasons (i.e. I don't want fascism), as well as for egalitarian realism (i.e. race essentialism is wrong, even when directed at white people).

Regarding trade: such people aren't entitled to my trade or business. If I want to buy something from a Chinese person, that is my right, and they have no right to interfere with that.

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