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Technology and information overload are driving everybody to think their viewpoint is the suppressed majority, feeding a victim mentality. We seem to be workin

by tcbawo 8y ago

Technology and information overload are driving everybody to think their viewpoint is the suppressed majority, feeding a victim mentality. We seem to be working towards more of a massively individual polyculture than monoculture. Also, we shouldn't always project everything into right and left, as there are other orthogonal dimensions for framing policy (eg. authoritarian and individualistic). That's a hidden cost of the creeping politicization of everything.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
There's an interesting thought experiment. Break America in half by general partisan divide - allow for free migration based on political ideology alone. How long would it take before these now wholly 'unified' halves then turn to bitter and polar divisiveness? What would be the new divisive topics? There's probably roughly a 0% chance of success, but Calexit would be a phenomenal social experiment and perhaps something people could learn an immense amount from. On the other hand, there's already an immense amount of information and history people could learn from today. But anything that's inconvenient to 'the' ideology is irrelevant, of course.
- rsj_hn 8y ago
  I don't think it would take long at all, sadly.
rsj_hn 8y ago
I totally agree that this is not a right/left issue per se. There are many competing strains: traditionalists are skeptical of radical social change, but may also be skeptical of turning everything over the free market libertarians just want to be left alone and don't want anyone telling them what to do leftists may be communitarians or anarchists or even neoliberals who want to abolish national borders And people may have different views on different scales -- e.g. I know a lot of Nimby's who oppose new people they don't like moving into their neighborhood and think they should have a right to keep them out, but at the same time support open borders for the nation as a whole. And to be honest, I think there is something to recommend each of these views. Nobody is entirely the enemy. What bothers me is attempts to blacklist arguments/speech or to suppress open debate between these competing views. That really bothers me. It's like you can't just disagree with someone, you have to snuff them out, try to get them fired, and expel the enemy entirely from your view. It's a recipe for disaster.

by tcbawo 8y ago

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

There's an interesting thought experiment. Break America in half by general partisan divide - allow for free migration based on political ideology alone. How long would it take before these now wholly 'unified' halves then turn to bitter and polar divisiveness? What would be the new divisive topics? There's probably roughly a 0% chance of success, but Calexit would be a phenomenal social experiment and perhaps something people could learn an immense amount from. On the other hand, there's already an immense amount of information and history people could learn from today. But anything that's inconvenient to 'the' ideology is irrelevant, of course.

rsj_hn 8y ago
I don't think it would take long at all, sadly.

rsj_hn 8y ago

I totally agree that this is not a right/left issue per se. There are many competing strains: traditionalists are skeptical of radical social change, but may also be skeptical of turning everything over the free market libertarians just want to be left alone and don't want anyone telling them what to do leftists may be communitarians or anarchists or even neoliberals who want to abolish national borders And people may have different views on different scales -- e.g. I know a lot of Nimby's who oppose new people they don't like moving into their neighborhood and think they should have a right to keep them out, but at the same time support open borders for the nation as a whole. And to be honest, I think there is something to recommend each of these views. Nobody is entirely the enemy. What bothers me is attempts to blacklist arguments/speech or to suppress open debate between these competing views. That really bothers me. It's like you can't just disagree with someone, you have to snuff them out, try to get them fired, and expel the enemy entirely from your view. It's a recipe for disaster.