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The funny thing is that everyone commenting here thinks that we're headed towards an authoritarian nightmare, but for different reasons. It's not until you sit

• ayngg 5y ago
  I think it largely comes from a lack of empathy that has been cultivated for a while now through the loss of social cohesion. It seems like across the board (families, friends, local communities, spouses etc), people are suffering socially and turn to insular groups on social media to cope.
  • dools 5y ago
    I don't think empathy has anything to do with it, and I think that both-sidesing is one of the biggest challenges we face. The trend that I see as most damaging is denialism as a mainstream philosophy. Denialism leads to distrust and fuels libertarinism, which, by it's very design, is a philosophy of decohesion. The beginnings of my education on denial came from people fighting one of the largest denialist projects in history, but the strategies across all forms of denial are very similar. It's worth studying in-depth: https://www.nizkor.org https://www.nizkor.org
    • Nemrod67 5y ago
  • Robotbeat 5y ago
    Yeah, I think the only way out of this is empathy. You don't have to think both sides are morally or rationally the same to have empathy for both sides. The alternative is either mass slaughter or mass displacement, at the extremes. You can't eliminate your "enemy" without either murdering/displacing them or somehow coming to terms with them (ideally, being friends with them). MLK got this right, and he was able to say this without compromising in one iota his stances on social justice, class justice, etc.
    • mschuster91 5y ago
      Why should one have empathy with people who deny other peoples' basic human rights simply because of their gender, sexual orientation or religion? Back in 1939 the world decided they had enough of my ancestors (I'm German) and put a stop to bigotry by using force. These days, such views can get you elected to US Presidency. What a goddamn shame.
      • account42 5y ago
        > Why should one have empathy with people who deny other peoples' basic human rights simply because of their gender, sexual orientation or religion? Because if you don't, why should they have empathy for you?
        • MagnumOpus 5y ago
          Trick question, they will not have empathy for you either way. The paradox of tolerance is not a novel idea, and people from Plato to Popper have chewed through it, and it is pretty much incontrovertible by now that the only way that a society can remain open and tolerant is to not tolerate intolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
          • naasking 5y ago
            > and it is pretty much incontrovertible by now that the only way that a society can remain open and tolerant is to not tolerate intolerance. That is literally NOT what Popper says. Your own link refutes that point in Popper's own words.
  • puffoflogic 5y ago
    On the contrary, studies have shown that this comes from an excess of empathy. Studies have shown that when empathy is controlled chemically, increased empathy correlates positively to increased tribalism.
    • ayngg 5y ago
      Interesting, what sort of studies should I look into if I wanted to look into this?
• givemeethekeys 5y ago
  Fear leads to a loss of freedom. When we're afraid, we give power to politicians that promise deal with it swiftly. Pre-pandemic, the right had a monopoly on fear-based politicking. Then the pandemic hit and the left finally got their turn to exercise it. Has the war on terror stopped? No? When do we get to hop onto a plane without undressing ourselves? Oh, but now there's a war against viruses? So you have to undress yourself and take a shot. Next, there will be a war on climate change. You'll have to undress yourself, take a shot, and prove that you only took public transit to the airport, and that you haven't eaten beef for 48 hours prior because it leads to more gas from farts, which is bad for the environment. When the next financial crisis hits (and it hasn't yet), and a large number of middle class people get wiped out again, there will be legislation to protect retail investors from the volatility of the stork market. You must go to a certified and licensed financial professional for your wealth planning. The appropriate politician from the left or right will run for office and get voted in because when most people fear something, they vote against freedom. /rant
  • cloutchaser 5y ago
    While the right certainly had their fear based issues before the pandemic, it’s a bit of a stretch to say the left didn’t. Trump was going to become a dictator. We had 12 years to go living on earth 4 years ago. Apparently almost everyone is a white supremacist… I could go on. Why didn’t Obama revoke the patriot act if he was so on the side of non fear? Or allow more whistleblowing.
    • Swenrekcah 5y ago
      European perspective here: Trump was definitely trying to make himself a dictator, just look at how he handled losing an election. Please don’t vote him in again America. Agree on moral panic issues though.
      • hnuser847 5y ago
        He was handed a global pandemic in which it was completely permissible for leaders to take on unprecedented, unlimited emergency powers, and yet he did nothing. He was actually criticized for not using his emergency powers to implement an (unconstitutional) national lockdown. If his true goal was to become a dictator, why did he do nothing when he was given the perfect opportunity?
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• jimkleiber 5y ago
  I was noticing that pattern as well, many people seem to be hurling the same insult but from opposite sides. In a way, it worries me, because the words lose their theoretical meaning and stand more for the assumed malevolence of the other side. If I could wish one thing on the world at this moment it would be for us to realize that most of the people who we believe are attacking us don't actually believe that they are attacking us, just as they believe we are attacking them and we don't believe that we are.
  • dools 5y ago
    Yep. I had this conversation with my daughter the other day. She was like "But ... they just think the same thing about what you're saying". I was like "Totally, the only difference is that I'm right, and they're wrong". She was like "how do you know?". That lead to a much longer session of reviewing types of biases and fallacies, the scientific method and various other critical thinking tools I've developed over the years, but whoever is on the "other side" is having the same conversation with their kids, and showing them tools and resources they've developed over the years to decide what information to trust and, to the kid, it's just as convincing!! This was one of the videos we looked at, I think it's totally on point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvk2PQNcg8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvk2PQNcg8w
    • jimkleiber 5y ago
      Lol exactly. This is why I try to remind myself to pay attention to how I and others may be feeling underneath, and have even dedicated my professional life to it, because I have honed very strong rationalizing skills. I find often the people who disagree with me the strongest can also go toe-to-toe with me in finding stories and evidence that confirms our beliefs and if I remember (and have the courage), I try to go deeper to talk about how I'm feeling afraid of this, this, and this, angry about this and this, ashamed of this, and so on, and try to imagine how they might be feeling across those contexts, and more often than not, realize we're both two humans trying our best. But goodness I can avoid going there sometimes, and if I do get there, it can be after a long long discussion with someone, and sometimes one or both of us gives up before we get to that point.
• rapnie 5y ago
  Wondering to what extent the growing "left vs. right" divide is mostly artificially created as a distractionary strategy to keep attention away from the very real and growing divide of the Have's and Have-not's. And prolong the unfettered capitalism that nowadays is best-served with flawed democracies or even outright autocracy.
  • dools 5y ago
    I think what you've hit on is that the real struggle, which is between labour and capital, has been replaced by a grab bag of issues that pitch themselves as being anti-authoritarian.
  • dgb23 5y ago
    The left/right divide has been traditionally on the "very real and growing divide of the Have's and Have-not's". Republicanism vs monarchy, socialism vs capitalism, libertarianism vs authoritarianism, anarchism vs fascism... It always has been about "power be in the hands of the many" vs "the few". Often there is much nuance to be added, both in the moment and over time as categories are gradual, complex and changing. Some have been more consistent or radical, some focus on a narrower part or are generally more moderate. But it's the same essential struggle but has different faces throughout history. There is also the issue when hierarchical side dominates, then the divide seems almost arbitrary, because you only get to have radicals of one side and moderates who keep trying to put band-aids over things.
  • Nasrudith 5y ago
    Your distinction is just as artificial as left vs right. Fanatics and fundamentalists also always think everything they aren't obsessed in is a distraction deliberately engineered to undermine their oh so important cause.
• slightwinder 5y ago
  Common enemies unite. It doesn't matter what divides you, if you only fight against what unites you. Coalitions and compromises are normal in a healthy society. It's more insane that people are willingly poison society, just because someone has a different stance on an unrelated topic.
• raxxorrax 5y ago
  The "political right" (which doesn' really include classical conservatives) is correct on the topic to err on the side of freedom in regards to information. I believe there is freedom to be gained through individualism and collectivism both, but the topic of censorship doesn't touch that in my opinion. It is as you said, this even connects people that have different beliefs about sensible policy.
  • dools 5y ago
    Yes, I think what you've said encapsulates my personal opinion (not from the OP but what I believe nonetheless): that classical conservatism is no longer the "right wing", that it has been entirely supplanted by libertarianism.
• matthewdgreen 5y ago
  I would like to hear a long-form version that actually spells out your argument. I think we’re headed towards an authoritarian nightmare because politicians worldwide seem to be interested in tearing up the democratic process. Others seem to think we’re headed towards an authoritarian nightmare because YouTube takes down some videos. These things don’t seem comparable to me, but your comment makes me think I’m missing something important.
  • brightstep 5y ago
    They're not comparable if you see YouTube as just a company. But you can look at it differently. It is also an organization with total authority over a widely used realm of global public discourse. It can use that power to determine what you hear and see, including both censorship and promotion via "the algorithm". It has massive economic and political influence. Careers are built on its platform, and it has effectively unlimited resources to manipulate politicians and effect policies to its benefit. All this, and it is 100% undemocratic, unresponsive in nearly every way to even those within the organization much less the greater public. To be clear, governments turning away from even what is mostly limited representative democracy is very worrying. But it's also fair to worry about corporate power.
  • marcellus23 5y ago
    They’re interrelated - YouTube is an arm of the media industrial complex as much as the New York Times is. What it chooses to broadcast or not affects the public consciousness.
  • nradov 5y ago
    I think what you're missing is that social media companies are now essentially acting as government propaganda outlets and actively suppressing dissent. Some people believe that the current pandemic justifies suppressing "misinformation", but obviously once the government has that power they're going to use it for other purposes as well. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/563547-hypocritical-psaki-leads-chilling-effort-to-flag-misinformation https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/563547-hypocritical-...
• naasking 5y ago
  > It's not until you sit with someone and nut out what they mean by "authoritarian" and "censorship" and so on that you realise you're completely morally and politically opposed to them. Shared enemies makes for strange bedfellows. If some group in power is threatening groups B and C, even if B and C otherwise hate each other they will band together and fight for their own survival. Creeping censorship will ultimately always self-defeating for this reason. You'll win some early victories against the extreme fringe that no one supports, but it never ends there.
• argvargc 5y ago
  Some of us are already living an authoritarian nightmare. One that we weren't living two years ago, regardless of politics. It's not up for debate, it's up for acknowledgement.
• giantg2 5y ago
  "Yet each writer is convinced that the other’s policy leads directly to slavery, and the alarming thing is that they may both be right." So true. My view is that the more involved "the system" gets in people's lives with laws dictating what can and cannot be done (for increasingly trivial things, or by abusing the legal process!), the more people will be negatively affected. People mostly only care about what affects them, or only see what affects them. This essentially lead to a simple majority forcing a substantial minority to do, or refrain from doing, something. Yet the members of that majority may find themselves being similarly forced as a member of the substantial minority on a different subject.
  • prox 5y ago
    Social (global) media means that that One Thing You Oppose can now be found quickly. Don’t like X, well X is happening somewhere. Whereas information used to be much more siloed, and therefore problems at least seemed much more local.
• tekknik 5y ago
  > This shallow political take is what allows so many strange bedfellows to unite on the "political right" (which is no longer really a relevant tag). I find it interesting that when someone goes the extra mile and posts a long and we’ll thought out article attempting to undo this massive divide cause by this mistrust that within the first few comments you find someone stating in a very condescending way that republicans are idiots. You’re doing more harm than whatever good you think you’re doing. Nobody is going to be shamed into believing your beliefs. That should be clear by now.
• Nasrudith 5y ago
  Personally I have major dystopian rhetoric fatigue and think thr answer is that they need to collectively shut the hell up about authoritarian nightmares. Not in a censorship way but a "You people are being paniced dumbasses again in a way completely unhelpful even if you were right, and the sooner this stupid zeitgeist ends just like the 'terrorists planning on hitting the remote Iowa small town petting zoo' the better!" way. The construct has become a worse than useless intellectual trap in multiple ways. 1. It immediately catastrophizes with the favorite of bird cage liners everywhere, bad extrapolations taken uncritically as gospel. 2. Instead of clarifying as a common touchstone frame of reference it becomes dystopia definition creep that undermines the very notion of bad outcomes as things to be avoided. Satirically succicently summed up as "Oh no, having to get a job by applying online is being enslaved by technology! Having to buy groceries? Enslaved by corporations!" "Abundance of food supply? Oh no! Overpopulation and obesity!" 3. It leads to the uber-dumbness of accelerationism and being so stubbornly married to being right about bad outcomes they outright seek to cause the "inevitable" as twisted vindication. It is doomsday prognostication but even stupider. Notably accelerationists have always been wrong about their "inevitable". The Manson family's "Helter Skelter" and dumbass idea of an apocalyptic race war. What should be done instead of dystopianizing? Point out the actual non-remote hypothetical bad effects and the situation for why it is likely. "Counter situations" exist to many solid ideas. Levies when they hold and are overrun turn the "protected" area into a reservoir instead of letting the water potentially wash away. Conversly below sea level the natural tendency is towards flooding as waters will go towards you instead of away when they are unbound.