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There’s no practical or ideological need to create a separate society—or really a separate anything—simply because of a difference in political opinion. The lef

There’s no practical or ideological need to create a separate society—or really a separate anything—simply because of a difference in political opinion. The left and right are technically in agreement on a huge number of issues and could easily compromise on many others. There has always been room for these discussions within civil society. A major issue seems to be literal lies and disinformation spreading over social media which makes that divide appear to be much greater than it actually is. If these blatant lies can be prevented then the left and right will have a much easier time coming to political compromises when running the country. Having shared primary ballots would also help a lot to prevent the most radical wings of each party from dominating, because then each party’s candidate would have to appeal to all voters rather than their own.

jlkuester7 6y ago
I agree that the amount of "blatant lies" adhered to by large chunks of American citizens is causing/exacerbating our socio-political issues. But I also agree that changing social media is probably not enough. American politics has become an arms race of increasingly polarizing ideologies none of which are particularly appealing/helpful to normal people. Shared primary ballots is a good start, but it seems like the most meaningful change to our political system would be implementing a system of ranked voting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting). Among other things, that would help break the two-party nightmare cased by first-past-the-post voting.
- pas 6y ago
  https://electionscience.org/ https://electionscience.org/ http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/elections/approval_voting_lwv/#1 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/elections/approval_voting_lwv... St. Louis in November passed approval voting. ( https://electionscience.org/press-releases/diverse-coalition-brings-approval-voting-nonpartisan-election-reforms-to-st-louis/ https://electionscience.org/press-releases/diverse-coalition... )
bazooka_penguin 6y ago
The practical reason is that people are extremely agitated and even if they're a fraction of the country that's still enough people for civil conflict. I think you're being a little dismissive of the fact that people are emotionally engaged and FAANG taking down parler is not only further agitating angry people but drawing more people, especially those of whom who hate and distrust "big tech", into the political divide. This isn't a knock against their decision to decouple themselves from parler, but just an observation that these actions are making people angrier than they already were. When you have two spouses who hate each others' guts and haven't been able to stand each other for years, with no improvement in sight, divorce is probably the right decision. I think the lies and conspiracies are just a manifestation or side effect of the social and political divide. Its like imagining someone you already hate. "They're plotting against me", "they're going to get me", "they probably spilled that milk on purpose to piss me off", etc. And I think there is some substance to the hate, not to the conspiracy, but I see that our society has gotten to this point for real reasons and disagreements that can't be compromised on edit: typos
- collyw 6y ago
  > especially those of whom who hate and distrust "big tech" Does anyone actually trust big tech at this stage? I thought it was just a case of how much you distrust them.

jlkuester7 6y ago

I agree that the amount of "blatant lies" adhered to by large chunks of American citizens is causing/exacerbating our socio-political issues. But I also agree that changing social media is probably not enough. American politics has become an arms race of increasingly polarizing ideologies none of which are particularly appealing/helpful to normal people. Shared primary ballots is a good start, but it seems like the most meaningful change to our political system would be implementing a system of ranked voting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting). Among other things, that would help break the two-party nightmare cased by first-past-the-post voting.

pas 6y ago
https://electionscience.org/ https://electionscience.org/ http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/elections/approval_voting_lwv/#1 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/elections/approval_voting_lwv... St. Louis in November passed approval voting. ( https://electionscience.org/press-releases/diverse-coalition-brings-approval-voting-nonpartisan-election-reforms-to-st-louis/ https://electionscience.org/press-releases/diverse-coalition... )

bazooka_penguin 6y ago

The practical reason is that people are extremely agitated and even if they're a fraction of the country that's still enough people for civil conflict. I think you're being a little dismissive of the fact that people are emotionally engaged and FAANG taking down parler is not only further agitating angry people but drawing more people, especially those of whom who hate and distrust "big tech", into the political divide. This isn't a knock against their decision to decouple themselves from parler, but just an observation that these actions are making people angrier than they already were. When you have two spouses who hate each others' guts and haven't been able to stand each other for years, with no improvement in sight, divorce is probably the right decision. I think the lies and conspiracies are just a manifestation or side effect of the social and political divide. Its like imagining someone you already hate. "They're plotting against me", "they're going to get me", "they probably spilled that milk on purpose to piss me off", etc. And I think there is some substance to the hate, not to the conspiracy, but I see that our society has gotten to this point for real reasons and disagreements that can't be compromised on edit: typos

collyw 6y ago
> especially those of whom who hate and distrust "big tech" Does anyone actually trust big tech at this stage? I thought it was just a case of how much you distrust them.