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A new theory about political polarization

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Re: A new theory about political polarization

#131

Post by Spooky23 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #119
Spooky23 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It adds alot of complexity with the questionable benefit of driving more extremism.

The current system seems to be as extreme as it's possible to be without outright civil war. Generally the business of negotiating coalitions tends to temper extremism - see for example the new three-way Green and Centre-Right coalition in Ireland, which would have been unthinkable a couple of decades ago. But considering the fact that political positions appear to correlate with brain structures, I honestly wonder i…

That’s not a party problem, it’s an artifact of our mass experiment with various flavors of social media and unfiltered mass communication. The situation with Twitter giving maniacs a megaphone, Facebook radicalizing anyone and YouTube offering a twisty tunnel of crazy to drive engagement isn’t sustainable.

The counter response will be a lockdown and that will address most of the issue. Unfortunately there is plenty of suffering and discord to be had before that happens.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#132

Post by [deleted] »

jawns wrote: post #66
throwaway6274 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, e…

[deleted]

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#133

Post by arrosenberg »

notafraudster wrote: post #57

In political science, the conventional view is that polarization observed in the US is not a product of the two camps drifting further apart (in the sense of having more extreme views), it's the product of issue divisions aligning more closely to partisan camps. Consider Kim Davis. Kim Davis was a county clerk who went to jail after illegally refusing to issue a same-sex marriage certificate after the court system ru…

I would add the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 to your list of reforms that broke Congress. Getting rid of the secret ballot sounds good in theory, but it creates the same hazards as any other public vote - it's easy to verify if the Congressperson you spent thousands lobbying was worth the investment or not.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#134

Post by Tiltowait-- »

unethical_ban wrote: post #130
Tiltowait-- wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The White House and the Pauline Kael Syndrome. Short version: In 1973, all six major US class segments were centrist. Over the next 35 years, five of the segments moved slightly to the right, but "Intellectual Upper Class" moved far out to the left. https://www.aei.org/publication/the-white-house-and-the-paul... https://web.archive.org/web/20160221064932/http://heterodoxa... The essay below makes an outstanding point…

Anecdote time! My father thinks that Trump is the best president in 100 years. He thinks that helping the coal industry is great, being tough on immigration and China is too, and so on. He thinks the Left is out to get Trump because they rabidly hate any conservative. When I talk to him about issues, though, things change. He thinks "no one should die from being poor" - in the context of healthcare. He thinks there s…

He likes Trump because Trump is a 1980s Democrat.

The Left treats people like him as The Other and is very loud and rude about it. See: http://archive.is/QRJ6m

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#135

Post by JPKab »

unethical_ban wrote: post #130
Tiltowait-- wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The White House and the Pauline Kael Syndrome. Short version: In 1973, all six major US class segments were centrist. Over the next 35 years, five of the segments moved slightly to the right, but "Intellectual Upper Class" moved far out to the left. https://www.aei.org/publication/the-white-house-and-the-paul... https://web.archive.org/web/20160221064932/http://heterodoxa... The essay below makes an outstanding point…

Anecdote time! My father thinks that Trump is the best president in 100 years. He thinks that helping the coal industry is great, being tough on immigration and China is too, and so on. He thinks the Left is out to get Trump because they rabidly hate any conservative. When I talk to him about issues, though, things change. He thinks "no one should die from being poor" - in the context of healthcare. He thinks there s…

In defense of your father on "Defund the Police", the last time I checked, the Black Lives Matter's website where the idea was first widely publicized had a release on it that I was hoping would add nuance to the phrase.

It didn't, at all. It actually reinforced an abolition viewpoint. I went to donate to BLM that day from the Airbnb website's banner, and that release caused me to donate my money elsewhere.

This line got me:

"Currently, we are fighting two deadly viruses: COVID-19 is threatening our health. White Supremacy is threatening our existence. And both are killing us every single day."

Plus (see lack of nuance)

"We call for a national defunding of police. We demand investment in our communities and the resources to ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive. If you’re with us, add your name to the petition right now and help us spread the word."

Oddly, Ben Goldacre of the NHS in Britain (I've met him in the past, and he hilariously stated on stage to a bunch of UK business people that anyone in the audience who voted for Brexit was racist.... the reaction was priceless) has a ton of data showing that black people are dying at higher rates of Covid independent of "deprivation" (UK term for poverty). The position on their website is that it's because of systemic racism. In the US, I absolutely think that is partially correct, but due to Goldacres work, I think it's one variable among others contributing. The added "White Supremacy threatening our existence" is absolutely absurd and overwrought. A little over a 1000 people were killed by police in the US last year. 24% of them were black.

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/nationaltrends

If that is threatening "our existence", then their has been an unprecedented drop in the birth rate for black Americans. (there hasn't been, it's just activists can't do basic statistics and don't care to learn apparently)

https://blacklivesmatter.com/defundthepolice/

Frankly, I think it's intended to be left vague enough to appeal to radicals as well as more centrist types simultaneously.

If somebody from the BLM organization is reading this, I would recommend that they add nuance to the position on their website unless they want to lose voters. My dad was planning on voting for Biden, but the combination of Defund the Police and the removal of Washington/Lincoln/Jefferson statues has pushed him to Trump, who he despises. He lives in a swing state. He tells his friends he's going to vote for Biden, but privately he told me otherwise after calling me about a vandalized Jefferson statue.

For the record, I think that police in the US have become a catch-all for badly needed social services and that reallocating funding is highly desirable.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#136

Post by [deleted] »

Tiltowait-- wrote: post #134
unethical_ban wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote time! My father thinks that Trump is the best president in 100 years. He thinks that helping the coal industry is great, being tough on immigration and China is too, and so on. He thinks the Left is out to get Trump because they rabidly hate any conservative. When I talk to him about issues, though, things change. He thinks "no one should die from being poor" - in the context of healthcare. He thinks there s…

He likes Trump because Trump is a 1980s Democrat. The Left treats people like him as The Other and is very loud and rude about it. See: http://archive.is/QRJ6m

[deleted]

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#137

Post by narrator »

fzeroracer wrote: post #122
narrator wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The fact that you chose to accuse someone of denying such a thing as parroting CCP propaganda indicates either your story is entirely fake or you're just an asshole." I was using her reasoning to make a ludicrous argument similar to the one she made to show her the flaw in the argument and her method of reasoning. I don't actually believe that and made it clear to her when I explained the association fallacy. The on…

I mean, you countered her reasoning by committing multiple fallacies of your own. You strawmanned her ('That people denying this are parroting CCP propaganda and the CCP does all this horrible stuff.') and did an appeal to authority ('I then said many prominent people such as Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo said this theory is credible'). You did so in a way that was enough to make her cry by your own admission.

Whenever I see a person use a fallacy I immediately use that fallacy against them. When she said the thing was a "conspiracy theory" that's essentially an appeal to authority that no one in authority believes that argument. When she compared me to a terrorist, that's an association fallacy, so I used that argument. Arguing against a fallacious reasoner is pointless, the only thing you can do is instruct them in proper reasoning.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#138

Post by veritas3241 »

arrosenberg wrote: post #133
notafraudster wrote: post #57

In political science, the conventional view is that polarization observed in the US is not a product of the two camps drifting further apart (in the sense of having more extreme views), it's the product of issue divisions aligning more closely to partisan camps. Consider Kim Davis. Kim Davis was a county clerk who went to jail after illegally refusing to issue a same-sex marriage certificate after the court system ru…

I would add the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 to your list of reforms that broke Congress. Getting rid of the secret ballot sounds good in theory, but it creates the same hazards as any other public vote - it's easy to verify if the Congressperson you spent thousands lobbying was worth the investment or not.

I recently saw youtube video on that called the cardboard box reform. It caught my eye because I hadn't heard anyone talking about it, but it really makes sense. I don't know how you sell less transparency to the public though.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#139

Post by verdverm »

Tiltowait-- wrote: post #85
pstuart wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Who are these people, and who is telling them that? Cite sources.

Qanon is iirc, they can twist everything into a liberals caused catastrophe

This is one of their main sites: https://qmap.pub if you are up for some grooming as it may be called

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#140

Post by unethical_ban »

Tiltowait-- wrote: post #134
unethical_ban wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote time! My father thinks that Trump is the best president in 100 years. He thinks that helping the coal industry is great, being tough on immigration and China is too, and so on. He thinks the Left is out to get Trump because they rabidly hate any conservative. When I talk to him about issues, though, things change. He thinks "no one should die from being poor" - in the context of healthcare. He thinks there s…

He likes Trump because Trump is a 1980s Democrat. The Left treats people like him as The Other and is very loud and rude about it. See: http://archive.is/QRJ6m

You really dodge the main point of my post. Trump does not support any "left-wing" legislation, or any traditional 80s/90s neoliberal foreign policy.

For someone to support Trump in 2020, and to support the concepts of universal healthcare and substantial police reform (and acknowledging systemic corruption in police), is completely mind boggling.

I disagree with your worldview that the "left" dislikes Trump for some meta outgroup reason, rather than his abhorrent leadership, destruction of apolitical institutions, and bad policy.

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