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Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

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Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#931

Post by bena »

anonfornoreason wrote: post #671
mariodiana wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jonathan Haidt (who is mentioned in the article) did a study years ago. He separated a group of people into conservatives and liberals and then gave them a questionnaire on politics. Then he got a second group, separated them, and gave them the same questionnaire. Only he asked the second group of liberals and conservatives to answer the questionnaire the way they imagined the other side would. What he found was that…

Not sure why you are getting downvotes. For anyone curious, Haidt is a liberal professor who is dedicated to figuring out how to get people talking across political ideologies. The book that covers this topic is called The Righteous Mind and is an excellent read or listen.

It's a mis-framing of the results.

Conservatives didn't have "no problem" answering as liberals.

Conservatives were better able to estimate what liberals would answer for individual concerns, but were wrong about group concerns.

Moderates were better able to estimate how both groups would answer for group concerns. Both liberals and conservatives overestimated how much conservatives cared for group concerns.

Liberals underestimated how much conservatives cared for individual concerns and overestimated how much they cared for group concerns. Liberals also overestimated how much liberals cared for individual concerns and underestimated how much the cared for group concerns.

In light of that, we could even frame it as liberals see themselves closer to conservatives than vice versa. Because that's how they answered for the groups. They think there's less difference than there actually is. So they under and overestimate appropriately.

Framing it as "conservatives know liberals better than vice versa" is wrong and is a tactic to put the onus on liberals to do all the changing. Because conservatives can fill out a morality questionnaire better.

Or let me put it this way, if the question was "How many puppies is it acceptable to kick in a lifetime?"

The fact that puppy kickers were correctly able to guess "zero" for the non-kicking group while the non-kickers said the kickers would say "ten" while the kickers really said "twenty" doesn't mean that the puppy kickers are the better group.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#932

Post by ookdatnog »

username90 wrote: post #927
ookdatnog wrote: post #915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone left-leaning, I've always tried to be understanding and compassionate towards those with differing viewpoints. When Trump was campaigning, although I loath the man (and, to be clear, I believe he's outright evil), I did try to understand the viewpoint of "forgotten America" and see them as people whose frustrations are legitimate. But then Trump tried to overturn the presidential election by attempting to…

And the Democrats completely want to dismantle the police and let criminals run free on the streets. It is true, I saw these cherry picked quotes and the democrats still supports those politicans! How can you support them when they are pro crime? You are a horrible person, just like everyone else who votes Democrats and thinks that government handouts are more important than ensuring that rapists and murderers can't…

Defunding the police, government handouts, etc etc, whether you are in favor or against them, are policy decisions that some factions within the Democratic party are striving for using democratic (small 'd') methods. That is, if these factions can convince a majority of people to defund the police, then the police will get defunded. That is how democracy works.

If you disagree with defunding the police but with significant other parts of the Democratic platform, you can ally with these people on some issues but fight them on this issue. This is also how democracy works.

Trump attempted to stay in power even though the people voted against him. This is tyranny. Working with him, in any way, is a subversion of democracy. Anyone who is willing to work with him is, by extension, an enemy of democracy.

The only logical conclusion from your post is that you are against democracy: You argue that a policy you disagree with (defunding the police) getting implemented democratically, is a similar level of "bad" as a tyrant being installed. This means that you are willing to see a tyrant installed if the alternative is (democratically chosen!) policy being enacted that you disagree with. Seems like textbook authoritarianism to me.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#933

Post by jonathankoren »

alentist wrote: post #897
jonathankoren wrote: post #878

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Christianity isn’t the default, secular is the default. When there are identifiably Christian characters, they are often some cringey stereotype (the religious clique in “Easy A”, for You seem to believe that in your face conservative white evangelical Protestants are the only Christians. This speaks more to your own biases than society’s. Every poll of Americans and religions shows Christianity as by far the m…

> Every poll of Americans and religions shows Christianity as by far the most popular choice. There is simply no way to square your idea that nonreligious is the default when over 70% of Americans identify as Christian.[0] GP is talking about representation in film . That's what this whole subthread is about.

When you're the default, you have representation in all media, even without it being explicitly stated, because the audience already assumes it. Why? Because there's no reason to believe that the character is anything except the most common case in society. Some would even describe being the most common case and not having to explicitly be called out for representation as privileged.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#934

Post by dang »

Impassionata wrote: post #88

Haidt's work gets trotted out a lot, but it was prior to the fascist turn of the Republican party. Now Republicans live in a mostly imagined political reality.

Please don't take HN threads into partisan flamewar hell.

Edit: I've banned your account for breaking the site guidelines. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27520854.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27504774.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#935

Post by dang »

Impassionata wrote: post #730
myko wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's frustrating.

Once you only care about silencing those who would point out fascism, it becomes easy enough. Watchful moderation willing to act is necessary. I'm unsurprised that HN is being exploited this way, but I am pleasantly surprised that there are people seeing them in operation like yourself and the others speaking up. The truth gets buried, ultimately, not by these bad-faith arguments, but by the giant thread above consis…

Please keep political flamewars off HN. This whole subthread is wretched and the sort of thing we're trying to avoid here. You guys have the rest of the internet if that's what you want.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: it turns out that your account has been using HN primarily for political battle. That's not allowed, and I've banned the account. We do that regardless of what politics you're battling for, because it destroys this place for its intended purpose. Please don't create accounts to do that with.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use HN as intended in the future.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#936

Post by dang »

myfavoritedog wrote: post #774
Impassionata wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you only care about silencing those who would point out fascism, it becomes easy enough. Watchful moderation willing to act is necessary. I'm unsurprised that HN is being exploited this way, but I am pleasantly surprised that there are people seeing them in operation like yourself and the others speaking up. The truth gets buried, ultimately, not by these bad-faith arguments, but by the giant thread above consis…

Once the party has turned fascist Says the supporter of the party that literally used impeachment twice to try to get rid of a President they didn't like. Says the supporter of the party that is big into political correctness in order to control what people say and how they say it. Says the supporter of the party that is canceling people who don't toe the party line. Says the supporter of the party that controls acad…

Please keep political flamewars off HN. This whole subthread is wretched and the sort of thing we're trying to avoid here. You guys have the rest of the internet if that's what you want.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: your account has already built up a pattern of using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That is not what HN is for and it is also not at all a nice way to take advantage of the fact that we allow people to be anonymous here.

I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use HN as intended. But please don't create any more accounts to break the rules with.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#937

Post by dang »

myko wrote: post #813
myfavoritedog wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the party has turned fascist Says the supporter of the party that literally used impeachment twice to try to get rid of a President they didn't like. Says the supporter of the party that is big into political correctness in order to control what people say and how they say it. Says the supporter of the party that is canceling people who don't toe the party line. Says the supporter of the party that controls acad…

> Says the supporter of the party that literally used impeachment twice to try to get rid of a President they didn't like. He deserved to be impeached, claiming otherwise shows your lack of judgement. > If there is a political party in the USA flirting with fascism, it's the Democratic party. Says the person defending the guy who tried a coup against the USA The previous POTUS deserves to be in jail, like his lawyer…

Please keep political flamewars off HN. This whole subthread is wretched and the sort of thing we're trying to avoid here. You guys have the rest of the internet if that's what you want.

Also, personal attacks are not ok and will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. You did that in multiple places in this thread. Please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: actually you've been posting so many personal attacks that I've almost banned your account. I decided not to, because you've been here for 10 years, but if you want to continue to comment here we need you to stop doing this, and stop adding to political flamewars generally.

You may not owe (or feel you owe) your political enemies better, but you owe this community much better if you're participating in it. No more of this please.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#938

Post by dang »

sandyarmstrong wrote: post #124

> I would be shocked if 60+% of American film characters are identifiably Christian How often do you see Christmas used as a plot device? Or a church used as a setting? Or a priest character? I would be shocked if context didn't imply that > 95% of American film characters are Christian.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27503656.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#939

Post by [deleted] »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #581
arecurrence wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised to see you downvoted when so much complaining in this thread is already covered by Ground News. I suppose Hacker News itself is unable to escape its own echo chamber.

HN is very, very authoritarian left.

[deleted]

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#940

Post by anonfornoreason »

bena wrote: post #931
anonfornoreason wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you are getting downvotes. For anyone curious, Haidt is a liberal professor who is dedicated to figuring out how to get people talking across political ideologies. The book that covers this topic is called The Righteous Mind and is an excellent read or listen.

It's a mis-framing of the results. Conservatives didn't have "no problem" answering as liberals. Conservatives were better able to estimate what liberals would answer for individual concerns, but were wrong about group concerns. Moderates were better able to estimate how both groups would answer for group concerns. Both liberals and conservatives overestimated how much conservatives cared for group concerns. Liberals…

That's not at all what I got out of reading "The Righteous Mind", so not sure how to respond to this constructively. Did you read the book? Granted it's been ~ 1 year since I read it, but I walked away with a completely different impression. The interesting thing that was covered was that liberals and conservatives have different ways to approach moral reasoning.

Republicans tend (this is not universal) to view things through a lense of six things: faith, patriotism, valor, chastity, law and order. Democrats focus on care and fighting oppression. Again, this is a simplification, but the theme is that conservatives have different moral foundations that make it hard for liberals to understand why they make decisions they do. A solid example (I can't remember if this was used in the book, but it helps me) is "why are they voting against their own interests". I hear this in my personal life all the time! I used to say it! Then I realized that voting for someone who is against welfare, when you are low on the socioeconomic spectrum, makes sense if you overweight faith, and believe that abortion is a grave moral sin. What's some poverty now compared to eternal damnation? I don't believe in hell myself, but this insight let me understand that someone who views things different than me isn't dumb, they just have different values that allow them to rationally decide things that my values seem irrational.

The hard part is trying to talk across this gap in moral reasoning, and find the right balance.

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