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Good luck holding this worldview on places like twitter. I feel like certain kinds of individuals think that they have social momentum on their "side" which br

Good luck holding this worldview on places like twitter. I feel like certain kinds of individuals think that they have social momentum on their "side" which brings out their true colors: they don't care. In other words they feel that they are "winning". They are the insufferable authoritarians that polluted the right many years ago in their rigid thinking but they are now a very vocal minority on the left. At least I hope they are a minority but I wonder. The internet has made outcomes immediate. The internet has also removed the human element of social interaction. I think these two mix in a terrible way. I have no idea what can or should be done about it though.

tacitusarc 6y ago
It's not a right or left thing. The natural human tendency, the base state, is fundamentally tribal in nature and the objective is to win, to beat the other tribes. The recent push to censor and silence dissent isn't an anomaly: the several hundreds years post enlightenment that gave us the ideas of individual rights and freedoms were the anomaly. I also do not believe anyone advocating the censoring of others has been themselves censored, or put in a minority position where they were afraid to express dissent. Because if you have that experience, it tends to give one a dim view of censorship.
- atq2119 6y ago
  The natural human tendency, the base state, is fundamentally tribal in nature [citation needed] The problem with your statement isn't the claim that tribal behaviours are a natural tendency in humans. Of course they are. The problem is your claim that they are somehow primary. There are many other tendencies of comparable weight, and how strongly they are expressed relative to each other depends very much on the individual. Not to mention that when it comes to tribal instincts, there's a huge difference between individuals as to what they perceive their tribe to be. Their nuclear family? Their town/state/country? Their profession? Participants in their hobby? Their "race"? All of humanity?
  - tomnipotent 6y ago
    > [citation needed] Pretty much the whole of human history? There's no shortage of examples. To the contrary, it's more difficult to find examples that do not demonstrate tribalism. > difference between individuals as to what they perceive their tribe to be This is a recent luxury that hasn't existed for more than a century. Other than a few cultures here and there that encouraged blended demographics (usually as a consequence of conquest, think Rome).
    - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
      Humans aren't THAT tribal - if they were civilization would never grow beyond small kingdoms, yet here we are with nations in the millions (one in the billions). It's not perfect there but most of the world is currently functioning.
tjpnz 6y ago
Thankfully that's just Twitter and isn't representative of the wider population.

tacitusarc 6y ago

It's not a right or left thing. The natural human tendency, the base state, is fundamentally tribal in nature and the objective is to win, to beat the other tribes. The recent push to censor and silence dissent isn't an anomaly: the several hundreds years post enlightenment that gave us the ideas of individual rights and freedoms were the anomaly. I also do not believe anyone advocating the censoring of others has been themselves censored, or put in a minority position where they were afraid to express dissent. Because if you have that experience, it tends to give one a dim view of censorship.

atq2119 6y ago
The natural human tendency, the base state, is fundamentally tribal in nature [citation needed] The problem with your statement isn't the claim that tribal behaviours are a natural tendency in humans. Of course they are. The problem is your claim that they are somehow primary. There are many other tendencies of comparable weight, and how strongly they are expressed relative to each other depends very much on the individual. Not to mention that when it comes to tribal instincts, there's a huge difference between individuals as to what they perceive their tribe to be. Their nuclear family? Their town/state/country? Their profession? Participants in their hobby? Their "race"? All of humanity?
- tomnipotent 6y ago
  > [citation needed] Pretty much the whole of human history? There's no shortage of examples. To the contrary, it's more difficult to find examples that do not demonstrate tribalism. > difference between individuals as to what they perceive their tribe to be This is a recent luxury that hasn't existed for more than a century. Other than a few cultures here and there that encouraged blended demographics (usually as a consequence of conquest, think Rome).
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    Humans aren't THAT tribal - if they were civilization would never grow beyond small kingdoms, yet here we are with nations in the millions (one in the billions). It's not perfect there but most of the world is currently functioning.

tjpnz 6y ago

Thankfully that's just Twitter and isn't representative of the wider population.