6 ms·

It's easy to lament polarization, but the reason it's not going away is that there are important differences in how people view the world, and calls for unity a

by mbg721 5y ago

It's easy to lament polarization, but the reason it's not going away is that there are important differences in how people view the world, and calls for unity are really closer to "It would be so peaceful if we could eliminate the opposing viewpoint once and for all".

macintux 5y ago
I’d just be happy if we could agree on basic facts. I don’t expect everyone to agree on the right way to solve a problem, but it seems increasingly difficult to even come to a common understanding of what’s true and what’s not.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Do you have an example of that? I haven't seen a lot of debate about the data (facts), but usually it's about the information (how it was formed from the data). Of course there are a small group of leaders (and/or crackpots) on either side spreading blatantly false info, but I feel that's rather small and receives outsized coverage.
  - _gabe_ 5y ago
    I think one of the most basic facts that we can't agree on is what constitutes a man or a woman. It's a very simple problem that a 5 year old can point out, yet we somehow lost sight of this very basic fact.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I suppose that's a perfect example of what I was talking about. The only reason it's controversial is due to the ways we apply them. The man-made contexts can convolute the meaning of man or woman. For example, are we talking about sex, gender, or something else? In the context of reproduction, sports, or something else? Most people agree that the various labels exist. It all depends on how we want to define them. It can get even more complicated because we have this artificial tautology of man or woman, but in fact there are naturally occuring intersex individuals who fall in between and are mostly forced to choose. So in closing, I feel the facts are not at issue here (xx vs xy vs intersex). It's how we are utilizing them and applying them to our social constructs which do not necessarily follow nature. If we are are talking about gender, then we take it a step farther into artificial labels and buckets built purely on one's preference (no way to factually check claims). The facts of the subject are simple and agreeable, yet the way we apply them make for controversy around our policies.
    - confidantlake 5y ago
      To me this is a category problem, which are very complex. Because man and women are concepts like a chair is a concept. Ask a hundred people to define a chair and you are going to get a hundred different answers.
- umvi 5y ago
  You would think cold hard data would be lead everyone to the same truth of a situation, but the problem is that in reality, data can be tortured to confess to anything. Data is constantly weaponized by everyone to push the narrative they want to believe, whether the data is about guns, violence, education, covid, racism, drugs, etc, data can be tortured to tell nearly any story by people wanting a specific narrative. How often do people see a graph or something on twitter, and the data seems to go against what they believe, so they examine it and conclude that the graph is misleading and that actually the data says the opposite? Nearly every graph posted on twitter experiences this phenomenon.
  - mikkergp 5y ago
    But data can't encapsulate values. My friend sent me a chart asking why were pushing vaccines for kids when only .001% of kids were dying from COVID. I looked at the chart and saw that 1000 kids had died from COVID and thought 1000 kids have died from COVID!?! There's no objective way to agree on whether a number is high or low. A lot of values transcend the underlying data, even when "the science is on your side". I can't imagine any data that would change my values around abortion access or gay marriage.
    - umvi 5y ago
      > There's no objective way to agree on whether a number is high or low But emotional responses to absolute numbers aren't a good mechanism to inform policy making either. That's why absolute numbers are usually normalized to a "per capita" figure. If 1000 kids die in modern India (pop > 1 billion), that is less cause for concern than 1000 kids dying in a rural town in Pennsylvania (pop < 10000). But just looking at the raw number "1000" can't tell you that, you need to give it context. Yeah, 1000 kids died either way, but in the Pennsylvania case something very bad is clearly happening (poisoning, disease, etc), whereas in India a freak one in a million accident could have happened 1000 times.
      - mikkergp 5y ago
        I don’t think we’re really disagreeing here, I think my point was just that in addition to your point about people misreading data, some people read it correctly and come to different conclusions. Not to mention the issues we have no data on like people believing who believe in vaccine shedding. I think people believe in this stuff precisely because there is no data and you can come to whatever conclusion you want. The even stranger thing is that I’m not sure we even all agree on what knowledge is. I think some believe more that knowledge is about what you can argue, sort of a rhetorical/debate centered argument vs a scientific observational/data centered argument.
- SubuSS 5y ago
  What if the facts or basic-ness of them are disputed? You can see this clearly in pro-choice/life debate for example. One side is saying it is murder and the other side is saying everything from it is not a murder to society doesn’t support the born kids, so this should be allowed. What are the ‘basic facts’ here?
  - mbg721 5y ago
    What ends up happening in that case is that people disagree in defining "What is a human?". That's not about facts, it's about values and conclusions. That becomes uncomfortable very quickly, because we've seen what happens when a society excludes some people from their definition of humanity.
  - cma 5y ago
    The side that believes it is murder also trusts the bible, just point them to the ordeal of the bitter water: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_of_the_bitter_water https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_of_the_bitter_water Though hopefully they won't get ideas to make it involuntary again.
giantg2 5y ago
I agree. It seems "compromise" is increasingly used as "What I'm proposing should be considered the compromise and you should listen to me". There's no real debate. Nobody tries to address the other side's concerns. And then we do have, as you say, some fundamental differences in world views and experiences that sometimes form an impasse.
- mbg721 5y ago
  Everybody has internalized the idea that if you ask for twice what you really want, meeting in the middle will give you the thing you actually wanted. So if you notice that the other side is doing the same thing, you double it again...
  - giantg2 5y ago
    They never read Never Split The Difference. Negotiations are supposed to be value based and each side should listen to the true concerns of the other. That said, I don't think the political sides are really asking for twice what they want. It seems very clear on most subjects that they really do want all that they are asking for, but will occasionally accept less and continuing to press for the rest in the long run.
    - mbg721 5y ago
      Thinking about it, I think you're right that the political sides aren't doing that. The Culture-War wedge issues that are the most polarizing don't really have a halfway; we've seen that with abortion, for example, for decades. All the halfway positions are unsatisfying to everyone, and the issue is still there.
- floren 5y ago
  As someone who follows gun laws, "compromise" often takes this form: Lawmakers: "We intend to outlaw all semi-automatic rifles with scary black stocks" Gun owners: "Please don't do that." Lawmakers: "Ok, let's compromise, we'll only outlaw scary rifles with collapsing stocks and vertical handgrips on the front." (time passes) Lawmakers: "There is a terrible loophole in our gun regulations..."

by mbg721 5y ago

macintux 5y ago

I’d just be happy if we could agree on basic facts. I don’t expect everyone to agree on the right way to solve a problem, but it seems increasingly difficult to even come to a common understanding of what’s true and what’s not.

giantg2 5y ago
Do you have an example of that? I haven't seen a lot of debate about the data (facts), but usually it's about the information (how it was formed from the data). Of course there are a small group of leaders (and/or crackpots) on either side spreading blatantly false info, but I feel that's rather small and receives outsized coverage.
- _gabe_ 5y ago
  I think one of the most basic facts that we can't agree on is what constitutes a man or a woman. It's a very simple problem that a 5 year old can point out, yet we somehow lost sight of this very basic fact.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I suppose that's a perfect example of what I was talking about. The only reason it's controversial is due to the ways we apply them. The man-made contexts can convolute the meaning of man or woman. For example, are we talking about sex, gender, or something else? In the context of reproduction, sports, or something else? Most people agree that the various labels exist. It all depends on how we want to define them. It can get even more complicated because we have this artificial tautology of man or woman, but in fact there are naturally occuring intersex individuals who fall in between and are mostly forced to choose. So in closing, I feel the facts are not at issue here (xx vs xy vs intersex). It's how we are utilizing them and applying them to our social constructs which do not necessarily follow nature. If we are are talking about gender, then we take it a step farther into artificial labels and buckets built purely on one's preference (no way to factually check claims). The facts of the subject are simple and agreeable, yet the way we apply them make for controversy around our policies.
  - confidantlake 5y ago
    To me this is a category problem, which are very complex. Because man and women are concepts like a chair is a concept. Ask a hundred people to define a chair and you are going to get a hundred different answers.
umvi 5y ago
You would think cold hard data would be lead everyone to the same truth of a situation, but the problem is that in reality, data can be tortured to confess to anything. Data is constantly weaponized by everyone to push the narrative they want to believe, whether the data is about guns, violence, education, covid, racism, drugs, etc, data can be tortured to tell nearly any story by people wanting a specific narrative. How often do people see a graph or something on twitter, and the data seems to go against what they believe, so they examine it and conclude that the graph is misleading and that actually the data says the opposite? Nearly every graph posted on twitter experiences this phenomenon.
- mikkergp 5y ago
  But data can't encapsulate values. My friend sent me a chart asking why were pushing vaccines for kids when only .001% of kids were dying from COVID. I looked at the chart and saw that 1000 kids had died from COVID and thought 1000 kids have died from COVID!?! There's no objective way to agree on whether a number is high or low. A lot of values transcend the underlying data, even when "the science is on your side". I can't imagine any data that would change my values around abortion access or gay marriage.
  - umvi 5y ago
    > There's no objective way to agree on whether a number is high or low But emotional responses to absolute numbers aren't a good mechanism to inform policy making either. That's why absolute numbers are usually normalized to a "per capita" figure. If 1000 kids die in modern India (pop > 1 billion), that is less cause for concern than 1000 kids dying in a rural town in Pennsylvania (pop < 10000). But just looking at the raw number "1000" can't tell you that, you need to give it context. Yeah, 1000 kids died either way, but in the Pennsylvania case something very bad is clearly happening (poisoning, disease, etc), whereas in India a freak one in a million accident could have happened 1000 times.
    - mikkergp 5y ago
      I don’t think we’re really disagreeing here, I think my point was just that in addition to your point about people misreading data, some people read it correctly and come to different conclusions. Not to mention the issues we have no data on like people believing who believe in vaccine shedding. I think people believe in this stuff precisely because there is no data and you can come to whatever conclusion you want. The even stranger thing is that I’m not sure we even all agree on what knowledge is. I think some believe more that knowledge is about what you can argue, sort of a rhetorical/debate centered argument vs a scientific observational/data centered argument.
SubuSS 5y ago
What if the facts or basic-ness of them are disputed? You can see this clearly in pro-choice/life debate for example. One side is saying it is murder and the other side is saying everything from it is not a murder to society doesn’t support the born kids, so this should be allowed. What are the ‘basic facts’ here?
- mbg721 5y ago
  What ends up happening in that case is that people disagree in defining "What is a human?". That's not about facts, it's about values and conclusions. That becomes uncomfortable very quickly, because we've seen what happens when a society excludes some people from their definition of humanity.
- cma 5y ago
  The side that believes it is murder also trusts the bible, just point them to the ordeal of the bitter water: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_of_the_bitter_water https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_of_the_bitter_water Though hopefully they won't get ideas to make it involuntary again.

giantg2 5y ago

I agree. It seems "compromise" is increasingly used as "What I'm proposing should be considered the compromise and you should listen to me". There's no real debate. Nobody tries to address the other side's concerns. And then we do have, as you say, some fundamental differences in world views and experiences that sometimes form an impasse.

mbg721 5y ago
Everybody has internalized the idea that if you ask for twice what you really want, meeting in the middle will give you the thing you actually wanted. So if you notice that the other side is doing the same thing, you double it again...
- giantg2 5y ago
  They never read Never Split The Difference. Negotiations are supposed to be value based and each side should listen to the true concerns of the other. That said, I don't think the political sides are really asking for twice what they want. It seems very clear on most subjects that they really do want all that they are asking for, but will occasionally accept less and continuing to press for the rest in the long run.
  - mbg721 5y ago
    Thinking about it, I think you're right that the political sides aren't doing that. The Culture-War wedge issues that are the most polarizing don't really have a halfway; we've seen that with abortion, for example, for decades. All the halfway positions are unsatisfying to everyone, and the issue is still there.
floren 5y ago
As someone who follows gun laws, "compromise" often takes this form: Lawmakers: "We intend to outlaw all semi-automatic rifles with scary black stocks" Gun owners: "Please don't do that." Lawmakers: "Ok, let's compromise, we'll only outlaw scary rifles with collapsing stocks and vertical handgrips on the front." (time passes) Lawmakers: "There is a terrible loophole in our gun regulations..."