After the Trump election where I interestingly enough found myself agreeing with a lot of the critique of the current political system coming from both Sanders

After the Trump election where I interestingly enough found myself agreeing with a lot of the critique of the current political system coming from both Sanders and Trump even though I would normally consider myself part of the liberal political spectrum (pro-abortion, against the death sentence, couldn't care less if gay people get married etc) I started digging into things I had taken for granted such as Breibart being this racist place that only does fake news, Ben Shapiro probably was pretty extreme because he was alt right etc, Milo was a racist homophobe, Bannon was a white supremacist etc. It ended up being a 6-month journey where I actually sat down and listened to what they had to say, which luckily is now possible because of the long interview formats that's been popping up on youtube like Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin etc. And I must say that while I am still pro-abortion, pro gets married to whomever you want etc. I have a much better appreciation for what people I disagree with actually are saying and I can listen to it and actually argue without shaming them simply for being on the "wrong side". None of those people were the moral monsters I would normally read about whenever the alt-right was described. They were mostly people who actually could argue for their positions, positions I didn't always agree with but at least now understood better. I have personally experienced now being shamed and people trying to go after my business simply because of some of my comments, even on HN. The real danger of misinformation is the one we create for ourselves when we listen to what others say and interpret that. I like the term strong-manning instead of straw-manning i.e. trying to position the argument of whoever you are debating in the strongest possible position rather than trying to go after their morals as the first thing. In other words, most misinformation is the way we interpret things ourselves, not what was said or meant. I would encourage you anyone to try just once in their life to take the "other sides" arguments seriously, hear them out and then figure out what exactly you disagree with them about and whether it's actually as much as you think when all comes to all.