Monday, November 14, 2016

Quiz: Do You Live in a Bubble?

This quiz, regarding whether one lives in a bubble with respect to middle America, is very interesting.

I got a 9, which ends up pegging me slightly incorrectly (but only slightly) with the potential labeling that goes with the score ranges. Sensibly, the score ranges with different labels overlap. I think I should get a very low score within the next highest range. (A score of 11 is the minimum to do that.)

Note: I did not count my Oxford get-up as a "uniform", as that's definitely not what they had in mind (even though it technically is a uniform).

Note that this is talking about a bubble with respect to America, which is fair enough. Of course, the phrasing is very USA-centric. I am a citizen of the world (and California), with a good amount of international experience, but I am less experienced with the rest of the USA (especially in recent years).

(Tip of the cap to Oleg Kogan.)

3 comments:

Justin said...

I got a 6, which isn't surprising.

I do object to the framing of the article though. I think the correct point of view is that rural America is in a bubble relative to urban America. Saying that areas where 60% of the population lives are out of touch with areas where 20% of the population lives is completely backwards. :P The fact that this quiz comes from Charles "The Bell Curve" Murray does not exactly enhance its legitimacy, either.

Mason said...

I think it's more accurate to discuss each being in a bubble with respect to other things, and also to consider whether people are in a bubble with respect to things outside of America. I am in a bubble with respect to rural America but am not in a bubble with respect to the world at large (and the latter is much more important to me). So really one should be drawing multi-dimensional bubbles with various levels of permeability in different dimensions around different people. Or, to put it less geometrically but more understandably, suppose that each of us has a vector of the types of numbers from this quiz with respect to different subpopulations.

I also found the choice of questions in this quiz to be interesting.

Justin said...

I like your multi-dimensional bubbles approach! :-)