3 ms·

I’ll add a third reason, which is I think in general, people are very bad at understanding how to make an argument to someone with a different value system. I’

I’ll add a third reason, which is I think in general, people are very bad at understanding how to make an argument to someone with a different value system. I’m liberal, I have family members who are conservative, and I’ll read conservative books and I’m genuinely a person who is curious to new ideas, but most people I know(and I’m sure this works vice versa) are only good at expressing political opinions in the language of people who share their values. Republicans and Democrats don’t just talk about different things, they talk about them in very different ways. I find this online as well, like I hate being “out of my echo chamber” because those arguments are just uniformly pointless. (This is in all directions by the way, people to the right or left of me). Though I also interestingly find trying to talk to LLMs about competing values challenging too, if I try to get the LLM to explain a conservative position, then I make counter-arguments to that position, it will almost never tell me my counter argument is wrong, just “you’ve hit the nail on the head! Boy are you smart!”

dlivingston 11mo ago
I had a friend in grad school who influenced my political beliefs more than anyone I'd met. He never engaged in political conversation with "here's what I believe, and here's why you should too." His approach was more Socratic; to listen to me talk, and then offer an additional viewpoint or context. I never got the impression from him that he was trying to convince me of something, or that he thought I was wrong about X/Y/Z, but rather, that we were on an intellectual journey together to identify what the problems actually were and what nuanced solutions might look like. I still have no idea to this day what his ACTUAL political party is (or if he even has one). I genuinely could not tell you if he was left, right, or center.
- bossyTeacher 10mo ago
  > I still have no idea to this day what his ACTUAL political party is (or if he even has one). I genuinely could not tell you if he was left, right, or center. Did you not asking him about HIS position on different matters? That is how I would do it. Some people won't share their views unless directly asked
apercu 11mo ago
As far as I can tell most conservative argument points seem to be about the price of gas. If there is a democrat in the whitehouse, the price of gas is astronomical. If there is a republican in office, gas is far cheaper somehow than what I always end up paying. Gasoline is like the least important cost metric in my life.
- techblueberry 11mo ago
  I've been going down a bit of a rabbit hole on "what conservatives believe" and weirdly, and this is from both Roger Scruton, and the book "The conservative mind". is it's a bit like porn, you can't define it, but you know it when you see it. I mean this is sort of a tangible points conservatives make about believing in "common sense" that there's basically a higher truth that we all know exists that should guide us. Roger Scruton in I think this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eD9RDTl6tM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eD9RDTl6tM. Says that basically conservatism in the 80's in the UK was whatever Margaret Thatcher believed. This really I think helped me understand why the conservative transition from Reagan/Bush to Trump went more smoothly than I thought it would among trad conservatives.
  - paulryanrogers 11mo ago
    Growing up indoctrinated into conversative evangelism, I saw that the Midwestern flavor valued freedom of individuals from government. It was a shallow flavor of self sufficiency, which discounted all social support except family and churches. Abortion was a wedge issue preached from every platform. Tribalism was a key substrate. This often manifested as a near blind loyalty to the party and chosen thought leaders like Bill Graham, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and now Tucker Carlson. They told us how to interpret events and we repeated the talking points. They gave us the (often contradictory) rules and principles we were to use to view everything in life.

dlivingston 11mo ago

I had a friend in grad school who influenced my political beliefs more than anyone I'd met. He never engaged in political conversation with "here's what I believe, and here's why you should too." His approach was more Socratic; to listen to me talk, and then offer an additional viewpoint or context. I never got the impression from him that he was trying to convince me of something, or that he thought I was wrong about X/Y/Z, but rather, that we were on an intellectual journey together to identify what the problems actually were and what nuanced solutions might look like. I still have no idea to this day what his ACTUAL political party is (or if he even has one). I genuinely could not tell you if he was left, right, or center.

bossyTeacher 10mo ago
> I still have no idea to this day what his ACTUAL political party is (or if he even has one). I genuinely could not tell you if he was left, right, or center. Did you not asking him about HIS position on different matters? That is how I would do it. Some people won't share their views unless directly asked

apercu 11mo ago

As far as I can tell most conservative argument points seem to be about the price of gas. If there is a democrat in the whitehouse, the price of gas is astronomical. If there is a republican in office, gas is far cheaper somehow than what I always end up paying. Gasoline is like the least important cost metric in my life.

techblueberry 11mo ago
I've been going down a bit of a rabbit hole on "what conservatives believe" and weirdly, and this is from both Roger Scruton, and the book "The conservative mind". is it's a bit like porn, you can't define it, but you know it when you see it. I mean this is sort of a tangible points conservatives make about believing in "common sense" that there's basically a higher truth that we all know exists that should guide us. Roger Scruton in I think this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eD9RDTl6tM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eD9RDTl6tM. Says that basically conservatism in the 80's in the UK was whatever Margaret Thatcher believed. This really I think helped me understand why the conservative transition from Reagan/Bush to Trump went more smoothly than I thought it would among trad conservatives.
- paulryanrogers 11mo ago
  Growing up indoctrinated into conversative evangelism, I saw that the Midwestern flavor valued freedom of individuals from government. It was a shallow flavor of self sufficiency, which discounted all social support except family and churches. Abortion was a wedge issue preached from every platform. Tribalism was a key substrate. This often manifested as a near blind loyalty to the party and chosen thought leaders like Bill Graham, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and now Tucker Carlson. They told us how to interpret events and we repeated the talking points. They gave us the (often contradictory) rules and principles we were to use to view everything in life.