No wonder you guys (Americans) are at each other's throats

[dsheinem]

Also depends on what they study. It seems the more liberal leaning move on to being professors and these academia type roles. Many of those who enter the workforce, and especially the engineering and tech fields, tend to lean more conservative. I know we have discussed this before.

Could that be because, in studying tech and engineering, there is less time spent studying the human condition, politics, philosophy, history, economics, etc.? I agree that you can track education -> careers and political leanings, but I still think it boils down to if you spend any time studying and seriously thinking about the kinds of things politics concerns itself with that you are going to end up developing a more liberal/progressive world view...and that has less to do with "who's teaching?" than it does with what a good education about these things (e.g. learning methods, theories, etc.)will itself instill upon a student as a matter of process.

[Key-Glyph]

Have you seriously never met a programmer? :S. We're so liberal we'll be the first to marry alien species when we meet them.

This is certainly true of many tech people I know and love.

That said -- and do take this with a grain of salt, I am only speaking from a personal experience, and a temporary one at that -- I did an internship over the summer in the systems engineering department of a data center, and I would say there was a goodly amount of fiscal conservatism going on among the big earners, a surprising quantity (to me) of macho gun talk, and some outdated ideas of gender relations that were generally more prominent the higher you went up the ladder (even independent of the age factor). But those guys weren't programmers, per se; it was a very businessy, for-profit, hierarchical environment, which I can see making a difference.

As a fun anecdote, I caused a five-man traffic jam by trying to hold a door open for a bunch of incoming male employees and motioning for them to proceed before me. I gave up and caved after the impasse became ridiculously, awkwardly prolonged, and sassed them for it.

Upon detailing this story to my favorite tech person and former mentor, however, he literally could not figure out what issue these guys were having with the door situation until I spelled it out.

[dsheinem]

As a fun anecdote, I caused a five-man traffic jam by trying to hold a door open for a bunch of incoming male employees and motioning for them to proceed before me. I gave up and caved after the impasse became ridiculously, awkwardly prolonged, and sassed them for it.

that's awesome.

Business majors are the worst. A bunch of them I've met over the year are prime examples of or candidates for douchebag-hood.

[Ack]

Also depends on what they study. It seems the more liberal leaning move on to being professors and these academia type roles. Many of those who enter the workforce, and especially the engineering and tech fields, tend to lean more conservative. I know we have discussed this before.

Could that be because, in studying tech and engineering, there is less time spent studying the human condition, politics, philosophy, history, economics, etc.? I agree that you can track education -> careers and political leanings, but I still think it boils down to if you spend any time studying and seriously thinking about the kinds of things politics concerns itself with that you are going to end up developing a more liberal/progressive world view...and that has less to do with "who's teaching?" than it does with what a good education about these things (e.g. learning methods, theories, etc.)will itself instill upon a student as a matter of process.

Perhaps. Perhaps it is also that those fields have become so heavily entrenched in those ideals that on some level they can no longer deviate. That is a possibility to consider, that something within the methodologies of those particular fields has become so standardized that you cannot even recognize it exists.

An example would be the perception each field has on the value of human existence, be it at the individual or the mass level.

We should also all do ourselves a favor and realize that "conservative" and "liberal" are just buzzwords with numerous nebulous meanings, and we have been viewing them largely through the lens of our own nationalities and upbringings. I consider myself conservative, but others have and will consider me liberal in my views, and vice versa. It all really comes down to the ideologies we have developed based on the information we have consumed. As an example I like to think about, I contrast what liberals were considered within the Soviet Union versus the United States today and the United States of a century ago.

As a fun anecdote, I caused a five-man traffic jam by trying to hold a door open for a bunch of incoming male employees and motioning for them to proceed before me. I gave up and caved after the impasse became ridiculously, awkwardly prolonged, and sassed them for it.

Upon detailing this story to my favorite tech person and former mentor, however, he literally could not figure out what issue these guys were having with the door situation until I spelled it out.

Having been raised the hold the door for everybody, I can easily understand how this happened.

[MrPopo]

As a fun anecdote, I caused a five-man traffic jam by trying to hold a door open for a bunch of incoming male employees and motioning for them to proceed before me. I gave up and caved after the impasse became ridiculously, awkwardly prolonged, and sassed them for it.

Upon detailing this story to my favorite tech person and former mentor, however, he literally could not figure out what issue these guys were having with the door situation until I spelled it out.

Having been raised the hold the door for everybody, I can easily understand how this happened.

I once got into an argument with my mom over holding the door open for women. My policy is if someone holds the door open I'm not going to do the stupid "I'll be more polite than you" bullshit and try to take it off their hands, regardless of gender. But my mom, who on the whole is pretty liberal, was trying to make a case that I should hold the door open for women, not let them hold the door open for me. What made the argument fun was when I started asking the really pointed questions that left her having to decide between acknowledging a needless double standard (I offered to hold the door open if she'd give back the vote) or to claim that women are weaker and need the assistance (she had tried to compare it with giving up your seat to an elderly person with a cane). She eventually settled on "it's just polite because it is".

[Ack]

And now this thread is about holding doors open.

Good job, ZeroAX. Or should I say...jvalentine98?!?!?!

[Sarge]

Actually, the extremes tend to be liberal (the very uneducated and academics), and the middle tends to skew conservative (partial or completed college). So it's definitely not a linear relationship with education versus ideology. Without reading too much of the text, this link popped up with charts of data from CNN and ABC News. (Yet the gap is also not overwhelming in any portion, so I don't like any sort of "our side is smarter than yours" argument in the first place.)

As someone pointed out as well, depending on the field, academics also skew one direction or another. Much of journalism is tilted to the left, whereas engineering tends to lean more conservative. As an engineer myself, I can, at the very least observe this anecdotally.

There's no question in my mind that there are very intelligent people on both sides that mean well. There are also the charlatans, but anything involving political power is going to attract those folks regardless of what we do.

As far as trustworthiness in the media, it is a little disconcerting that most media folks lean to the left. I'm for diversity in every form, and I think that should include ideological diversity. The entire reason Fox News exists or Rush Limbaugh and talk radio do well is because a significant portion of the population feels under-served, and at times I think that's a rightful opinion. Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I lean staunchly conservative, so take that for what you will.

[wclem]

As a fun anecdote, I caused a five-man traffic jam by trying to hold a door open for a bunch of incoming male employees and motioning for them to proceed before me. I gave up and caved after the impasse became ridiculously, awkwardly prolonged, and sassed them for it.

that's awesome.

Business majors are the worst. A bunch of them I've met over the year are prime examples of or candidates for douchebag-hood.

Horny boys trying to get an ass shot.

[mjmjr25]

The first unbiased post in this thread.

Thank you.

[Erik_Twice]

And now this thread is about holding doors open.

It actually annoys me that many women don't hold the heavy and wind-pushed doors of the subway for the person that goes right behind. And even if you hold it, it's likely they decide to pass through it directly instead of holding it as they pass which is very rude and inevitable causes the next person in line to do a double take as the door flies back in their direction.

There, I said it.