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If you're a politician, you need people to vote for you. "Your" people will. Try not to alienate too much others so you can fish moderates and get to 50%. If y

by narag 1y ago

If you're a politician, you need people to vote for you. "Your" people will. Try not to alienate too much others so you can fish moderates and get to 50%. If you're an "influencer" you need engagement. You can live off a 10% easily. And you need retention. So keep the message heated.

eastbound 1y ago
We’ve succeeded to make people vote for the fight against global warming, which clearly says people have to reduce their lifestyle, so I think there can be enough audience to make this topic the platform of one party.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  Have we? I don't recall that option ever being on the ballot in the US.
  - BobbyTables2 1y ago
    Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!” Inefficient regulation also incentivizes car companies to make larger less efficient vehicles because they can’t make the smaller ones efficient enough. And the public has no problem buying enormous vehicles… (Doesn’t everyone need an off road extended cab 4x4 truck for commuting to the office?) Frankly, I do feel there is a segment that seems to over focus on conservation to the point of impracticality. However, the “single use” consumption has got to end. I don’t even see the debate here. Plastic lids, styrofoam containers, gotta go. Maybe not outright ban, but the culture has to change. Ordered a pastry in a bakery — clerk put it into a large styrofoam container, inch thick stack of napkins, plastic grocery bag, plastic fork/knife. Unfortunately I was eating it there… All that waste for one pastry baked there? On the other hand, I wonder if Amazon is the devil we assume. If I drive my car around town to get a few items, maybe it’s more fuel efficient to just have them delivered with others’ ?
    - azinman2 1y ago
      > Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!” The idiotic lie here is that the US doesn’t really have the right refinement plants to handle US based oil, so they have to swap oil with other countries who do. Building out new refinement plants isn’t easy or quick, yet would be necessary to actually reduce oil imports and become self sufficient.
    - pessimizer 1y ago
      > Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!” It's important to note that the other party's response to that was "Who says we don't want to drill!?" followed by a disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (or "America" I think we're supposed to say now.) It's never on the ballot unless it truly does not matter to anyone with any power.
      - tzs 1y ago
        It's also important to note that one party wants to drill while also greatly increasing development of renewables so we can reduce the need for future drilling, increase regulatory limits on emissions over time, provide incentives to adopt more energy efficient appliances, and recognizes that the world needs to reach net zero sometime in the next few decades and is trying to reach that gradually. The other party wants to drill while doing everything it can to discourage renewables, is eliminating as many limits on emissions as it can and stopping enforcement of those it cannot yet eliminate, and their views on addressing global warming are a superposition of {it is a hoax by the Chinese to harm the US, it may be happening but humans have no way to influence it, it is good, even if global warming is as bad as predicted and we get a few degrees rise it is no problem because we can increase fossil fuels enough to make cheap air conditioning available so we can get by fine just like Dubai gets by fine with an average temperature of 35F higher than that [1]}. They also want to eliminate funding for satellites that monitor the climate and eliminate emissions reporting requirements for the industries that do most of the emitting. [1] https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/how-fossil-fuels-will-help-us-confront-climate-change https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/how-fossil-f...
CM30 1y ago
Hmm, I'm not sure the former holds true anymore. We're seeing societies getting far more polarised with some extreme rhetoric and and proposals coming from political parties, especially in places like the US and Western Europe. Kinda makes me wonder if politicians and political parties are fishing for engagement and focusing on the most extreme parts of their supporter base too.
- daveguy 1y ago
  > Kinda makes me wonder if politicians and political parties are fishing for engagement and focusing on the most extreme parts of their supporter base too. They definitely are. The goal for Trump this election was clearly to stoke the base with inflammatory rhetoric bolstered by influencers spouting that same rhetoric. "They're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the pets."
- estimator7292 1y ago
  > Kinda makes me wonder if politicians and political parties are fishing for engagement and focusing on the most extreme parts of their supporter base too. Yes, that's been the explicitly stated goal for the last decade or two. Like, no one is even attempting to hide it.
- m3047 1y ago
  A lot of them are just moneymaking machines, they don't really want community engagement. This is demonstrated in their approaches to community organizing / engagement. I directly witnessed this as a boardmember of an organization ostensibly representing over 100,000 voters: 1) The "90%-ers" view of the suggestion that they identify and court their supporters from (for them) the "40%-er" constituencies because they would be able to sway other 40%-ers due to the "liking" "weapon of influence" (Cialdini): this was mostly treated like a suggestion that they lick dog vomit. 2) Community / consensus building: what issues should we focus on? This was done by dividing participants up by some feature and then having those subgroups come up with maybe half a dozen concerns each. (Something is supposed to happen here before the next step.) Then those concerns were listed on a board and the concern(s) which were reflected across the most subgroups were selected to focus on. The missing piece, which the organizers absolutely knew about: the caucus! What goes wrong without it is that concerns about pedestrian safety, speeding, children walking to school, people getting to bus stops, etc. all get listed differently by the subgroups and... awwww, too bad, you were the only group which cared about children walking to schools... but every group cares about saving the whales (no offense to the whales)! But no whales live here, so what are we to do?
PantaloonFlames 1y ago
This is an interesting distillation of the article; focusing on _how to use_ social media depending on who you are, but dismissing or de-emphasizing the main point of the piece, which is, what is social media doing to our social discourse?
integralid 1y ago
I'm not sure I agree. Leading political parties are certainly fishing moderates, but for smaller parties it often makes more sense to cater to extreme views - both because people who care strongly about it will vote for you, and because it gives you more visibility.

by narag 1y ago

eastbound 1y ago

We’ve succeeded to make people vote for the fight against global warming, which clearly says people have to reduce their lifestyle, so I think there can be enough audience to make this topic the platform of one party.

MangoToupe 1y ago
Have we? I don't recall that option ever being on the ballot in the US.
- BobbyTables2 1y ago
  Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!” Inefficient regulation also incentivizes car companies to make larger less efficient vehicles because they can’t make the smaller ones efficient enough. And the public has no problem buying enormous vehicles… (Doesn’t everyone need an off road extended cab 4x4 truck for commuting to the office?) Frankly, I do feel there is a segment that seems to over focus on conservation to the point of impracticality. However, the “single use” consumption has got to end. I don’t even see the debate here. Plastic lids, styrofoam containers, gotta go. Maybe not outright ban, but the culture has to change. Ordered a pastry in a bakery — clerk put it into a large styrofoam container, inch thick stack of napkins, plastic grocery bag, plastic fork/knife. Unfortunately I was eating it there… All that waste for one pastry baked there? On the other hand, I wonder if Amazon is the devil we assume. If I drive my car around town to get a few items, maybe it’s more fuel efficient to just have them delivered with others’ ?
  - azinman2 1y ago
    > Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!” The idiotic lie here is that the US doesn’t really have the right refinement plants to handle US based oil, so they have to swap oil with other countries who do. Building out new refinement plants isn’t easy or quick, yet would be necessary to actually reduce oil imports and become self sufficient.
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    > Well, one party’s stated solution for high oil imports was not to reduce consumption but rather “drill baby, drill!” It's important to note that the other party's response to that was "Who says we don't want to drill!?" followed by a disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (or "America" I think we're supposed to say now.) It's never on the ballot unless it truly does not matter to anyone with any power.
    - tzs 1y ago
      It's also important to note that one party wants to drill while also greatly increasing development of renewables so we can reduce the need for future drilling, increase regulatory limits on emissions over time, provide incentives to adopt more energy efficient appliances, and recognizes that the world needs to reach net zero sometime in the next few decades and is trying to reach that gradually. The other party wants to drill while doing everything it can to discourage renewables, is eliminating as many limits on emissions as it can and stopping enforcement of those it cannot yet eliminate, and their views on addressing global warming are a superposition of {it is a hoax by the Chinese to harm the US, it may be happening but humans have no way to influence it, it is good, even if global warming is as bad as predicted and we get a few degrees rise it is no problem because we can increase fossil fuels enough to make cheap air conditioning available so we can get by fine just like Dubai gets by fine with an average temperature of 35F higher than that [1]}. They also want to eliminate funding for satellites that monitor the climate and eliminate emissions reporting requirements for the industries that do most of the emitting. [1] https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/how-fossil-fuels-will-help-us-confront-climate-change https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/how-fossil-f...

CM30 1y ago

Hmm, I'm not sure the former holds true anymore. We're seeing societies getting far more polarised with some extreme rhetoric and and proposals coming from political parties, especially in places like the US and Western Europe. Kinda makes me wonder if politicians and political parties are fishing for engagement and focusing on the most extreme parts of their supporter base too.

daveguy 1y ago
> Kinda makes me wonder if politicians and political parties are fishing for engagement and focusing on the most extreme parts of their supporter base too. They definitely are. The goal for Trump this election was clearly to stoke the base with inflammatory rhetoric bolstered by influencers spouting that same rhetoric. "They're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the pets."
estimator7292 1y ago
> Kinda makes me wonder if politicians and political parties are fishing for engagement and focusing on the most extreme parts of their supporter base too. Yes, that's been the explicitly stated goal for the last decade or two. Like, no one is even attempting to hide it.
m3047 1y ago
A lot of them are just moneymaking machines, they don't really want community engagement. This is demonstrated in their approaches to community organizing / engagement. I directly witnessed this as a boardmember of an organization ostensibly representing over 100,000 voters: 1) The "90%-ers" view of the suggestion that they identify and court their supporters from (for them) the "40%-er" constituencies because they would be able to sway other 40%-ers due to the "liking" "weapon of influence" (Cialdini): this was mostly treated like a suggestion that they lick dog vomit. 2) Community / consensus building: what issues should we focus on? This was done by dividing participants up by some feature and then having those subgroups come up with maybe half a dozen concerns each. (Something is supposed to happen here before the next step.) Then those concerns were listed on a board and the concern(s) which were reflected across the most subgroups were selected to focus on. The missing piece, which the organizers absolutely knew about: the caucus! What goes wrong without it is that concerns about pedestrian safety, speeding, children walking to school, people getting to bus stops, etc. all get listed differently by the subgroups and... awwww, too bad, you were the only group which cared about children walking to schools... but every group cares about saving the whales (no offense to the whales)! But no whales live here, so what are we to do?

PantaloonFlames 1y ago

This is an interesting distillation of the article; focusing on _how to use_ social media depending on who you are, but dismissing or de-emphasizing the main point of the piece, which is, what is social media doing to our social discourse?

integralid 1y ago

I'm not sure I agree. Leading political parties are certainly fishing moderates, but for smaller parties it often makes more sense to cater to extreme views - both because people who care strongly about it will vote for you, and because it gives you more visibility.