16 sats \ 6 replies \ @kepford OP 8 Oct \ parent \ on: What is a resolution to the divisions in the USA? mostly_harmless
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.
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.
reply
How do you steel man radical left policies in California lol
reply
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.
reply
I concur.
reply
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.
reply
Yep, happens to me often as well as with my liberal friends.
reply