The Big Sort
by Bill Bishop · first published 2008
38% recommend62% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Well-researched account of how Americans have sorted into like-minded communities, illustrated with county election maps; useful for readers curious about why political divides look geographic and social.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
America may be more diverse than ever coast to coast, but the places where we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think, and vote as we do. We've built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood--and church and news show--most compatible with our lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this way-of-life segregation. Our country has become so polarized, so ideologically inbred, that people don't know and can't understand those who live just a few miles away. The reason for this situation, and the dire implications for our country, is the
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"The Big Sort" by Bill Bishop is a well researched book that explains the political fracturing of America. The topic is explains is expressed visually in these two maps, which shows county election results from 1976…
on “The Refragmentation” ↗The book 'the big sort' by bill bishop goes into this phenomenon in further detail.
on “Google Doesn’t Want Staff Debating Politics at Work Anymore” ↗I highly recommend reading "The Big Sort" by Bill Bishop to give you a better idea of why we look at "politics". https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2569072-the-big-sort The idea is a lot less about politics, and more about being comfortable…
on “I might have gone a little bit overboard” ↗You might be interested in reading "The Big Sort": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2569072-the-big-sort The long and the short of it is, it's both.
on “How well does population density predict U.S. voting outcomes?” ↗One of those books-that-would-be-a-fantastic-long-essay is "The Big Sort," it tackles this exact problem. Modern life actually seems to be driving people into micro-cultures, rather than bringing people with different beliefs together.
on “RIP Culture War Thread” ↗Gerrymandering isn't really a thing IMO (see the Big Sort by Bill Bishop). It ends up hurting each party in reality. I think the most important thing is getting rid of first past the post voting, and moving the EC (which should not be abolished IMO) into electing…
on “Trump to Sign Executive Order Waiving Key Environmental Laws” ↗…It's not really though. I mean, being Catholic (and honestly, I know so little about Protestantism that I don't really feel qualified to speak to it), there are a lot of politics in the church. In 'the Big Sort', the author Bill Bishop talks about how Americans are dividing themselves up by geography, religion (or lack thereof), jobs, education, etc. It's like we're splitting in to two different worlds. I've…
on “The vital art of talking to strangers” ↗…Virality/discovery/engagement can absolutely lead to the spread of misinformation, but it also is clearly a big driver for awareness of social causes like police brutality / BLM. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Big-Sort-Clustering-Like-Minded-Ameri...
on “Mark in the Middle” ↗Coming from Texas, I didn't find the country/republican correlation at all surprising. But here's my question: has it always been this way, or would this be another example of "the Big Sort,"[1] where cultural and political affiliations are becoming increasingly clustered and polarized? [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Sort-Clustering-Like-Minded/dp...
on “How well does music predict your politics?” ↗Could it be the big sort? "Armed with startling new demographic data, [Bill Bishop] made national news in a series of articles showing how Americans have been sorting themselves into alarmingly homogeneous communities -- not…
on “The Mystery of Our Declining Mobility” ↗>> see the Big Sort by Bill Bishop Can you elaborate on why that’s relevant? Sorry, I’m not going to buy and read an entire book on this.
on “Trump to Sign Executive Order Waiving Key Environmental Laws” ↗> see the Big Sort by Bill Bishop Set it in this font: https://uglygerry.com
on “Trump to Sign Executive Order Waiving Key Environmental Laws” ↗Interesting article and data, it is basically a deep and narrow dive into one of the issues tacked by the 2008 book 'The Big Sort': http://www.thebigsort.com/
on “A “nationwide gentrification effect” is segregating us by education” ↗…potentially prosectute the bits of corruption that burrow in over time. I would actually speculate that a lot of the failure modes at play in government is downstream of uniparty government (there's a book "The Big Sort" which talks about how the USA has been doing assortive sorting and effectively moving from purple zones to blue/red zones): if we do a fishbone diagram of root causes, I expect it to be a major contributor.…
on “Why Big Tech Is More Competent Than the US Government” ↗