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> In the USA, if you are unreasonable, you're most likely on the right. Most reasonable people are clustered with the left. And a minority of unreasonable peopl

> In the USA, if you are unreasonable, you're most likely on the right. Most reasonable people are clustered with the left. And a minority of unreasonable people are also on the left, with another minority of reasonable people clustered on the right. I don't think it's fair to generalize 330 million people like this. Certainly it feels like there are more reality-denying theories peddled by right wing media, but that could be for a variety of reasons, not limited to: 1. Right wing media is louder in their publicizing of these issues 2. Your media sources are more liberal and you view right wing media outlets as "unreasonable" I am not American, but I have American friends. You cannot generalize political beliefs into who is reasonable or unreasonable in all their beliefs. Politics is a spectrum, and right now in America you have the loudest people screaming from the extreme right and (IMHO) the centre left. If you identify as more liberal, you're far more inclined to view this coverage as "reasonable" compared to more right leaning coverage. > Effectively, the right averages to be unreasonable, and the left to be reasonable. I find the media reflect that quite well. No, this is the current media situation in America. In other countries this kind of propaganda from both sides of the political spectrum is not as prominent, and it's far easier to have a rational and reasonable debate about political issues. You can draw your own conclusions about America, but please do not come away with the impression that all right-leaning people are unreasonable. It's a big world, and this most certainly is not the case in other countries. I'd argue it's also not the case in America. American media has just been hijacked by the most loud, extreme group of people (from both sides) because the executives have figured out this style of coverage earns more money. From an outside view, American news media has basically turned into The Jerry Springer Show. It's trashy and devoid of almost any meaningful content, but people watch it to be entertained.

slice_of_life 9y ago
> but please do not come away with the impression that all right-leaning people are unreasonable Nor that even MOST right leaning people are unreasonable. It's all a matter of vantage point. Edit: grammar
- didibus 9y ago
  I don't think it's a matter of vintage point. It's all about intention. You can work to be more reasonable if you choose to. You can teach people to be more reasonable. Its a skill, a quality that everyone healthy can choose to practice or not. I don't even know what right or left leaning imply. That whole categorization is a joke. Tell me what you want, why you want it and how you believe will work best to get it. Only after that's been cleared up can we start discussing meaningfully. What I do know though is that in the media, in the USA, in 2017 (it hasn't always been this way), most unreasonable people making noise associsate themselves with the right and like to associate reasonable people with the left.
  - slice_of_life 9y ago
    > That whole categorization is a joke It's a very serious distinction. One which wars have been fought over many times over (from the french revolution to the cold war). To trivialize it is more than naive. > Tell me what you want, why you want it and how you believe will work best to get it There are many things I personally want but underlying it all is the idea of non-egalitarianism. I want structure in any society where merit and hard-work are given the utmost priority. Why do I want it? Because it is the most natural and most proven way to create proper incentive structures for the best outcome for other humans and myself. How will I get it? First of all, remove most, if not all, government involvement in citizens' affairs. Allow for free markets to prevail and for the best ideas and the best people to rise to the top. I will take aristocracy over democracy any day. Democracy has become a tool that's been used to take away the liberties of individuals in the guise of freedom and equality.
    - didibus 9y ago
      The American right and the French revolution right are competly different things, which is another good reason for me to believe the categorization is a joke. They've lost meaning, and serve only to avoid talking details, they naturally lead to partisanship. From what you said, we could have a reasonable conversation, but you sound more libertarian then the current American right. Here lies the issue of affiliation. You sound reasonable, but if you affiliate yourself with breitbart, fox news, and the rest of the leading right, you're associating yourself with a lot of unreasonable people in position of power. And since you've mentioned soviet communism and german fascism before, you might know that's exactly how reasonable people got tricked in the past also.
didibus 9y ago
I tried to be explicit about saying USA more then once, specifically because what I'm saying is not about other countries in the world, and wouldn't apply. Certain countries have vastly different distributions, with most unreasonable people on the left instead. Others have an equal split, etc. Oh, and I actually feel like you can very easilly model politics with two categories of reasonable and unreasonable. It's a much better model then the right vs left one.
wfo 9y ago
To be fair, the entire political spectrum in America is far right of anything in any other developed country. And so I agree with you, not all right-leaning people are unreasonable, take the US Democratic party, who I am to the left of but I consider reasonable. They are right-leaning -- they are a pro-business centrist conservative party. Democrats are so conservative they do not even support universal healthcare. Imagine in your country if the left wing party proudly campaigned to deny healthcare to the poor, but the right wing campaigned to deny healthcare to even more poor people and to give that money to the ultrawealthy. We have an actual left wing and its policy positions are popular if you take polls but there is almost no political representation of it or platform for it in traditional media. It's tempting to pull out "both sides" rhetoric because reasonable people sympathize with others and try to see things from their point of view and assume since they believe something, there must be a grain of truth to it so they always feel like they should compromise. The problem is unreasonable people (or simply malicious ones) will take advantage of this impulse every single time and have been for decades. "But both sides!" is the climate that guarantees it's going to be impossible to have a rational or reasonable debate about political issues -- approaching a political debate assuming a compromise is inevitable and the other side is just as reasonable as you are is just accepting defeat before a single word is spoken. In this context, if both parties approach it with good faith debate can happen, but if not (as is our current situation) whoever is the most extreme always wins.

slice_of_life 9y ago

> but please do not come away with the impression that all right-leaning people are unreasonable Nor that even MOST right leaning people are unreasonable. It's all a matter of vantage point. Edit: grammar

didibus 9y ago
I don't think it's a matter of vintage point. It's all about intention. You can work to be more reasonable if you choose to. You can teach people to be more reasonable. Its a skill, a quality that everyone healthy can choose to practice or not. I don't even know what right or left leaning imply. That whole categorization is a joke. Tell me what you want, why you want it and how you believe will work best to get it. Only after that's been cleared up can we start discussing meaningfully. What I do know though is that in the media, in the USA, in 2017 (it hasn't always been this way), most unreasonable people making noise associsate themselves with the right and like to associate reasonable people with the left.
- slice_of_life 9y ago
  > That whole categorization is a joke It's a very serious distinction. One which wars have been fought over many times over (from the french revolution to the cold war). To trivialize it is more than naive. > Tell me what you want, why you want it and how you believe will work best to get it There are many things I personally want but underlying it all is the idea of non-egalitarianism. I want structure in any society where merit and hard-work are given the utmost priority. Why do I want it? Because it is the most natural and most proven way to create proper incentive structures for the best outcome for other humans and myself. How will I get it? First of all, remove most, if not all, government involvement in citizens' affairs. Allow for free markets to prevail and for the best ideas and the best people to rise to the top. I will take aristocracy over democracy any day. Democracy has become a tool that's been used to take away the liberties of individuals in the guise of freedom and equality.
  - didibus 9y ago
    The American right and the French revolution right are competly different things, which is another good reason for me to believe the categorization is a joke. They've lost meaning, and serve only to avoid talking details, they naturally lead to partisanship. From what you said, we could have a reasonable conversation, but you sound more libertarian then the current American right. Here lies the issue of affiliation. You sound reasonable, but if you affiliate yourself with breitbart, fox news, and the rest of the leading right, you're associating yourself with a lot of unreasonable people in position of power. And since you've mentioned soviet communism and german fascism before, you might know that's exactly how reasonable people got tricked in the past also.

didibus 9y ago

I tried to be explicit about saying USA more then once, specifically because what I'm saying is not about other countries in the world, and wouldn't apply. Certain countries have vastly different distributions, with most unreasonable people on the left instead. Others have an equal split, etc. Oh, and I actually feel like you can very easilly model politics with two categories of reasonable and unreasonable. It's a much better model then the right vs left one.

wfo 9y ago

To be fair, the entire political spectrum in America is far right of anything in any other developed country. And so I agree with you, not all right-leaning people are unreasonable, take the US Democratic party, who I am to the left of but I consider reasonable. They are right-leaning -- they are a pro-business centrist conservative party. Democrats are so conservative they do not even support universal healthcare. Imagine in your country if the left wing party proudly campaigned to deny healthcare to the poor, but the right wing campaigned to deny healthcare to even more poor people and to give that money to the ultrawealthy. We have an actual left wing and its policy positions are popular if you take polls but there is almost no political representation of it or platform for it in traditional media. It's tempting to pull out "both sides" rhetoric because reasonable people sympathize with others and try to see things from their point of view and assume since they believe something, there must be a grain of truth to it so they always feel like they should compromise. The problem is unreasonable people (or simply malicious ones) will take advantage of this impulse every single time and have been for decades. "But both sides!" is the climate that guarantees it's going to be impossible to have a rational or reasonable debate about political issues -- approaching a political debate assuming a compromise is inevitable and the other side is just as reasonable as you are is just accepting defeat before a single word is spoken. In this context, if both parties approach it with good faith debate can happen, but if not (as is our current situation) whoever is the most extreme always wins.