The more people I meet, the more I realize there is no "them", only us, us, and more of us.
Overcoming Us vs. Them
121–130 of 249 posts
Re: Overcoming Us vs. Them
#122In America today, you've got multitude of "us vs them" dynamics - anti-terrorist, liberal-vs-conservative, rich-vs-poor, black-vs-white, etc. And at lot of this comes because, as the article says, "us versus them" is a powerful psychological dynamic. Given that that current American society is hyper-competitive, it seems likely this situation will continue. If pulling "us versus them" is akin to chemical warfare - a…
I think most of them are caused by the two-party political system in the U.S., where parties do make everything seem like an "us vs them". For every proposal one party has, the other party tends to have the opposite proposal. Except when it's about giving the military bigger budgets, the NSA more surveillance powers, and expanding U.S. military operations in more countries. On those issues both parties are BFFs. The…
I think for the most part it's the two party system that causes us to see the separate solutions as opposite rather than the other way around. It's hard to think of the trump tax plan as the exact opposite of a democratic solution because it has some measures democrats originally liked and some they originally proposed (although the core thrust of it is quite republican). We also still have it be the case that the majority of motions in house or senate get bi-partisan up-down votes.
Re: Overcoming Us vs. Them
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think most of them are caused by the two-party political system in the U.S., where parties do make everything seem like an "us vs them". For every proposal one party has, the other party tends to have the opposite proposal. Except when it's about giving the military bigger budgets, the NSA more surveillance powers, and expanding U.S. military operations in more countries. On those issues both parties are BFFs. The…
I think for the most part it's the two party system that causes us to see the separate solutions as opposite rather than the other way around. It's hard to think of the trump tax plan as the exact opposite of a democratic solution because it has some measures democrats originally liked and some they originally proposed (although the core thrust of it is quite republican). We also still have it be the case that the ma…
Or perhaps most convincingly, as a former Canadian living in the US, I see the democrats as far to the right of the Canadian Conservative party (Canada's right wing party) on healthcare and the Republicans as some radical far-right. It's hard to think of the two solutions as opposites in any meaningful way because from a global perspective it seems like the Republicans want to do 3/100 on healthcare and most of the democrats try and stretch that to maybe 10/100.
Re: Overcoming Us vs. Them
#124This is where countries with some sort of mandatory service may have us beat. And maybe it explains why American policy was so focused after the big national wars. I don't think there's a better way to force camaraderie. But then it becomes Us vs Them on the other side of the border.
>This is where countries with some sort of mandatory service may have us beat.
I doubt it. Turkey has it yet there are plenty of problems between religious people and secular people, as well as between Kurds and other Turks.
The book Influence by Cialdini dives deep into some of the elements needed. Some takeaways that I remember:
Forcing people to be together in unpleasant circumstances, without a common goal they can work towards, does not reduce the us vs them mindset. His example was school, but anything "mandatory" would qualify.
If people are forced to be together, and they work together voluntarily to solve a problem (e.g. by one side needing the other side's skills), then you have reduced polarization.
Re: Overcoming Us vs. Them
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> left-leaning google/facebook/youtube/twitter using alt-right as a banner to ban conservatives What? Citation needed. I haven't heard of any conservatives getting banned from these services due to their political affiliation. > Then when programmers are on a list, or a project doesn't support the diversity license, you get banned from github, hackathons or talks. Again, what? Has this happened? I've never heard of t…
> Citation needed James Damore was fired from Google for posting his opinion to a mailing list about the topic in question. Brendan Eich was forced out of Mozilla for voting the “wrong” way years earlier. Look into “opal-gate” or “dongle-gate”. Look into Strange Loop banning speakers. The threat of being fired or hurt professionally for not being left leaning is very real. EDIT: My comment providing the requested cit…
Even on YC. For a long while, you couldn't adopt any sort of conservative stance without a moderator (who is a self-admitted socialist on his startup bio) potentially banning you for being "inflammatory."
Re: Overcoming Us vs. Them
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can overcome them without removing them, by extending "us" widely enough. This is how a number of religions handled it, leading to their expansion over large swaths of diverse nations. Seeing most everyone on Earth as ingroup improves collaboration and thus propels culture / prosperity.
>Seeing most everyone on Earth as ingroup improves collaboration and thus propels culture / prosperity. Not when this isn't a shared sentiment. Whites are resented, not praised, for their anti-identity politics and inclusiveness. Now we're called racist for trying to ignore race or judging people based on the content of their character instead of the color of their skin. Also it's a pretty radical proposition to over…
I see your point.
The "you're my ingroup by default" approach works best when reciprocated. It still works tolerably well when not, as long as overt hostility is met with an adequate reaction.
Otherwise it still works with those who agree to collaborate, and ends up in a disappointment with those who don't. (Moral panic that can grow or not from such a disappointment is another issue.)
Re: Overcoming Us vs. Them
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you mean a culture war scenario, this was discussed briefly in the article - do you focus on the success of your Us, or on the relative success of your Us as compared to your Them? I prefer the former, because it is a pure "improvement" mindset, whereas the latter allows for "success" via subjugation of other people while your Us stagnants.
That's a good strategy in the aggregate but complete defenselessness is no more sustainable than complete hostility
Defense against value invasion doesn't require offense against other values, does it?
Re: Overcoming Us vs. Them
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am very in favor of mandatory service as a strategy to improve nations but I do want to point out that some of the most impressive ones (South Korea and Israel come to mind) are extremely homogenous.
Devil's advocate: but what is wrong with a homogenuous country? edited: punctuation
Theoretically, nothing.
Re: Overcoming Us vs. Them
#129It's simple. Us vs Them happens when there is competition. Competition happens when there is demand for limited valuable resources and not all that demand can be satisfied. We bring the people of the world and the people within our nations closer together by eliminating absolute poverty. Eliminating inequality is neither necessary nor even desirable, but the floor of our economies must be such that those sitting upon…
This is a very insightful comment, thanks.
Re: Overcoming Us vs. Them
#130I think this is going to be the next big challenge in social tech: Contact: The consequences of growing up amid diversity just discussed bring us to the effects of prolonged contact on Us/Theming. In the 1950s the psychologist Gordon Allport proposed “contact theory.” Inaccurate version: bring Us-es and Thems together (say, teenagers from two hostile nations in a summer camp), animosities disappear, similarities star…
I think the answer is partially in your quote: emphasis the similarities. Women of all colors, backgrounds, and economic statuses are sexually harassed and assaulted. Men of all colors, backgrounds, and economic statuses are sexually harassed and assaulted. These are facts of reality. Our culture makes it such that women are more likely to be on the receiving end. But it doesn't make the fact that both sexes in vario…
> I think the answer is partially in your quote: emphasis the similarities.
> Change all conversations to focus on the similarities.
> (GP) I think this is going to be the next big challenge in social tech:
But so far social media is completely reliant on us-vs-them, in- vs out-group differentiation. It would seem that social media already changed dozens of societies across the globe to the worse in the matter of a just few years.
At this point it would probably be a huge success if "social media" were able to heal the massive damage it has caused so far.