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Or, online discourse has polarised opinion through The Algorithm promoting inflammatory, divisive content. In real life, when people talk, they see the other pe

Or, online discourse has polarised opinion through The Algorithm promoting inflammatory, divisive content. In real life, when people talk, they see the other person as a human with more understandable motivations, and tend to find a lot more common ground. So perhaps instead of "in real life, those divisions are much more hidden behind layers of politeness"; "in real life, divisions turn out to be largely illusory (or more moderate; or more understandable) once you get to know someone".

scarface_74 1y ago
Most people in real life only have deep conversations with like minded people. In the polite company you just don’t talk about politics, religion or other divisive topics. There is no illusion about how most rural Christian Americans think about gay people, minorities, liberal west coast elites, Muslims, etc.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  No illusion about how many of those people think about Christians too. I'm in the second most liberal county in the Northeast US and I'd say on a frigid cold night and they called a Code Blue people who go to church are manning the homeless shelter while LGBT...IQA+#@?^! people are tweeting about how Sarah McBride is a sell-out. Then again, the people I know who go to to church are the people who've been to federal prison because they stormed the gates protesting a nuclear weapons faclity.
  - scarface_74 1y ago
    And how many of those people voted for politicians that are systematically harming non straight people, demonizing immigrants, have no concern about inequalities in the justice system, etc? I know a few socially liberal devout Christians. I know many others that on the individual level would try their best to make anyone of any religion, sexuality, etc comfortable. But still vote for politicians that campaign on policies that hurt the group.
    - PaulHoule 1y ago
      Some of the Trumpiest voters are "evangelicals who don't go Church". On the other hand there is the strange case of the Mormons who have made Utah one of the reddest states in the nation although it has low levels of dark personality, inequality and corruption whereas my state of New York is the opposite. (Louisiana in the other hand is red and dark and Vermont blue and light) I have a lot of respect for the values of many Mormons such as Steven Covey but boy does it drive me crazy that they pulled out of supporting the Scouts when the Scouts opened up to gays. People have numerous reasons for voting the way they do, I know from conversations that there were people who weren't thinking from a "always blue" or "always red" frame but saw the last election as a comparison. They saw Trump and Harris as bad alternatives and picked the one they thought was least bad. Overall the college-educated voted for Harris and others voted for Trump. The argument that "Trump is bad for democracy" wasn't as salient for people as "Harris is ineffective".
      - scarface_74 1y ago
        I consider myself liberal but not leftist. I can see why so much of the country was turned off by Democrats during the last election. You had more center left and center right candidates before 2016. The modern MAGAs would have called Reagan a “RINO”.
        PaulHoule 1y ago
        Back in the 1990s we complained that we couldn't get anything done because of "Blue Dog Democrats" [1], now we can't get anything done because there are only 10 of them. For that matter, I moved to New York in 1990s when we had a Republican Senator Al D'Amato, a Republican Governor George Pataki, and Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani to be replaced by Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Personally I think one party rule is a bad thing because it makes it hard for us to vote out corrupt politicians. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition
        gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

scarface_74 1y ago

Most people in real life only have deep conversations with like minded people. In the polite company you just don’t talk about politics, religion or other divisive topics. There is no illusion about how most rural Christian Americans think about gay people, minorities, liberal west coast elites, Muslims, etc.

PaulHoule 1y ago
No illusion about how many of those people think about Christians too. I'm in the second most liberal county in the Northeast US and I'd say on a frigid cold night and they called a Code Blue people who go to church are manning the homeless shelter while LGBT...IQA+#@?^! people are tweeting about how Sarah McBride is a sell-out. Then again, the people I know who go to to church are the people who've been to federal prison because they stormed the gates protesting a nuclear weapons faclity.
- scarface_74 1y ago
  And how many of those people voted for politicians that are systematically harming non straight people, demonizing immigrants, have no concern about inequalities in the justice system, etc? I know a few socially liberal devout Christians. I know many others that on the individual level would try their best to make anyone of any religion, sexuality, etc comfortable. But still vote for politicians that campaign on policies that hurt the group.
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    Some of the Trumpiest voters are "evangelicals who don't go Church". On the other hand there is the strange case of the Mormons who have made Utah one of the reddest states in the nation although it has low levels of dark personality, inequality and corruption whereas my state of New York is the opposite. (Louisiana in the other hand is red and dark and Vermont blue and light) I have a lot of respect for the values of many Mormons such as Steven Covey but boy does it drive me crazy that they pulled out of supporting the Scouts when the Scouts opened up to gays. People have numerous reasons for voting the way they do, I know from conversations that there were people who weren't thinking from a "always blue" or "always red" frame but saw the last election as a comparison. They saw Trump and Harris as bad alternatives and picked the one they thought was least bad. Overall the college-educated voted for Harris and others voted for Trump. The argument that "Trump is bad for democracy" wasn't as salient for people as "Harris is ineffective".
    - scarface_74 1y ago
      I consider myself liberal but not leftist. I can see why so much of the country was turned off by Democrats during the last election. You had more center left and center right candidates before 2016. The modern MAGAs would have called Reagan a “RINO”.
      - PaulHoule 1y ago
        Back in the 1990s we complained that we couldn't get anything done because of "Blue Dog Democrats" [1], now we can't get anything done because there are only 10 of them. For that matter, I moved to New York in 1990s when we had a Republican Senator Al D'Amato, a Republican Governor George Pataki, and Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani to be replaced by Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Personally I think one party rule is a bad thing because it makes it hard for us to vote out corrupt politicians. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition
        gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago
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