If you're not from the U.S. you have to understand the background of mendacity that flows through nearly the entire culture. That's a big part of the backdrop for fairly deep levels of distrust, whether it's of a company, one's colleague, the gov't, etc.
For example-- I was watching a political show where the question was something about global warming. One of the guests gave a reply that sounded vaguely reasonable but wasn't clear. The host tried to rephrase the question, and the same respondent again gave a suspiciously confusing reply. This caused the host to drill down on a simpler question-- did the guest believe that global warming was real and that human activity has contributed to this global warming? This time the guest answered a different question, addressing the reality of global warming but ducking the issue of causes. This went on for about 45 seconds before the host finally forced the guest to give a response that revealed the guest was in fact a climate denier. Honestly, it was like watching that scene in Blade Runner with the Voight-Kampff test, except on humans.
Being an American myself, I could immediately tell what the guest's purpose was: to sound like they agreed with the other (sensible) panelists, in order to give more credibility to a climate denial talking point that their job depends on. It's a planned strategy essentially of "denial-in-depth"-- try to sneak FUD into an otherwise good faith discussion, and if that doesn't then reveal your crude talking points for what they are.
In a weird way, the process of figuring out someone's level of earnestness makes me think of the "Sie" to "du" journey in German. Except here in the U.S., it's a slow slog of figuring out exactly how a friend spouts bullshit and under what circumstances, and then figuring out if there's enough earnestness left to become close friends.
Well, sure, but then you are displaying a clear and verifyable pattern, and my original point of candor that can't be twisted into sexism remains no? You had to add a separate sexist pattern ("treats men and women differently").
Your point of high level of distrust is appreciated and one of the reasons why I'd never move there (no offense intended, most individual americans I know and read about are lovely people, but this culture of hidden BS is too much for me). But then, this is an issue in general no? Why are people only concerned about women/feminists twisting words against them? Why not christians, or veterans as well? Or men for that point, last I checked the protected group list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group does not specify women, and there are conservative mobs on social media just as much as "woke" ones. So I'm just a bit confused
Did you figure this from the outside, so to speak, spending time abroad and immersing in a different culture? I've found that most people sort of start noticing cultural blind spots only then.
That's not a good yes or no question, because it not only unites two different points together, but also really depends on your definition of global warming, and also ties a lot of other different issues into it. You could for example believe that humanity affects climate to some extent, but still think that it's not bad enough to support environmentalists from economics point of view. You could also believe that this climate change is real, but is not caused by human activity and is just a part of a natural process.
I just don't think that boxing a complex issue into a boolean is a good idea.
Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. That's the last thing we need on top of the flamewar we already have here.