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A new theory about political polarization

phys.org

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Re: A new theory about political polarization

#61

Post by jawns »

commandlinefan wrote: post #32
rayiner wrote: post #19

> It ultimately ends in total polarization," illustrates co-author David Garcia (CSH and MedUni Vienna). Not only do people categorically favor or oppose single issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and nuclear energy. "If they are pro-choice, they are at the same time highly likely to be for gay marriage, against the use of nuclear energy, for the legalization of marijuana, and so on," says Garcia. The possible va…

> we think of all these things as related ideologically, they aren’t necessarily. I have to fight this tendency in myself: I'm as anti-liberal as they come, but I do happen to agree with a handful of "liberal" positions such as abortion, drug legalization and immigration. But from time to time I catch myself disagreeing with the messenger so much I almost forget I actually agree with the message.

It sounds like you lean libertarian. Do you identify that way, or do you consider yourself a conservative?

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#64

Post by jcims »

throwaway6274 wrote: post #36
commandlinefan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we think of all these things as related ideologically, they aren’t necessarily. I have to fight this tendency in myself: I'm as anti-liberal as they come, but I do happen to agree with a handful of "liberal" positions such as abortion, drug legalization and immigration. But from time to time I catch myself disagreeing with the messenger so much I almost forget I actually agree with the message.

How strange, as I’m the opposite. I’m about as anti-conservative as they come: UBI, legalize almost everything, universal healthcare and insurance, but I’m extremely against abortion.

I wonder if we just spent a single term governing by referendum where we would land. It’s probably not sustainable but it might be interesting to see what surfaces.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#65

Post by jjk166 »

ordu wrote: post #45
jjk166 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Masses attract because they are attracted to eachother is not a theory of gravity, it's a restatement of the givens. People are polarized because they polarize is likewise a restatement of the givens. That people don't like being non-polarized is inferred from the observation that they are polarized, the same way that the attractive property of masses is inferred from the observation of masses that have been attracte…

> Masses attract because they are attracted to eachother is not a theory of gravity, it's a restatement of the givens. Newton's theory of gravity had been dominating for a several centuries. It states literally this, masses attract because they are attracted. Despite of this it is a very valuable theory even now. > Theories explain observations, and predict what ought to be observed beyond the data used in their form…

Everyone who has ever lived knew that things fell to the ground; Newton's theory of gravity describes how. It makes testable predictions which were subsequently verified. That's why Newton gets his name on it and all those billions that came before him didn't. Knowing that things fall is not the same as knowing what causes them to fall.

Linnean taxonomy makes the very powerful implicit prediction that similar looking animals are related in some way to one another. While it would be many decades more before the mechanism of those relations were explained, the recognition that, for example, a dog and a wolf are the same type of thing was in and of itself non-obvious.

What I think you are trying to describe is a model, which is a system of understanding information without necessarily explaining it.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#66

Post by jawns »

throwaway6274 wrote: post #36
commandlinefan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we think of all these things as related ideologically, they aren’t necessarily. I have to fight this tendency in myself: I'm as anti-liberal as they come, but I do happen to agree with a handful of "liberal" positions such as abortion, drug legalization and immigration. But from time to time I catch myself disagreeing with the messenger so much I almost forget I actually agree with the message.

How strange, as I’m the opposite. I’m about as anti-conservative as they come: UBI, legalize almost everything, universal healthcare and insurance, but I’m extremely against abortion.

You are in an unenviable position, because the Democratic Party has all but said that you can't be both a Democrat and pro-life.

There is a minor party called the American Solidarity Party that is a little more of a mix, similar to Christian democratic parties in Europe. They oppose abortion and the death penalty but support universal health care, environmental protections, stricter regulation of financial markets, etc.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#67

Post by dane-pgp »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #43
nordsieck wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The two major theories of public choice -- Median Voter theory[1] (political parties take positions that appeal to the median voter) and Investment theory of Party Competition[2] (parties take positions most beneficial to their donors), both assume emotions (irrationality) of voters to be small. In the current political climate -- while it seems that the explanatory power of emotions seems to have gone up, it isn't…

Perhapa shorter messages reach more targets' emotional activation potential with better propagation fidelity and much less energetic commitment per impression? Mass media is increasingly a battle of bottlenecked channel management and rationally persuasive content simply doesn't survive this infrastructure without being ground down into smooth, bite sized harangues. And if you are going to get massed support for an i…

Or, to put it another way, and at the risk of taking this discussion out of the abstract, "Lock her up!" only has to work as a tribal shibboleth, not as an actually deliverable policy (especially if your voters have already given up on the idea that politicians actually mean what they say).

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#68

Post by jjk166 »

tunesmith wrote: post #54
jjk166 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur, you wife not-not wanting the cup is not a satisfying explanation for why she keeps the cup. Likewise not-not wanting to be polarized is not a satisfying explanation for why people are polarized.

Still not a tautology though; not-not wanting does not mean wanting.

Only because in your example wanting != wanting, which is an unfortunate consequence of the language not having a good word to differentiate between the desire to possess something and the desire not to be rid of it.

-(-A) == A, when A == A, is a tautology though.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#69

Post by verdverm »

pstuart wrote: post #16
verdverm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people don't see COVID as a crisis anymore with better numbers out now and if anything saw people become more self center rather than coming together in this time of trouble.

Many people are being told that COVID is a liberal hoax.

Well it's not a hoax, let's try not to make this political please.

Outside of that, the statistics are evolving and so should our conversations.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#70

Post by motohagiography »

The article seems to map how the differences effect the overlapping issues in peoples existing ontologies. We're all aware that abortion exists and generally have an opinion about whether it is an individual and social good, which would fall into this ontology mapping. We are not all aware of discrimination, since it's noticed mainly by the people who experience it - which would be a gap between ontologies that has more to do with polarization than how people view the same object.

Polarization itself is the resistance to understanding. It isn't a rational phenomenon. We could use quantitative polarization models as post-hoc explanatory metaphors, but as a model with predictive power, I think literary narrative depictions will still provide more foresight. There is very little new under the sun.

The question from me would be, what might these models credibly predict that reasoning through with tools from psychology, history, economics, or even game theories could not provide in a more reliable and accurate way?

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