# Do you live in a bubble? quiz **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 17, 2018, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715 "2018-03-17T04:45:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/21 "2018-03-17T13:34:26Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Well, did you go to college? Because if, for four years, you lived in a dorm amidst a great many other dorms, each one housing people who — like you — of course didn’t yet have a college degree, well, then, clearly, that qualifies. > > I may be doing this wrong. I went to college but didn’t live on campus. I don’t think there’s a time in my life when I even knew my 50 nearest neighbors _period,_ nevermind whether or not they’ve had a degree. makes me question the intentions of this quiz, or at the very least the background of the author(s.) methinks they may be in an urban bubble of their own. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/22 "2018-03-17T13:44:02Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Question 1: > > > [@](#): > > > > Have you ever lived for at least a year in an American neighborhood in which the majority of your 50 nearest neighbors did not have college degrees? > > > > Make your judgment with regard to your neighborhood, not your ZIP code. Answer “no” if you are thinking of a gentrifying neighborhood in which you were one of the gentrifiers. > > How in the hell am I supposed to know that? And: ‘How many years have you lived in such a place?’ Yep, that stopped me from taking the quiz. Where I live now, it’s _probably_ safe to assume that the majority of people don’t have a college degree. OTOH, it _might_ not be. In L.A. my 50 nearest neighbours may or may not have had degrees. Even if I _knew_ whether they did, my building may have a population that is anomalous w/r college degrees. And of course if I don’t have the data for the first question, I cannot answer the second. I could make up answers for the quiz, but then what would be the point? Without an ‘I don’t know’ option, the quiz is flawed. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/23 "2018-03-17T13:51:08Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > makes me question the intentions of this quiz, or at the very least the background of the author(s.) methinks they may be in an urban bubble of their own. Comments agree with you. > [@](#): > > Also, important to note, Murray is an elitist who wrote the Bell Curve so white guys like him could feel superior. Basically the guy is a racist. > [@](#): > > Um, the questions are supposed to be for White America… > [@](#): > > Yes, this is white nationalist propaganda, and it’s disturbing that PBS is publishing it. > [@](#): > > If many of the native Savannah Georgians I encounter every day answered these questions, they’d score through the roof, despite never stepping outside of their own conservative, pro-gun, pro-military-industrial-complex, anti-art, culture, and higher learning bubbles. And so on… ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/24 "2018-03-17T13:54:40Z")
1. Of course, I’ve lived in the USA all my life, but I am a loner. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/25 "2018-03-17T14:03:40Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > methinks they may be in an urban bubble of their own. _Everyone_, _everywhere_ lives in one or more bubbles. It can’t be otherwise without omniscience. (As one of _many_ personal examples, I live in a bubble of ignorance about the contemporary musical tastes in rural Swaziland.) ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/26 "2018-03-17T14:03:40Z")
78 - looks like I have the lead. “Have you ever” questions are basically meaningless. I am not who I was 40 years ago. Growing up one of nine in a single parent (mom died of cancer) household in the rural midwest with a factory worker father. Skewed a lot of the answers. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/27 "2018-03-17T14:19:15Z")
I got a bubbleicious **15**. It is easy to be insulated in San Francisco. For the people who are concerned about the first question, yes it is speculative. But most of the others are very direct, and involve personal experience (Do you own a pickup truck? Have you ever gone fishing?) So you might want to give it a try, even if the first question is unanswerable for you. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/28 "2018-03-17T14:24:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Have you or your spouse ever bought a pickup truck? I haven’t, but my wife has. It seems to me that the assumption is that anyone who buys a pickup truck is assumed to live in a bubble, and it’s likely that the person bought the truck because ‘trucks are cool – USA! USA!’ My wife bought her 2000 Toyota Tacoma because she needed a vehicle to haul her stuff. And she chose the 4-cylinder, standard-transmission because they are reliable and efficient and she doesn’t need to be ‘macho’. > [@](#): > > Have you ever done either of these for a trip of 50 miles or more? > > Ridden on a long-distance bus (e.g., Greyhound, Trailways) Yeah, once. When I was 21. And I didn’t like it. I’ve piloted airplanes and helicopters and driven Porsches far more than I’ve ridden in a bus. But that _one time_ presumably counts toward ‘You live in a bubble.’ I would very much like to know what the author assumes for each question. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/29 "2018-03-17T14:32:08Z")
1. I don’t watch TV, am self-employed, grew up in a small town (1500 people), then moved overseas for 12 years. Now I live in a condo in a medium-sized city and have a small circle of friends. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/30 "2018-03-17T14:40:56Z")
I think this quiz, which was concocted quite a few years ago I believe, prior to the 2016 election IIRC, is interesting. Especially if you take away the pejorative ‘you’re in a bubble’ for low score and/or recognize as several people have said in this latest round of comments (there might even have been threads here before about it) that if you score really high you’re also in a bubble. People saying this is about race, I don’t agree with. I guess that’s carry over from Murray’s ‘The Bell Curve’ which is about race but I don’t agree is racist. I think calling Murray a racist is an example of the unfortunately pandemic overuse/misuse of that term. Which doesn’t mean you can’t contest his findings. While this test seems pretty clearly aimed to maximize the scores of working class rural/small metro area whites and minimize those of multi-generation upper middle class urban/large metro whites, I guess the simple fact of being African American wouldn’t change the score very much compared to the working class/rural/small metro v multi-generation upper middle/urban/large metro divide. People of recent immigrant background would tend to score distinctly lower I think just from that fact, and many people of recent immigrant background aren’t ‘white’. I scored 29. I’m a largely lifelong NY’er (lived in small towns but not in the US or comparable country) and yeah second generation upper middle class, I’d say based on my parents being public school administrators (I guess that’s managerial, anyway my dad particularly had a self image of having lifted himself far above his working class Brooklyn roots, my mom was more in tune with her similar roots). I quibble with ‘was a close friend evangelical [Protestant]’ as just redundant with where you live. If the idea is whether you have any insight into religious people, why not open that to devout people of other Christian denoms or other religions? Plenty of my friends have been devout, of various religions just not ‘born again’ Protestants. I myself feel somewhat alienated from the secular/anti-religious segment of society (not posing as any victim and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but if you continually insult people’s beliefs they aren’t likely to feel in tune with you). Also I wonder if the TV/movie stuff is overdone as a factor. And why no Cracker Barrel among ‘regular folks’ restaurants? (love that place) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/31 "2018-03-17T14:49:01Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > _Everyone_, _everywhere_ lives in one or more bubbles. It can’t be otherwise without omniscience. That’s a very good point. The conceit of claiming that someone is living “in a bubble” is itself an ideological tool of certain political discourse, and we need to be aware of that. People pull it out in order to deflect that they have their own agendas. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/32 "2018-03-17T14:49:45Z")
1. Probably fall into the “A second-generation (or more) upper-middle-class person who has made a point of getting out a lot.” category. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/33 "2018-03-17T14:55:28Z")
46 and have no problem with my “bubble”. I never frequent those restaurants, nor do I watch network TV shows other than PBS. Some of my answers, such as living at poverty wages or near people without a college degree, were skewed by a career in the military. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/34 "2018-03-17T15:10:44Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > I think calling Murray a racist is an example of the unfortunately pandemic overuse/misuse of that term. No, Murray fits very well and precisely into the original definition of racism–the belief that intellectual and personality traits are inherently dependent on race. It is the “prejudice with power” redefinition that is overuse/misuse. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/22080_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/35 "2018-03-17T15:15:19Z")
I couldn’t even answer the first question - I have never had a clue about the education level that many of my neighbors. In fact, I never knew that many neighbors… Guess that answers the quiz. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/36 "2018-03-17T15:19:05Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Yeah, once. When I was 21. And I didn’t like it. I’ve piloted airplanes and helicopters and driven Porsches far more than I’ve ridden in a bus. But that _one time_ presumably counts toward ‘You live in a bubble.’ How so? I’m pretty sure it’s actually the opposite, that it counts towards _not_ living in the bubble, since you’ve ridden a Greyhound. (Or, rather, I guess it depends. If you’ve given “upper class” answers to the other questions, then presumably taking the Greyhound is outside the bubble. And if you’ve given “lower class” answers to the other questions, then maybe it might count towards the bubble, depending on how this test is structured, but I get the notion from the questions that it counts against the bubble no matter what… For most of the people I currently am close friends with, Greyhound travel would be outside their bubble, for sure.) I took this one a week or so back and got somewhere in the low 50s, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/37 "2018-03-17T15:19:13Z")
I got a 41. I thought it was interesting that they count small towns towards not living in a bubble and I’ve lived in a small town but it was a ski town in Colorado not exactly the rich bubble bursting the author seemed to imagine with the question. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/38 "2018-03-17T15:19:59Z")
1. The quiz seems to have a default of what is outside a bubble, and doesn’t take into account (as far as I can tell) other bubbles. [I do see that in some of the comments here, and on the site] Also, the “factory” floor question is annoying…I worked a blue-collar job full-time from the ages of 16 to 26, which killed my back for a decade…but no, it wasn’t a factory. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/39 "2018-03-17T15:22:17Z")
46 ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-live-in-a-bubble-quiz/810715/40 "2018-03-17T15:25:40Z")
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