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‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

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Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#71

Post by georgeecollins »

nradov wrote: post #67
georgeecollins wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> any regulation there would risk violating the 1st amendment. Perhaps, but its a risk the US took for decades (1938 - 1985) and the political climate was less divisive during that period. You can't say "nothing can be done" when things can and have been done that we don't do anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

The Fairness Doctrine existed only because broadcast spectrum was finite. It never applied to other types of media.

You are right. But there is still a finite radio broadcast spectrum we don't apply this to, and a finite number of cable channels, a finite number of social media platforms, search engines or browsers with a million users, etc.

I am not saying something like that is a good idea. I am saying that to throw your hands up and say nothing can be done is not accurate. A lot of times people say you can't regulate a thing because you can't regulate every possible instance. But by that logic we shouldn't have stop signs because people run through them everyday. Yet stop signs are important.

Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#72

Post by native_samples »

belval wrote: post #10

I am skeptical of the framing of the original work in the article. If you actually read the original research, it boils down to building a model on willingness to cooperate based on differing views and observing that past a specific point cooperation is no longer possible. This is not uninteresting for the scientist in me, but the kind of large generalization made in the article are simply not supported by the work n…

When I see an abstract like that, I think that what's about to follow is going to be a highly ideological and partisan op-ed dressed up as "science". Rephrased, the abstract is saying

"Why isn't everyone a morally pure collectivist like me, and how can we fix that?"

And the answer is: because you're not morally pure, the "common causes" you want us to unite behind are exaggerated and collectivism has a track record of being far more deadly than the things it's trying to solve. But that answer wouldn't be ideologically acceptable to academia.

Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#73

Post by native_samples »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #65
motohagiography wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be worth noting that such was the polarization of Great Britain in WWII that Ireland remained officially neutral while London was being bombarded with rockets, and they went right back to bombing each other within a few years of the external threat being removed. This is the level of polarization and sectarianism I've been warning about for years, and we're way deeper into it than I think most people realize.…

> t may be worth noting that such was the polarization of Great Britain in WWII that Ireland remained officially neutral while London was being bombarded with rockets, and they went right back to bombing each other within a few years of the external threat being removed. This is the first I’ve heard of this. Do you have any references that dig into this time and context that you could share?

Well, Ireland was neutral in World War 2 and the IRA actually allied itself with the Nazis. See "Operation Dove". "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of thing.

Fact is, a bunch of European countries refused to fight the Nazis, or only declared war on them right at the very end when the Allies had already defeated them. It's never widely discussed because it's kind of shameful for those states. If the Allies had fallen, so would all the neutral countries and they wouldn't have been treated well by Hitler. They let the Brits, Americans and Russians fight, whilst sitting back and waiting to be saved.

Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#74

Post by native_samples »

DFHippie wrote: post #38
makomk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mainstream media is very much part of the problem. For example, both the idea that the US could've avoided a substantial proportion of those pandemic-related deaths and people's beliefs about how it could've done so are the result of systematic, partisan misinformation by trusted publications like the New York Times about how the US compares to other countries, what those other countries have been doing, how well…

What are the measures by which the US is doing better than continental Europe? What are some things the NYT was publishing but stopped publishing when they didn't fit the defeatist storyline? I don't doubt that partisan propaganda spread as news is among the chief reasons the US is at war with itself right now, but you lose me when you pick the NYT as the chief culprit.

The constant transitions in the narrative about Sweden are perhaps a good example.

At first it was "Sweden has become the world's cautionary tale", and "a red flag as the United States and Britain move to lift lockdowns".

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...

Then Sweden dropped to the bottom of the rankings in both Europe and the world for deaths. It did much better than the UK and America. Suddenly it's not got any lessons for the world anymore, and when it's mentioned at all it's only to tell us that for unclear reasons it can't be compared to anything except its direct neighbours. Then Baltic states did worse than Sweden so the narrative became, you can't compare to anything except a cherry-picked list of specifically Scandinavian states.

The media is a major, major driving force of political polarization everywhere, because it acts as a firehose of ideological propaganda. It's not even the stories you see that's the biggest problem. It's the things they know about but never tell you, in case it'd make you doubt your commitment to the journalist's ideology.

Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#75

Post by 9wzYQbTYsAIc »

sagarm wrote: post #70
9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps mandatory civil service? https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/31/us-democracy-mandatory-...

In a country where a sizable minority feel that simply wearing masks during a pandemic is an unconscionable infringement of personal liberty?

That same country still has a mandatory selective service for the military.

Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#76

Post by nradov »

georgeecollins wrote: post #71
nradov wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fairness Doctrine existed only because broadcast spectrum was finite. It never applied to other types of media.

You are right. But there is still a finite radio broadcast spectrum we don't apply this to, and a finite number of cable channels, a finite number of social media platforms, search engines or browsers with a million users, etc. I am not saying something like that is a good idea. I am saying that to throw your hands up and say nothing can be done is not accurate. A lot of times people say you can't regulate a thing be…

There is no limit on the number of cable channels, social media platforms, search engines, or browsers. Anyone can create more. Unlike with RF spectrum there are no fundamental physical limits.

Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#77

Post by AnimalMuppet »

9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #75
sagarm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a country where a sizable minority feel that simply wearing masks during a pandemic is an unconscionable infringement of personal liberty?

That same country still has a mandatory selective service for the military.

No it doesn't. It has a purely voluntary military. (People still have to register for selective service, but there hasn't been a draft in decades.)

Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#78

Post by jfengel »

travisporter wrote: post #4
9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #2

Here is the original research: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/50/e2102144118

Thank you open access! But did I find a typo? "Nevertheless, we make no claims about the model’s predictive accuracy. The model is highly abstract and remains to be empirically calibrated and tested. Nor can we assume that tipping points would obtain in radically different applications, such as affective polarization, voter polarization, or media polarization."

Do you mean in the word "affective"? It's a perfectly cromulent word.

It's the adjectival form of the word "affect" in its noun sense, meaning "mood" or "feeling". This form is pronounced differently: A-fect (emphasis on the first syllable, with the vowel like in "rat").

"Affective polarization" is "people being polarized in how they feel about each other", i.e. animosity towards people in the other party. It's a technical term used by sociologists and not in common use, but it's not a typo.

Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#79

Post by dang »

mmmpop wrote: post #56
DFHippie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you nailed it. The people patriotically spreading covid, attacking our system of government, preventing any action on climate change, and so forth don't actually think they're doing the right thing . They just feel so slighted and aggrieved, so disrespected, that they see harming their uppity neighbors as the greatest good. They are Ahab and the libs are their white whale. The thing is, people don't respect y…

Thanks for proving my point, I'd perhaps rather watch the world melt than have your sneering ass running the show. I kid, but it's a close call.

Please don't perpetuate flamewars on HN and particularly please stop posting personal attacks. We ban accounts that do that, and you've unfortunately done it repeatedly. That's not cool here.

This whole subthread stands out as particularly wretched but even in a context as bad as this, "your sneering ass" was egregious.

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

Re: ‘Tipping point’ makes partisan polarization irreversible in research model

#80

Post by dang »

DFHippie wrote: post #61
mmmpop wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for proving my point, I'd perhaps rather watch the world melt than have your sneering ass running the show. I kid, but it's a close call.

It's fun to think I'm running the show, isn't it. Yes, I fully own my unbounded contempt for the fragile-ego'ed patriots tearing the country apart. But I'm not running the show, am I? And that doesn't matter. The people running the show, Clinton and Obama and Biden and so forth, speak in diplomatic terms and offer olive branches and try to see the other side and it earns them nothing but vilification. Because the fra…

Please stop posting flamewar comments to HN. We've had to ask you this before, and we ban accounts that keep doing it. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.

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

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