7 ms·

Hi everyone, Recently, given the results of the election and the divisiveness that's been revealed because of it, it seems like the country isn't talking to on

• jimnotgym 10y ago
  I actually was having a great reconciling conversation with a guy on here just now. I love the idea. I did get disconnected after a while btw. My messages just didn't post. I came away feeling more like I understood the other side of the debate so well done!
• shireboy 10y ago
  Agree in principle, but one thing that threw me off off the bat- it asked if I was for or against trump. My views are more nuanced than that- to the point I wouldn't feel comfortable selecting either. Not sure how to best express that in the app, but I do think it's one of the things people misunderstand about "the other".
  • smoyer 10y ago
    I was hoping it was a text entry box too!
    • bigtunacan 10y ago
      Agreed. Interesting idea, but limits the discussion too much.
  • GrinningFool 10y ago
    Maybe 'rate your support of Trump/the outcome of the election on a scale from 1 to 10'?
    • vacri 10y ago
      Even that is not enough. It's still a bipolar scale, and humans are politically multipolar.
      • grzm 10y ago
        You're right. People are "multipolar". There is a way to think of a binary choice being useful here. By looking at a single, big question like this that clearly has a lot of nuance underneath, you can provide the opportunity for people to find common ground even when they are at opposite sides of the overly-simplifed binary decision.
    • shireboy 10y ago
      Thinking about it, I think maybe four groups: For, somewhat for, against, somewhat against. The app could still match up the "for" with the "against", but users wouldn't feel so gross choosing just for or against.
  • patcon 10y ago
    This tool is mind-blowingly effective a warding off the sort of concerns that you raise, of a tool not capturing and reflecting users' many complex viewpoints: https://blog.pol.is/pol-is-in-taiwan-da7570d372b5#.1pbjuwoqa https://blog.pol.is/pol-is-in-taiwan-da7570d372b5#.1pbjuwoqa It's mainly geared toward single-issue consultations and discussions, but definitely worth understanding. I know some folks who facilitate municipal consultations in one of the largest Canadian cities, a job for which helping often divided participants to arrive at meaningful consensus is high-priority. Their comment after the demo was "My mind is honestly reeling right now. Never in my life did I think any part of my job could be automated and democratized, because what I do is synthesize fuzzy participant feelings in a very unscalable way. But this tool just might automate away some of what we do."
    • judahmeek 10y ago
      https://pol.is https://pol.is looks like an awesome tool that needs more publicity.
  • inimino 10y ago
    If it didn't divide people into two groups then how would it match them up? Just pick the answer that best fits. If you're really in the middle then you presumably wouldn't need to have the conversation.
    • shireboy 10y ago
      You could divide into four groups: For, somewhat for, against, somewhat against. It still wouldn't be ideal, but would be more realistic. I don't think I'm "in the middle"- I simply agree with some policies of Trump's, disagree with others, and have serious reservations about him personally. That said, people "in the middle" deserve to be a part of public discourse just as much as those on each side.
• austincheney 10y ago
  A two party system is a large part of this problem. One group validates itself by demonizing the only other player in town. It's toxic and it energizes the most self-serving of us.
  • lucaspiller 10y ago
    Do they actually want different things though? In the UK it seems like all the politicians want the same - and all the people want the opposite.
    • yoz-y 10y ago
      From outside it more seems like all politicians want one thing, and half of the population wants the opposite.
    • arethuza 10y ago
      What policies do the current Conservative government, Labour, SNP government in Scotland, Plaid Cymru in Wales and the various parties in NI have in common? Quite a few of those parties want to break away from the UK - which is about is fundamental a disagreement as you can have!
    • renaudg 10y ago
      What ? Interested to know what side you think "the people" is on.
    • austincheney 10y ago
      They want to get elected. So, in that regard they want the same thing. What you say to get elected is largely irrelevant, particularly if you can suggest the opposing party is more evil. The goal isn't to be a good candidate, qualified, or even ethical... its to get elected out of a contest of two people. Who ever uses the media most wins. It doesn't even have to be favorable news coverage or even make sense. Who ever appears on the screen the most or gets their name mentioned the most wins. Again, its only a contest out of two people and the general population is easily energized by emotions.
  • 10y ago
• mavdi 10y ago
  I actually think we're talking too much. Sometimes even when we have nothing constructive to say.
  • wu-ikkyu 10y ago
    Listening is an underrated and scarce skill.
• fit2rule 10y ago
  Why is it you think dialectic materialism is worth the effort?
• masondixon 10y ago
  Yo great idea. Its timing out though. Plz fix! Use Firebase!
• beatpanda 10y ago
  This is stupid. One side is saying "we want to get rid of all the immigrants." My disagreement with that is not a communication problem, it's that that position is a red line. There's no chance of me being convinced that forcibly removing immigrants is a good idea. So why even have the conversation? What good could that possibly do?
  • ema 10y ago
    Don't you feel at least a little bit curious on why someone could adopt a position that is so obviously wrong to you? Remember, these are people too, not that much unlike you. Some of them might even have the same favorite movies as you.
  • flukus 10y ago
    > So why even have they conversation? What good could that possibly do? To see how the came to that conclusion. It's not like they hate brown people that speak funny, they have real issues that rightly or wrongly get blamed on immigration.
    • mwfunk 10y ago
      Some people do have real issues that rightly or wrongly get blamed on immigration, but there's also no shortage of actual racism among those who really, really seem to care about immigration. It's not like you don't see tons of explicit or implicit racism on Reddit or Twitter or Facebook among Trump supporters. Or at Trump rallys, for that matter, like "Jew S A" chants or people proudly wearing t-shirts that they think are hilarious about lynching journalists (like, actual old-fashioned lynching involving ropes and trees and victims). Hell, the KKK endorsed Trump and he didn't denounce them. So yes, there are at least some people who like Trump for his anti-immigrant views that base their support on racism. Based on what I've seen online and in person, there are quite a few of them. Maybe that's not all of them, and some or most are really just concerned about it as a law and order issue, but Trump made absolutely no effort to distinguish between the two. At no point did he ever make any statement that attempted to disassociate his views on immigration from racism, and he was called upon to do so throughout the campaign (like after the KKK endorsement). Maybe he himself has more enlightened views on immigration, but he clearly couldn't care less if people were on his side because of pure racism. He stoked those fires over and over and over again. Maybe he's just incredibly misunderstood, but he sure as hell didn't make an effort to clarify anything if he was. That speaks volumes about his morals. If you're going to take a hardline stance on illegal immigration and make it a centerpiece of your campaign, it makes it that much more important to be very clear and explicit that racism is not a factor, if for no other reasons than to avoid getting lumped in with racists and to avoid indulging racist tendencies within your own base. Leaders are supposed to lead, and someone who wants to be president has a vastly greater responsibility to be a leader. Also, the fact that the strongest support for Trump's anti-immigrant views came from the parts of the country that have the fewest immigrants doesn't help. I've known plenty of people who've lived their whole lives within 100 miles of where they were born, in parts of the country where they may not ever actually see a black person, much less anyone from the Middle East or Mexico. People in these homogenous rural communities form (in terms of numbers at least) the core of anti-immigrant sentiment, and yet they also seem to think that strange brown people sneaking into the country is the #1 issue facing America today. It's very hard to look at those views coming from those demographics and not think that there's at least some racism and xenophobia driving those views.
• FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  First off, fantastic tool and thank you for trying to be a part of the solution. However, this does little to solve the actual problem. People are just more likely to not be civil behind closed doors. For example , I frequently commute in Los Angeles traffic. If Im attempting to merge or change lanes with my blinker on, people wont budge or will even speed up. My normally docile mother and girlfriend will expletive laced insults that they never would. They are nicer to people who may waste 5 minutes of their time in person than someone in a car who wastes maybe .01 seconds of their time. When I make direct eye contact with them and force them to acknowledge my basic humanity, no one has ever been a traffic asshole. Conversely, in online gaming apparently the entire 12 yr old population has had coitus with my mother. I had high hopes that the Internet would drastically reduce ignorance and make telling lies much more difficult. This whole election season would be perfect for an episode of Black Mirror.