Live data from Hacker News

Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

georgesaines.com

51–60 of 302 posts

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want some practice? What policies?

Pregnant women are dying because they are not getting appropriate medical care. Doctors are unwilling to give pregnant women appropriate care because they may face criminal charges. This is happening directly because of legislation that has been pushed forward exclusively by one political party in this country. So I find it hard to understand how someone can care about women's health and support these policies. I'm f…

Do you have a source for your claims? I’d like to use them in future, in person, conversations.

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the question that the Indian person is asking. Here in the US we'll refuse to interact with someone if we find out that they're part of the wrong tribe, but our political violence is pretty low on the scale of what's possible. There, they have a lot of political violence and from what I understand quite divisive political issues that put people's lives and livelihoods at stake, but apparently they don't have t…

I don't refuse to interact with people of the wrong "tribe", I make sure to ask for their political positions on, e.g., "should interracial marriage be allowed? Should we allow trans people to change their birth certificates?" If someone is like, "Nah, those things are bad" then I'm happy to not associate with them because I find their beliefs abhorrent. It has nothing to do with tribal affiliation and everything to…

[deleted]

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#53
post #45

[flagged]

Difficult to read even though you mentioned Broken Democracy with capitols. Was not typing it out again twice really more effective communication? The overhead for replacing two other uses in a single context didn't warrant the creation of a new acronym, let alone one so short.

The acronym was about focus, not about overhead. There's always been foreign influence, and sweeping it under the rug is standard practice. Democracy broke when we went from "influenced" to "pwned." Unbreaking it will require more than just wishing the problem away.

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#54
post #19

If it really was population density, it would be easy to discuss politics in urban NYC and very difficult/ rare in rural Wyoming. I don’t think that’s really the case. I suspect politics are more discussed in forums where there is more “psychological safety” where the consequence of saying a thing that others disagree with doesn’t cause a rift in the relationship (as evidenced by the “it’s hard enough for a parent to…

> rather than through the lens of the broken US political parties / election system This is key, in my observation as an immigrant from Europe who's lived here ~10 years. Europe for the most part has multi-party democracies meaning that for every pet cause you might have there is a party that focuses on your cause. Larger causes get parties that might even get elected into parliament. Those larger parties still have…

Agree, the forced two-party system is very limiting and the identity tied to politics is emblematic of modern US. In EU, as I believe in India from the anecdotes in the article, a lot of the identity is tied to the place you are from and the social strata the family occupies. Those are somewhat immutable things (where you were born and what family you are from), so deciding to break off communication with that community is “expensive” socially because there is no other community that will readily accept you as their own. Whereas in US, it’s quite normal to change social circles at will. Density/proximity makes it much more obvious, but the semi-fixed social circles I believe have a lot to do with it. Many US expats report loneliness when moving abroad for similar reasons - it’s hard to find a new inner circle in societies built around other identities.

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#55
post #19

If it really was population density, it would be easy to discuss politics in urban NYC and very difficult/ rare in rural Wyoming. I don’t think that’s really the case. I suspect politics are more discussed in forums where there is more “psychological safety” where the consequence of saying a thing that others disagree with doesn’t cause a rift in the relationship (as evidenced by the “it’s hard enough for a parent to…

> rather than through the lens of the broken US political parties / election system This is key, in my observation as an immigrant from Europe who's lived here ~10 years. Europe for the most part has multi-party democracies meaning that for every pet cause you might have there is a party that focuses on your cause. Larger causes get parties that might even get elected into parliament. Those larger parties still have…

That last part is called "identity politics". It's partly due to different politicians and parties trying to directly pander to specific demographics. It doesn't always work - like Trump saying you can't be Jewish and vote for Harris is laughable. But in rural areas it's hard to be a Democrat and be out and proud about it; in urban areas, it's hard to be a Republican in the sea of Democrats. And much of that has to do with how heated politics has gotten around issues like abortion, trans rights, DEI, immigration. Politicians on both sides have leaned into the "culture war" - Democrats arguing the rich should pay their fair share, Republicans with their "stop woke".

It's really unfortunate that quick sound bytes work so much better than real policy discussion.

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#56
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pregnant women are dying because they are not getting appropriate medical care. Doctors are unwilling to give pregnant women appropriate care because they may face criminal charges. This is happening directly because of legislation that has been pushed forward exclusively by one political party in this country. So I find it hard to understand how someone can care about women's health and support these policies. I'm f…

Do you have a source for your claims? I’d like to use them in future, in person, conversations.

"source for your claims" sounds pretty hand-wavey. So far as I can tell, neither side disputes this.

Will a supreme court opinion do?

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-726_6jgm.pdf

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#57
I think it's wealth and well-being.

The easier your life becomes, the more you live in the world of ideas and abstractions. When you and most people around you need to toil daily to stay afloat, it puts things in perspective. There's also a shared bond of work and survival which can smooth things over.

Politics being prominent in your life is a luxury. Even if the stakes are high for you personally, most people worldwide don't have the time and energy to dwell on that.

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the rest of the post. Indian politics are not somehow lower stakes than ours, the Indian subcontinent is not less diverse, and the author's friend included a specific example of people getting literally killed over their politics.

There’s literally no way the nation of India is more diverse than the United States- we have the biggest spread of racial, and religious diversity on the planet, by far.

I think you need to spend some time learning about India. The US is FAR more of a monoculture than India is.

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#59
Population density may be a factor but I don't think it's dominant.

Right now, as I see it, the biggest problem in American politics is that the American right has been taken over by a personality cult. This has in turn sparked a broader anti-cult movement that is left dominant but open to everyone. Somehow these two forces have almost equal valence within our electoral system but it feels almost impossible to talk across the divide. Unfortunately I think the anti-cult movement almost paradoxically strengthens the cult and the result is both sides digging deeper and deeper in.

The undecideds generally don't pay much attention and think that both sides are a little nutty and that elections should be about policy. They are frustrated that they are being forced to choose between two seemingly bad options. They also know that they will be harshly criticized for their choice by many no matter which they make. This is an extremely toxic dynamic and it is leading to increased radicalization on both sides but the scale of radicalization is significantly higher on the right.

Like any cult, the crazier the claims made by the leader, the stronger the hold they have on its members who have already sacrificed intellectual autonomy to the movement. To admit that they've been duped is psychologically devastating and could lead to the loss of community that they've made through the movement. So they get defensive and closed off to reason. And, of course, as a defense mechanism they must project their experience onto their opponents whom they assume must also be delusional. This is exacerbated by the fact that any large group of people will contain the full range of character types: crazy and sane, cruel and kind, smart and dumb, etc. But once you have a strong bias (which is encouraged by the cult leader), you will start seeing all the negative things almost exclusively in the other side and all the positive things in your camp.

It is almost impossible to reason with someone who is not open to an opposing viewpoint (even if they are otherwise intelligent) and it can be dangerous if there is a reasonable probability that the discussion can turn hostile. So many if not most people avoid those challenging conversations out of a reasonable sense of self-preservation. I would certainly not try and talk politics with anyone with a "FUCK $DEMOCRATIC_POLITICIAN" flag flying in their yard and, honestly, it's not really that hard to tell from a few minutes conversation if they might lean that way.

I want to be clear that I'm not saying that I am immune to cult like thinking. I certainly have been indoctrinated into problematic belief systems and still have some erroneously biased thought patterns.

People are complicated and they can be quite rational in one domain and irrational in another. Unfortunately, we seem far past the point of rationality in our political system. Nevertheless I have hope that we can get through this difficult period with a minimum of damage but that hope is irrational on my part.

Re: Is population density the reason Americans can't discuss politics?

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's the problem though right? I think that there are people who are so completely and utterly wrong that I don't know what to do with them. They also think that I am so completely and utterly wrong that they don't know what to do with me. So we don't talk about it.

I'm just a rando but here's my unprompted solution: treat your fellow citizens as fallible epistemic machines instead of unified, rational members acting freely within a social contract. The solution to flat earthers (to pick a slightly less divisive topic) is not to engage them in logical debate, but rather help fix the systemic and personal issues that have lead them to develop such an obviously false belief.

This obviously calls for some long-term sociopolitical changes to education and journalism (a deadly paradox of chickens and eggs...), but in the context of this specific conversation, I think it would call for finding common ground with your adversaries and working up from there via the Socratic method. You'll never convince someone who's not completely tuned-out to change their stance on an upcoming presidential election in a single conversation, but I think there's more room for agreement than is assumed. We all want to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, and we all intuitively agree that evidence is the basis of belief -- even something as cartoonishly evil as belief in racial supremacy is based in benign intentions corrupted by unclear/dishonestly-presented evidence, if you dig down deep enough.

Practically, besides the Socratic method (framing the conversation as collaborative investigation rather than adversarial interpretation), this might mean asking some different questions than the burning ones we'd like to phrase. Beating around the bush, if you will. It's an incredibly frustrating task to be sure, but anyone who's worked with children knows that it's sometimes necessary. Perhaps;

"Why do you think the election was stolen?" --> "I love Democracy, too, I just haven't seen any evidence of fraud that I've found convincing, yet; can we talk about specific pieces of evidence convinced you, and find where our disagreements begin? Maybe even quantify our levels of relative uncertainty on each?"

"Why do you think immigrants are dangerous?" --> "I'm sure we're both proud of the Statue of Liberty and the freedom of action and belief it represents, and we would have never been large enough of an economy to meaningfully effect WWII with just the 13 colonies and their descendants. What are some policies you think could bring us back to that ideal? Are there any non-Americans in the world that you would welcome as compatriots today, and if not, what specifically do you think has changed?"

Etc. This is admittedly just smuggling philosophy back into our discourse, so a lot of acquaintances or strangers will react with a gruff "shut up!" or "nuh uh, that's confusing", but I've found success employing it on family members. Again, people are trained to assume that they're continuous, unified, rational beings[1] so they'll resist any sudden shifts, but a path exists, even if it's a somewhat treacherous one.

Sorry for the rant, this has been a central belief of mine ever since I was exposed to it by an incredible undergrad philosophy professor -- definitely check her work out if you found any of this intriguing: https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/dissertations/1875/

All of this is sadly moot for people who have been convinced that evidence isn't required because they have a personal infallible connection to a divine force that secretly controls the world. I, too, have no idea what to with those people!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason#The_pa...

Post reply on HN