Free association leads to the much-lamented "echo chambers" though, and "polarization." But maybe that's the best we can hope for. Actually the biggest problem

Free association leads to the much-lamented "echo chambers" though, and "polarization." But maybe that's the best we can hope for. Actually the biggest problem with "polarization" in my book is that there are only two poles, at least in the US. And the only real reason for lamenting "echo chambers" is some sense that "we all" need to get along. But that's only because "we" are "all" cooped up together, forced to associate and to share large and insufficiently flexible political organizations -- whether it's the too-few nationally-viable political parties or the too-big nation itself. In other words maybe it's still just a problem of insufficiently-free association. If I could freely associate, at not too great a cost, with some political party or nation that aligned perfectly with my values, I would do it and probably should. But then cynically I suppose those nations would then start warring with each other if you didn't separate them strongly like little kids on the fucking playground. Sigh, time to get drunk.