New political polarization casts rivals as alien, unlikable, contemptible • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #33

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.

Social media might need to be controlled in the same way cigarettes are. At the end of the day, both are drug dealers. One of them sells nicotine, the other sells dopamine. Not sure what that would look like though. Cigarettes have scary labels and enforced age requirements. Maybe social media would have to change the way likes/upvotes/etc work to be less polarizing, in addition to an age limit enforcement?

It's fun because, just like cigarettes, internet has been 'sold'. It was a new eldorado of information and choice ..

It started slightly innocently but at some point it became a product.

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

#102

Post by blablablerg » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

the-dude wrote: post #16

oneplane wrote: post #6

Ironically, a lot of the world has seen the USA do this to everyone else for a while too. Too a lesser degree to their anglophone friends of course but the rest of the world is alien and unlikable all the same (with just as little arguments as you see in the political divide). I suppose one could argue that the isolationism/tribalism has simply expanded inwards as 'the rest of the world' has already been put in the '…

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…

I am also from NL, and first of all, you are blaming a big and diverse group, the 'left', for unnuanced statements and regrettable actions of some individuals. Every group has its crazies. Doesn't mean the whole 'left' is like that.

Second, they may be right. Which groups with 'different opinions' are you talking about? Geert Wilders has been convicted for libel against ethnic minorities. And Baudet has said that he wants Europe to be mostly white [1].

Third, now overgeneralizing myself, the 'right' does the same thing too: calling people on the left 'profiteers', crazy and lazy hippies who wanto to avoid any labor, etc. In fact, you are blaming the political left in your post right now for the murder of Pim Fortuyn, based on vague and unsubstantiated claims. You are doing the same thing you blame the left for.

And lastly, the original ideals from the left are very much needed in this neoliberal climate where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The economic divide is growing. Even the VVD is moving towards the left, seeing that the capitalist race has gone too far. One example: the Netherlands has a very serious housing crisis right now caused by neoliberalism. From the credit crisis to selling and reducing out the social housing stock, investors only wanting to build high end apartments, etc. In the last debate about it, the VVD was advocating for a bigger role in housing, that ideal is tradionally associated with the left.

So please, don't polarize, overgeneralize and blame the whole left for murder and name-calling. Using your line of reasoning again, it is not like the 'right' is in a good place right now with their corona denial and Qanon conspiracies.

[1] https://www.ad.nl/politiek/baudet-verliest-zaak-tegen-buiten...

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

#103

Post by dsr_ » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

Tycho wrote: post #94

Waterluvian wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly a useful claim given it can be made by anyone for any portion of their "team" they're embeeassed by. The core problem is that America uses a two party system and that can only result in heavy partisanship.

One side has prominent interlocutors who routinely call the other side racists, Nazis, and harbingers of fascism in the United States, demanding their “de-platforming”. The other side sees this as hysterical nonsense spouted by sanctimonious hypocrites and people blind to reality, who deserve to be mocked, hence “own the libs.” These two sides are not equivalent. One is doing a lot more “othering”. The real equivalen…

There are concentration camps run by the United States government.

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

#104

Post by ben_w » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #67

bogwog wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media might need to be controlled in the same way cigarettes are. At the end of the day, both are drug dealers. One of them sells nicotine, the other sells dopamine. Not sure what that would look like though. Cigarettes have scary labels and enforced age requirements. Maybe social media would have to change the way likes/upvotes/etc work to be less polarizing, in addition to an age limit enforcement?

The various Wars On Drugs do not inspire. According to me, they have at best been ineffectual, and more commonly made a bad thing worse. I think/hope we're in a transitional phase of our civilization where we haven't figured out how to handle these new things yet. Over time, institutions will emerge. They always do, right?

Yes, but the dynamics may be different. If social network software is banned, and replaced with a ten million small DIY networks that don’t interact with each other, will that be any different than local pubs and clubs?

If the networks join up, letting people interact, enabling or encouraging hate between each other, there is an incentive for members of each group to report the illegal networks to the authorities to harm “the other lot”.

(This is just an off-the-cuff thought, I’m a long way from understanding sociopolitical dynamics)

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

#105

Post by civilized » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

Headline: we're so polarized! How awful wrings hands

Body: Republicans are bad Republicans are bad Republicans are bad Republicans are bad Republicans are bad Republicans are bad

I don't even have a problem with a certain amount of contempt for Republicans, or at least their politicians. It's just, if you pretend to be concerned about polarization in the abstract, you might try harder to pretend to be concerned about the ways in which both sides contribute to it. If you only know about the specific ways in which conservatives or Republicans are bad, or "more bad", you're unable to overcome your partisanship in a search for the whole truth.

If you want to learn about how the left contributes to polarization, you can start by having a look at Matt Taibbi's or Jesse Singal's Substack.

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

#106

Post by chaganated » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

This is a sociology op-ed by a journalist for an ideologically-charged stats rag (538) being published in a science magazine.

I would appreciate it if tree people would stick to their trees, and stop (erroneously) extrapolating every minuscule change in the sap into a chicken-little prognostication for the entire forest.

I like liberals, I like conservatives, but one type I cannot abide are these preening, midwit, overcredentialed, underperforming, doomsayers.

It will all be just fine.

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

#107

Post by scrollaway » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #105

Headline: we're so polarized! How awful wrings hands Body: Republicans are bad Republicans are bad Republicans are bad Republicans are bad Republicans are bad Republicans are bad I don't even have a problem with a certain amount of contempt for Republicans, or at least their politicians. It's just, if you pretend to be concerned about polarization in the abstract, you might try harder to pretend to be concerned about…

The word "republican" appears 6 times in the article. The word "democrat" 10.

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

#108

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:21 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #19

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.

On some level yes. But the unfortunate side is that it's seeping into the overall culture and previously-benign and relatively apolitical institutions. That makes it dangerous to "ignore" and hope it goes away due to us all deciding to be reasonable and ignore the hateful and prominent voices that use social-media as a megaphone. Some institutions being actively soaked in identity politics and other divisive elements…

[deleted]

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

#109

Post by empthought » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:21 PM UTC

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.

They do not.

Only one American political party needs white supremacist votes in order to be elected. Only one.

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

#110

Post by vinay427 » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

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.

> Calling the other side "murderers" goes beyond "stating a legitimate political or moral view".

Can you explain your reasoning for this?

More specifically, if one only considers certain types of X to qualify as X, does calling someone X if they perform an action not universally considered to be X go beyond "a legitimate political or moral view?"