Comments on: Do you live in a bubble? — A quiz https://habitablezone.com/2016/05/17/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-a-quiz/ Fri, 10 Apr 2026 03:45:24 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2016/05/17/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-a-quiz/#comment-36597 ER Wed, 18 May 2016 03:09:17 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=57699#comment-36597 Driver, lover, sportsman, artist, fighter, businessman... Driver, lover, sportsman, artist, fighter, businessman…

]]> By: mcfly https://habitablezone.com/2016/05/17/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-a-quiz/#comment-36596 mcfly Wed, 18 May 2016 02:58:06 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=57699#comment-36596 But I'm really not all that bright, so I guess I'm just a garden-variety snob. But I’m really not all that bright, so I guess I’m just a garden-variety snob.

]]> By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2016/05/17/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-a-quiz/#comment-36595 ER Wed, 18 May 2016 02:43:52 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=57699#comment-36595 Clever questions, but some were really too blunt a knife to cut to the heart of the issue. For example, I have done a lot of manual labor in my time (building and road work, golf course construction, but I haven't done any since my twenties, and then it was in breaks between semesters at college. So does that mean I'm familiar with hard manual labor, or that I was just a pansy college kid who knew all along he wasn't going to have to do that kind of work for the rest of his life? I also worked my way through grad school working full-time as an engineering technician (a blue collar world, even though it was indoors and air conditioned). I did own a pickup, though, for about 10 years. Does that count? Yeah, I was in the military, but so were a lot of young men in the 60s, and a great many of them went to college, either before or after their service. That isn't the pattern today by any means. My family was poor, my mom a secretary and my father and stepfathers factory workers, but I was never hungry, and I always had clean clothes and a full belly. Does that make me poor or middle class? My family thought of themselves as working class (certainly not entrepreneurial or managerial) but we had a great respect for learning and the professions. We always thought of ourselves as educated and cultured, well read and refined, but I was only the second person in my family to go to college, and the first to graduate. As for contact with the "common folk", I got a lot of that in school and the military, but I became isolated from proletarian life almost as soon as I left college. A lot of those questions, if honestly answered, didn't really reveal much about the issues that quiz was supposed to explore. I consider myself a working class hero, but I must confess I am an intellectual snob (and proud of it, too, goddamn it!). <em>"They hate you if you're clever, but they despise a fool." --John Lennon.</em> My most profound cultural and intellectual influences: Cuban, Cracker, hippie, sailor, scientist, Silicon Valley spook, Geographer, Mapmaker and Navigator, civil servant---but there's no hint of any of that in the survey. They didn't bother to test for any of that, so what do I know about my bubble? Clever questions,
but some were really too blunt a knife to cut to the heart of the issue. For example, I have done a lot of manual labor in my time (building and road work, golf course construction, but I haven’t done any since my twenties, and then it was in breaks between semesters at college. So does that mean I’m familiar with hard manual labor, or that I was just a pansy college kid who knew all along he wasn’t going to have to do that kind of work for the rest of his life? I also worked my way through grad school working full-time as an engineering technician (a blue collar world, even though it was indoors and air conditioned). I did own a pickup, though, for about 10 years. Does that count?

Yeah, I was in the military, but so were a lot of young men in the 60s, and a great many of them went to college, either before or after their service. That isn’t the pattern today by any means.

My family was poor, my mom a secretary and my father and stepfathers factory workers, but I was never hungry, and I always had clean clothes and a full belly. Does that make me poor or middle class? My family thought of themselves as working class (certainly not entrepreneurial or managerial) but we had a great respect for learning and the professions. We always thought of ourselves as educated and cultured, well read and refined, but I was only the second person in my family to go to college, and the first to graduate. As for contact with the “common folk”, I got a lot of that in school and the military, but I became isolated from proletarian life almost as soon as I left college.

A lot of those questions, if honestly answered, didn’t really reveal much about the issues that quiz was supposed to explore.
I consider myself a working class hero, but I must confess I am an intellectual snob (and proud of it, too, goddamn it!).

“They hate you if you’re clever, but they despise a fool.” –John Lennon.

My most profound cultural and intellectual influences: Cuban, Cracker, hippie, sailor, scientist, Silicon Valley spook, Geographer, Mapmaker and Navigator, civil servant—but there’s no hint of any of that in the survey. They didn’t bother to test for any of that, so what do I know about my bubble?

]]> By: mcfly https://habitablezone.com/2016/05/17/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-a-quiz/#comment-36592 mcfly Wed, 18 May 2016 02:16:24 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=57699#comment-36592 I got 51. Those were not the kinds of questions I was expecting. I got 51. Those were not the kinds of questions I was expecting.

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