5 ms·

I remember a time in America when a Republican & Democrat could peacefully disagree with dignity, and follow that up with an evening out as friends

rabidrat 8y ago
I remember a time when Republicans and Democrats shared a consistent view of reality.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  This is closer to the truth. I remember when the net first came up, I'd watch my friends in both parties argue online. They'd do some research, agree on the underlying facts, then things would progress. They might never come to agreement, but they began a discussion on the terms of the discussion, which was progress. If done well, everybody could part as friends. This is the dialectic. It's what friends do. It's designed to understand the issue by understanding one another better. This is how productive conversations are supposed to happen. But folks caught on to that, so they started flooding the internet with a lot of rhetoric. Now, if you disagree, there are a hundred sites on your side that are quite happy to provide you with all the emotional ammunition you need. This is argumentation, what lawyers do. It's designed to win at all costs. Conversations are battles to be won. Combine that with some nice rhetorical tricks and there's really no need to discuss facts anymore. Take a look at what education a lot of the talking heads on TV have had. They were trained in rhetoric, the legal profession. That's no accident.
  - goatlover 8y ago
    > This is argumentation, what lawyers do. It's designed to win at all costs. Conversations are battles to be won. Combine that with some nice rhetorical tricks and there's really no need to discuss facts anymore. Sounds like what the ancient Greek sophists taught. That rhetoric was a useful tool for winning debates and being persuasive, particularly in politics.
    - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
      After writing that, that's what I was thinking too. Two thousand years later, and Socrates is still relevant.
    - gaius 8y ago
      That rhetoric was a useful tool for winning debates and being persuasive, particularly in politics But that cuts both ways: two skilled rhetoriticians in debate each won't permit the other to deploy a logical fallacy. Therefore they will always converge on the truth. Rhetoric can only be weaponised when your opponent is unaware of it, and is powerless when they don't care about debate because their mind is already made up.
      - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
        But that cuts both ways: two skilled rhetoriticians in debate each won't permit the other to deploy a logical fallacy. Therefore they will always converge on the truth. Been thinking about this all day. I didn't want to flippantly disagree, but there was something about your comment that bugged me. I think maybe you have overstated. I would phrase it this way: skilled rhetoriticians _tend_ to converge on a semantic definition around the meaning of words and phrases. I don't think they come to any ultimate truth, no matter what the greeks thought. I think what happens in any productive conversation is something more along the lines of shared mental model alignment, which I would argue is vastly more important. Thanks for giving me something to cogitate on yesterday!
  - bachbach 8y ago
    Here is an hypothesis: we know that higher IQ populations are more analytical and that they are capable of supporting abstract positions like Free Speech even if this position gives oxygen to people and ideas they disagree with. If you believe there has been a degeneration then something must have changed. I see three ideas of why that might be so. One is that media like the web and 24 hr news have prioritized rhetoric over substance. Another is that the groups of people living in America/Europe have become dramatically less homogenous in the last 50 years - an obvious spur to tribalism and lastly the Flynn Effect has gone into reverse for some time now although this has been not reported as widely. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flynn%20effect%20reverse https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flynn%20effect%20rever... This is my way of saying that there's a lot of reasons why society is becoming more conflict oriented - we can't all blame Twitter. An unpleasant thought - One might reasonably think that mentioning cultural/racial clustering and then IQ falling is already radioactive territory but my suspicions are darker yet because if group intelligence rises and falls over time then violent conflict could be generated out of a biological-cultural cycle. Orwell made a work of fiction describing how wars were used to destroy resources and perpetuate stagnation - but as some fear - maybe if you have a good time for a while it stirs the forces that undo it. The idea of a peace-war cycle was conventional wisdom centuries ago but we assumed since the invention of WMD that this was suppressed. tldr; Maybe "They'd do some research, agree on the underlying facts, then things would progress." has the correlation and causation mixed up. Maybe that happens in peace time with ample resources and when those dry up so too does our ability to be rational. I hope this is all FUD. "It's not the first time we've seen this kind of dip. Research by Flynn himself that looked at the IQs of British teenagers almost a decade ago observed a similar fall in test scores. "It looks like there is something screwy among British teenagers," Flynn told The Telegraph at the time. "While we have enriched the cognitive environment of children before their teenage years, the cognitive environment of the teenagers has not been enriched."" I didn't want to end on a dismal note of no hope so there's some light over here - https://youtu.be/pi7h6nmkvAM?t=1837 https://youtu.be/pi7h6nmkvAM?t=1837 This topic - on technology enriching the cognitive environment - is a key part of David Krakauer's thinking (Santa Fe Institute President) and I think it is never discussed enough here. If Silicon Valley is to ever get serious about human improvement then it probably should be laser focused on the criticism of people like David.
- gaius 8y ago
  Right; people used to argue over interpretation of facts. Now no one seems to even care about facts, evidence, consistent stories, anything, just who can shout the loudest, debates are won by “shaming” the opponent, and so on. And Facebook has encouraged this because “enragement is engagement”.
- archagon 8y ago
  Or gave some semblance of a shit about checks and balances.
netsharc 8y ago
Is that still possible with one party moving to the extreme? I'm going to use hyperbole to hopefully make my point clear, imagine it's 1930s Germany, could you have an evening out with someone who wants to gas the Jews? One side now lives in an alternate reality and is forcing somewhat objective people (scientists, FBI) to parrot that reality or face punishment...
- fiblye 8y ago
  Both major US parties are headed towards their own extreme, highly skewed views of reality. People deeply rooted in each side think it's only the other side that's crazy. And the media megacorps are playing this up hard, really trying to push that divide to get people to view their reactionary bullshit, bringing in the ad revenue. And it's working probably even better than they intended, since Americans seem to hate each other more than they have in almost 150 years.
  - Daishiman 8y ago
    Please, let's stop with the "both sides" rhetoric. One party's views have not changed dramatically with time, and still have arguments and discussions grounded in reality. Another party's views are being shaped by propagandistic forces that have no interested in basing themselves under any realistic interpretation of reality.
    - oerpli 8y ago
      The fun thing is that I'm pretty sure that someone on the other side could write the exact same thing and sincerely believe it. I am not even sure if I am the dunce here for not getting that you wrote it that way on purpose and I'm explaining you your own joke.
      - archagon 8y ago
        It’s easy to believe things when you’re not bound by the truth.
    - 8y ago
_cerv 8y ago
Where are we going with all of these emotionally charged views? Even looking at the comments here, if you were to refute a claim or challenge a point that originated from a popular narrative, you’re painted as “the enemy”. I can’t be a moderate anymore as calling for dialogue turns into “you’d never negotiate with Nazis, why even compromise with Republicans?!” Is the right answer to dehumanize anyone with viewpoints and a political label different than the “correct” one? Should all Republicans be imprisoned, forcefully re-educated, and have their right to vote stripped from them as they committed the high crime of possibly voting for Trump? I hope to God that it doesn’t take some kind of national unifying event that forcefully pulls us back together, neighbor to neighbor, because it shouldn’t take an immediate threat to survival for us to find common goals and listen to each other’s needs.
- adventured 8y ago
  The national unifying event premise doesn't work regardless. That lasts for five minutes. It took about 24 to 36 months for it to wear off after 9/11, even the wars didn't maintain any meaningful national unity as it pertained to the Bush Administration. The two political camps quickly went back to their camps. > Should all Republicans be imprisoned, forcefully re-educated, and have their right to vote stripped from them as they committed the high crime of possibly voting for Trump? Comically, this is what the far left said was going to happen to them with Trump's Presidency. They're still saying it. John Ashcroft (whose policies I disliked immensely) was supposed to put everyone that disagreed with Bush into gulags. Reagan was going to get us all killed in a nuclear war, because he was crazy. And so on the hysterical behavior goes. Maybe you've seen the insane chanting repetition videos online, where they indoctrinate the left marchers on what to say and how to behave, so they can put on an entirely fake show of protest. It's all about shrieking as loudly as possible to get as much attention as possible, and to intimidate others into capitulating. The concept is, the people that act out the most dramatically win, and get their way. The problem with that is, it loses its effect rapidly, you have to perpetually act crazier. With as bad as it has all become lately, it can get worse yet. That's when the political class will begin locking down the capital and restricting access. We currently have Twitter flooded with death threats on Republican Senators, with the celebrity left saying the most vile, evil things possible about Senator Collins (and Twitter openly allowing it). Rand Paul's wife sent a letter to Cory Booker, pointing out that she now sleeps with a loaded gun next to her bed, because they're receiving endless numbers of death threats. It can't end any other way than the US Government begins locking down its security and access further, cracking down on protest behavior, threats, etc.

rabidrat 8y ago

I remember a time when Republicans and Democrats shared a consistent view of reality.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
This is closer to the truth. I remember when the net first came up, I'd watch my friends in both parties argue online. They'd do some research, agree on the underlying facts, then things would progress. They might never come to agreement, but they began a discussion on the terms of the discussion, which was progress. If done well, everybody could part as friends. This is the dialectic. It's what friends do. It's designed to understand the issue by understanding one another better. This is how productive conversations are supposed to happen. But folks caught on to that, so they started flooding the internet with a lot of rhetoric. Now, if you disagree, there are a hundred sites on your side that are quite happy to provide you with all the emotional ammunition you need. This is argumentation, what lawyers do. It's designed to win at all costs. Conversations are battles to be won. Combine that with some nice rhetorical tricks and there's really no need to discuss facts anymore. Take a look at what education a lot of the talking heads on TV have had. They were trained in rhetoric, the legal profession. That's no accident.
- goatlover 8y ago
  > This is argumentation, what lawyers do. It's designed to win at all costs. Conversations are battles to be won. Combine that with some nice rhetorical tricks and there's really no need to discuss facts anymore. Sounds like what the ancient Greek sophists taught. That rhetoric was a useful tool for winning debates and being persuasive, particularly in politics.
  - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
    After writing that, that's what I was thinking too. Two thousand years later, and Socrates is still relevant.
  - gaius 8y ago
    That rhetoric was a useful tool for winning debates and being persuasive, particularly in politics But that cuts both ways: two skilled rhetoriticians in debate each won't permit the other to deploy a logical fallacy. Therefore they will always converge on the truth. Rhetoric can only be weaponised when your opponent is unaware of it, and is powerless when they don't care about debate because their mind is already made up.
    - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
      But that cuts both ways: two skilled rhetoriticians in debate each won't permit the other to deploy a logical fallacy. Therefore they will always converge on the truth. Been thinking about this all day. I didn't want to flippantly disagree, but there was something about your comment that bugged me. I think maybe you have overstated. I would phrase it this way: skilled rhetoriticians _tend_ to converge on a semantic definition around the meaning of words and phrases. I don't think they come to any ultimate truth, no matter what the greeks thought. I think what happens in any productive conversation is something more along the lines of shared mental model alignment, which I would argue is vastly more important. Thanks for giving me something to cogitate on yesterday!
- bachbach 8y ago
  Here is an hypothesis: we know that higher IQ populations are more analytical and that they are capable of supporting abstract positions like Free Speech even if this position gives oxygen to people and ideas they disagree with. If you believe there has been a degeneration then something must have changed. I see three ideas of why that might be so. One is that media like the web and 24 hr news have prioritized rhetoric over substance. Another is that the groups of people living in America/Europe have become dramatically less homogenous in the last 50 years - an obvious spur to tribalism and lastly the Flynn Effect has gone into reverse for some time now although this has been not reported as widely. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flynn%20effect%20reverse https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flynn%20effect%20rever... This is my way of saying that there's a lot of reasons why society is becoming more conflict oriented - we can't all blame Twitter. An unpleasant thought - One might reasonably think that mentioning cultural/racial clustering and then IQ falling is already radioactive territory but my suspicions are darker yet because if group intelligence rises and falls over time then violent conflict could be generated out of a biological-cultural cycle. Orwell made a work of fiction describing how wars were used to destroy resources and perpetuate stagnation - but as some fear - maybe if you have a good time for a while it stirs the forces that undo it. The idea of a peace-war cycle was conventional wisdom centuries ago but we assumed since the invention of WMD that this was suppressed. tldr; Maybe "They'd do some research, agree on the underlying facts, then things would progress." has the correlation and causation mixed up. Maybe that happens in peace time with ample resources and when those dry up so too does our ability to be rational. I hope this is all FUD. "It's not the first time we've seen this kind of dip. Research by Flynn himself that looked at the IQs of British teenagers almost a decade ago observed a similar fall in test scores. "It looks like there is something screwy among British teenagers," Flynn told The Telegraph at the time. "While we have enriched the cognitive environment of children before their teenage years, the cognitive environment of the teenagers has not been enriched."" I didn't want to end on a dismal note of no hope so there's some light over here - https://youtu.be/pi7h6nmkvAM?t=1837 https://youtu.be/pi7h6nmkvAM?t=1837 This topic - on technology enriching the cognitive environment - is a key part of David Krakauer's thinking (Santa Fe Institute President) and I think it is never discussed enough here. If Silicon Valley is to ever get serious about human improvement then it probably should be laser focused on the criticism of people like David.
gaius 8y ago
Right; people used to argue over interpretation of facts. Now no one seems to even care about facts, evidence, consistent stories, anything, just who can shout the loudest, debates are won by “shaming” the opponent, and so on. And Facebook has encouraged this because “enragement is engagement”.
archagon 8y ago
Or gave some semblance of a shit about checks and balances.

netsharc 8y ago

Is that still possible with one party moving to the extreme? I'm going to use hyperbole to hopefully make my point clear, imagine it's 1930s Germany, could you have an evening out with someone who wants to gas the Jews? One side now lives in an alternate reality and is forcing somewhat objective people (scientists, FBI) to parrot that reality or face punishment...

fiblye 8y ago
Both major US parties are headed towards their own extreme, highly skewed views of reality. People deeply rooted in each side think it's only the other side that's crazy. And the media megacorps are playing this up hard, really trying to push that divide to get people to view their reactionary bullshit, bringing in the ad revenue. And it's working probably even better than they intended, since Americans seem to hate each other more than they have in almost 150 years.
- Daishiman 8y ago
  Please, let's stop with the "both sides" rhetoric. One party's views have not changed dramatically with time, and still have arguments and discussions grounded in reality. Another party's views are being shaped by propagandistic forces that have no interested in basing themselves under any realistic interpretation of reality.
  - oerpli 8y ago
    The fun thing is that I'm pretty sure that someone on the other side could write the exact same thing and sincerely believe it. I am not even sure if I am the dunce here for not getting that you wrote it that way on purpose and I'm explaining you your own joke.
    - archagon 8y ago
      It’s easy to believe things when you’re not bound by the truth.
  - 8y ago

_cerv 8y ago

Where are we going with all of these emotionally charged views? Even looking at the comments here, if you were to refute a claim or challenge a point that originated from a popular narrative, you’re painted as “the enemy”. I can’t be a moderate anymore as calling for dialogue turns into “you’d never negotiate with Nazis, why even compromise with Republicans?!” Is the right answer to dehumanize anyone with viewpoints and a political label different than the “correct” one? Should all Republicans be imprisoned, forcefully re-educated, and have their right to vote stripped from them as they committed the high crime of possibly voting for Trump? I hope to God that it doesn’t take some kind of national unifying event that forcefully pulls us back together, neighbor to neighbor, because it shouldn’t take an immediate threat to survival for us to find common goals and listen to each other’s needs.

adventured 8y ago
The national unifying event premise doesn't work regardless. That lasts for five minutes. It took about 24 to 36 months for it to wear off after 9/11, even the wars didn't maintain any meaningful national unity as it pertained to the Bush Administration. The two political camps quickly went back to their camps. > Should all Republicans be imprisoned, forcefully re-educated, and have their right to vote stripped from them as they committed the high crime of possibly voting for Trump? Comically, this is what the far left said was going to happen to them with Trump's Presidency. They're still saying it. John Ashcroft (whose policies I disliked immensely) was supposed to put everyone that disagreed with Bush into gulags. Reagan was going to get us all killed in a nuclear war, because he was crazy. And so on the hysterical behavior goes. Maybe you've seen the insane chanting repetition videos online, where they indoctrinate the left marchers on what to say and how to behave, so they can put on an entirely fake show of protest. It's all about shrieking as loudly as possible to get as much attention as possible, and to intimidate others into capitulating. The concept is, the people that act out the most dramatically win, and get their way. The problem with that is, it loses its effect rapidly, you have to perpetually act crazier. With as bad as it has all become lately, it can get worse yet. That's when the political class will begin locking down the capital and restricting access. We currently have Twitter flooded with death threats on Republican Senators, with the celebrity left saying the most vile, evil things possible about Senator Collins (and Twitter openly allowing it). Rand Paul's wife sent a letter to Cory Booker, pointing out that she now sleeps with a loaded gun next to her bed, because they're receiving endless numbers of death threats. It can't end any other way than the US Government begins locking down its security and access further, cracking down on protest behavior, threats, etc.