Second Life and the US Election

For months, I’ve been debating people about Clinton and Trump in another arena. I voted against Clinton. With 17 candidates on the Republican side, I thought I would vote for someone. Didn’t happen.

You Say Potato

You Say Potato

For the last eight years, I’ve watched polls, the big kid polls… Pew, Rasmussen, etc. Brexit, the last few US elections, and other elections in various countries, all are proving the polls and media wrong, again and again. So, what’s with the polls and media? 

We have seen the media In the US and Europe be wrong time and again. Hugely wrong in this US election and significantly so in Brexit. The big names like NYT, WP, LA Times, ABC, BBC, CBS, NBC, and CNN have been repeatedly shown to have strong political bias toward the Left by numerous studies by ‘progressive’ institutions. We won’t even count the conservative groups reporting media bias. (If you want to argue that point with me, find the studies and explain why they are wrong.) So, I was discounting the media’s reporting all along, even FNC, Drudge, OAN, and number of supposed conservative outlets, which were wrong too.

So… how does one know if they were not hearing the truth? Who, when and why do we doubt? For me it was a string of little things. But, I had an edge because my dad used the 2003 California recall election to teach us about media corruption, which debatably forced Sen Issa out of the race by misrepresenting his past. It is an excellent example as the records about Issa are public.

enb 2016_11_11 18_23_11_86

enb 2016_11_11 18_23_11_86 – Can you see reality?

So, when the first Clinton-Trump debate was over the Internet online polls, those like Time’s, NYT’s, etc., saying Trump won while the media setting up the polls said he lost, it became a major red flag waving in a brisk breeze. In previous elections those online polls, nearly all of them, were dominated by Liberals. But, not this time. This is the first time I know of this happening.

Liberals are supposed to make better use of computer tech and online media. So, how is it these online polls being bastions of Liberal voices got over whelmed by conservatives? I doubt they were, but something was up.

Then there are the political rallies. No network was willing to show the crowds, or lack of them. There are photos from individuals posted here and there. The few do show crowd size and enthusiasm to some extent. There just aren’t enough and they are too inconsistent to make quantifiable estimates.

However, during the early part of the race the sound tracks of audience applause were telling a story. In the last months of the race, the networks appear to have started doctoring the sound tracks. Was it to make the voice easier to understand? Or hide crowd size? There is no proof but, there is evidence via WikiLeaks and personal stories that strongly suggest it was for political purpose, not quality. But, without solid evidence it remains debatable opinion.

By all reasonably reputable accounts the rally crowd size and excitement was for Bernie and Trump. The media kept claiming otherwise or ignoring the issue. Those looking and attending multiple candidate’s rallies noticed. Bernie and Trump had the excitement.

Then there are the minorities. The number of minority voters posting in various places in favor of Trump was growing. I was meeting Latinos, Blacks, and Asians planning to vote Trump. (Notice I didn’t say “for”.) But, I found no way to get a sense of how large that movement was during the race.

As the election results are analyzed we are finding Trump took more of the minority vote than Romney, which surprises me. The Daily Caller during the race was saying Trump was expected to get 26% of the black vote. (Reference – Sept) But, that is another poll so I was salting it. Pew is saying their exit polls show 21% of Blacks went for Trump. But, even the exit polls are called into question by the Soros-Clinton corruption revealed by WikiLeaks and Project Veritas. It will be some time before the academics and historians publish what they find and allow us to figure out what actually happened.

Election Day 2016

Election Day 2016

Consider, we are in the 3rd and 4th generation of Democrat voters in Chicago, LA, NO, and Detroit living in worsening poverty. No one can prove the Dem’s or Repub’s are responsible for the poverty. There are plenty of good arguments going either way as for which party is more to blame. The final responsibility however, is in the hands of the voter.

What we can do to decide where the problem lies is look at states and cities controlled by Republicans or Democrats and compare the poverty, crime, murder, and unemployment rates. The adjusted data is almost always misleading as those currently in power spin the adjustments in their favor. Getting the raw data or the ‘adjustment algorithms’ is challenging. But, the raw data allows us to form opinions based on actual facts. The adjustment algorithms or changes in algorithms show how those in power are spinning the data.

If a family has been voting Democrat for 50 years and is still living in poverty, why wouldn’t they try voting for the other party? Consider. Detroit was the world’s greatest, ever in history, manufacturing power. As the Democrat party took control of the city and moved farther Left toward to socialism the city crumbled and manufacturers moved away. The city is bankrupt and government there is unbelievably corrupt. Why would anyone living there continue to vote Democrat? Oh… yeah, free stuff…

From videos appearing on YouTube, I’ve seen more and more minority voters are asking that question. Get them to watch the movie Hillary’s America and if they can recover from the shock, they abandon the Dem party.

Both sides of the political landscape have their rabid dog haters. But, as I read through the news, check the social networks, political blogs, … prior to and after the election, the number of hateful things said seem to come mostly from one side.

Try this experiment at Google. Search for “vile liberal comments” and then search again for “vile conservative comments”. In the first page of results open each hit and see what the article is about. The first page (of 6.5 million hits) is what you would probably expect, talk about comments being made by Liberals. The second search (4.4 million hits) will reveal articles likely to surprise you. The majority of the articles are still about Liberal’s comments…

There is a reason there is more ‘apparent’ hate from the Left. Consider a statement by one of the icons of Liberalism:

Hatred as the central element of our struggle! Hatred that is intransigent…hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent and cold-blooded killing machine…We reject any peaceful approach. Violence is inevitable. To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow! The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we’ll destroy him! These hyenas are fit only for extermination. We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm! The victory of Socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!

Source: Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara speaking about Americans in his 1966 Message to the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, Cuba.

The basic Alinsky philosophy used by the Left is: the ends justify the means.

So, when reading the WikiLeaks releases of Hillary, Huma, and Podesta emails… I am not surprised to find people talking about whether or not Pres Obama will provide a number of big Democrat names pardons before leaving office. I believe he will. The near mutiny in the FBI and NSA tells us this is not over. More is coming.

In Second Life…

So, what are we seeing in Second Life? My personal experience is the majority of users are NOT haters but, they lean liberal. There are plenty of haters in SL. But, I don’t know everyone so I cannot quantify how many of which type there are.

Hamlet Au has a poll showing 61% of ‘VR’ users are Clinton supporters. See: Clinton Gets Strong Support from VR Blog Readers in Poll.  As best I can tell this is a poll of New World Notes readers. So, it is like many think of the Drudge Report polls… from a biased audience. That is probably true in both cases.

Hamlet has bought into the Left’s depiction of Trump. So, his readers are likely of a similar mind.

We Will Persevere.

We Will Persevere.

In SL it is hard to get a realistic sense of what the user base is really like. Especially when it comes to opinion. The Lab can provide definitive demographics on sex, age, logon frequency, hours in game, etc. But, opinion? Especially political opinion… No metric for that. No pro-Clinton or pro-Trump button in the viewer.

We can try to figure it out by looking at the SL Forum and the comments in the threads. A couple of times on very controversial topics I have counted through the posts to see how many pro-con opinions there are on a subject. But, even in a highly inflammatory discussion a thousand posts in a thread is unusual and even then the number of people posting in the thread is only a few hundred at most. Seldom more than 200 peeps, if that many. With several hundred thousand people logging in each day we have very small samples on which to decide what SL peeps think.

Hamlet’s poll had 55 people participating… My best poll ever got <300 responses and most of mine got 20 to 30 responses. So, his poll and my polls are way not representative of the users in SL. We just don’t know what opinions the majority of SL users have. We can’t get a representative or significant number of samples. They aren’t even a good sample of the blog’s readers…

I suspect Hamlet, like mainstream media, wants to gin up controversy to increase clicks. It appears most of the polls used by the media were for no other purpose. Whatever, we can’t know whether Hamlet’s poll is correct, much less accurate, or reversed, upside down as the election polling was. So much so, the US election polls and media coverage are being referred to in various places as a “historic failure”. I tend to think Hamlet’s is somewhat correct from personal experience. No proof, just opinion. But, that opinion is based on experiences from the circles I run in.

the circle

the circle

My experience with Liberals is they see a poll like Hamlet’s or Rasmussen’s that agrees with what they believe and they reinforce their beliefs without ever questioning either. We saw that happen with the Dems in this election. Clinton was a preference and foregone conclusion for most. Some of my friends had >=US$1,000 bets on Hillary. In hindsight I wish I had taken a couple. Everything in the media supported what they wanted to believe. So, Wednesday morning: shock.

How many will learn anything from the experience? I think few.

So, most will continue to believe the majority SL users are liberal Clinton supporters. They may be right. But, I suspect there are more free market conservatives in SL than Hamlet’s poll suggests because the US & Brexit elections show how WRONG everyone has been. So, why not Hamlet too?

My suspicion comes from those people in SL I see living, promoting, or using free market ideas and avoiding the Che Guevara hate philosophy. They have, however, learned to duck and avoid the vile hate spewed by liberals that can’t tolerate diversity of thinking or disagreement with their personal philosophy.

6 thoughts on “Second Life and the US Election

  1. I think the people who create and sell content in SL are all free market conservatives…if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be participating in the SL economy, which is the very definition of an unregulated free market! The liberals are the bloggers – the observers of SL, not the doers. (Except, of course, for you and me!)

  2. I’m not sure the polls were as wrong as people seem to think. People cite polling data but they often omit to mention a 3% margin of error. In both the EU referendum and the US Presidential election the later polls generally suggested small leads for Remain and Clinton but they were within the 3% margin of error range . In both cases the gap had closed during the campaign with impetus for Leave and Trump.

  3. Here’s a different prospective about how the election generally went… I am simplifying on everything just to keep me from writing too long.

    Sexism vs Idealism:
    Sadly, humanity hasn’t completely given up on sexism, mainly because human race had over thousand years of primal traits for survival. Where male would believe they have to protect and lead their family. Female would obey male to avoid being attacked and care for things male doesn’t focus on. It would take another few thousand years just to get rid of these traits. So in this meanwhile, sexism still exist. There are great number of people were able to know sexism is wrong, but still can act them out unconventionally. This is where part of idealism come in. In order to combat this unintentional behavior, people have to create and set examples, establishing a standard for everyone to agree on and work together. Some people thinks they’re doing the right thing by creating their own, using from their parents, or from a role-model figure. Problem is how would anyone know which standard is the right one for everyone?

    Many can be confused with their stance on sexism. Even some have religion based on sex rank as they’re confusing natural primal traits with their feelings on some important matters. For those who are open-minded and well understood on gender for presidency wouldn’t have mind Clinton, it’s not that they would vote for her 100% the way, it’s good as 50/50. For the opposite side, wouldn’t be fair nor actuate to say that others went against her are the closed-minded and confused ones… simply because they thought they’re doing the right way because there’s no rules or a system that could allow them to accept this “different” concept. US never had female president. So that gives Clinton literally no chance.

    Of course, there are number of people who are actively against her solely based on her gender, foregoing their sense of logic by any means nor any ideal standard they may have.

    Races vs Cultures:
    No matter what races is involved, even on alien world, this issue would come up. One race is better than other. Another manifestation of primal fitness for survival, it will start out having major differences in many degrees. As evolution goes on, differences become smaller and smaller through barbarianism and breeding. Difference can get down to the smallest details, whether it’s a color, shape, style, or sound, but hardly matters when it come to fitness for survival. People will always have the feel to be on the better side, to dominate. A race could overtake another race if they were able to progress in any form of means. That losing race would have the impact or worst. So people on “top” race will always have the hidden subconscious fear. With that fear, they would take any pre-caution steps to ensure the safety of their race. What are those steps? It could means anything, as well be slavery or harmony. If two races has bonded an harmony, breaking their concord would means their relations is reset back to normal as before, as well go back to competing again. Slavery on other hands… breaking this concord would means the dominant race is waning power over the enslaved race. which may be completely unacceptable to the losing race.

    To the modern world, things are bit different. People are trying to evolve into more embracing harmony through understanding and communication. Not everyone can evolve with the rest of the species at the same time, thus why US had civil war. Banning slavery has triggered these hidden subconscious feeling that they’ve lost as a master race.
    With slavery ended and wars won. There are cultures that doesn’t go away as no one really seem to understand. It’s what happen afterward, racism hatred.

    Cultures are shaped through relationships and experiences from within their own race. When working toward an harmony between two races, their cultures will may clashes. A new culture must be created for them both. This has put people at crossroad between creating harmony and forming from their personal experiences where stronger racism hatred came in after losing the “master race” card for this generation. Some people are in conflict state, some are in better harmony state, and some in racism hatred state.

    However, the enslaved race never had the chance to become the master race if they’re trying to bond an harmony. This also can create the need to rise back up as the dominating race on their natural primal fitness for survival impulse, or simply seeking for revenge. Just as Black Panther Party wanted to be on top of the chain in the 60’s.

    As things tried to patches up and iron out problems, working toward an harmony. Some things doesn’t get anywhere as their old cultures doesn’t goes away when trying to embrace the new culture. Like when a race wouldn’t bother to help other ex-enslaved race… and that race wouldn’t see themselves any better than their enslaved past. Not giving them any chances to prove of anything worthwhile, and at the same time not believing enough that they are valuable as any other races. Thus street ghetto life was born in the 70’s. It took a long time to gradually change those cultures into the new one and still on going as they’re pass down through generations.

    So finally, to make a point about this part of the issue. Some white people are still racist and hasn’t let go Ku Kluk Klan culture; voted for Trump. Some black people are still daunted and hasn’t let go street ghetto culture; avoided, never bothered, never thought their vote matters, or were afraid to vote. Lately, I’ve heard from a friend whose parents told him not go to voting ballot, fearing for his safety. Just how much more cases like this has happened this year?

    System vs Opinions:
    The voting ballot method has changed so many times over the years; either it was written name on paper, punch-hole cards, blotting dots, optical scan papers, pen-punch cards, electronically scanned card, digital touchscreen… However, the election system itself hasn’t changed much, almost never. Election’s winner is based on electoral college points through out 50 states, not by total population nor count. These points don’t scale with population. Instead, electoral college system further distorts the single-person, single-vote principle of democracy. Every state gets one electoral vote for each member of its delegation to the House of Representatives. A very fancy way of saying some people’s vote don’t matter if you don’t live in a better state, regardless of the state’s population count.

    It has problems and it need to be fixed. For years, people knew this system isn’t ideal nor working fair for everyone. Leading people in a right amount skepticism to think everything is rigged. It changes the way people have their opinion and how they present their choices. Which all come down to 3 choices. Pick one of the two major parties, don’t vote because there’s no one they like, or write-in.

    When people get to the ballot, they’re (mostly) always presented with two candidates. Republican or Democrat straight up. Many people don’t realize they have 3rd choice, write-in but this option is often or almost never mentioned. Lately on the digital touchscreen, they’re hidden at the bottom, off the screen where you need to scroll down; or hidden in the next page, depending on the software used.

    Some people refuses to vote on two “politically” reasons, there’s no one they liked or haven’t decided whom. There is no “None of above” or “Undecided” choices. This become a problem for those vote became meaningless by not voting. it would default the normalized vote to whomever has the most points by states. On Tuesday, only 1/3rd of the America has voted. That means 15% went to both parties. Where is the rest of 66% voters? 1/3rd is not enough to justify even half of the Americans in the country.

    This election has effectively ignored the opinion of the people who refused/didn’t vote on that day. Otherwise, at least give them an option to put down ‘whatever, I don’t care’ type of answer as valid reason to count them out of the system.
    To end this point, a voice to say both or any candidates were unfit to be president went unheard because the system doesn’t allow it.

    Tech vs Old Fashion:
    Tech are still advancing everyday and more data are being collected by those who uses it. There are old fashion folks that rarely or never touched electronic devices that aren’t part of their jobs. These folks aren’t collected into the data cloud. The most important old fashion voters are the farmers, truck drivers, auto repair, etc etc. There are still a lot of those are running their own small business, rarely have the time to read/watch the news or the media. Old Fashion don’t change their lifestyle. Dollar Value has changed a lot in 30 years. To the modern tech life, dollar has somewhat balanced with the cost of high tech living. To old fashion life, dollar went up, thinking they’re doing great in business. Majority of these has voted for republican party. Modern Tech people has probity of mixed sides opinions, generally socialism while wishing there’s a better candidates that suits them better. It’s a hard split between Republican and Democrat. Speaking of not having the time to read the news or media…

    Time vs Media:
    Whatever people’s jobs are, there will be great number of people are short on personal time in their daily life. Some people may not have the routine to read up on media news briefly. But, when they do… where do they get their sources? The most popular news media are from the largest corporations. Companies with large amount of income, whether they’re parent company or owned by even larger parent company. It’s no surprises these companies would sponsor an candidate. Try to paint up some wonderful lies for their favorite one and splash all the bad paints on the opposing ones. Some larger sponsors would have the power to issue candidate’s stance on few things… taxes, laws, limitations, creating loophole, fake promises, foreign policy, etc. etc. Just to fund their election campaign, media news aren’t the only sponsor around though. There are some people who does take their time to read the news and expand across the horizon for a much broader opinions on the matters. For those who does, often stop paying any attention to large media group. With internet becoming part of our lives, it has given us more tools to find their reliable sources. It also has allowed some stay more confined to that one new sources as the news are being fed to them much more quickly on their mobile devices to make it more convenience for them. Just how much more people finding the time to read them in between jobs, duties, and transportation when they now have mobile devices in their hands?

    Age vs Greed:
    Most of the protestors in the streets are young, skipping classes for a political movement. What about the older people? Could they be protesting a better way than chanting in the street? Or do they don’t care? Maybe they had learned from their past that these type of protest sort of doesn’t work or it has become too much hassle for their aging body? Is it also possible that they now have the wealth to make the difference? There are some news reporting some company’s CEO are firing employees for supporting/voting the opposing candidate. While this is against the law, they believe they’re doing their part as protesting for what they thought is right. There are some companies refusing to sponsor or maintaining contract works with another group because of their political difference. Using money as political power game piece. Not surprising most of those CEO’s are young adults. What has become of the older people? Have they become greedy or has they let their age tarnished themselves in making the difference anymore? Or has the complicated laws and rules made them less bold and reap in what they have sowed for the company itself?

    Maybe they has changed their mind and wanted to benefit from whatever political window opened up for them to take in more profit to keep either their swimming pool filled or keep the company floating above the surface.

    Ending Note:
    In my opinion… Everything is complicated and whenever something does seem simple at first glance, it’s never really is that simple because everyone is involved for different reasons. Only way to understand it all is to be in everyone’s shoes. No matter how hard you try, there’s always another world to discover. (Now that’s a bit ironic when you think about what Second Life can do for you.) The point is… A simple voting poll with very few choices will never cover everything.

    • Well, you certainly have lots of opinion. Can you actually substantiate your beliefs?

      There is no doubt that sexism exists. But, how much of a role it played in the election is highly debatable. And how prevalent it is in society remains way debatable.

      Race & Culture:
      This is a point the Left pushes with great vigor. It is a fact there are people that are prejudiced based on race. It is a basic fear of the unknown, the different. What evidence do you have that racism has changed over the last 6,000 years?
      The word racism today has come to mean any person that disagrees with you. Vote for Trump and you are racist. But, blacks voting for Obama aren’t.

      Cultures trying to evolve… you think this ‘evolving’ is a new modern day thing?

      It is interesting you point to the KKK as an example of white racism. You do know the KKK was formed as the militant branch of the Democrat party?

      It is also interesting that you don’t mention black racism and the new movement for blacks to segregate campuses and exclude whites. That is a racial divide that grew under Democrat/Liberal leadership, which is supposed to be an inclusive belief system.

      It is also interesting you bring up fear of going to vote. It was the Eric Holder US AG that refused to prosecute blacks that intimidated non-black voters. So, how many blacks were afraid to go vote? You point to one. If I claim that was the only case, could you prove otherwise and do it with anything other than anecdotal events?

      System vs Opinion:
      You seem unaware of why we have an electoral college. Also you seem unaware that pure democracy doesn’t work. Plato and Socrates explained that problem centuries ago. History has repeatedly proven them right.

      Our founding fathers recognized the problem with democracy and built a republic. Read Madison and Hamilton. However, the Left in spite of 6,000 years of history try to push our system to one person one vote democracy. I suppose we can say the Dems have evolved from their 3/5 vote for each black. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise) Whatever, it would seem the Dem leaders are ignorant the knowledge of Plato, Socrates, Madison, and Hamilton in their effort to push us to a system known to always fail, if it were not for their stated purpose to move to centralized control by collapsing the country… Russia was a Communist ‘Democracy’. No one thought the Russian people were free.

      You make the claim people don’t know about write-in candidates. Prove that. Everyone I know is well aware of that option. THEY are also smart enough to understand when it can or should be used.

      Those that chose not to vote get to be ruled by the choice of those that do vote.

      I am amazed you think farmers are old fashioned non-electronic oriented. If there is any group that is highly oriented to new tech it is the farmers of America. You have been sounding out of touch and this point really confirms it. Wow!

      Catch up: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=farming+technology+2016

      Time vs Media: It sounds like you have no support system for acquiring voting information and rely solely on media. It isn’t surprising you are out of touch.

      There are large groups of people that support researchers of similar mind that dig out voting information and present the information to the group. Community churches, neighborhood groups, issue groups, etc.

      Age vs Greed: The older people are smarter from experience. But, you seem to have an odd perception of them. I know there are some that shouldn’t be left alone and are totally confused. But, in my circle of family, friends, and service groups that is a very small percentage. Have you spent any time visiting the elderly care centers? Volunteer for some of their service projects. It might wake you up.

      I agree that things are generally more complicated than they seem at first. The point of my article is that Hamlet like many others throw out any tiny bit of information that seems to support his/their view without much apparent consideration for the complications or reality. Others with similar views cling to whatever is published and supportive of their beliefs and accept it without question.

      You seem to have done that with each of the categories you listed above. Your world views seem far more based on Dem/Leftist world views than reality. Most of what you wrote about is so far from any reality I can substantiate with facts, we have no common ground.

      • Sorry you thought I was out of touch. Problem is most of those substantiate facts can’t be found through normal means. Just because something existed to replace it, doesn’t mean they’re completely gone.

        No one here is wrong. It’s what they don’t realize yet. There are two different stories to each sides.

        • You are out of touch. I didn’t say those things were gone.

          Postmodern philosophy does support the idea everyone has their own truth. But, hard facts of the world and logic force one into recognizing there are real truths that conflict with those that think differently.

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