Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes • Hacker News Board

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#31

Post by inglor_cz » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:07 AM UTC

nosianu wrote: post #30

kstenerud wrote: post #22

It's an interesting paper, but unfortunately it misses the point. Polar dissimilar political beliefs are not the problem. Many countries have this, and even have lively political discussions that remain civil, rallies that remain civil, and elections that remain civil. The actual problem is psychological, specifically dealing with identity beliefs. Once a person takes on a belief as part of their identity, any attack…

> Guess in which of these countries you can have polite (even if heated) dinner conversations about politics! Yes, but that was before vaccination scepticism and AfD (new-ish right wing party that made waves the last few years and now sits in the Bundestag too). Now we (Germany) see similar vitriol. We even had murder (some guy murdered the cashier at a petrol station because they were outraged he asked to wear a mas…

In Czechia and Poland, the same vitriol seems to be catching up. Well, in case of Poland, it might actually already be on the US level.

At least we are multiparty countries, so switching allegiance is not as hard as in the US/UK system.

But social networks are really good in their role of Shiri's scissor [0]. We shouldn't feel smug; as you say, we may just be slightly behind in the trend whose shockwave travels through the U.S. first.

(A darkly funny observation: polarization and obesity seem to develop in a similar fashion. Maybe a diet of unhealthy shit and a diet of horrible info content go hand in hand, hacking the same circuits in our brains.)

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#32

Post by zhoujianfu » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

atoav wrote: post #19

DeathArrow wrote: post #3

We are past the point when preventing polarization was possible. Now we are near the end of the path one political side brought us, with the other fighting against that. One side will win and will establish the rules the society will follow for the next decades.

Maybe counting actual people instead of representatives would be a start? While I get the whole idea behind giving the rural parts sith less population more of a say, when I first heard about it I intuitively felt that this was undemocratic. Where I grew up I learned that it is most important that everybody's vote counts the same. I was shocked when I learned this is not the case in the US and even more shocked when…

Nationalpopularvote.com would be a great start!

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#33

Post by ptsneves » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #22

It's an interesting paper, but unfortunately it misses the point. Polar dissimilar political beliefs are not the problem. Many countries have this, and even have lively political discussions that remain civil, rallies that remain civil, and elections that remain civil. The actual problem is psychological, specifically dealing with identity beliefs. Once a person takes on a belief as part of their identity, any attack…

Not dismissing your point, but you may be hitting at words that have ambiguity when translated. I am not a german speaker but would it be grammatically correct to say "Ich bin CDUer"? From my elementary school german it does not feel right.

On the other hand you can perfectly say "Ich bin christdemokrat" and here you are back to the American case with political support equaling identity.

An equivalently polarized country, Poland, does not have PiS supporters saying they are "Jestem PISowcy"(I am a Piser) or "Jestem POsy")(I am a POer). According you our theory I would expect Polish to identify themselves as written above.

In Portuguese, party names are also mostly abbreviations, and people will just say "sou do PS"(i am from PS/I am a PSer) for actual militants as well as supporters. This would hint at identity and support being the same. As a Portuguese i can tell you Portugal is outstandingly homogeneous and not polarized. This would falsify your theory as well as you would expect conflating support with identity would reflect polarization.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#34

Post by johnisgood » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #22

It's an interesting paper, but unfortunately it misses the point. Polar dissimilar political beliefs are not the problem. Many countries have this, and even have lively political discussions that remain civil, rallies that remain civil, and elections that remain civil. The actual problem is psychological, specifically dealing with identity beliefs. Once a person takes on a belief as part of their identity, any attack…

For anyone interested, there is a book named "Identity Theory" from Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#35

Post by johnisgood » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #11

yosito wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Strictly limiting exposure to dissimilar views, however, is... ...not an effective mechanism for social media and news sites to make a profit, unfortunately.

We so easily give up our agency to debate, dissent, connect, and communicate a diversity of ideas. We will severely regret it one day.

We already gave up our agency to make our own decisions in many areas of life. The Government does it for us.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#36

Post by stnikolauswagne » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:31 AM UTC

ptsneves wrote: post #33

kstenerud wrote: post #22

It's an interesting paper, but unfortunately it misses the point. Polar dissimilar political beliefs are not the problem. Many countries have this, and even have lively political discussions that remain civil, rallies that remain civil, and elections that remain civil. The actual problem is psychological, specifically dealing with identity beliefs. Once a person takes on a belief as part of their identity, any attack…

Not dismissing your point, but you may be hitting at words that have ambiguity when translated. I am not a german speaker but would it be grammatically correct to say "Ich bin CDUer"? From my elementary school german it does not feel right. On the other hand you can perfectly say "Ich bin christdemokrat" and here you are back to the American case with political support equaling identity. An equivalently polarized cou…

I dont think anyone would ever say „Ich bin christemokrat“, a much more common saying (at least in the area where I live or the area I grew up) would be „Ich bin CDU-Wähler“/I am a CDU-Voter. This is coincidentally how my parents would describe their political leanings (SPD).

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#37

Post by RandomLensman » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:38 AM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #22

It's an interesting paper, but unfortunately it misses the point. Polar dissimilar political beliefs are not the problem. Many countries have this, and even have lively political discussions that remain civil, rallies that remain civil, and elections that remain civil. The actual problem is psychological, specifically dealing with identity beliefs. Once a person takes on a belief as part of their identity, any attack…

That still does not explain why such identity beliefs appear to be spreading. My own hypothesis is that most things are now too complex for most people, i.e., how things work is largely "magic". This then might allow people to actually belief a lot more things as a lot of how the real world works is already untethered from reality for them.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#38

Post by locallost » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:43 AM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #22

It's an interesting paper, but unfortunately it misses the point. Polar dissimilar political beliefs are not the problem. Many countries have this, and even have lively political discussions that remain civil, rallies that remain civil, and elections that remain civil. The actual problem is psychological, specifically dealing with identity beliefs. Once a person takes on a belief as part of their identity, any attack…

I agree with you 100% on the "backfire effect", and I think it's not really difficult to understand the mechanism behind it. But I don't think the US is really much different in that regard than anyone else, the differences there are maybe cultural at best, but in any case superficial. E.g. when I was looking at a flat in Germany, a landlord told me he subscribes to many newspapers, including the Süddeutsche Zeitung, but only to "monitor the left". That person identifies clearly with the right, and it doesn't matter how he phrases it.

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#39

Post by marax27 » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:43 AM UTC

ptsneves wrote: post #33

kstenerud wrote: post #22

It's an interesting paper, but unfortunately it misses the point. Polar dissimilar political beliefs are not the problem. Many countries have this, and even have lively political discussions that remain civil, rallies that remain civil, and elections that remain civil. The actual problem is psychological, specifically dealing with identity beliefs. Once a person takes on a belief as part of their identity, any attack…

Not dismissing your point, but you may be hitting at words that have ambiguity when translated. I am not a german speaker but would it be grammatically correct to say "Ich bin CDUer"? From my elementary school german it does not feel right. On the other hand you can perfectly say "Ich bin christdemokrat" and here you are back to the American case with political support equaling identity. An equivalently polarized cou…

Fair point, in Poland I wouldn't expect someone to call themself "PISowiec" ("PISowcy" is plural) - those terms are often used as derogatory. On the other hand, it's quite common to label either yourself or them as "prawicowiec/lewicowiec" (right-winger/left-winger).

Re: Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

#40

Post by Taniwha » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:44 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #25

shrimpx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looking from abroad, democrats and republicans are almost the same. And this is the core of the problem, and the deeper root of polarization. Can you elaborate on this? How does similarity between the parties cause polarization?

Because when the points of meaningful disagreements are few, people often have a need to emphasise those points in order to justify their choice. I don't think this is by any means universal and it doesn't need to get hostile. Proportional systems often force parties to be prepared to cooperate or be left with no influence so even with starkly polarised views on certain issues it doesn't pay to get too hostile about…

Yes, NZ had 2 parties trading off power for decades until we got rid of the FPP system (like the US/UK), we now use MMP (the same as Germany) and we haven't had a government that wasn't a coalition since (even this time when one party did get more than 50% of the votes).

What it means is that to form a government parties have to form a coalition and that means compromise, done in public - compromise is a good thing, a mediating thing, if you're a party that can't compromise you'll never be part of a government - and voters understand this, they understand that it takes time to compromise, we might not have a government for 3 months and all of a party's promises might not be able to be kept as part of a compromise.

It's not perfect, but I do think it's far better and far fairer that the governments we elected under FPP (when sometimes the party with the most votes didn't get the most seats, and smaller parties could never realistically get a look in)