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The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

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Re: The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

#41

Post by enraged_camel »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #32

Another observation about the "Other side" (that is, really, about all of us) to add to excellent points made by others here. Most disagreements happen around things that have no direct impact on day-to-day life. People can hold widely different opinions about politics because... it's politics. Most of it is bullshit, and rest doesn't affect your daily life anyway, at least not immediately or directly. Take two peopl…

>>People can hold widely different opinions about politics because... it's politics. Most of it is bullshit, and rest doesn't affect your daily life anyway, at least not immediately or directly.

I completely disagree. Most political issues have a direct impact on people. Affordable Care Act is requiring millions of people to buy health insurance. Defunding Planned Parenthood would cut aid from millions of young women. Gun control laws have a direct impact on our nation's safety from internal threats. Legalized gay marriage is allowing tons of gay couples to finally get married and enjoy many of the benefits (especially financial) of the institution.

I can go on.

The only debates that don't have a direct and immediate impact on people are the abstract ones, such as the example you gave about government intervention vs. market freedom. But even those debates happen within the the context of concrete issues, proposed laws or ongoing lawsuits.

Re: The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

#42

Post by lostcolony »

Animats wrote: post #6

The "Other side" is scared, not dumb. Molly Ivins used to point this out. For the white lower middle class, life has been a slow downhill slide since the mid-1970s. Those are the people who support Trump and the Tea Party. Unfortunately, exploiting that fear is politically effective. This is a problem with a long history. There are records of it back as far as Cicero. It's not their fault that they don't know what to…

The "other side" applies both ways, though. The left has a lot of humor and satire which innately belittles those right wing views (the Onion, The Daily Show, Tom the Dancing Bug, etc).

While I identify largely as a liberal, I do conservatives a disservice by mocking these views in my actual interaction with them. Their views may indeed be based on fear, but treating them not as scared humans deserving of being engaged with as human beings, but as idiots who deserved to be mocked, does just as much damage to reaching them as the rhetoric coming from Trump and the tea party.

Re: The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

#43

Post by brandonmenc »

Animats wrote: post #6

The "Other side" is scared, not dumb. Molly Ivins used to point this out. For the white lower middle class, life has been a slow downhill slide since the mid-1970s. Those are the people who support Trump and the Tea Party. Unfortunately, exploiting that fear is politically effective. This is a problem with a long history. There are records of it back as far as Cicero. It's not their fault that they don't know what to…

Well, at least we know what "side" you're on.

> For the white lower middle class [...] Those are the people who support Trump and the Tea Party.

There's another white lower middle class - the educated but underemployed left (think literature majors waiting tables), and they're also terrified.

They're terrified that we're just an election away from mandating every rape victim be violated with a penetrative ultrasound, or that they're guaranteed to be shot on sight by some redneck if we allow open carry.

As someone holding both liberal and conservative positions, I'm always dumfounded when the left believes the right has the monopoly on fear.

Re: The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

#44

Post by JoBrad »

woodandsteel wrote: post #15

This is an excellent article. It occurs to me that it would be good if someone put up a web site where pairs of people could publicly or privately practice the sorts of respectful interviewing and dialogue that he is advocating. Let me add that I have found the active listening skill of just saying back to the other person what they said is very useful here. I have run workshops where people did this and it is remark…

I frequent two sites that do something like this. I found them from this article (which was also very helpful for me): http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/read-intelligent-content-2016-3...

The Conversation https://theconversation.com/

Aeon http://aeon.co/magazine/

Re: The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

#46

Post by TeMPOraL »

cryoshon wrote: post #11

What if the other side is actually rejecting factual reality, though? Are they still "not dumb"? What if facts have no hold on them whatsoever? Can we even have a productive conversation? See: vaccine deniers/vaccine scheduling skeptics, climate change deniers, evolution deniers, etc.

The examples you provided have nothing to do with facts, actually. They're about trustworthiness of the fact sources.

Given all the shenanigans pharmaceutical companies pull, given how FDA itself is often reported in the news as unreliable or even corrupt, given that so many studies keep turning out to be unreliable - ask yourself, why do you believe you're right about vaccines? :).

Re: The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

#47

Post by TeMPOraL »

enraged_camel wrote: post #41
TeMPOraL wrote: post #32

Another observation about the "Other side" (that is, really, about all of us) to add to excellent points made by others here. Most disagreements happen around things that have no direct impact on day-to-day life. People can hold widely different opinions about politics because... it's politics. Most of it is bullshit, and rest doesn't affect your daily life anyway, at least not immediately or directly. Take two peopl…

>>People can hold widely different opinions about politics because... it's politics. Most of it is bullshit, and rest doesn't affect your daily life anyway, at least not immediately or directly. I completely disagree. Most political issues have a direct impact on people. Affordable Care Act is requiring millions of people to buy health insurance. Defunding Planned Parenthood would cut aid from millions of young women…

Ask yourself - how many of those issues affect you directly? And by directly I mean something you'll suddenly have to account for in your daily life and spending patterns.

Personally, their equivalents in my country don't affect me at all. I'm young and relatively healthy, my employer pays for my health insurance. Yes, accidents can happen, but it's an abstract possibility. Gun control - when have you last seen people shooting each other on the streets in real life? It's another topic that's just abstract for most people. Gay marriage is something that naturally affects only LGBT people. The opposition argues against same-sex marriages mostly from a moral standpoint, which is again something abstract.

Say, on the other hand, that we'd have confirmed reports about zombies (or evil commie nazi aliens) showing up in various places in the US. I'm pretty sure the gun control debate would be resolved unanimously in a single hearing.

That of course doesn't account for all policy disagreements. But the most I've seen so far always involve at least one side with no immediate, tangible stake in the issue.

--

EDIT:

Replying to the three (so far) responses.

Thanks for sharing your perspectives. I guess I might be underestimating the direct importance of some of those issues to people, as well as the amount of disagreements that are about conflicting interests. I will reevaluate my opinions on this topic.

Re: The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

#48

Post by archagon »

joolze wrote: post #13

You seem to be describing what is commonly known as a "conversation". I find it hilarious that western society has gradually devolved itself to such an extent with fear-fear mongering, hate-hate speech, and an absurd amount of righteous indignation that people are literally terrified to have opinions outside the groupthink; and you not only have to invent a game to feel human again, but that game is apparently novel…

I don't think it has anything to do with "Western society", but rather the nature of internet discussions. They're impersonal. They're amenable to favoritism and the echo chamber effect. You can't interrupt somebody in the middle of a soapbox lecture to ask for clarification or offer counter-arguments. The atomic unit of discussion is the paragraph, at best, and your audience numbers in the hundreds. Basically, it's Permanent Debate Club.

In my experience, people in the real world are far more kind and open even when discussing the most controversial of topics.

Re: The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

#49

Post by Swizec »

lostcolony wrote: post #34
state wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to me to be even more true online, although we like to think that information technology has the opposite effect.

It is more true online, and for a lot of reasons. I meet someone at a party and we become Facebook friends. I then post some sort of political article or comment to my feed. They see it, disagree with it, and (likely) either comment on it in a non-polite manner, or stay silent, but either way categorize me in their head as a crazy right/left winger. Why? Because these are what is easiest to do for 'crazy' opinions co…

Here's what I don't understand, and I'm likely the weird one here: Why are political opinions considered private? Is it an anglosaxon thing? Is it a middleclass thing? It feels completely alien to me.

Where I come from politics (in one form or another) are the first thing you talk about with new people that you meet. It's the most fruitful ground for conversation that goes beyond mundane boring smalltalk nobody cares about.

I mean, isn't that the whole basis for democracy? That people discuss these things?

Hell, isn't most mainstream-but-not-quite-pop art political in nature?

Re: The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

#50

Post by memracom »

lostcolony wrote: post #34
state wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to me to be even more true online, although we like to think that information technology has the opposite effect.

It is more true online, and for a lot of reasons. I meet someone at a party and we become Facebook friends. I then post some sort of political article or comment to my feed. They see it, disagree with it, and (likely) either comment on it in a non-polite manner, or stay silent, but either way categorize me in their head as a crazy right/left winger. Why? Because these are what is easiest to do for 'crazy' opinions co…

So why do you publish your innermost thoughts to a bunch of strangers on Facebook like that? Even in the online world it is possible to find many different forums where you can discuss things with people who are open for real discussion and conversation. Don't let Facebook grind everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Use many forums.

Become a regular in the comments section of certain blogs. Create aliases and join web forums or email lists or a Reddit subcommunity or something. And encourage diversity of discussion groups.

Just being on HackerNews is already a step in the right direction. And maybe some of us will build apps and sites that encourage people to form smaller groups to discuss issues without having to fight off trolls and uninformed newbie types.

The Internet used to have a lot more of that when mailing lists were the main way to have discussions. And there were services like the Well, and Compuserve that put a lot of effort into managing interest groups with sysops who kept them from getting out of hand.

The WELL in particular, put a lot of effort into the psychological aspects of humans in groups, in writing their guidelines for users and for the sysops managing the groups.

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