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The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

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Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#131

Post by makeitsuckless »

tryitnow wrote: post #98
carsongross wrote: post #80

Politeness comes from social solidarity: it is a consequence of social harmony, not a precursor. What if the polarization represents actual, fundamental disagreements on politics and, at root, moral axioms? Being polite hasn't done much for the respectable right for the last fifty years. I would rather focus on solutions like secession or federalism that allow groups of people with different and irreconcilable moral…

Secession and federalism are fairly naive. We already tried those solutions. In the US context it led to slavery and ultimately to a massive armed conflict. And at what unit do we consider secession acceptable? The Confederacy believed states had the right to secede but not individuals of African descent. Indeed, it was the American South that originally wanted to interfere in the business of the North in order to cr…

You realise millions of us happily and peacefully live in smaller countries that are the successful result of secession?

Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#132

Post by sanderjd »

clock_tower wrote: post #125
sanderjd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but anecdotally, as someone who spends a lot of face-to-face time around people on both sides of the typical left-right division, neither of which represent my views, it is very frustrating for me, and I suspect rather pointless for them. I've never left a political conversation like this feeling like I made a dent in anyone's ideology; they just leave thinking I'm a weirdo.

I think the same, and I'd go a step further. I don't particularly _want_ to get along with people who have no problem with abortion, nor with people who have no problem with torture. Why should I see being de-polarizing as something desirable? (And where can I move to?)

I think the article makes lots of good arguments for why being de-polarizing is a desirable thing, so I'm not going to attempt to make better ones.

But I think your comment is a really good example in and of itself. You've done the binary thinking thing that the article discussed in detail! I've never met anyone who has no problem with abortion, or anyone who has no problem with torture, but I've met people who think the trade-offs justify limited use of one or the other, which I agree or disagree with to varying degrees. It seems likely to me that you're either not talking to people that think these things, and instead building straw-men to knock down, or you're not really hearing the people you're talking to. (Or, I'll admit, it's possible you know a lot more extreme people than I do.)

Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#133

Post by makerman1982 »

Xcelerate wrote: post #95
carsongross wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldn't it be interesting if you could actually see which group does better after a century on their own It very much would be. This is another argument for federalism/secessionism: a laboratory of governments/social structures will provide better feedback as to what works and what does not for various populations. I think it is also worth bearing in mind that "does better" is inherently subjective, since value is s…

It would be interesting if we had "virtual countries" where you could choose among the tradeoffs for yourself. I suppose the difficulty would be handling the interactions between each person's virtual country, but the idea that everyone signs up for a different set of laws and freedoms has interesting implications.

Sounds a bit like the game Civilization!

Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#134

Post by maxxxxx »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #48

IMO, A large part of the problem is people of different political views don't talk, face to face, enough. Like in war, it's easier to kill a "gook" or "haji" than a person. The Internet makes it easy to dehumanize the other side; they're just avatars and words on your screen. It's a lot harder to hate an actual person, especially just for having a different opinion than you. [Edited]

The problem is that they didn't develop their views by really thinking about the issues. They got some focus-group tested soundbite that sounds good to them but they don't really understand it. It's hard to discuss then.

Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#135

Post by alistproducer2 »

clock_tower wrote: post #125
sanderjd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but anecdotally, as someone who spends a lot of face-to-face time around people on both sides of the typical left-right division, neither of which represent my views, it is very frustrating for me, and I suspect rather pointless for them. I've never left a political conversation like this feeling like I made a dent in anyone's ideology; they just leave thinking I'm a weirdo.

I think the same, and I'd go a step further. I don't particularly _want_ to get along with people who have no problem with abortion, nor with people who have no problem with torture. Why should I see being de-polarizing as something desirable? (And where can I move to?)

A person as you describe, complete devoid of nuance, would not likely be a very agreeable one. Luckily most people think in varying shades of grey. Lots of us are more "grey" than we think, but you'd never know it unless you talk to people away from the Internet.

Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#136

Post by protomyth »

emodendroket wrote: post #42

I find the idea that the current level of polarization is unprecedented kind of questionable. McCarthyist purges? The violence of the Reconstruction era, which followed a literal Civil War? Compared to that people calling each other mean names seems like small potatoes.

The election of 1800 springs to mind.

The only real difference these days is its idiotic in the current political climate not to polarize. You have to defend your beliefs and even defend areas you would rather compromise on because the compromise will allow you to be steamrolled. Look at the tech industry and our constant battle with DC over a lot of tech issues. We keep fighting this years legislation that was the same as last year.

Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#137

Post by bsder »

brightball wrote: post #15

One of my favorite quotes actually embodies this pretty well. "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

> "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Opposed ideas does not always mean that both ideas have the same level of validity.

Some ideas are provably wrong. "Depolarizing" allowed climate change denial and anti-vaxxers, for example, to gain a following because we didn't stamp them out quickly and strongly.

Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#138

Post by winter_blue »

me_again wrote: post #112
at-fates-hands wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seemed to forget some of these gems: - The collapse of race relations. Everybody thought a black president would do wonders for the issues of race in this country, it's done just the opposite. - Several ongoing wars with seemingly no end in sight. - The illegal immigration ahem "undocumented workers" (for you PC types) issue. 42 million strong at this point and no signs of slowing down. This is quickly approachin…

I have never heard the claim of 42 million before. I have investigated only to the point of looking in Wikipedia, but they claim closer to 11 million, which is down from the peak number. Where are you getting that from? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_Uni...

The total number of immigrants (i.e. foreign-born persons) in the US is at 45 million right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant...

About 11 million of those are illegal/undocumented immigrants. The remaining 34 million are people on visas, people with green cards ("lawful permanent residents"), and naturalized citizens of the United States. This does not include the children born to them, who are natural-born citizens, and are thus not counted as immigrants.

45 million is 14.3% of the US population, which might seem high, but if the list on Wikipedia is sorted by % of population, the U.S. is nowhere on the top of the list. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Austria, Singapore, etc. all have more immigrants per capita than the United States. And gulf countries like the U.A.E. and Qatar have the highest.

Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#139

Post by hawleyal »

carsongross wrote: post #80

Politeness comes from social solidarity: it is a consequence of social harmony, not a precursor. What if the polarization represents actual, fundamental disagreements on politics and, at root, moral axioms? Being polite hasn't done much for the respectable right for the last fifty years. I would rather focus on solutions like secession or federalism that allow groups of people with different and irreconcilable moral…

After you secede based on one set of disagreements, inevitably your new sovereignty would start another set of disagreements and you would have to secede again.

Re: The Seven Habits of Highly Depolarizing People

#140

Post by cookiecaper »

clock_tower wrote: post #125
sanderjd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but anecdotally, as someone who spends a lot of face-to-face time around people on both sides of the typical left-right division, neither of which represent my views, it is very frustrating for me, and I suspect rather pointless for them. I've never left a political conversation like this feeling like I made a dent in anyone's ideology; they just leave thinking I'm a weirdo.

I think the same, and I'd go a step further. I don't particularly _want_ to get along with people who have no problem with abortion, nor with people who have no problem with torture. Why should I see being de-polarizing as something desirable? (And where can I move to?)

Spend more time with real people and you'll see why it's worthwhile to have relationships with persons who have differing political or social philosophies. Variety in personal judgment and alternative worldviews are really beneficial to be able to access; you can learn a lot that way, and your own perspectives and arguments will be improved.

You don't have to agree, but people are still worth something and still have valuable information no matter how vehemently you disagree with them.

Also note that the vehemence of disagreement is usually heavily exaggerated, for propaganda purposes. Very few people, in the global sense, are sufficiently different from each other that they're actually totally incapable of getting along. If we make a basic effort to keep an open mind, I think we could fix a lot of our contemporary issues.

A total breakdown in communication and dismissal of people on the other side is not a win. It's a massive loss, one that means that the parent society is on thin ice. We need to maintain basic levels of respect for each other.

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