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New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

scientificamerican.com

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Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#41

Post by the-dude »

morsch wrote: post #37
the-dude wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt the phenomenon has anything to do with the US in the ROW. Here in NL, a NATO member, it has been primarily the 'left' which has been painting groups with different opinions as 'nazis' 'fascists' etc. Vegans describing other people as murderers. I blame this culture for our last political murder [0] which already happened in 2002. This phenomenon is not new, I think it has to do with the dissolution of the USS…

How would you know that it's primarily the left (whatever that is) doing that in NL. Your own observations are not a good source for this, obviously.

If I just casually follow the mainstream media NL ( in addition to my own preferred sources ), why am I not a good source for this?

What would be a good source for this?

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#42

Post by throwaway13337 »

Yes, the problem is obviously media and social media stoking up tribalism and rage.

No, the problem will not solve itself by simply telling the public to think more critically.

These media and social media companies are incentivized by engagement metrics - which becomes money through ads - to destroy society via enraging their user against one another.

The algorithms that measure engagement and then feed it are the tools of our destruction.

This is not intentional on their behalf but an emergent result of what they've optimize for.

It's something that seems to be happening throughout the west - not just America.

This monster is probably our biggest existential threat today. The question is how do we stop it?

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#43

Post by swiley »

Tycho wrote: post #38
swiley wrote: post #10

Delete your twitter/facebook/reddit account. Seriously! Go do it now! These sites are built with the goal of pushing people into groups that are always angry at each other. Angry polarized groups spend more time on the site and are easier to sell things to. The only thing ignoring this trash will do is make you a happier, more functional person.

If it wasn’t for Twitter I would have literally no clue about the machinations of the intelligence agencies to undermine the president or the corrupt activities of the Biden family. Unfortunately the mainstream media outlets choose not to report or pursue a lot of stuff, and have an alarming habit of citing dubious statements from “the intelligence community” as legitimate evidence that resolves the matter.

twitter is a terrible tool for this. It's heavily censored and biased. You could have heard it here or from a decent journalist.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#44

Post by ForHackernews »

Tycho wrote: post #38
swiley wrote: post #10

Delete your twitter/facebook/reddit account. Seriously! Go do it now! These sites are built with the goal of pushing people into groups that are always angry at each other. Angry polarized groups spend more time on the site and are easier to sell things to. The only thing ignoring this trash will do is make you a happier, more functional person.

If it wasn’t for Twitter I would have literally no clue about the machinations of the intelligence agencies to undermine the president or the corrupt activities of the Biden family. Unfortunately the mainstream media outlets choose not to report or pursue a lot of stuff, and have an alarming habit of citing dubious statements from “the intelligence community” as legitimate evidence that resolves the matter.

Uh... is this a clever meta-comment about the kind of nonsense on social media? Poe's law seems to apply extra hard these days.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#45

Post by bsenftner »

Tycho wrote: post #38
swiley wrote: post #10

Delete your twitter/facebook/reddit account. Seriously! Go do it now! These sites are built with the goal of pushing people into groups that are always angry at each other. Angry polarized groups spend more time on the site and are easier to sell things to. The only thing ignoring this trash will do is make you a happier, more functional person.

If it wasn’t for Twitter I would have literally no clue about the machinations of the intelligence agencies to undermine the president or the corrupt activities of the Biden family. Unfortunately the mainstream media outlets choose not to report or pursue a lot of stuff, and have an alarming habit of citing dubious statements from “the intelligence community” as legitimate evidence that resolves the matter.

Wish this was a joke. Twitter is just an idiotic mess.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#46

Post by aetimmes »

mnd999 wrote: post #22
empthought wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One side has literal Nazis marching for it, yelling “Jews will not replace us,” though...

I think most people on both “sides” find that unacceptable.

But (at least in the US) the leader of one side doesn't - not enough to condemn it.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#47

Post by laurent92 »

swiley wrote: post #10

Delete your twitter/facebook/reddit account. Seriously! Go do it now! These sites are built with the goal of pushing people into groups that are always angry at each other. Angry polarized groups spend more time on the site and are easier to sell things to. The only thing ignoring this trash will do is make you a happier, more functional person.

The double problem is, we are isolated, often after various moves due to our studies and first years of work, otherwise because we diverge politically from other ex- or people in our family who, themselves, got polarized the other way. So deleting social networks would be a good thing, but we depend on them for out last human interactions on weekends and evenings. Even worse during confinement.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#48

Post by cblconfederate »

swiley wrote: post #10

Delete your twitter/facebook/reddit account. Seriously! Go do it now! These sites are built with the goal of pushing people into groups that are always angry at each other. Angry polarized groups spend more time on the site and are easier to sell things to. The only thing ignoring this trash will do is make you a happier, more functional person.

I wish that were true. Social media cringe is just the symptom

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#49

Post by ForHackernews »

bsenftner wrote: post #39
matwood wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's well known that Russian trolls/bots use fake personas on social media in order to sow discord. Are you arguing that's not done at all, or that there is no evidence it's done in the article specific instance? Here's an article examining how it's done in relation to anti-vaxx. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137759/

Don't all governments to this to any other democratic government? This practice is as old as democracy itself.

Since when is Russia a democracy? But yes, foreign propaganda has existed for a long time.

Re: New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible

#50

Post by yaakov34 »

empthought wrote: post #9
Tycho wrote: post #2

According to the article, this phenomenon is most obviously manifested in the humorous expression “own the libs”, and not, say, by shrieking scaremongering about fascism and comparing the other side to the Nazis.

One side has literal Nazis marching for it, yelling “Jews will not replace us,” though...

And the other side attacked actual Jews with rocks and bottles recently. What, that's not "your side"? Neither are those guys "their side".
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