402 sats \ 8 replies \ @SimpleStacker 8 Oct \ on: What is a resolution to the divisions in the USA? mostly_harmless
I view the biggest problem as what's known as the "perception gap".
In other words, both sides view their opponents as more extreme than they actually are. This leads to hysterics and an inability to find common ground.
So I would recommend that people
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Chill out
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Learn how to steelman the other side
Unfortunately, I don't see this happening. Neither politicians nor business leaders have an incentive to try to close the perception gap. Politicians have more fundraising when they can magnify the perception gap. Media earns views and clicks from outrage porn.
We're in a horrid prisoner's dilemma and it's going to take individual virtue to get out of it.
Yep, well put. You see this in the fear mongering that all sides do. Its rather absurd to me as I have friends on both extremes. Since checking out of the red/blue scam its become even more clear how it works.
I sometimes operate as a therapist to friends that are freaking out.
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Yeah, I've often had to talk conservative friends off the ledge.
Weird because I live in California, and I absolutely agree with my conservative friends that progressive policies are horrible and damaging the state and country.
Yet I often find myself steelmanning the liberals. If I had more liberal friends I'd probably be doing the opposite.
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How do you steel man radical left policies in California lol
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I think I do less steelmanning and more just telling them that the situation isn't as dire as it sometimes seems.
I speak from experience within a large public university. Yes, there are woke people and woke administrators, and yes the woke policies are getting in the way of education. But the amount of wokeness is a lot less than many people think. It's usually a handful of true believers in key positions, coupled with lipservice by the non-believers. If you can just navigate around the true believers, it's usually okay.
At a macro level though, these small margins eat away at the efficiency of our organizations, so it's still a big problem overall.
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I concur.
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Both sides exaggerate for effect. I often hear ridiculous things from family that are listening to the news. Covid was a great example. On the ground things were different from the way they were portrayed on TV. Things may be factually correct but also over-simplified and over-generalized. Treating movements and even states like monoliths is easier than nuance.
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Yep, happens to me often as well as with my liberal friends.
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Divisions have been exacerbated because of censorship of one side
Left wing media has also exacerbated divisions because of bias and misinformation
Higher Education is too political and one sided. Colleges are dogma centers like a madrasah
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