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Practice is important. And being able to say, "I disagree, and discussing it further won't change my mind" is important. But many of the current political topi
by whaaaaat 2y ago
Practice is important. And being able to say, "I disagree, and discussing it further won't change my mind" is important.
But many of the current political topics are life or death for parts of the community. Like, I know plenty of trans sysadmins for whom politics isn't just "well, one party advances ideas I support and the other less so". For them it's "One party will make my every waking moment a nightmare".
I understand why, even with practice, some political positions are simply intolerable for them. (And to me, this feels different than, say, "I have opinions about which rate I should be taxed" though I admit tax rates could be life or death for some people.)
- Hutrio 2y ago[dead]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> being able to say, "I disagree, and discussing it further won't change my mind" is important Though, I would argue, unnecessary. If you faithfully believe, challenge shouldn’t be burdensome. If you’re open to revision, maybe they have a point. I’m not Epictetus, but unless your conversation partner is an idiot or a bore, there is usually something redeeming there.
- ungamedplayer 2y agoChallenge response has a higher cost than challenging. For example, would you debate with every flat earther you see? It's simply not worth the time spent. Maybe they fall into the idiot category though.
- KittenInABox 2y agoI think this is however kind of lopsided. For example, trans people are a hotly debated subject but are only 1% of the population or whatever. An individual trans person might have to engage in this debate daily, but a non-trans person might only engage online voluntarily because they have never met a trans person IRL and the concept of one is a fun thought experiment. In that sense being able to say "discussing this topic further won't change my mind" may be an important part of simply letting politicized minorities go about living life.
- whaaaaat 2y agoIt has an opportunity cost. It's not burdensome to be challenged, per se, it's burdensome to repeat that, "Yes, I think trans people are humans with complex interior lives who mostly want to be left alone. No, they are not coming into bathrooms en masse to molest you. Yes, they deserve to just get on with their lives. No, we shouldn't mock them for who they are" etc. etc. It takes someone 3-5 seconds to "just asking questions" and it takes me much more than that to respond. There's an obvious imbalance there that leads to: a) It's a lot more exhausting to respond than to ask b) It's vulnerable to malicious askers abusing my good faith answering time So while, with close friends, I'm happy to answer questions. Or with well meaning allies who genuinely want to learn and just don't understand. But like, random folks? On an internet forum? Nah. They can ask and I can say, "Sorry, let's just not engage."
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> it's burdensome to repeat that, "Yes, I think trans people are humans with complex interior lives who mostly want to be left alone So…don’t. Listen to why they think that. The point is it’s fine to walk away still disagreeing but understanding why a little better. > On an internet forum? Oh hell no, I’m talking about in person.
- marxisttemp 2y ago[flagged]
- nataliste 2y ago[flagged]
- marxisttemp 2y agoNo, I assure you I’m doing no such thing! Right now I’m doing my stretches :)
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
- sunshowers 2y agoWe only have a finite amount of time on this planet.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoYet we’re in this very discussion.
- diogocp 2y ago> unless your conversation partner is an idiot or a bore, there is usually something redeeming there. My recent experience is that even intelligent and thoughtful people start sounding like idiots when they decide to talk politics, and the conversations quickly turn into a huge bore. All I can do is roll my eyes.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago> But many of the current political topics are life or death for parts of the community. This is just hyperbole intended to stop debate and discussion. It’s not life and death to stop biological men from competing in women’s sports for example.
- tourmalinetaco 2y agoThere is no party that will make “every waking moment a nightmare" for the LGBTQIAP+. That’s the same thing we heard in 2016, and nothing came of it then. And in fact between 2020 and 2024 there is definitely an argument that can be made that even under the “preferred” party things got worse. Ironically, that exact rhetoric has led to multiple terror attacks on innocent people.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thatswrong0 2y ago[flagged]
- tourmalinetaco 2y ago[flagged]
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- thatswrong0 2y ago[flagged]
- tourmalinetaco 2y ago[flagged]
- trissi1996 2y ago[flagged]
- thatswrong0 2y ago[flagged]
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago[flagged]
- thatswrong0 2y ago[flagged]
- whaaaaat 2y agoI don't think it is. I think this person might genuinely believe that there aren't trans lives at risk. Which is unfortunate. Maybe they'll use this as an opportunity to learn, but my money is on them responding angrily to me elsewhere after their post gets flagged.
- ocular-rockular 2y ago[flagged]
- strken 2y agoI think a lot of people genuinely believe that transwomen are grooming and raping children en masse, or at least trying to get into women's sport so they can win medals. The fact that this is both wrong and stupid and has no real non-circumstantial evidence does not stop them. At some point people have to talk to each other, right? And that's where you have a discussion about how you don't think kids should go to the Folsom Street Fair either, but that you also don't think it's fair for a 39 year old transwoman not to be allowed onto the division F basketball team with her friends, and maybe you and your interlocutor both discover that the other side is a little more tolerable than you thought. Edit: I didn't really explain that very well. What I mean is that neither extreme finds the opinions of the other extreme tolerable, and that this is the result of paying too much attention to the long tail extremes instead of the middle of the bell curve.
- nataliste 2y agoAnd this is precisely why people, not just Americans, can't disagree about politics over time. Politics always turns into someone having the perspective "civil disagreement cannot be tolerated because the stakes are too high for my side" which is anethema to reason and concord regardless of whether it's actually true or not. Catastrophizing is always incentivized in the immediate term because it forces any interlocutor(a) to address it at the expense of any other topic and then the catastrophizer can accuse them of apathy and marginialization if they don't show the requisite enthusiasm and deference. It's a no-win situation for anyone attempting to deescalate and many just check-out rather than deal with the litany of accusations, which I guess is another kind of victory for the catastrophizers.
- fragmede 2y agoBut what's special about Americans and politics? If I told my coworkers I think the Earth is flat, they'd think I was an idiot and shrug and then continue to work with me. But somehow knowing how I vote is a shortcut to assuming I've drunk the party koolaid and believe in everything the party does and then we can't work together? The extreme sides of both parties are just that, extremes, and don't represent my beliefs on any number of issues, but it's a two party system so you have to go with one or the other, or throw your vote away. Elsewhere, people can work together just fine knowing their coworkers voted for the wrong party.
- from-nibly 2y agoWhy not just throw your vote away anyway? Whats the point unless you live in a swing state? Also why give the government any ammunition to legitimize their existence in the first place.
- nataliste 2y ago>Whats the point unless you live in a swing state? The game theory strategy in the electoral college is to register and vote as the non-dominant party in any election. If enough people follow this strategy, the locality becomes a swing state and the party platform and candidates will reflect their interests. >Also why give the government any ammunition to legitimize their existence in the first place. Until the government collapses, they still control the monopoly on violence. Unless you're a radical pacifist and willing to be the sacrificial lamb, there is a pretty clear need to participate to the extent that the wolf of government doesn't eat you. The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse people.
- rightbyte 2y ago> And being able to say, "I disagree, and discussing it further won't change my mind" is important. 'Agree to disagree' is just an opt out. At that point there usually isn't any agreement upon what is disagreed upon in the first place. It is a debate evasion. It is usually more honest to say 'I don't want you to convince me or the audiance otherwise'. But ye there is some endurance limit the discussion need to respect. My point is that 'agree to disagree' is way overused.
- toofy 2y ago> …It is a debate evasion. > It is usually more honest to say 'I don't want you to convince me or the audiance otherwise' i’m not trying to be mean but this is just wild. i’ve walked away from “debates” with people many times, not because i “don’t want to be convinced” it’s because too often i just genuinely don’t care what the person thinks about $ISSUE. i mean, most of us went to university and many of us took those classes, many of us have been online for long enough to have seen every argument and every sophist angle countless times. i learned quick enough that many of these issues have no ‘correct’ answer, they’re personal beliefs with deep foundations. we also learned early on that debates are silly unless there are actual subject experts (like recognized-by-their-peers-experts), strict moderators, and rules in place. randoms “debating” incredibly complex nuanced topics without actual experts is just… i mean… …without those things it’s just rhetoric and sophistry. for the debateBros it’s about “winning” rather than coming closer to a truth. other than a few loud debateBros most people discovered these things in like sophomore year. even more important, and this is just a personal opinion, but i find debateBros super weird and not in the good way. far too often their antisocialness just kills conversations. if someone is a grown adult and can’t tell the difference between a conversation and a debate they almost universally just end up making the entire atmosphere awkward. i learned pretty quickly when out with friends to spot randoms shifting into "debate mode" and we drag the conversation in a totally different direction to stave it off. unless i know someone irl and enjoy them on a personal level theres almost unlimited things id rather do than spend my time "debating" with them. it boggles my mind how they just repeatedly fail to understand that adversarial debate is not at all normal conversation. while i absolutely do enjoy passionate discussions of politics with a few family members (cousins, aunts, etc…) and a few friends, but with randoms? almost never. randoms "debating" outside of actual experts? nah, not a chance. and it’s super important to understand that most of the current divisive topics don’t have “one” correct answer. often they don’t even have a correct answer at all, but rather many valid ways to approach and from multiple foundational beliefs.