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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

#81

Post by arkitaip »

navidfarhadi wrote: post #61
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.

It’s possible to (mostly) avoid political stuff on those websites if one wants to, instead of refusing to use the sites completely. Just as an example, I rarely visit r/all, but I do visit specific subreddits that I’m subscribed to like r/privacy, r/pihole, and r/thinkpad. On Facebook, I never browse my newsfeed, but I am a member of a group for my apartment complex in the Stockholm area which lists local events and…

It is virtually impossible on Twitter, I know because I've used every tool possible (tweet deck, lists, occasionally muting people, changing the feed layout) and it just doesn't work because (a) Twitter is designed to bleed content from one tribe to another (b), because people have one feed where they combine work, private life and politics and (c) the metrics Twitter use are based on designs that agitate and divide.

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

#82

Post by quicklime »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #32
the-dude wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the article posted here this week which claimed the main narrative on Twitter was only originating from about 6 people? For a long time now, the social media have been embraced by 'progressives'. I see them destroying themselves. Trump's 'surprise' election in 2016 fits in this : people don't voice their moderate opinion anymore, they vote however they want though.

> Have you seen the article posted here this week which claimed the main narrative on Twitter was only originating from about 6 people? Do you have a link?

I'm not sure which post they were referring to, but here's one that I saw (from HN) recently:

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/15/differences-...

"6 people" seems to be an exaggeration, but most tweets are generated by a minority of Twitter users. And Twitter users themselves tend to be more political than the general population. So what you see on Twitter is representative of the more hardcore partisans, not the mainstream.

> > > The left (at least, the internet left) do this here in the UK too. Twitter seems to think all Tory voters are rich white men who want the poor to suffer.

On a similar note, most conservatives that I talk to think that everyone on the left is a social justice warrior who wants white men to suffer. I suspect a big part of the problem is that our views of the other side are based on the most extreme people from that side. This is certainly the view that'll be formed if one tries to "get a balance of views from both sides on social media" (you can't get a balanced view if you're only seeing extremists from both sides).

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

#84

Post by Tycho »

ForHackernews wrote: post #44
Tycho wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m not joking. Is it your opinion that there were no attempts, from within the agencies, to undermine the president (or his campaign) and that there is nothing corrupt about what the Biden family has been up to?

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

#85

Post by morsch »

the-dude wrote: post #41
morsch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because your own observations are going to be influenced by your own politics. The media, too, has a political slant, regardless of whether it's mainstream or not. And before anyone chimes in with the meme that the media has a liberal slant: The largest newspaper in the Netherlands is a right wing tabloid -- same as in most if not all European countries.

I'm not sure what a good source would be. Maybe there is none.

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

#86

Post by konjin »

mnd999 wrote: post #17

Peoples willingness to line up behind banners, flags and slogans without bothering to look at what those politicians are actually selling baffles me. I think if people from both sides were willing to ignore that and just sit down and talk about what kind of county they want to live in they would find they have a lot more in common than they think. I think this is what the article is proposing, and I think I agree wit…

I think I'm starting to realize why sport was pushed so hard until the 00s. It is complete nonsense that you can get your tribalism out on without impacting any part of your life. Imagine how much better the world would be if people checked game scores instead of tweets.

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

#87

Post by golergka »

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.

As if there isn't as much polarization happening right here.

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

#88

Post by konjin »

gruez wrote: post #78
vinay427 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vegans describing other people as murderers. Well, this is literally true if you consider non-human lives. The danger I see is then not listening to and interacting with these non-vegans to develop a more nuanced perspective of the people on "the other side" who may not be very different after all. Stating a legitimate political or moral view alone is not (itself) what induces polarization, as I see it.

>Well, this is literally true if you consider non-human lives. [...] Stating a legitimate political or moral view alone is not (itself) what induces polarization, as I see it. Calling the other side "murderers" goes beyond "stating a legitimate political or moral view". You're accusing the other side of being criminals of the worst kind, so of course it's going to be polarizing.

A cow is less harmed by being fucked than by being eaten, yet a majority of people would lynch you if they could for doing the former while complaining they are being oppressed for being reminded cows are alive before the latter happens.

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

#89

Post by vehemenz »

Polarization means the increased tendency to see the worst of the “other side.” But how can we honestly talk about the assymetry of today’s polarization without the analysis being accused of being political? After all, “Nazis are bad” is hardly a poltical statement.

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

#90

Post by knaq »

Tycho wrote: post #79
swiley wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Twitter can only make meagre attempts to censor. They can stop something from “trending” or whatever. But if you want to hear from independent journalists and researchers and analysts, Twitter lets you do that, and short of shutting down the entire service, it’s unstoppable.

Twitter blocked the nation's oldest and 4th-largest newspaper, the New York Post, for 16 days. This was election interference. Twitter's CEO was called to testify about it in front of congress, where he falsely claimed that the New York Post wasn't blocked. Ted Cruz called him out on the matter, pointing out that lying in sworn testimony to congress is a felony, and the New York Post got unblocked an hour later.

The numerous little independent journalists rarely get that level of help from a senator. They have no chance against the censorship.

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