June 9, 2016

Do you live in a bubble?

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There exists a new upper class that’s completely disconnected from the average white American and American culture at large, argues Charles Murray, a libertarian political scientist and author.

Take this 25-question quiz, based on a similar one published in Murray’s 2012 book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010,” to find out just how thick your bubble is.

Do you live in a bubble? A quiz

[For the record, I scored 43]

It’s a turnaround jump shot
It’s everybody jumpstart
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
Thinking of the Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
a loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires....

aabubble.jpg

We'll be as happy and contented as birds upon a tree.
High above the mountains and the sea.
We'll bill and we'll coo-oo-oo
And sorrow will never come,
Oh, will it ever come true,
Our room with a view?

Posted by gerardvanderleun at June 9, 2016 11:41 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

I scored a 58.

Posted by: Leslie at June 9, 2016 9:35 AM

Scored 66 here.

Posted by: OldFert at June 9, 2016 9:38 AM

73. What the survey leaves out is just as biased as what it assumes to put in.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at June 9, 2016 10:01 AM

I got a 61. What a nasty poll!, "who is Jimmy Johnson?" "Waffle House" Talk about profiling. I'd really love to see PBS done away with, permanently.

Posted by: Will at June 9, 2016 10:39 AM

I got 48. A lot of the questions must have been testing how you choose to present yourself, I think maybe. So then I took the 16 questions personality test and came out a Debater. LOL. Horribly true.

Posted by: pbird at June 9, 2016 10:49 AM

44. It would be interesting to see where your readers pool.

Posted by: james wilson at June 9, 2016 11:11 AM

66--Grew up in rural western town and military...

Posted by: The Real EGL at June 9, 2016 11:29 AM

59.

I've seen none of the movies and none of the television, worked in a factory and dug ditches a few times. The first time I was surrounded by college graduates was when I went to a trade school and got a job as a programmer at age 41. Not a city kid despite living in and around San Francisco for 38 years.

And who the hell is Jimmie Johnson?

Posted by: Rob De Witt at June 9, 2016 12:17 PM

Scored 77

Guess that makes me the local redneck here.

Posted by: Doug at June 9, 2016 12:43 PM

*waves to Doug* Welcome to the club!

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at June 9, 2016 12:54 PM

Wait, I'm suppose to talk to my neighbors...?!?!

And find out if 50 of then went to college?!? 50!!!

Posted by: tim at June 9, 2016 1:35 PM

36: A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents.

Dad moved us from blue collar land to white collar suburb when I was 8 ("Movin' on up...to the toooopp"). The neighbors went from steel workers to bankers and lawyers. Can't say I ever fit in with either crowd, quite frankly.

Posted by: whatever at June 9, 2016 2:59 PM

78 here. The nearest Waffle House is over 600 mi away or I'd eat there more often. Applebees, Chilis, and steakhouses all too rich for my blood. We eat in, pay cash and pray to the Lord. Both my bride and I have master's degrees (business and engineering) but will probably never afford to send our kids to college unless they get full ride scholarships. NPR is the enemy but they have, Tokyo Rose style, jazz and classical programming. Come on, GI - you know you want to...

Posted by: Jimmy don\'t play that at June 9, 2016 4:06 PM

39.
A first-generation upper-middle-class person with working-class parents.

Posted by: Bill Jones at June 9, 2016 5:08 PM

66

Posted by: Patvann at June 9, 2016 6:46 PM

I got a 42.

And no, I have absolutely no effing clue who Jimmie Johnson is, either.

My upbringing up until age 11 or so was in the distant suburbs of Baltimore (Bel Air, to be exact) and my father was a Federal civil servant. My father's position at Edgewood Arsenal was being phased out in the early '70s, so we moved back to his hometown in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, and he went to work in a Federal office in Binghamton, New York. Moving to such a rural setting was something of a "culture shock" but I was a kid and got used to it. Nowadays, living outside the Baltimore Beltway, I miss it.

I had my disagreements with my father, but I do thank him for making sure that I got familiar with his family's rural roots, and I learned to appreciate them. (I wish I could say the same of my mother, but she was something of a city girl, and she was the only child of a couple who were effectively "only children" -- my mother had lots of aunts and uncles, but no cousins. Her parents died before I was born, so her family is just pictures and stories to me.)

Hale Adams
Pikesville, People's still-mostly-Democratic Republic of Maryland

Posted by: Hale Adams at June 9, 2016 6:51 PM

59, Does "Jimmie Johnson" have a sexual connotation?

Posted by: tonynoboloney at June 9, 2016 9:27 PM

67

It's so easy to game this test that the results are meaningless.

And since you're asking why don't we try to move this site up a notch or two. How about a lively discussion about the quantum enigma and entanglement?

Or whether the designated hitter is the work of the devil or just maybe a way to give an old guy with gimpy knees some good whacks.

Posted by: Roy Lofquist at June 10, 2016 3:28 AM

I scored 40 and was hit with a huge epiphany of understanding my white privilege. I used to wonder how all the rioters in Ferguson MO were able to raise hell, burn and loot all night and still be able to get to school and work on time the next morning. Now I realize how racist that thought process was. Of course they went to work and school the next morning, what else would such responsible citizens do? Also, as being born white I took for granted that money rains on me and my fellow white folks.I just show up for work, put in my 55 hours/week and magically I get all this money.This survey helped me understand my privilege and the huge and unfair bubble that I live in. Maybe I should take another look at this magical thing called socialism and central planning.I scoffed prior, but now.....

Watch a full episode of Ellen? Oh, hell no.

Posted by: Snakepit Kansas at June 10, 2016 5:02 AM

61. Never heard of Jimmie Johnson, really? How about Valentino Rossi?

The world sure is an amazing mix of very different people.

Posted by: Frisco Scooter Trash at June 10, 2016 7:29 AM

68. USN got me out of a small farm town.
Ellen? Nyet.
Jimmie Johnson?

Posted by: Foodog at June 10, 2016 9:52 AM

Valentino Rossi?

Posted by: Rob De Witt at June 10, 2016 10:01 AM

Jimmy Johnson is only one of the top billionaires, that's all, that's all.

Posted by: F1guyus at June 10, 2016 1:54 PM