How do you avoid the pain of someone expressing a particularly hurtful political opinion (i.e. entire class of ppl should die) if you don't filter relationships by political beliefs?
I generally keep people's political opinions at arms length, but it has caused unforseen pain at times, and hurts when relations from different spheres interact negatively. by cobertos 0 minutes ago
I don't think it's worth talking about politics online at all.
It's seriously a misplacement of energy and time.
If you want to have some real impact start doing politics in your house, neighborhood, city, in that order.
Stop wasting time on foreign politics, or discussing tariffs or many things you have 0 impact on, and instead start fixing problems and raising issues in your radius.
That's what's sick about politics today, people barely know the program of their mayor or governor nor what's happening in their home or state, yet are there flaming _online_ about trump, AOC or Orban or Putin, those people make me sick, have all their priorities inverted. by epolanski 0 minutes ago
yeah I sorta mention it in the footnotes, I find writing a nice medium for this because there's less gaslighting / interrupting
so I guess I agree to some degree by shw1n 3 minutes ago
I'll provide an opposing viewpoint. In the last 10 years, I've lost friendships and family because people in my life have voted for candidates that stripped rights away from women, minorities, etc.
Having a vast difference between opinions is fine, but some of their decisions are fundamentally against my core beliefs and have done literal harm to many people I know.
For that reason, terminating family and friendships has been absolutely worth it for me.
Until we can live in a world where fundamental rights are protected and respected, we have no common ground, and it's pointless to tiptoe around these insanely harmful beliefs while maintaining a facade of friendship. by rdegges 1 minute ago
I'm 52. For me, there was a time when it was considered impolite to talk about sex, religion and politics. Then it became super fun when done with open/questioning/rational/critical minds, and a lot of progress in my own thinking was achieved from the usually non-threatening but lively debates and fights among friends and family for ideas. Then it shifted in the last ten or fifteen years. When social media started having friends of friends, the tribalism kicked in. It was explained very well in a talk between Maria Ressa and Jon Stewart. She is brilliant, and well worth listening to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsHoX9ZpA_M
by pcblues 2 minutes ago
Further, I mute and unfollow aggressively any family or friends that just constantly post political news/rants etc from Facebook and other social media platforms.
by daft_pink 0 minutes ago
> when someone asks "who did you vote for"
I find it astonishing that anyone would ask this. The only time I've ever been asked this question has been by pollsters. In my social circle, anyway, the taboo on this question is very strong. by JohnFen 22 minutes ago
I just try and imagine people having this debate in 1932 Germany.
by stouset 1 minute ago
Thanks for reading!
Yeah it seems there is less of a taboo among my friends, despite a strong tilt in one political direction.
I suspect this is because most people assume everyone shares the same opinion in our state by shw1n 20 minutes ago
Most people in the majority, you mean?
by stretchwithme 12 minutes ago
yes, I believe so
by shw1n 8 minutes ago
In my friend group it's clear as day: either you voted to kill and deport other people in the friend group or you didn't. Pretty obvious the group would like to know if you're secretly interested in their demise.
by voxl 11 minutes ago
But I guess for prioritizing the happiness of the friend group, some amount of ignorance is needed if someone in the group is ultimately going to model the world on "they kill and deport or they don't" given enough information to make that declaration, and eventually a person on the other side is encountered?
I understand that some things can be more important than just having fun though, down to personal values.
"To be ignorant" sounds like a moral failing on its face, but I feel it is increasingly becoming required in some circumstances with the explosive amount of information available to subscribe to nowadays. by doright 2 minutes ago
by 5 minutes ago
On one hand, it feels like this question is a lot more relevant than ever. It's easier to ignore politics when each side doesn't see the other as an existential threat to their way of life.
Like it would be easy not to ask someone's religion when there isn't a 35% chance they're going to say "extremist martyr".
But I don't ask this question if I don't think I know the answer already, and I only ask it with people I think I can have a conversation with. by unethical_ban 9 minutes ago
Are you really astonished by this? The overwhelming majority of humans equate social circles to the a tribe.
I'm betting if I voted for a candidate from a neo-nazi party the people in your social circle won't be able to stay impartial. I feel Aryans are the superior race but that's just my POV, can you live with that and be impartial, unbiased and can we still be a tribe?
What your "social group" does is outside the norm. They are using ignorance to maintain tribal unity which is extremely rare as it allows woke people to coexist with neo-nazis. I can understand the reasoning behind it. But what baffles and astonishes me is why you're astonished other groups don't do it when it's likely the norm everywhere else. by ninetyninenine 3 minutes ago
I think it's ok to be hypocritical and have friends with different vastly political beliefs, in the end relationships; friendships, lovers, etc are not usually an outcome of rational behavior, so I don't mind having friends who are politically different because it's the unconscious connection that brought us together.
As long as there's respect that's what matters. by forthwall 8 minutes ago
Politics is more regional than any other single factor. Like religion.
You're highly unlikely to grow up Protestant in Israel just like you're highly unlikely to going to grow up with liberal views in Tennessee.
Second geography is demographic. You're unlikely to support DEI if you're surrounded by 90% white people all the time, and you're unlikely to decry globalism after you've been exposed to large cities and large, diverse population groups for a long time. by zelon88 0 minutes ago
Politics aren’t the outcome of rational behavior either. The strongest belief systems that people have are instilled in them at a young age. Also, people can change.
by pokstad 6 minutes ago
Different brains having different experiences reach different conclusions.
If two people don't have some different opinions, at least one of them isn't thinking for themselves. by stretchwithme 5 minutes ago
In my experience the (now ancient) Sequences are not of much use in learning how to change your mind. With only a cursory background in psychology, his advice tends to consist of generic platitudes. Not much practical application.
I’d recommend a short course in mindfulness instead, at whatever point in the spectrum between science and mysticism you’re comfortable with. by TimorousBestie 3 minutes ago
I think it's somewhat funny that two of the images in this blog post, the two signs, and the miner, are commonly used to mock faux intellectualism and a feeling of moral superiority.
by protonbob 9 minutes ago
I don't think it's a coincidence, but it also doesn't necessarily undermine their utility. In fact, I think a lot of images that are also used in a mocking context get there because they wind up being overused and over applied, in part because they're actually really good.
Another example of an illustration I like that is somewhat derided is the classic equity vs equality cartoon with the boxes[1]. I say this in spite of the fact that I generally find myself identifying more with equality as a baseline, and the simple reason is it's a good illustration of the potential pitfalls of overindexing on equality.
IMO It's all in how you use them. It's hard to avoid that useful metaphors/analogies often become overused and cliche.
[1]: https://interactioninstitute.org/illustrating-equality-vs-eq... by jchw 2 minutes ago
I don’t discuss politics with anyone anymore. Just wish I had made that decision 30 years ago…
by whobre 3 minutes ago
I strongly disagree with most of this post.
Politics dictates so much of daily life, at every level, that it's important to be able to have conversations about it. It's frankly self-righteous to see yourself as the one person with nuanced opinions in a crowd of simpletons, and while I do think that politics in many liberal democracies has become more polarized, you'll never restore nuanced debate or good-faith disagreement in political discussions by just avoiding the topic.
I'm not advocating for politics being the only thing you talk about with your friends, but if you and your friends are able to have useful discussions about the impact of some policies over others, can have constructive disagreements over reasonable political discourse, and can identify larger problematic trends in politics, a lot of good can come of that. by _verandaguy 4 minutes ago
Something I try to remember when discussing politics or playing Scrabble:
"You can be right, or you can have friends"
by greybox 5 minutes ago
In normal times this would be okay.
by segmondy 5 minutes ago
It looks like unintentional moderate and intentional moderate on chart switched, unless I'm misunderstanding?
by erehweb 15 minutes ago
hey thanks for reading! I believe that's right
intentional moderate = they're trying to straddle the middle, meaning they adjust views based on political swings
unintentional moderate = they accidentally end up in the middle from the average of their views, for which some may be extreme left or right by shw1n 13 minutes ago
I don't discuss friends with politicians either
by canadiantim 3 minutes ago
Wrote this after noticing myself repeating the same conversational pattern over the years w/ friends, across the political spectrum
by shw1n 25 minutes ago
Online or in person?
by stretchwithme 2 minutes ago
If you can’t talk about politics with your friends, then they are not your friends.
by FollowingTheDao 10 minutes ago
I get the sentiment but guess I disagree, esp in the modern age with the increased polarization painting opposing sides as evil daily
by shw1n 6 minutes ago
People who voted for Trump aren't going to socially ostracize you for voting for the HR lady. Some might chuckle at you, but they aren't going to ambush you.
To put it bluntly, I live in the deep South in an 85% white neighborhood. Most of them voted for Trump. While I may be a mixed race (mostly black) guy who likes it in the butt, my neighbors aren't trying to lynch me. Any notion that they are is just not in touch with reality. The only people I get actual hate from are other blacks. I tell batshit liberal white women to their face I don't hate Trump and they are still nice to me 'cause they like the BBC.
While MSNBC may have told me a different story, I know the news isn't real. When I saw MSNBC pre-election I don't see "news", I saw mental illness, what it looked like was mental illness.
Anyone who considers themselves "hacker", or even just above midwit, should have figured it out a long time ago: the news isn't real. by acidmath 6 minutes ago
It's just not worth it. Publish or tweet something if you have something to say and want to reach a lot of people. Talking to ONE person and risking your relationship has a lousy cost/benefit ratio. by stretchwithme 8 minutes ago