9 ms·

This is silly: “In my hometown in India, everyone talks about politics all the time. And most of us don’t agree with one another. But that’s okay. I can even t

This is silly: “In my hometown in India, everyone talks about politics all the time. And most of us don’t agree with one another. But that’s okay. I can even tease other people about our political disagreements and it doesn’t get in the way of friendships. Why isn’t that the case here in the US?” Because when you're in a homogenous in-group you can discuss politics and get annoyed, or heated, and shake hands and go home. When you're not in an in-group, one side is discussing non-ideal solutions, and the other side wants to destroy you. And then you have to figure out how to convince a friend that their political ideology might kill you.

lolinder 2y ago
Read the rest of the post. Indian politics are not somehow lower stakes than ours, the Indian subcontinent is not less diverse, and the author's friend included a specific example of people getting literally killed over their politics.
- nineplay 2y ago
  I'm still puzzled over the article frankly. In India there's political violence and people are getting killed - but they still are happy to discuss politics with their friends and neighbors? There's a disconnect there that I'm not getting. Why are they talking to everyone about their political views if it might get them killed?
  - lolinder 2y ago
    That's the question that the Indian person is asking. Here in the US we'll refuse to interact with someone if we find out that they're part of the wrong tribe, but our political violence is pretty low on the scale of what's possible. There, they have a lot of political violence and from what I understand quite divisive political issues that put people's lives and livelihoods at stake, but apparently they don't have the culture of avoiding talking about it altogether that we do and they don't attempt to avoid associating with anyone who disagrees with them.
    - nineplay 2y ago
      Maybe they'd have less political violence if they didn't associate with people who disagree with them. I'm not sure I'm convinced that dying for your political views is a fair price to pay for conversations with your neighbors.
      - lolinder 2y ago
        I'm not convinced that the two are correlated. We did just fine associating with people of different political perspectives and discussing politics with them all the way up through 2008 at least, ~~without the violence~~. [Scratching this part out because it's drawing plenty of justified criticism. I stand by the rest, and this part was generally true—with small exceptions—from at least 1990-2008.] The complete refusal to interact with someone who disagrees with you is a relatively new phenomenon that seems to have risen alongside social media.
        pdonis 2y ago
        > We did just fine associating with people of different political perspectives and discussing politics with them all the way up through 2008 at least, without the violence. No, we didn't. Look up what happened in the 1960s. And even that was mild compared to what went on in election campaigns in the 19th century in the US.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        >We did just fine associating with people of different political perspectives and discussing politics with them all the way up through 2008 at least, without the violence. You must have forgotten the US Civil War, plus all the turbulence of the 1960s. The big difference there was that, for the most part, the two sides were geographically separated from each other. >The complete refusal to interact with someone who disagrees with you is a relatively new phenomenon that seems to have risen alongside social media. If you're thinking of the early-to-mid 20th century, things have changed. America has become much more diverse, and co-mingled (in the past, immigrant and other minority groups tended to keep to themselves and not socially interact so much with other groups). White European-descended people are no longer the overwhelming majority (remember, immigrants in the past mostly came from Europe), religion has lost much of its power and many of its believers, homosexuality has become far more accepted, basically one side feels existentially threatened, and the other side oppressed.
- asynchronous 2y ago
  There’s literally no way the nation of India is more diverse than the United States- we have the biggest spread of racial, and religious diversity on the planet, by far.
  - selimthegrim 2y ago
    They’ve had a little more time to work on it.
  - BurningFrog 2y ago
    India has 450 languages, 5x the US population, all religions, and plenty of different races.
  - theshackleford 2y ago
    Not from any statistics I can tell you don't.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    With all due respect, please do some research on India before asserting something like this. We're taking about a country with ~4x the population of the US where no single language has the majority of native speakers (the closest is Hindi at 26% [0]). 12 different languages are spoken natively by >1% of the population. India has diversity that someone born in the US can't even begin to comprehend. I think it's hard for Westerners to understand because we view diversity through such a skin color and organized religion lens. 'Everyone' in India is dark-skinned and most are Hindu, so that means they're not diverse, right? The trouble is that that's a very Western perspective on both ethnicity and on religion, one that doesn't carry over at all. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - whaaaaat 2y ago
    I think you need to spend some time learning about India. The US is FAR more of a monoculture than India is.
corimaith 2y ago
The conclusion of this viewpoint is that you either turn everyone into the in-group or one group comes out on top of the others. Either way, diversity won't survive long under that.
- ziJsbcidanais 2y ago
  That’s how it’s worked for nearly all of history. A decent read is this book (which was on obamas summer reading list one year): https://www.amazon.com/Great-Experiment-Diverse-Democracies-Endure/dp/0593296818?dplnkId=e4d11f6e-5092-463b-a2fb-d96778ae68b0&nodl=1 https://www.amazon.com/Great-Experiment-Diverse-Democracies-.... Diversity has never really worked before. Diversity has historically been used to keep populations divided allowing a smaller group to rule over them. Plenty of historical examples (Italy, Ottoman Empire, etc) as well as literature. I think this is described in Machiavelli’s “The Prince”. And both current US candidates are pushing for immigration/diversity (albeit from different groups, but the end result is the same). The real reason we can’t discuss politics is because our elites want us divided, and they have the means to accomplish that.
orionsbelt 2y ago
What US political ideology are you worried will kill you?

lolinder 2y ago

Read the rest of the post. Indian politics are not somehow lower stakes than ours, the Indian subcontinent is not less diverse, and the author's friend included a specific example of people getting literally killed over their politics.

nineplay 2y ago
I'm still puzzled over the article frankly. In India there's political violence and people are getting killed - but they still are happy to discuss politics with their friends and neighbors? There's a disconnect there that I'm not getting. Why are they talking to everyone about their political views if it might get them killed?
- lolinder 2y ago
  That's the question that the Indian person is asking. Here in the US we'll refuse to interact with someone if we find out that they're part of the wrong tribe, but our political violence is pretty low on the scale of what's possible. There, they have a lot of political violence and from what I understand quite divisive political issues that put people's lives and livelihoods at stake, but apparently they don't have the culture of avoiding talking about it altogether that we do and they don't attempt to avoid associating with anyone who disagrees with them.
  - nineplay 2y ago
    Maybe they'd have less political violence if they didn't associate with people who disagree with them. I'm not sure I'm convinced that dying for your political views is a fair price to pay for conversations with your neighbors.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      I'm not convinced that the two are correlated. We did just fine associating with people of different political perspectives and discussing politics with them all the way up through 2008 at least, ~~without the violence~~. [Scratching this part out because it's drawing plenty of justified criticism. I stand by the rest, and this part was generally true—with small exceptions—from at least 1990-2008.] The complete refusal to interact with someone who disagrees with you is a relatively new phenomenon that seems to have risen alongside social media.
      - pdonis 2y ago
        > We did just fine associating with people of different political perspectives and discussing politics with them all the way up through 2008 at least, without the violence. No, we didn't. Look up what happened in the 1960s. And even that was mild compared to what went on in election campaigns in the 19th century in the US.
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        >We did just fine associating with people of different political perspectives and discussing politics with them all the way up through 2008 at least, without the violence. You must have forgotten the US Civil War, plus all the turbulence of the 1960s. The big difference there was that, for the most part, the two sides were geographically separated from each other. >The complete refusal to interact with someone who disagrees with you is a relatively new phenomenon that seems to have risen alongside social media. If you're thinking of the early-to-mid 20th century, things have changed. America has become much more diverse, and co-mingled (in the past, immigrant and other minority groups tended to keep to themselves and not socially interact so much with other groups). White European-descended people are no longer the overwhelming majority (remember, immigrants in the past mostly came from Europe), religion has lost much of its power and many of its believers, homosexuality has become far more accepted, basically one side feels existentially threatened, and the other side oppressed.
asynchronous 2y ago
There’s literally no way the nation of India is more diverse than the United States- we have the biggest spread of racial, and religious diversity on the planet, by far.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  They’ve had a little more time to work on it.
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  India has 450 languages, 5x the US population, all religions, and plenty of different races.
- theshackleford 2y ago
  Not from any statistics I can tell you don't.
- lolinder 2y ago
  With all due respect, please do some research on India before asserting something like this. We're taking about a country with ~4x the population of the US where no single language has the majority of native speakers (the closest is Hindi at 26% [0]). 12 different languages are spoken natively by >1% of the population. India has diversity that someone born in the US can't even begin to comprehend. I think it's hard for Westerners to understand because we view diversity through such a skin color and organized religion lens. 'Everyone' in India is dark-skinned and most are Hindu, so that means they're not diverse, right? The trouble is that that's a very Western perspective on both ethnicity and on religion, one that doesn't carry over at all. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- whaaaaat 2y ago
  I think you need to spend some time learning about India. The US is FAR more of a monoculture than India is.

corimaith 2y ago

The conclusion of this viewpoint is that you either turn everyone into the in-group or one group comes out on top of the others. Either way, diversity won't survive long under that.

ziJsbcidanais 2y ago
That’s how it’s worked for nearly all of history. A decent read is this book (which was on obamas summer reading list one year): https://www.amazon.com/Great-Experiment-Diverse-Democracies-Endure/dp/0593296818?dplnkId=e4d11f6e-5092-463b-a2fb-d96778ae68b0&nodl=1 https://www.amazon.com/Great-Experiment-Diverse-Democracies-.... Diversity has never really worked before. Diversity has historically been used to keep populations divided allowing a smaller group to rule over them. Plenty of historical examples (Italy, Ottoman Empire, etc) as well as literature. I think this is described in Machiavelli’s “The Prince”. And both current US candidates are pushing for immigration/diversity (albeit from different groups, but the end result is the same). The real reason we can’t discuss politics is because our elites want us divided, and they have the means to accomplish that.

orionsbelt 2y ago

What US political ideology are you worried will kill you?