Why I don't discuss politics with friends
But I consider the things important to me, the beliefs, the issues: and they, all of them, align with a progressive, left-leaning ideology. I'm not just glomming on to everything one "tribe" or another stands for ... one group actually reflects everything I believe. (I think I could split a few hairs here and there, but we're still talking perhaps 95% alignment.)
But I don't think that is too surprising. Others, smarter than me, have gone into great detail about the underpinnings of left-leaning or right-leaning world views in people. Fear of change, empathy ... a number of ideas have been put forth. By this reasoning it naturally follows that those of a certain "personality" will also share common beliefs, ideologies.
The implication instead seems to be that unless you are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum you must be "tribal". That feels dismissive.
This becomes even more obvious when you look at how these collections of beliefs have changed over time, which to me just shows how they aren’t based on any fundamental intrinsic personality traits but are trendy and groupthink-based. Ditto for geographic differences.
So I don’t think being a centrist implies one is not tribal, rather that the degree to which your beliefs on a variety of issues align with the “default” of a group implies how tribal you are.
In other words, a politically thoughtful and independent person probably has a basket of opinions that don’t fit into neat left or right, liberal or conservative, etc. categories.
The chance that one "ideology", whether it's liberalism, conservatism, anarchism , fascism or any-ism is always the right answer to every single societal question, is 0. It's comparable to the idea of exactly 1 of the (tens of) thousands of religions being the true one, correct in everything, with all of the others being wrong.
And this extends to politics. Where I'm from, the political landscape is very different from the US, with at least 5+ different parties that support different policies in various ways. At the same time, it's similar - there isn't a single one that approaches things on a case-by-case basis, each of them being ideology-based.
So I don’t think being a centrist implies one is not tribal, rather that the degree to which your beliefs on a variety of issues align with the “default” of a group implies how tribal you are.
Absolutely, "centrism" is an ideology in itself. This is also why the usage of the word "moderate" in the article and by PG is very unfortunate. That word too comes with a whole lot of baggage, and saying that independent thought leads to one being "moderate" in the way that most people think of that word, is straight up wrong. We need a different word, but I'm not great at coining those. "pragmatic" is the best one I can come up with. I can feel a "pragmatism is an ideology!" coming, but "the ideology of not looking at things from an ideological perspective" is entirely different from anything else. I'm sure the bright minds here can give better words.
In other words, a politically thoughtful and independent person probably has a basket of opinions that don’t fit into neat left or right, liberal or conservative, etc. categories.
Very much so. And as the article points out, this is unfortunately a very lonely experience, so it's completely logical that most don't opt for this, instead choosing the warmth of a dogmatic community.
For example - preventionism. It seems to me that many issues could be avoided or eliminated entirely if we tried to prevent them from happening in the first place, rather than choosing between two actions, both with unavoidable negative consequences.
Another is aesthetics. For some reason, the simple desire to make public spaces more beautiful is not really a policy position adopted by any political group, at least in a primary way.
And so maybe the solution is an issue-based political system in which votes and resources go toward specific issues and not parties. (Or work toward eliminating those issues in the first place.)
https://www.paulgraham.com/mod.html
That's what represents the two circled areas in the graph, though I realize if people don't have that context it could be confusing
added an explanation to clear things up
fwiw, I don't think that's arrogant, I've met plenty of high schoolers that understand this concept
That's what lobbyists want you to believe, at least. It makes their job a lot easier if they are the only ones carrying out democracy.
You need to select someone trustworthy enough to not botch your message, sure, but usually all political parties put up people who are trustworthy enough. What is much more important is your expression to the hired after they are on the job. That is the only way they are going to know what you are thinking. They are not mind readers, surprisingly.
does the fact that I disagree with them in a few points matter?
Perhaps not, but you're also lending legitimacy to a system that is abusing you.
(seriously, this is a significant asymmetry between the two that has been there for at least a century. There isn't one lockstep leftism, there's thousands of micro factions arguing about most things)
Both the left and the right seem captured by a small minority of radicals, using social media echo chambers/purity spirals to shut down often-quite-reasonable disagreement. And we're clearly past the point at which we can just ignore 'social media politics', given how much it seems to have led to the current state of things in the US.
In other words, a politically thoughtful and independent person probably has a basket of opinions that don’t fit into neat left or right, liberal or conservative, etc. categories.
That doesn't stop them from voting a straight red or blue ticket every time if that's what they've been indoctrinated to do.
We've all encountered some old man who by all accounts should be a republican. They own a small business, have conservative social views, like their guns, minimize taxes, etc, etc. But they vote a straight blue ticket because that's what they learned to do back in the 1960s. And on the other side is the stereotypical southern white woman who believes in every social thing the democratic party has but still votes red because she was raised in a religious household and came of age during the peak of the right's lean toward peddling to christians.
So anyone who’s views align perfectly with a party are probably just parroting what they’ve heard because no sensible individual would arrive at that set of values naturally on their own; it would - and does - take some serious mental gymnastics to hold these contradictory values in your head.
If I start to bring up deregulation of building housing, there will be a strong immediate backlash by certain factions on the left.
I do suspect that if you what the deregulation actually meant to both left and right people you'd find two (probably overlapping) camps aligned on NIMBY and Housing prices go up as your largest groups.
Structural and safety engineers regardless of political affiliation will tell you why deregulation of some standards is a bad idea.
Firstly, does he think that Marx was dumb? And leading left-wing figures like AOC, Sanders, Varoufakis, Zinn, or Zizek? No, for all you might disagree with them, they're smart and independent. They did not acquire their opinions in bulk. I even admit that right-wing figures like Shapiro, Bannon etc... are smart and independent, even though I think they're snakes.
Secondly, the essay overstates the degree of uniformity within the far left and right. Have you not seen the animosity between anarchists and Trotskyites? They only agree insofar as believing we can do better than capitalism. And those on the far right who have a global free market ideology will be at odds with those who want to restrict movement and apply protectionist tariffs.
[EDITED TO ADD] Thirdly, he presupposes that the distinction between right and left is purely one of logical competence. This is captured by him saying "both sides are equally wrong". But personal values also drive the polarisation. Those on the right tend to highly value tradition, loyalty, and family. Those on the left tend to highly value universal welfare and the environment. It's not really possible to label these "right" or "wrong", they are expressions of our fundamental desires for ourselves and the world. If you start from different axioms, you'll tend to get different corollaries even if perfect logic is applied.
If I were to do that, I would say something like "pull the ladder up behind you or tear it down before you" with a comical touch. I don't think it is possible to keep such descriptions short or stringent.
It's indeed typical for this tribe to off-hand dismiss thinking that they deem somehow "ideological" without even really trying to figure out what the thinking is. Also a lot of self-congratulation, exceptionalism and motivated reasoning is exhibited, but these are typical features of any tribe.
You are a man or a woman, young or old, Asian, White, Black, Latino, straight, gay, rich, poor slim, fat, etc.
The aim should be that people have to voluntarily associate with their tribe. It might be the hermit tribe where all the hermits sign up to be alone together.
So you get people who think taxation is theft allied with people who Back The Blue. You get people who think life is so sacred abortion should be banned allied with people who'd like to see an AR-15 under every pillow. You get people who think nazi flags and the N word are free speech, allied with people who think books with gay and trans characters should be banned.
And personally I'm pro-environment and think nuclear power has a part to play; I think we should help the homeless by increasing the housing supply and letting builders do their thing; that the police should exist but need substantial reform to stamp out corruption and brutality; and that women's issues like abortion and trans women in abuse shelters should be decided by women, not men like me. But I'm in a political coalition with people who think nuclear power is bad, that we need rent control, that we should defund the police, and so on.
In an electoral system with proportional representation, largely unrelated views would all be different parties, no party would have a majority, and after the election they'd form alliances to build a ruling coalition.
But because of America's electoral system, someone has to take all those views, duct-tape them together and call it a consistent political ideology.
that women's issues like abortion and trans women in abuse shelters should be decided by women, not men like me.
This got me wondering... Thinking in reverse, are there any issues that you think should be decided by men only?
Underlying your thought, seems to be the idea that some people should be excluded from certain political/ideological conversations.
Whereas for me, I see all people as individuals, each with a right to their opinions. Ie, I wouldn't start from a point of separation as this bakes in special interests, sexism, racism, etc.
Military conscription and field duties would be an example I can think of.
For example, in my European country we have mandatory conscription for men over 17 but there was a referendum a while ago if this should still be kept, and it was funny that women also got to vote on whether men get conscripted or not lol. And guess what, most women (and boomers) voted in favor of the mandatory conscription of young males by quite a margin and unsurprisingly the only ones who voted against but got outvoted, were the young men.
In both cases it seems like the discrimination is not in favour of men. Apparently men ought not to get a say in "women's issues", but it is also right that men be forced to put their lives on the line.
If that is correct, it is the case that men have less rights.
Men have less rights by nature/biology because they are expendable (women are the reproductory bottleneck of the species) and they are the only gender with the physique optimized for physical fighting and hard labor, hence the famous line "women and children first".
We can say it's unfair and imbalanced but that's not gonna change biology and the status quo when push comes to shove and an enemy invades or a natural disaster hits and human meat is needed for the grinder, hence why there's no sympathy towards men and why much less societal help available to men in need (men have 10x the suicide and homelessness rates than women).
Men and women can never be equal in absolute terms outside an utopia of peace and prosperity, because evolutionary biology and gender dysmorphia has engineered our bodies to be good at completely different tasks meant to complement each other in order to ensure the survival and procreation of the tribe/species.
If absolute gender equality is what we're after, I think the premise is flawed form the start.
I thought we were talking about some sort of equality. Re the OP, who mentioned that they wouldn't participate in certain "women's issues", I couldn't think of an equivalent example where women shouldn't participate in "men's issues". That fact alone strikes me as unequal - it can't be that one sex (or race, or whatever other distinction) should have rights in law, that others don't have. Such a circumstance would an example of creating inequality, which I think is the antithesis of the OP's point.
These questions are not straightforward. Presumably we don't want to initiate or institutionalise inequality.
In this sentence, you are looking at different parts of the equation depending on case 1 and 2:
Apparently men ought not to get a say in "women's issues", but it is also right that men be forced to put their lives on the line.
No, in the first case it could be argued that men shouldn't have a say, and in the second it could be argued that women shouldn't have a say. In the first case women are (potentially/allegedly) negative affected, in the second (young) men.
Can you think of a female equivalent where females are ordered by the government to put themselves in harm's way?
Anti-Abortion laws in the US would be such an example.
I think the "anti-woke" messaging was a particularly effective example, because in reality this means completely different things to many voters (some of those contradictory).
Your nuclear position is interesting, and has become significantly more common over the last decade I feel. Personally, I disagree-- In my view, nuclear power is not on a trajectory where it is ever gonna be competitive (levelized cost) with renewable power. This will lead to renewables "ruining" electricity spot prices whenever they are available which is very bad for nuclear power economics. Nuclear power also shares basically the same drawback with renewables that it wants to be paired with peaker plants for dispatchability (instead of operating in load-following mode itself), but renewables basically just do it cheaper.
At this point, it would basically take a miracle for me to believe in nuclear power again (a very cheap, safe, simple, clean, quick-to-build reactor design) but I don't see this happening any time soon (and honestly the exact same argument applies to fusion power even more strongly-- I think that is an interesting research direction that will never find major a application in power generation).
I will concede however that nuclear power that was built 10-30 years ago (before renewables were really competitive) was and is helpful to reduce CO2 emissions.
But I'm in a political coalition with people who think nuclear power is bad, that we need rent control, that we should defund the police, and so on.
I don't think that's true though. I think you're just listening to the loudest voices.
I read the article quickly so maybe I'm misreading it but if that graph is serious it really undermines his position as a thoughtful moderate to me. But maybe he really does believe that everyone on the left and the right only has groupthink. I agree with you that it's definitely not all tribalism
Edit: this is the graph, everything outside of a group of moderates is 100% on the "groupthink" side of the graph. It's an inherently condescending way to look at people who you disagree with and a disservice to your point if you're trying to get people to listen to each other. https://images.spr.so/cdn-cgi/imagedelivery/j42No7y-dcokJuNg...
The Republicans and Democrats are both coalitions made up of many different groups, and their policies are constantly shifting depending on which individuals get elected and which of those sub-groups hold more power, as well as due to different sub-groups shifting allegiances.
It's statistically almost impossible that someone would agree 100% with the platform of the Republicans or Democrats at any given moment. Even if you just pretend there are exactly two stances on a given issue (R or D) you'd still be looking at like 2^1000 different possible outcomes (for 1,000 different issues). The more perfectly someone claims to align to one party, the more likely it is that they're doing so out of tribalism than because they actually matched the exact one-in-a-zillion set of opinions.
The really obvious example of this is look how much of a thorn in the side of the Republican Congressional leadership the far right has been. Agreeing rigidly with a party will not put you at the edge of the graphs at all (for most parties globally it would put you somewhere in the middle)
The ideal graph would have two opposing labels dynamically generated according to the beliefs of the reader to be along a polarization axis for which the reader exists in the middle.
It's particularly frustrating to me since from my experience I think both sides thinking he is farther away ideologically than he is is from then is from this tendency. I have the opposite problem, people generally think I'm much closer ideologically than I am even though I'm uncompromising in my principles (I'm very far left and even a vegan, which is anathema to many people). I've found if I listen to people and, more importantly, am willing to understand and speak to their values the more my experience is the exact opposite of the writer's. People's political views are often irrational but also they are driven by a diverse set of underlying ideologies and values and if you think "independent thought" is going to cluster in particular spot in an ideological spectrum and everyone else is just subject to groupthink (but you aren't somehow) then of course talking to other people who aren't ideologically close to you is going to be miserable.
You often see this in real time during political conversations (both online and offline). Someone will say, “No one on my side ever said X, that’s a vicious smear perpetrated by the other side.” Someone will response with an example of a prominent leader on their side saying X. The first person will suddenly do a 180, and start explaining why X is just a commonsense position and it’s silly for anyone to be offended by it.
We're not too far off from a future where anyone can mouse over their username and a browser extension will tell them whether the username they are mousing over is consistent in their beliefs or if they're a flip flopping POS shill for whatever color party they're peddling the policy of.
Relating to your point, I would add something based on my experience in the UK. In the last 30 years we've twice had a Labour leader elected. Both times campaigning as a hard-nosed centre-left pragmatist, and with some on the left echoing similar sentiments about compromise and pushing the needle.
Blair admittedly did some good stuff - Lords reform and minimum wage. But he also introduced and then tripled university fees, greatly expanded private initiatives in the public sector, and engaged in an activist interventionist foreign policy culminating in the invasion of Iraq. These are changes whose ill effects we're still reeling from as a country.
Starmer is looking to shape up very similarly, from his U-turns on private school charitable status, tuition fees and the two-child cap, to his reluctance to condemn the Gazan genocide and cuts to disability allowance.
Was it better to have these as prime minister Vs the conservative candidate? Yes, probably. Can they really be said to be pushing the needle? I doubt it.
Not saying that our right is much better. Their top "virtue" seems to be competent campaigning & hard work in pursuit of political power. (Which, obviously, worked for them.) Vs. our left seems too busy holding low-effort ideological purity beauty contests to particularly care about being in power.
I've heard that some of the brighter voters, who voted for Democrats due to "Trump is the worst choice" arguments, are waking up to just how low-functioning the Dem's are. Not saying that that'll do any good - but it's nice to hear.
They're completely rejecting the complexity of compromise and gradual change towards the ideal, convinced that any act that isn't absolute is a betrayal of their values.
Interestingly enough, this also describes a member of the Trump Party (formerly known as the Republican Party).
I should probably generate a new one or just remove since it appears to have sent this message to multiple people
But yeah I don't think it's entirely tribalism, but I do largely agree with PG's essay, though I'd understand a contesting of his statement that "the left and right are equally wrong about half the time"
It sounds like you believe in the graph, but don't want to turn people off. Just own your belief.
FWIW I think you should disagree with Graham's essay and your own graph. Saying that "left" and "right" were both 50% wrong is like saying the same about "federalist" and "anti-federalist". Even if the sides are 50% wrong, the free thinkers would be widely distributed.
I think the hump could be slightly shifted left or right, but the points on the graph are the averages of an individual's entire collection of views
I don't believe an independent thinker would come up with a set of views that perfectly match the left or right's doctrine since at least some of those views are somewhat arbitrary -- in that sense I agree with him
A major problem is trying to project a hugely multifaceted phenomenon like political outlook into one, or even few, dimensions. And then even discretizing the one dimension. And then categorizing (other) people's thinking or ideologies into these.
Another problem is assuming that there is some universal "optimal" or even good policy. Instead there can be even fundamentally contradicting interests or goals between e.g., dare I say, classes which can lead to well informed
I'm not claiming you don't appreciate these, but the conclusions to me seem to require such problematic assumptions. The intent is likely something like trying to simplify complex phenomena into something manageable (i.e. an ideology), but these tend to be very leaky abstractions.
In the essay, the "unintentional moderate" is defined as someone who holds all kinds of views, some from the far left, some from the far right, some from the middle - but by chance the average of their views makes them a moderate.
I had to go looking for that, because the graph doesn't show that at all. I think the graph is a bad take on the ideas in Paul Graham's article.
I didnt read that people on the left or the right are always tribal. But yeah, its easy to go that way when you are not able to see the truth in opposite viewpoints.
Asserting that people varying on the left-right spectrum also cluster around the anti-ideal pole of the idealized axis while everyone closer to the ideal pole clusters around the left-right center is not as common, but reflects the same cognitive bias, though it is particularly amusing when that axis independent thought (ideal) vs. groupthink (anti-ideal), such that freethinkers are asserted to by ideological uniform even outside of the shared commit to "free" thought, while sheepish adherents of groupthink are more ideologically diverse.
(And, yes, that graph is deadly serious -- as well as, IMO, hilariously wrong[0] -- and fairly central to the theme of the post.)
It's even more funny that this "free thinker" is decrying tribalist groupthink, asserting (as already discussed) that free thought exists only in an extremely narrow band in the center of the left-right axis, and talking about how they can't talk politics with anyone outside their group and are "desperate for like-minded folk". The lack of self-awareness is...palpable.
It's even more funny that all the ideas he embraces and purports to have trouble finding people he agrees with are the standard doctrines of the rationalist/EA/longermist faction that is so popular in the tech/AI space (and the conceit of being uniquely free thinking is also common to the faction.)
[0] Actual free thinkers are, IME, distributed widely -- not necessarily evenly, but certainly not clustered in one spot -- across both the left-right axis and a number of other political axes [1][2], such as the authoritarian-libertarian axis, so both the distribution shown and the assertion that the "real" political spectrum is two dimensional with only freethought vs. groupthink added to the classic left-right axis are incorrect.
[1] For a number of reasons, including both differences in life experiences and thus perceived probabilities on various factual propositions, but also on fundamental values which life experiences may impact, but not in a deductive manner, because you can't reason to "ought" from "is".
[2] Free thinkers do differ from groupthinkers in that their positions in the multidimensional space of political values are likely not to fall into the clusters of established tribes, but to have some views typical of one tribe while other others fall out of that tribes typical space (and possibly even into the space of an opposing tribe.) But there are enough different tribes
"it was meant as a visual specifically for Paul Graham's article here: https://www.paulgraham.com/mod.html
I should probably generate a new one or just remove since it appears to have sent this message to multiple people
But yeah I don't think it's entirely tribalism, but I do largely agree with PG's essay, though I'd understand a contesting of his statement that 'the left and right are equally wrong about half the time'"
If you want to feel superior and virtue signal, just label yourself an "independent thinker." It's so easy.
If he were really trying to demonstrate a 2d Gaussian, it would instead be a circle or elipse of points with highest density at the origin.
perhaps in the end he was not
Since you are left leaning, presumably American, a good example is the Republicans. The current policies and values of the Republicans seem to be very different than let's say those of 20 years ago. But you don't see a lot of movement, i.e. you don't really see people saying because your actions of policies changed I'm going to re-evaluate my support for you. Maybe the other team is now closer to my world views. It's a lot more common that people just keep voting for their camp or team. I'm sure there are studies, this is very anecdotal. There are also many e.g. single issue voters, they only care about a single issue and nothing else.
Independent thinkers, who dive deep into issues, who challenge beliefs, who weigh multiple issues and considerations, who potentially shift their position when the goal posts have moved or they've evaluated new information, are rare. It's much easier to stay in an echo chamber/team/tribe. We see this all the time, another example is the pandemic. It's lack of nuance.
You see this in the political discourse. Instead of debating things of substance it's more of a rally around the team approach. You're never going to see in-depth discussion/analysis on tax policies, or security policies. Anything that doesn't meet your world view is automatically discredited whether it has merit or not, It's going to be they bad we good/polarizing/conspiracies etc. This pushes people farther apart and I think it also pushes policies farther apart. Maybe sometimes it is that simple but plenty of times it's not.
If you vote for a third-party candidate, you might just as well not have voted at all. The parties will only genuinely start caring about policy when that gets fixed, and voters will only start looking into politics when there is more than one option on their side of the aisle.
You've got to get your party organized at all levels and running candidates in most contests. Everyone seems to want to run a Presidential candidate, but if you're going to run only one election, it should be one you have a chance of winning. A lot of federal office holders previously held state or local office. If you want to seriously contest federal offices, you need to have candidates with elected experience. So, start with local districts, city council/mayorship, maybe county offices. From there, work towards state office. Then you can pick up some house seats, and eventually senate seats too. When the time is right, maybe try some of your seasoned politicians for President.
that will be shown strongly in a locked 2 party system like the usa has.
you say it is strange that not more people switch camps, but this is not accidental, an extreme amount of effort and resources are spent to maintain this.
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice
distinctly different from the "accidental" moderate who could harbor indignation against racial prejudice as one of their views
Like if you were to say consider yourself a progressive. I would consider you a progressive, unless you for instance, supported something incredibly conservative that was performed by a "Good Guy" politician on your team.
For instance, we used to have this chap Daniel Andrews. Who was for better or worse, a mild progressive. He took a very hard stance on Covid related issues. Progressives, backed the man regardless. Conservatives criticised his every move. However, his own human rights review, found that he had violated the human rights of citizens in certain circumstances.
If you mention this to his critics, it reinforces their team. But if you mention this (incredibly obvious good faith criticism) to his supporters, not only does it reinforce their team, but they immediately seek to identify you as someone on the other team. A "crazy anti lockdown conservative" or similar. - That for me is the essence of tribalism.
To be fair I think this is a symptom of social media rather than just political awareness.
Quite a few people who have been vociferously pro-EU and in favour of their protectionism, tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers have been going crazy over the US imposing tariffs, even though the US rates are far lower than the EU's.
A similar group has historically been strongly against government corruption but recently have been attacking efforts to uncover and stop corruption in the US Federal government.
even though the US rates are far lower than the EU's
What does "far lower" mean to you? Can you give examples? Because to me, the view "Trumps tariffs are only matching what foreign nations already do" is just factually wrong.
Personally, I just think blanket tariffs as a significant form of government income is highly detrimental, from a foreign policy perspective (=> alienates allies, encourages retaliation), as a tax-substitute (because it's basically a regressive "tax-the-rich-less" scheme, which, given meteorically rising wealth inequality, is the last thing we need) and also for economic development (because there is neither the workforce, nor the actual desire, to build up low-margin manufacturing in the US-- making those products 30% more expensive is not gonna change that meaningfully).
A similar group has historically been strongly against government corruption but recently have been attacking efforts to uncover and stop corruption in the US Federal government.
I don't have a lot of beef in this, personally, but if you're talking about doge:
I just have to look at their website, and what I see are numbers that don't add up at all, containing a lot of cuts for purely policy reasons, wrapped in highly partisan messaging.
I'd be strongly against that even if they advocated for wheelchair accessibility and gay rights on their twitter, or w/e.
Corruption, to me, is if you buy influence on government policy by spending money on officials, and that is exactly what I see under Trump.
The implication instead seems to be that unless you are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum you must be "tribal". That feels dismissive.
It's not about where you are on the spectrum. I know neoliberal moderate Democrats, people who would have voted for George H.W. Bush in 1988, who are more tribal about current U.S. politics than any socialist I've met. What makes it unpleasant to talk politics with them is a combination of two things: the narrow set of answers they're willing to accept on every topic, and the anger and suspicion they broadcast at anyone who says anything else. For example, they have an acceptable set of answers for why Trump won in 2024 (racism and sexism) and if you suggest any other contributing factors (like arrogance, elitism, and various screw-ups in the Democratic party) then you must be on the other side, blaming the victims and making excuses for Trump supporters. You can say a dozen things morally condemning Trump and the Republican Party and then make one strategic criticism of the Democrats, and they'll look at you like maybe they can't ever trust you anymore. They'll parade their emotional distress and look at you sideways if you don't have the energy to mirror it. All this without being especially politically informed, politically engaged, or politically radical, or caring if anybody else is informed, engaged, or radical -- they judge themselves and others purely by fervor and narrowness.
You don't like a team for an ideological reason, usually physical closeness or some other arbitrary connection.
For many, the team is the extent at which they analyze politics. You see this when conservatives will reference historical events in terms of the name of the political party. For example, it's relatively common to see someone say "Oh the Democrats are bad because during the Civil war they were on the side of slavery". Their analysis doesn't include the actual policy or ideology at hand, it's simply the team "Democrats". It doesn't matter to them if the flavor of policies that the early 20th century dems supported are similar or even the same as the policies modern Republicans support. Only the team.
I think there exists multiple layers of "tribalism" or "team sports" in politics that effects people differently. The bottom layer is sadly "<Name of party> good, <name of other party> bad". I think at some point we must acknowledge that some people are simply stupid. If they think making an argument based on the politics of a party 100 years ago is convincing, they might just not have the facilities for critical thinking.
A lot of those people are now @-ing grok on twitter to explain even the simplest of jokes.
Sometimes this is easier to see from the outside. For example, if the conservative right all independently arrived at the same conclusion based on personality, isnt it strange how the consensus all moves together and changes over time
As it happens, if I personally looks to what is important to me, I find that from the extremest left to the extremest right, the best political party get 60% support and the worst get 40% support. They all have some policies that I strongly support, and some policies that are terrible, and the middle of the gang is exactly the same.
To take an example. I am in strong support of the green party when it comes to train and bike infrastructure, fishing policies, eliminating lead in hunting ammunition, getting rid of invasive species, and banning heavy fuel oil in shipping. I strongly disagree with their support of using natural gas as a transactional fuel in the energy grid in hopes of green hydrogen (a pipe dream), and their dismantling of nuclear power. I also strongly disagree with their political attempts to mix in the war in Gaza with environmentalism, as if taking up the flag for either side in that war has any relevance in nation/local politics on what is almost the other side of the world. That is one political party out of 8 that my country has, and the story is similar with all the rest.
Tribal politics happen when we take these various tribes in our society and essentially blind them to their biases to the point where they can’t imagine at all why someone would even be in that other tribe. A complete loss of critical thinking ability emerges once it becomes us and them and not some of us and others of us, one species, no tribes, many ideas.
Do you actually believe all liberals are good and can do no evil? Do you actually believe all conservatives are cartoonishly evil idiots? I’d hope you could see the nuance but your description makes it seem like there is one way but the highway. And the reflexive counter argument from the liberals is “but racism” but then again, explain the phenomenon of the black or latino Trump supporter? Clearly there is more nuance going on in what is sensible to people than what we can gleam out of the black and white painted descriptions from the thought leaders in our tribe.
And MAGA goes beyond being tribal: by any objective measure, it's a cult.
Plus you see an awful lot of people who will criticize one side for doing one thing while supporting the other side for doing the exact same thing. Obama, for example, was the Deporter-in-Chief (~3 million deported), Biden continued the Trump policy of using Title 42 to deny asylum claims and Kamala proposed building the very same border wall that all Democrats protested when Trump proposed it in 2020.
I'm a leftist and any leftist will have seen so many liberals who love progressive aesthetics but turn into a jack-booted fascist the second you want to address any of the underlying economic issues. For example, tell people "house prices need to come down" to solve any number of issues such as homelessness and see how they react.
The implication instead seems to be that unless you are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum you must be "tribal". That feels dismissive.
On this, I 100% agree. There are several reasons why:
1. Intellectual laziness. People think they're "above the fray" by bothsidesing everything;
2. Ignorance. This is particularly an issue for Democratic voters in the US. Both Democrats and Republicans are neoliberals. US foreign policy is bipartisan. Full-throated support for capitalism is bipartisan. But a large segment of Democrats tell themselves they're good people for wearing a pride pin while at the same time thinking homeless people should die in the stree; or
3. Deception. This is particularly the case for Republicans who will try and center their positions by appealing to "common sense" and label Democrats, who are a center-right party, as "the far Left" or "the radical Left".
So, yes, people do use "tribalism" as an epithet to silence legitimate criticisim but there is also tribalism.
But tribalism is absolutely an issue in the modern age with huge swathes of population falling into social media echo chambers. People first find their tribe, and then they define their own personality by the views of that tribe, not the other way around.
Just look at all the people spewing "own the libs" or "maga fucktards". A significant portion of the population doesn't vote based on rational analysis, but by being part of a crowd. They don't even care or know what they vote for, as long as they are sticking it to people they perceive as enemies.
I think this is basically the terminal/minimum of the modern social network algo optimization. Everything is maximally polarized, nobody is willing to engage in good faith discussion with people who hold different views. Everyone has a known enemy and known allies and they can be fed what they like to hear and thus continue being addicted.
I don't know how to get out of this :(
I'm not just glomming on to everything one "tribe" or another stands for ... one group actually reflects everything I believe.
I don't think that's unreasonable, but if you're in the US, you should really re-evaluate if this is true just because there are several significant issues over which the parties have flipped over the past few decades (and more if you go back further).
Obviously you didn't specify a party, but as one example: In the 1990s, the left wing party was where the free speech absolutists were. If you were a big "free speech" enthusiast back then and you still are now, then great! If your views have changed, that's fine, too, but there should be alarm bells going off in your head that your views changed along with the tribe.
I feel like those that are more in the middle - in addition to be “accidentally in the middle” as pg says — they’re open to hearing the other side, and even open to being wrong.
Those that I know that I might define as “tribal” — and that goes for either side — are certainly not open to being wrong, and not even really open to listening to the other side — even a rational discussion.
Some may pretend to listen and maybe even engage in a discussion, but only out of being polite, not out of genuine, open curiosity.
An average person has a lot more in common with you than with the imaginary protagonist of this blogpost, who is really smart and wants to show that everyone else is really dumb.
Like other normal people, I discuss politics with friends; both with the ones I mostly agree with and the ones I mostly disagree with. We need to understand game theory and military strategy to have a useful conversation.
align with a progressive, left-leaning ideology.
Cooperation and scalability are two objectively good principles that our species can apply effectively... if and only if there is a genuine desire for cooperative, scalable, positive outcomes.
If social/political discourse has degraded to the point that cooperative, scalable, positive outcomes are off the table, look to those who have taken control of the discourse. Propaganda undermines language itself.
The difference between destructive behavior and constructive behaviour... has a bias.
The actual problems of “tribalism” are exactly those of cults: worship of a leader or ideology, zero tolerance for criticism, cutting you off from other support networks, conspiracies, narratives of doom, promises of salvation, framing enemies as degenerates and deplorables, claiming exclusive ownership of truth and morality…
Red and blue alike have cult wings.
center-ish is not a requirement, but a correlation -- rarely will someone independently come up with views that 100% match the somewhat-arbitrary positions of the left or right
We have parents posting that they are glad their child is dead instead of getting the measles vaccine, an entire pandemic that was ignored and downplayed, an election denied.
These are all simple examples of tribalism - choosing the tribe over ones own self interest and well being. Most sane people don't offer their children up to Baal.
This occurs clear across the political spectrum, but a standout example is record-breaking levels of immigration in European countries like Sweden and Germany. Instead of realizing the policy failure and acting to fix it, the line becomes "it was the right thing to do, it was just done poorly."
When social scientists say something is socially constructed that's approaching this.
It's hard to see oneself apart from the group one belongs to. In fact to separate oneself causes real pain. In the article it says that people don't want to look outside their tribe; I would say that people shouldn't even think about looking outside as it will cause trauma. It would literally cause psychological identity wounds.
One aspect of politics is this pain avoidance.
Others, smarter than me, have gone into great detail about the underpinnings of left-leaning or right-leaning world views in people.
People also change. Until 25 maybe 30,I was left leaning in many issues.
Now I am mostly right aligned.
By this reasoning it naturally follows that those of a certain "personality" will also share common beliefs, ideologies
Is this not borne out in your own life experience? Because it sure is in mine.
one group actually reflects everything I believe
If you swap “group” for “religion,” this is how I feel about Catholicism. Make of that what you will.
Media in the US, especially now via incessant social media feeds, fuels this. It showers us with information showing how the "other side" is bad. So you can have a correct opinion that the other tribe is bad without any quantitative metrics to compare how bad it is compared to your tribe, which is also very bad.
Btw, regarding the basic personality traits thing. I found this paper very interesting[0]. Sort of refutes the "conservatives lack empathy and fear change" angle. On average, I suspect most liberals and conservatives have very similar averages across most personality traits and are mostly just a product of their environment.
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34429211/#:~:text=Our%20meta...
Here is politics:
Are common American citizens able to afford and obtain reasonable health care?
Are common Americans paid a living wage? Can one person earn enough to have a family?
Do our children have a reasonable opportunity to grow, have a productive life and have a family if they want one?
Is the financial situation getting better for Americans or is the difference between earnings and expenditures growing larger. (Hint do we use code words like 'inflation' instead of calling it like it is).
A functioning democracy requires that the common people are enable to formulate and enact laws that they believe are in their best interests. Do the majority of the laws enacted in all the states meet this requirement?
A functioning democracy requires that the common people are able to use the law and courts to right wrongs. Are the common people able to use/afford access to the courts when wrongs are committed.
Do the common news media act as a forum for the common concerns and issues of the People. (Here's looking at you NYT).
Cuo Bono? If the laws passed are not in the interests of the People, and the courts are not accessible by People, who benefits? If the news media are not a forum for the interests of the People, whose interests do they represent. (Here's looking at you Jeff Bezos).
If advertising funds our primary sources of news, whose interests are represented.
Those are simply things you should discuss with your friends. They are questions not answers. This is not rocket science.
It took me 15 years to to remake my bed into somewhat rational arguments, and still I find lots of hay in there. Generally both sides, or all sides really, want the same things and disagree on how to get there. And the truth is there is almost never an obvious or clear way to get there. It's fractal pros and cons all the way down.
but individuals carry a burden to for not trying to remake their bed
In what way? I turn on Fox sometimes and it's not that it's slanted, but it's just a stream of lies and BS. I've watched a bunch of Trump's speeches and in addition to being incoherent, he says the same lies and BS all the way down. Yesterday's tariff speech was a great example.
I don't consider myself progressive (though the MAGA right would think me so), but where do I go to try and 'remake [my] bed'?
Listening to first-hand sources is the way, I guess, but also remembering they can be lying as well, so be vigilant.
CNN and NBC weren't always as bad as they are now, but their descent has been obvious and dramatic.
Some of them still employ democrats to some minimal extent, such as Jamelle Bouie at the NYT, but that's merely subterfuge, lest their bent be glaringly obvious.
If someone can name a large organization that is an exception to my first paragraph, I would be happy to learn of them.
By turning on Fox sometimes (provided it's not your main source) you might already not fall into the category of people not trying to remake their bed.
Although there is a way to frame political alliances as a win-win when two parties increase their share at a cost of some other third party losing theirs.
Because of that, the arguments will always be straw-man, because people want to win resources, not to argue in good faith.
Any political issue can be framed in terms of zero sum game, if you look at the whole picture
This zero-sum narrative is only true in a world of no growth, where all resources are being fully utilized to maximum effect. That is very far from the world we live in, where there is enormous room for additional extraction, creation, and efficient utilization of resources.
Generally both sides, or all sides really, want the same things and disagree on how to get there.
No, that is just not true. For example, do you think Putin and his supporters wanted a functioning democracy in Russia and independent Ukraine? No, they wanted someone functioning as a dictator to restore Russia's cold war territory and influence, and they wanted to undermine western democracies that stood in their way.
History does not support your claim that everyone wants the same things. Some people want power and strong man to take over the government. We see that with the Trump administration. The religious conservatives want to use that to make America a Christian nation. The billionaire libertarians want to use it to deregulate their industries and run the government like a corporation. And Trump wants to act unilaterally to bring about his vision of being seen as some great figure. They have illiberal aims.
They also very obviously want different things compared to others.
That said the Pinkertons were basically mercenaries akin to organized crime, so probably viewed things in terms of might makes right.
The insidious nature of this question comes from the false representation as earnest, intellectual discourse. Many who ask it may truly believe they’re engaging earnestly, but their responses quickly reveal an angle more akin to religious police.
As you point out, nearly all of talkingtab's questions are loaded. At the very least, talkingtab essentially says outright what they expect the "correct" answer to be, e.g I'm baffled why talkingtab seems to think "inflation" is a "code word". I speak English, and inflation is "telling it like it is" based on the simple definition of the word.
As another example, for this question:
Are common Americans paid a living wage? Can one person earn enough to have a family?
What happens if a response is "No, I don't believe that cashiers at McDonald's deserve to be paid a 'living wage', because I don't believe that job is intended to support a family on its own"? To emphasize, I'm not saying what the "right" answer is, but I do believe reasonable people can disagree over what constitutes a living wage and which jobs deserve to be paid it.
If anything, talkingtab's post just highlights to me the author's specific point about political "tribes" vs political views, and if anything has convinced me more that the author's view is spot on here.
There's other issues that are much less clear and, in my experience, more likely to shift from discussions and debates into strife and arguments:
- Should private citizens be allowed to own firearms? Should they be allowed to carry them on the streets?
- What do we do about meth and opiates on our streets? What do we do about the associated property and violent interpersonal crime?
- Should we start building more nuclear power plants to cut down on our greenhouse gas emissions?
And locally:
- The city is expanding to the west. What should this neighbourhood look like?
These, I believe, are squarely in the realm of "politics" and unless you're having the discussion in an ideological bubble are likely to be much hotter-button issues.
The crucial question is what is "politics"? … Are inflammatory issues about race, sex or gender or political correctness or immigration? No!
When people talk about privilege, this is it - being able to dictate which issues are ‘politics,’ and being able to dismiss my rights as ‘not politics.’
Do I have a right to work? To live? To own property? To marry the one I love? To have sex with the people I’m attracted to? To raise a child with my partner? To choose my own identity and to live my own life?
A white cishet man takes all those rights for granted - why shouldn’t I? Why should my struggle to obtain those same rights be dismissed as ‘inflammatory issues about sex or gender or political correctness’ and therefore ‘not politics?’
Are you married? Would you like to be? Do you ever worry about how you’ll be treated when you go to work, or make a purchase at the store? What’s it like to go grocery shopping, or car shopping, or touring places to live? What’s it like apply to and interview for jobs? Does you boss look like you? How do your parents feel about you? How do your neighbors greet you when they see you? What’s your relationship like with your landlord?
You’re really telling me that none of that is worth ‘politicking’ over?
that attitude is exactly why things are not going well right now - because we are pretending that of we look away, equality and justice will take care of itself.
The crucial question is what is "politics"? Are personalities politics? No. Are parties? No. Are inflammatory issues about race, sex or gender or political correctness or immigration? No!
What an easy answer when you not part of the disadvantaged demographic. Some problems apply almost exclusively to a single demographic. Not asking the cultural questions is like thinking that segregation was perfectly okay because everyone had access to everything you'd need. Just not in the small space.
Urban problems are not rural problems even when they look like the same problem. Why there is a food desert in Nowhere, SomeState is not going to be anything like the reason there is a good desert in Urbanville, Somestate. So while everyone definitely deserves the ability to acquire food pretending that subgroups don't exist means you can't actually solve their struggle. If you apply a blanket solution it doesn't help everyone.
It is beyond disingenuous to pretend that different kinds of people don't feel the impact of culture and regulation differently and in ways they either can't themselves or can't at all change. To take that stance, shows that one is on the default demographic that is always considered before anyone else.
It is beyond disingenuous to pretend that different kinds of people don't feel the impact of culture and regulation differently
But that is why you shouldn't talk about it at parties, because people experience it so differently it is likely to lead to conflict and bad times.
Saying you need to talk about it since it is important is like teaching math at parties because it is important, it will just irritate people since they are there to enjoy themselves not get lectured.
Are common American citizens able to afford and obtain reasonable health care?
"Should common American citizens" ... is a question.
This already implies a country's citizens having access to health care without financial barriers is a good idea already :)
[Note that I'm in the EU, I have access to affordable health care by default and I like it that way. But I don't think everyone in the US thinks like that. Or even understands what it means.]
In a good society you would know and have a favorable view of our wealthiest (kings in all but name) people. They wouldn’t be afraid and hide their wealth (Bezos, musk, etc are not the top) because there wouldn’t be an immoral wealth gap.
I start talking about my wife’s work. That’s just personal family stuff, right? Not if there’s someone there who’s a hardcore women-should-stay-home sort.
Or maybe everyone is ok with women having jobs, but my wife’s work has been substantially impacted by the recent DOGE nonsense. Something as simple as “she has to go to the office on Monday” becomes political if there’s a Trump supporter present.
Let’s just talk shit about our cars. Oops, what brand of car you own is now political.
“My parents are going to come visit” sorry, turns out that the ability of foreigners to enter the country without fear of being detained for weeks for no good reason is political.
A functioning democracy requires that the common people are able to use the law and courts to right wrongs. Are the common people able to use/afford access to the courts when wrongs are committed.
Having recently been completely railroaded and betrayed by the court system I can tell you. No. I literally had all my evidence thrown out with no explanation from the Judge other than "I don't think this is relevant" in regards to several different topics that I had made an organized report on. Meanwhile the corporate defense provided unorganized meaningless piles of documentation that would takes months to go over and it was left as "evidence" I do mean meaningless, several hundred pages were literally blank white pages submitted as evidence. I guess the crappy software they use to do discovery generated lots of white space in between snippits of info.
The court had decided before the trial that by default a person is wrong and a corporation is right.
Every group of people is a political unit and anything that affects decision making is political. You office is a political unit, your family is a political unit, etc.
So if a racial issue is affecting the decisions we make then yes it’s political.
Hello friend, thanks so much for coming over. I just wanted to start by asking you what do you think are the preconditions for having a functioning democracy
So when someone else decides which topics are politicized and you want to avoid political discussions — congrats you just let others decide about which topics you are willing to discuss.
My opinion is that most topics have a political dimension anyways, also because most topics have a economic dimension. Or phrased differently: Everything is political.
When discussing politics with friends the "how" is probably much more important than the "if". Most people do not have a vetted political opinion, they just have a strong vibe that they can't really reason about. They aligned with some sources and read/watch news they like to hear and that forms their image of the world. They never really tried to form a logically coherent worldview that is backed by facts instead of pre-filtered annecdotes that may or may not have happened in that way.
With this as the starting point a healthy political discourse isn't possible. You can't argue against someones vibes.
But that doesn't mean good/interesting political discourse isn't possible. It just means that if someone lets the politicians turn them into a vibe-based party-before-issue follower that uncritically believes most of what politicians say, they can no longer think or discuss the topics that impact them with others on a reasonable level. And this is why topics get politicized in the first way.
And no-one is immune to this, especially not you guys over there with that two-party system. But we all need to remember that towing the line of a political party means they no longer represent us, but we represent them. Mental flexibility translates to voter agency and our democracies hinge on voters being well informed and not throwing their agency away.
TL;DR: Not discussing politics and blindly towing the party line is like throwing your own agency away.
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.
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
I’ll be honest that I’m Jewish and certain posts about Palestine where friends or non Jewish family have specifically expressed values that I find anti-myself I have completely cut out of my life. (not all beliefs about pro Palestine are anti-semetic, but most are) But I believe that most views at the party level are just different priorities or different view points and tolerance is necessary, because they are not directly in conflict.
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
Voting for a party explicitly demonstrates at least acceptance of if not outright support for its platform. You don't get to absolve yourself of support for kicking puppies because the FooBar party also includes a modest tax cut in its policy agenda that you really want.
It doesn't matter if the opposing party advocates for raising taxes or even eating kittens.
That's true even if realistically, there are no other parties capable of winning. You can support a third party, abstain out of protest, or even begin a grass-roots campaign to start yet another party. You can even try changing the FooBar party from within, so long as you don't vote for them until sufficient change has occurred.
Virtually no independent thinker is going to support either major party's platform, for the simple reason that both parties have a collection of inconsistent policies that are an incoherent ideological mishmash. Therefore you do not so much vote FOR a party as you instead hold your nose and vote AGAINST the other one.
When you vote for a party, you may not fully agree with all their policies, but you are stating that the drawbacks are acceptable compromises. When you vote for FooBar, you might not want puppies to be kicked, but you consider it a tradeoff worth making if it gets you that tax cut.
If you are looking at the political landscape of the US as an independent thinker, and are questioning whether abandoning the principles of human rights and liberal democracy are a tradeoff worth making, then I really question whether your thoughts are really as independent as you would like to believe.
and a party whose explicit platform is to strip fundamental rights away from women, LGBTQ people, and other minorities, all while dismantling the basic structures of democracy in order to guarantee their hold on power for as long as possible.
This certainly might be what you believe their platform amounts to. But it is most certainly not their explicit platform. Accuse people of what they actually have done, not what you believe their actions to be logically equivalent to. Otherwise there can't actually be a reasonable discussion, because you're giving off heat rather than light.
I think your point is that Project 2025 is not Trump's explicit platform, which is correct (although this doesn't affect my statement which was about his explicit platform). However, if it looks, walks, and talks like a duck, we also need to be willing to call it a duck. Project 2025 goes significantly above and beyond Agenda 47, the group behind it explicitly endorse Trump, and many of Project 2025's authors are involved in the Trump administration. Being an "independent thinker" does not mean accepting what both sides say at face value, it means looking at people's behaviour and drawing judgements based on that.
However, these days the American political landscape looks a lot different. I understand having priorities, but if someone believes that a magical make-eggs-be-cheaper plan should have a higher priority than their friend (i.e., me) having basic human rights, why would I want to be friends with them? It doesn't matter if they personally agree with the politician's strip-their-friend-of-basic-rights plans or not, the fact that it isn't a priority to them at all says enough.
Access to gender affirming care for trans minors is banned in more than half of US states. The very same medicines are allowed to be given to cis minors.
In 13 US states bathroom bills prevent trans people from comfortably existing outside of their homes for more than a few hours at a time.
It has only been 22 years since sodomy laws were found unconstitutional. It has only been 10 years since gay marriage was legalized nationwide. Thomas wrote in his Dobbs concurrence that Lawrence should be revisited. Several state legislatures have passed resolutions calling for Obergefell to be overturned.
While less of a "basic right", the Trump administration has banned trans people from serving in the military. Visibility of gay or trans characters in media available for minors is also regularly threatened. Products for trans people sold at stores like Target have led to bomb threats.
Maybe it's a good theoretical exercise, but life is too short for me to appreciate the various reasons that might drive someone to become an asshole.
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
Well, Alabama outlawed abortion except for life of the mother. A federal judge had to rule that the state can't prosecute doctors and reproductive health organizations for helping patients travel out of the state to obtain abortions. The Project 2025 plan is for the Republican controlled Congress to at some point pass the most restrictive federal abortion law they can get away with.
That is stripping away the rights of women to choose. There are many religious conservatives who support this.
You're doing what so many people do in the abortion debate, and begging the question. You can't simply sidestep deep differences of opinion on moral issues by declaring your position to be right and theirs wrong. It's wilful ignorance of a whole lot of nuance that exists on this topic, nuance that must be engaged with if one wishes to be effective in having a discussion.
If they want to enter a scientific discussion on viability and neural development for when to start placing limits on abortion, and how making victims of rape or incest carry to term is ethical, then we can have a meaningful discussion.
Otherwise, they can feel free to go have their own theocratic community in the wilderness where they don't choose to have abortion. Also known as Alabama these days, unfortunately for those stuck wandering the wilderness with them.
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
Sure. But this is that age-old meme: You know those people (most people?) in 1930s Germany who supported the Nazi party but they perhaps weren't really for annexations and genocide. You know what they call those people? Nazis.
People who voted for Trump are responsible for the fate of Ukraine, the demise of Nato, the fallout with Canada and Mexico, the inevitable inflation and economic turmoil of tariffs etc. And that's of course even if they only voted for Trump because they hold "traditional republican values", or because of single issues like gun rights, migration or taxes.
tolerance is necessary
Tolerance stops at intolerance. You can never tolerate intolerance. Apart from that, politics also relies on a few fundamental things like the reliance on facts and experts, and respect for the rule of law. Obviously you can't ever tolerate "politics" which starts to tamper with either of these. Luckily I can keep a tribe which consists of people who agree with this, which can vote for any party in my parliament, and is 98% of the population. I'd hate to be in the US though where the tribes cut down the middle of the population.
Looking at exit pool demographics might help if you're struggling to have any empathy for a Trump voter. They are largely working class and undereducated and astonishingly diverse for a republican candidate in recent memory.
I think essentially tolerating other peoples opinions and trying to understand where they are coming from is more useful than applying purity tests to your friends and family.
Most of the time this is just being an enabler, who excuses, makes up rationales and blames "the other side" for not being nice enough to extremists. Especially when we talk with about fascist close groups. People who say this achieve only limitations on the opposition to extremists. They rarely or never manage to move extremist into the center.
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
Why are you so sure? There are plenty of conservatives who openly talk about it. It is not being tolerant when you decide that no one is allowed to do that observation. You are not being neutral here, you are biasing the discussion toward the extremism when you do it.
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
I'm sure there were people who voted for the Republican party in the last USA election for purely economic reasons. However, "anti-woke" policies were absolutely the most important issue for a lot of people. Just this week the attorney general in my state posted an "April Fool's Day Joke" where the "joke" was him standing next to a LGBT flag.
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
In some markets, about one third of the entire Trump campaign advertising was fear-mongering about how dangerous LGBTQ people are. They wouldn't have spent so much on this if they didn't think it was a uniquely important to their constituents.
I think you're unequivocally wrong if you don't think that Conservatives in the US are above voting for a single issue.
I don't know enough about the Palestine/Israel conflict to be able to make an informed opinion on it, so I won't comment on that.
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for.
I thought the GOP was pretty clear throughout the election cycle, from President to local office, that their desired world can only come to be through a drastic restructuring of the Constitutional status quo ante.
I don’t know that “I only voted for (e.g.) tax cuts, everything else is collateral damage and I’m not culpable for it,” is a defensible moral stance.
I also think especially in today's political environment, political beliefs at least partially reflect an individual's core values. In some cases I may not want to associate with people that have fundamentally opposing core values to my own. For example this guy's interviews with his parents: https://www.tiktok.com/@thenecessaryconversation
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t voting for those candidates for the express purpose of stripping away those rights and there were other policies and values that they were voting for
I don't know, man. If they're really your friends, those should be non-negotiable.
I've cut off my aunt who still claims the 2020 election was stolen. The data I worked with to support fragile communities was removed/altered in the transition (CDC Social Vulnerability Index). I've already lost my job in the federal purge. I have a [former] coworker who was born intersexed that cannot be legally recognized by the government. I'll likely lose my right to marry due to my aunt's beliefs. My boyfriend will likely lose access to lifesaving medication with cuts to funding. My grandma is paying for hospice care with social security and claiming Trump is fixing the country. I'm renewing my passport; several friends have already left the country.
than applying purity tests to your friends and family
It's more about watching people pivot towards unquestionable evil. "Empathy is a sin" is such a deep, dark line in the sand. I'm not going to just stand there and watch you cross it.
Politics is almost always indirect, usually with multiple levels of indirection.
Being told that you have to follow the same rules as everyone else for e.g. spaces designated to be used solely by the opposite sex, doesn't seem so bad.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/13/us/stonewall-inn-national...
Removing people from information about a historical event doesn't look good under any lens.
For example, see the section regarding "Zazu Nova" on the current page
https://www.nps.gov/ston/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-fenc...
and before the erasure
https://web.archive.org/web/20250202042345/https://www.nps.g...
None of them implies the others. And using any term besides trans woman would be disingenuous, as trans people existed before before 1969, with that exact nomenclature already existing. Just because the letters might not have been attached to an "LGBT" title, neither T or Q are new. Only their increased acceptance and knowledge is.
And deleting references to those is, as you can see, seen as an obvious attempt to walk back on that public perception and acceptance.
While ( as often is ) a very summarized version of the history can be found on the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history , the sources should lead you to more detailed info, if you do care about learning about the historical accuracy.
Sources on the web refer to Nova having involvement with the Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries group, which fits with that description also.
For example, what exactly is "gender-affirming care"? Because I suspect that includes giving life-altering drugs to young children.
But what I'm arguing is that most people do not actually come to these values by way of thinking, but rather by blindly adopting them en masse from their chosen tribe.
And when they choose not to be open to the possibility they might be wrong, then they have a religion, not a intellectually-driven view.
This is okay if acknowledged imo, as per this sentence in the piece:
If someone is self-aware enough to consciously acknowledge their choice to remain in the bubble, that’s totally fair. I respect it like I’d respect anyone who chooses to participate in a more traditional religion. My issue is when this view is falsely passed off as an intellectually-driven one.
For example, most doctors believe in vaccines, but that's not group think, it's based in evidence that they have studied. From the outside, it might seem like group think.
I'm willing to bet that in most cases, that is groupthink. It's hard to tell, because the conclusion is identical to one based on evidence, so you can't infer from the opinion whether it's groupthink or not.
Sometimes you can tell by how someone holds a belief. Defensiveness, unwillingness to consider ways in which their chosen belief is not 100% wholly good, or shouting someone down are evidence of groupthink. For example: if someone brings up that in the past some inactive virus vaccines contained live viruses and a doctor claims that it never happened and could never happen, that's either groupthink or just a doctor sick of arguing with uninformed patients who has given up bothering with explaining the intellectual basis of his beliefs.
My personal suspicion is that the 1% don't exist, that everyone's opinions and beliefs are a mishmash of tribalism and intellectual conclusions, it's just that the balance is very different in different people. I try very hard to make my stances intellectually based and evidence-driven, yet I continually discover that more and more of my deeply held policy positions aren't as clear cut and the real world is more nuanced than I thought.
It's not like nuance is a binary thing (by definition!)
popularity is not the same as tribal, tribal implies a blind following -- when individuals cannot explain why they believe something
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_morality
One thing I've noticed, as people get more entrenched in their viewpoint, is that they stop accepting the possibility that they're wrong, and this flawed thinking starts to extend to the wildest corners of their position.
Well, if I'm right about the person, the person is right about everything too. And anyone who disagrees with me is therefore wrong about EVERYTHING.
It's a very shallow viewpoint, and some people just refuse to accept that they're wrong sometimes.
I don't see how cutting them out creates a positive. It's like "Javy thinks men can become women", now I have one less person to play disc golf with.
What's the point of that? People can have different opinions, it's not their only character trait.
how does having less friends benefit you?
Quality over quantity for a start.
people can have different opinions
Not every opinion deserves the same level of tolerance, respect or acceptance. If someone I know starts goose-stepping I’m not going to write it off a “just a difference in opinion.”
Similarly, people I dislike (rude or mean people, for example) make me unhappy when I'm around them. Cutting them out of my life is a net benefit there too, because I'm happier without them.
Until we can live in a world where fundamental rights are protected and respected
It wasn't hiding from uncomfortable things, opinions and people, that created the world where you can even think about women or minority rights, or even know how to write to express your opnions. So this approach will not create the world you described.
Clearly defined values are fine until we get more specific though. What values? Whose responsibility? And what's holding is back from achieving what we want even if our party is in charge? Is it a matter of excluding people who disagree with us? More money? Or is the utopian vision we're attempting not presently achievable?
So is an agreement on fundamental rights for everyone what you want to live your life on? Or do you have other priorities in the meantime where you can agree with people on more immediate matters?
The conceptualization of what fundamental even means is very much subjective, so posing such a condition to dialogue is, in principle, the negation of possibility of improvement on either side.
this is the core kernel of what a tribe even is in my opinion: pose a subjective condition, divide people based on it.
It wasn't just that she voted for him, but the fact that she actively supported all of his policies around immigration, including mass deportations that would have included my wife (who was on DACA at the time). She has also said some extremely disturbing stuff about what should happen to gay people that I don't even know that I can post without breaking some form of TOS, which would be horrible already, but slightly worse to me because my sister is gay.
It's easy to say "just be neutral and don't talk about politics around her", but there are some issues with that.
First, you don't know my grandmother; no matter how much I try and avoid any political subject she will keep bringing it up. She will divert a conversation about my job as a software engineer to somehow a rant about how Mexicans are stealing American jobs (this actually happened). I could just roll my eyes and bite my tongue, but this brings me to my next point:
Second, neutrality isn't neutral. I don't really know who started this myth that somehow avoiding the subject is "not taking a side", it's just a lazy way to endorse the status quo. If I keep trying to be amicable with people who actively want my wife to be deported, then that's sort of signaling to my wife that I don't give a shit about what happens to her. I don't want to signal that, because it's not true. At that point, my only option is to either stop talking to my grandmother or talk to her and constantly push back she says something racist or horrible, which isn't productive.
Before you give me shit over this, all of you do this. You all draw the line somewhere. You probably all draw it at different points than I do, but you absolutely do draw the line. If your best friend suddenly joined the Klan and became the Grand Wizard, you probably wouldn't continue being friends with them, even if you could avoid talking politics, because that would signal that you're ok with their racism. You also probably wouldn't be friends with Jeffrey Dahmer even if you could avoid the whole "killing and eating people" topic.
As it stands, I don't really feel bad for cutting her off. I absolutely do not make a concession for age on this. If you're going to live as a grownup in 2025 then it's not wrong to judge someone by 2025 standards. I don't give a fuck what the world was like when you grew up, you have to live in the world as it is now.
If I were to cut them off as friends for being part of the problem, that sounds unreasonable right?
It's like spycraft during the cold war. A double agent must pass as being in both tribes for the good of their country. They literally isolate themselves from their homelands tribe to embed themselves in another. They are forever changed. They can't go back. In other words: to change another changes oneself too. It weakens ones own group identity.
Almost all people would never want to risk their identity to change another person for the good of their group. It's very risky and very painful.
Another way that the article suggests is to let people change themselves.
But I agree with parent that it's perfectly justifiable to draw lines that limit potential relationships. You're not obligated to welcome everyone or tolerate views in others that have unbearable consequences for yourself. Vote with your feet.
Friends are people you should support and build up. You shouldn't try to make them feel bad by winning arguments with them. That said- a healthy society is only possible if individuals can exchange ideas about how to run things and then act collectively (aka "politics"). Sometimes people will have different interests and priorities, that lead to them having different ideas about stuff- most of the time this is totally fine.
This basically comes down to respect and communication skills- but for god's sake people- keep on talking about "politics"!
1) show the situations in which politics can't be discussed productively (dogmatic ideologies)
2) show how to avoid being dogmatic yourself
I absolutely encourage people to discuss politics productively
An example in this article is the following part
my angle ... becomes that of opposing their tribalism. Unfortunately ... most people just view me as the opposite of their own tribe
But this part totally fails self-reflection: it talks about your "conservative friends" and your "liberal friends". They are labelled "conservative" or "liberal". How does the author know that the interlocutor did not act exactly like the author: the interlocutor brought a subject, from their point of view their position on it where pretty neutral and sensible, the author reacts by playing the devil's advocate. They therefore see the author as the "conservative" or "liberal" person, and if they follow the author's strategy, they will play the devil's advocate. And then, THE AUTHOR fails to realize they don't actually care about the conclusion.
The lazy answer is: I'm smarter than them, I can tell when it's the case or not. Or: the subject I bring are not political, they are just common sense and sensible position, but they sometimes bring something I disagree with, and this is not common sense and sensible position.
In both case, it's weak and does not acknowledge the possibilities that you may have done the same mistakes as them from time to time (either classifying a "moderate" as "far" just because they were doing the devil's advocate, or presenting opinions that are not "trivially moderate" from the eyes of your interlocutor). It's a detail, but because of that, I'm not sure the author is as "non dogmatic" as they think they are: they are saying what everybody is saying. The large majority of people don't say "I'm dogmatic and my opinions are crazy" (if they believe their opinions are crazy, then it means they don't believe in their opinions and it is not really their opinions).
If you see others as being "insufficiently equipped" to handle nuance, "because it's hard" or "because they are too resistant" is a judgement I prefer not to pass on others.
"Because if a desire to seek truth isn't there"
Who defines the truth? As much as I understand there is a need to draw a line somewhere, I also believe that everyone has a right to their truth. And that's my truth. I let everyone have their perspective and don't see a need to impose mine or look down upon them if they don't agree to mine, this included :)
These sorts of claims are as incoherent as the equally intellectually jejune skeptical positions ("there is no truth" or "we cannot know the truth" or variations thereof). It's rare to see anyone outside of first year philosophy students make them.
Why can't you just say we have disagreements about what the truth is?
There is a trade off between energy expended vs accuracy needed vs accurately communicating, but the de-referenced concept is not a matter of human perspective. Coordinating truth is why we have standards and protocols to build on.
"[9] Fully understanding I can be the one in the wrong -- however, when this is the case, the person explaining is usually able to:
understand my argument convey their disagreement in good faith without circular reasoning or rhetorical tricks"
There's a 40% chance this succeeds because of A, 25% chance of B, 10% of X, and 5% something we haven't thought of
The major mistake/misunderstanding I see now is thinking that a stupid, vindictive asshole who failed upwards would be a good person to run the country.
I don’t think I’m susceptible to that. I’ve never viewed anyone the way a lot of these people view Donald Trump. I can’t imagine I ever will. Is it a failure of imagination or is something really different between us?
For most people, very few friendships form with an expectation of political agreement: activists met at a common protest or campaign, generic regulars of a popular political party or union, old style secret societies, and so on.
There are lot's of people who won't stop, when you push the wrong button (speaking a wrong word).
It's like all those videos of dogs barking angrily at each other through a closed gate, then suddenly becoming quiet and peaceful, their whole body language changing, when the gate is opened.
If you insist on talking politics when the host or other guests don’t want to you’re a rude idiot.
People love to talk about what they think is important, but NOT when they think they're being setup or playing into someone else's hand.
(Assuming one marries for "love")
Its a typical junior mistake to marry for love/lust and not think a bit on top of that, in this case I blame parents who don't have some hard talks with their kids explaining them not-so-rosy parts of adult existence. Like initial enormous physical attraction wanes over time, kids crush most of remaining, and what still remains are 2 people and how they treat relationship and each other with that lust tuned down eventually to 0, under various, often not so nice situations. But our parent's generation didn't figure it all out, in contrary the amount of actually nice relationships in higher ages ain't that high.
I didn't have such prep talk neither, nor do I know anybody who had, and had to figure it all on my own via rough trials and failures till finally figuring myself and women out, and then happy marriage (so far, hard knock on the wood). Its like expecting everybody to be sophisticated engineer, learning them to count on fingers and throwing them out and good luck, I am sure you'll figure it out eventually. Some do, some don't. Most don't I'd say.
Whom to marry is probably the most important decision in our lives.
That's putting way too much pressure on it. Find someone you feel like you could spend the rest of your life with? Marry them, see what happens. If you get a divorce, so be it, it's not the end of the world and there is plenty of others out there, even if you're "damaged goods" or whatever your worry is.
I feel like the pressure people put around marriage it what makes it so damaging in the first place, people feeling like they have to marry in the first place, or if they're married, they need to try to stick together more than some couple who isn't married, and so on.
Just make a decision and learn from your mistakes in case you fuck up, it really isn't more complicated than that.
This said, I am a man too, but a large part of my career was supporting lawyers and court systems, including family court systems.
Choosing the wrong partner is one of the biggest risks you take in your life, especially for a woman. This is one of those things that can easily lead to you being bankrupt with nothing. This can lead to you being abused or raped. You can end up with a child that you did not want to have. You can end up dead.
With states pushing to revoke things like no fault divorce (and women being the primary initiators of divorce) it's not hard see the traps women lived in the past coming back.
Then add the strongly religious connotations marriage has in the US and you quickly see why this is a rollercoaster that emotions and politics are not going to be removed from.
Partly because women's rights have become so politicised.
That's a hand-wavy way of saying that a core pillar of one of your parties is to take away the rights of an entire gender.
Imagine describing 1940s Germany and saying "Ethnicity has become so politicized these days. I'm just interested in nationalizing the auto industry"
I think the political split between genders is MUCH stronger for singles. It's kind of a trap actually.
How about a woman's right to equal employment opportunity? 67% of women are in favour of DEI, while most men (57%) take the opposing view. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-american...
The primary political parties are definitely catering to those sides.
Partly because women's rights have become so politicised.
What is the womans suffrage movement?
I may be extrapolating on a single statement too far, but I do feel that you are missing a huge chunk of history regarding all the rights women (at least regarding the US) did not have.
Womans rights have been political for the last 200 years if not longer.
those with directly opposing views are a constant source of drama and tension in your life
I don't think this is true at all. The vast majority of people largely ignore politics, cast their vote, and move on with their lives. It's completely fine to have different political views if you both act like normal reasonable people. We see a lot of the 'kick, scream, and cry' types on both side in the media. In the real world, most people have more important things to be getting on with.
It's completely fine to have different political views if you both act like normal reasonable people.
Yes, this is true, you can have different political views and still be friends/lovers/partners/whatver.
What parent said though was "directly opposing political views", which I'd also agree with is inviting trouble, as it'll leak out in constant tensions and frictions. Simple things like "We shouldn't drive as much as we currently do" can lead to heavy argumentation if the underlying reasoning cannot be understood by both parties.
In real life, people might not speak about parties or political figures, but their everyday actions are driven by their values and beliefs, which also ends up reflected by who they vote for. Politics is everywhere, even where people don't speak of it directly.
We shouldn't drive as much as we can do
I wouldn't consider this a political view. It's a lifestyle choice based on personal beliefs. Two people can be fully behind the idea we need to do something about climate change and have different ideas on how that should be done. And I think that's part of the problem in recent times - instead of politics being about the big ideas and how a country is run it's become about small personal choices. If a person has heavy arguments with a partner about how much/little they drive I would say they've got an issue with a need to control others, rather than just a strong political opinion.
Two people can be fully behind the idea we need to do something about climate change and have different ideas on how that should be done
I'm not sure if you purposefully ignore what I wrote directly after what you quoted, "if the underlying reasoning cannot be understood by both parties". If a partner would discuss things like this in real life, I'd say this partner might have an issue with discussing in good faith with others.
My point was that it'll lead to friction if you disagree about what "big ideas" are worthwhile to try to implement or not.
But, this is also why one political party in the US tends to vote against things like no fault divorce and other questionable policies regarding womens rights.
That's increasingly not the case.
I am friend with someone because I like that someone and I enjoy meeting him and talking to him, doing things together.
That doesn't mean agreeing on everything. And doesn't mean being afraid of speaking.
If someone quits, being my friend because we have different opinions on X, so be it. I am not like that. I won't break a friendship because someone thinks differently.
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.
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.
All you really want to know is what category to put them in.
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
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.
I reminded the voter of the secret ballot and the ability to just lie.
"Tell them what you think they want to hear", was my advice
How do we keep a democracy where ideas we don't agree with can still be implemented if there's a majority (assuming minority rights are protected reasonably well) while at the same time ensuring we don't end up with democracy being used as a tool to get a totalitarian regime.
For a more recent example we can look maybe at Türkiye.
Preventing ideas that are still within the boundary of a democracy from being implemented is not democracy either.
The US e.g. has a Supreme Court and a constitution. Presumably as long as that court is functional and the constitution is applied then all is good?
Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Germany's fall into fascism and whether there was some sort of watershed moment where it was clear that something was broken and could still have been remediated.
Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Germany's fall into fascism and whether there was some sort of watershed moment where it was clear that something was broken and could still have been remediated.
Fascism is an easy sell when it's immediately preceded by the Weimar Republic.
I hypothesize that we're seeing the influence of the legal system on the public turbo-charged by Citizens United money. An attorney is paid to be a "zealous advocate" for their client. This means never spending effort on anything that might be against the client's interest. Self-reflection is stochastically against their interest, so why even risk it? Considering alternative views might be against your interest, so why risk it? Therefore, in this new zeitgeist, such behavior is not just perverse and painful, but even unethical and wrong.
The problem, of course, is that for this system of adversarial argument you need an impartial judge. In theory that would be the public, but it turns out flooding people's minds with unethical lawyer screed 24x7 turns more people into lawyers, not judges. "The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it." This could very well refer to the value of dignity, honor, integrity, fairness in debate, respect for one's opponents. These are always under assault, but in the last 10 years they have been decimated to the point people don't remember they ever held sway and young people don't know what politics was like when they did.
This is especially true if you have a history of being somewhat cruel to people on the basis of a conclusion you're not really 100% sure you agree with anymore. Now if you question it, you have a lot of guilt to contend with.
It surprises me that most people don't seem to feel that way and I struggle to understand why. Apparently, people often feel angry and alienated by the truth. I think that never makes sense, but I've learned to accept that people simply feel threatened by the truth sometimes and I can't usually convince them otherwise.
[8] Few things give me greater joy than a discovery-ridden conversation with smart friends, and this is only enhanced if I learn something I previously believed to be true is actually wrong. Seriously, come prove some core belief I have as wrong and you will quite literally make my week.
Thanks for reading!
Morality evolves, both personally and culturally, and trying to hold a static identity in the face of that change just leads to more internal conflict. It’s uncomfortable, yeah, but clinging to certainty for safety’s sake can be more corrosive in the long run.
Failure to adopt an accurate perspective of one's place in the universe is the greatest source of human anxiety.
Plus, if you can't discuss something like politics with people, are they really your friends at all? Not very good ones at least...
Both of our best ways at getting to the truth - Journalism and Science - rely on entertaining and following all sorts of contradictory ideas and then comparing them with observed reality.
Universities in particular need to be physically safe spaces, where ideas of every kind can be mercilessly attacked.
We are losing what took so long to build.
I firmly believe that if wealth distribution today was the same as it was in the 70s-90s, the culture wars would be significantly dampened or non existent. If people could still buy homes, afford to have kids and healthcare, we would all be able to talk about religion, sex, and politics without this extreme tribalism. It’s happening because there are way more “losers” in the economic game now, it’s become a life or death issue, and people are looking for who to blame.
Since the decision was made post GFC to bail out the banks and protect capital over the normal person that just wanted a house to live in, the position of the rentiers has been consolidated hugely. We have Rachel Reeves thinking we in the UK can build a growth strategy on the back of financial services (which generally means "rent-extraction services"). A rational system would separate the GDP from the real economy from the income from rent extraction, and seek to eliminate the latter.
To the common man, they see themselves working longer and harder than they used to and getting a smaller and smaller slice of the pie. It turns out when your real outputs have to support a sizeable portion of the population who have dedicated their lives to the art of rent extraction to live like kings, you don't see much of the gain.
I have many contemporaries that have gone into finance. A vast pool of intellectual capability, shuffling money around playing zero sum games, and ultimately protected from loss by the power of the state.
will check this out, thanks for reading!
but lively debates and fights among friends and family for ideas
The missing ingredient is "intellectual honesty". It used to be the case that when you talked to people on the right they would
- refer to events that actually happened and true statements about the world
- accept them in the context of wider events (although there's always been a risk of making policy from one exeptional incident)
- make an argument that followed logically from those
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.
Also by Jon Stewart on Crossfire in 2004: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE&t=310s
The critique about what passes for debate is as apt today as it was then.
The difference for me is, I don't like everybody, and not everybody has to like me. That's okay, and it's not about disrespect, it's just that I like to surround myself with people who are thoughtful before they are opinionated.
If you know me, and you respect me, and I say something you think is crazy... if they first think you think is "Wait, I thought I respected him, but he's a bad person" instead of "Wait, I respect this person and they're saying something I disagree with. Am I wrong about that?", then, guess what, I'm not actually interested in having a deep relationship.
I studied philosophy in college and grad school. I had to "relearn" how to interact with people outside of the university setting for many of the reasons in this essay. However, upon reading the horrifying "how to win friends and influence people" way of interacting with normal people through flattery and shallow interaction, I thought fuck it, I just don't actually want to be close with people I can't have a real conversation with.
Not everyone gets to the right position right away, that's okay. I'm a strong small-"L" liberal, and I have friends that are conservatives, socialists, and even the occasional anarchist. The difference is that we're all still trying to figure it all out. We're not all pretending that "well if those people didn't exist then we'd have utopia already" because, well, all these system exist all over the earth and it ain't a utopia anywhere. We'll make our points, we'll needle each other in a friendly way, and we'll all say "fuck it, we're doing our best."
That doesn't mean I'm friendly with everyone (remember, I don't like everyone, and not everyone likes me), because there are plenty of political positions that pretty much require people to be unthoughtful. The views need to be consistent, and pretty much anything that end advocating substantial discrimination against certain people over other people isn't going to be internally consistent. Axioms are arbitrary, reason is not.
I actually agree with everything you said, mostly just want people whose views are actually tribal and not open to discussion to acknowledge them as such, via:
If someone is self-aware enough to consciously acknowledge their choice to remain in the bubble, that’s totally fair. I respect it like I’d respect anyone who chooses to participate in a more traditional religion. My issue is when this view is falsely passed off as an intellectually-driven one.
unless you're saying I shouldn't bother being polite and avoiding the convo at times, which I guess I disagree there
"However, upon reading the horrifying 'how to win friends and influence people' way of interacting with normal people through flattery and shallow interaction"
Say what now? The book is littered with passages urging the reader to be sincere in interactions.
All of this is fine and dandy, and incredibly practical in practice, but it presupposes that you're talking to someone whose thinking processes are in opposition to any analytical thinking or self-critique.
I'm not saying the book isn't useful, my point is that the type of people for whom the book is effective are not the type of people I want to be close friends with.
To put it another way, my friend's parents are classic NIMBYs. If I want to hold their hand, and walk them to a place where they can see that their actions are harming the next generation, then, yes, Dale Carnegie's prescriptions are very effective. My point is I don't actually want to be close friends with anyone who needs their hand held just to see things from a different person's perspective.
I try to be kind, I try to be honest, I try to be upfront about who I am and what I stand for. I have made lots of close friends just by being willing to be patient with people who have different views from my own, without actually having to pretend I don't have any views at all. My friends are mature enough to understand that we are both smart people, and if I say something that puts them off, then we ought to be able to discuss it and learn from each other.
"You're basically treating everyone with kid gloves all the time. Never tell someone they're wrong, go out of your way to praise people, treat everyone like the noble protagonist in their own story."
The book says that a person can deliver criticism and disagreement in ways that don't make the recipient defensive and that people respond positively when their accomplishments are recognized in a sincere and meaningful way. As for the last, that's simply the way most, if not all, people are; it's a failing that's almost universal.
It's about learning to be a person that is thoughtful to others and considerate of the foibles of humanity. I suppose a person could use it as a template for faking empathy and generally being manipulative but that's very much not what it suggests.
that's simply the way most, if not all, people are; it's a failing that's almost universal.
Again, I don't disagree with you that this is a problem for the median person. My point is that, for the most part, I'm not really interested in being close friends with the median person. Friends in a sense? Sure. Chat at a bar? Sure. But not people I really talking about interesting things with. The median person isn't going to mesh very well with my personality.
The ivory tower was an isolated tower for a reason. Intellectuals were literally under threat of execution for the vast majority of human history. The underlying currents for that are basically reflected in the assumptions that Carnegie makes.
I want intellectual friends. I want be shown that I'm wrong. I learn something when I'm wrong. I understand that's not a common trait, but it's how I am, and how I want to be.
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.
But with family and acquaintances, it's not worth getting into. Except when someone isn't being respectful. Then I will certainly speak up and ask why they aren't respecting someone's right to think for themselves.
I have a problem with the fact that my dad votes for people who do not do those things, and then gets upset when people point that out to him.
He told me that "I think people just need to have more patience with each other and accept our differences" as a moral to a story he told about being a manager to trans and non-binary folks. IMO it's 100% the right take, and he holds no negative feelings for any trans people or nonbinary people.
Then he votes for the anti-trans candidate.
How do you square that circle?
The reality is that I know my dad's voting history (we have talked about politics) and my dad is not an idealist or a pragmatist or conservative or liberal.
My dad is a populist.
Then he votes for the anti-trans candidate.How do you square that circle?
I don't know your dad, maybe he doesn't see that candidate as "anti-trans"?
If you think that some group has unfair benefits you can vouch for stripping those benefits without seeing yourself as "anti". Your drive is not hatred but fairness. You can be misguided but that's a different question.
If you think church must pay taxes, it doesn't make you anti-church. If you want to reduce police funding it doesn't make you anti-police. If you want stricter control of guns that doesn't make you anti-guns.
The whole "anti" split is indeed a sing of the tribalism which in US takes a binary form. You're either with us or against us.
It's unlikely that most people will agree with all the positions of a party, so they choose the one who most closely aligns with their highest priority issues.
Perhaps trans policy is just a lower priority issue for your dad. His voting may be illogical based on your priorities, but may be the rational choice based on his ranking of issues.
Politics dictates so much of daily life, at every level,
That’s weird because you can live life of total ignorance of what’s happening in the news. Lobbying and marketing make you think things are important that aren’t.
That’s weird because you can live life of total ignorance of what’s happening in the news.
Being unaware of politics, just like being unaware of biology or physics, doesn't reduce or disprove the degree to which it impacts your life, it just recuces your understanding.
It’s a nice thought that you are taking the world seriously by reading this stuff. But it’s kind of like thinking you will become an athlete by watching ESPN talk shows. It’s two levels removed from the real thing.
I actually say there are reasons to persevere and encourage debate if it's not just trying to "win":
However, one reason to persevere is to find the 1% of people that also want to see the world as it is. Aka, finding your own community of anti-tribalists.
Few things give me greater joy than a discovery-ridden conversation with smart friends, and this is only enhanced if I learn something I previously believed to be true is actually wrong. Seriously, come prove some core belief I have as wrong and you will quite literally make my week.
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.
I generally keep people's political opinions at arms length, as some relationships are worth the pain or lack of depth. But it has caused unforseen pain at times, and hurts when relations from different spheres interact negatively.
F.ex. one of my most altruistic and charitable friends is a Trump supporter
She's run a Christmas time charity for 10 years, solely out of the goodness of her heart, to ensure that families in our community who are struggling get what they need for a happier holiday in tough times.
It's a non-trivial 6 months of work, between making prizes for donation-driving lotteries, attending events and promoting, and then finding the most cost-effective deals for the families.
So I choose to say "She's a better person than most I know, in some ways, and disagrees with me in others. Worth friendship."
What’s the endgame to this approach? Seems to me, folks with genocidal thoughts and feelings would find more positive reinforcement amongst themselves and less negative reinforcement everywhere else. Not great for the “genocide is bad” theory.
It's hard to imagine isolating them from counter points is going to mitigate their position.
Like we all know a guy who we can't keep around because he keeps saying unhinged stuff, or creeps on any women, or whatever it is he does that ruins it for everyone else.
So I think it's more nuanced than just refusing to cut off heinous viewpoints. It's also how this person injects this view in your existing friend ecosystem.
When challenging such beliefs I find some are hyperbole or a side effect of group-think. Rarely are they genuine, but when they are it's the most worrying. And that's usually when I stop engaging that line of thought.
The insidious nature of this question comes from the false representation as earnest, intellectual discourse. Many who ask it may truly believe they’re engaging earnestly, but their responses quickly reveal an angle more akin to religious police. ... Most vulnerable to this behavior are the intellectually honest + socially clueless, who engage in good faith, unaware of the pending social ambush.
My favorite thing about this enlightened centrist/individual thinker line to kick off with is it's almost universally used by people who have one or more abhorrent viewpoints in their back pocket, and the "social ambush" described here would be much better phrased as, well, disclosing what that is and just saving us all some time. I personally am deeply curious what beliefs Ashwin has been ambushed about.
If you have thoughts on how tax brackets should be constructed, or whether we should move to flat taxation, whether highway budgets should include beatification or whether that should be up to municipalities, what zoning restrictions are used for a given area, all that type of what should be politics, neither myself nor anyone I know would "ambush" you for those beliefs. Discussing and rounding out those kinds of issues is the foundation of how a Democracy works. We have to discuss them, and you should have opinions on at least a few of them, and you should share them! That's how it works. And for what it's worth, I can't fathom a situation I would ambush anyone over those sorts of issues. I might disagree, and I might ask for elaboration or perhaps suggest alternatives to what you want to do, but I wouldn't shame you for them.
If on the other hand you think horrible things that for some insane reason have gotten traction lately, like that putting tariffs on foreign goods is somehow going to bring back American manufacturing (it isn't), that some of your fellow citizens who might be gay, trans, both, or something else shouldn't enjoy a full set of rights under the law for whatever cockamamie reason you'd like to cite (they should), that children should be re-introduced to the labor market to bolster the amount of cheap labor available (they shouldn't), that the government should be doing genital inspections on children who want to play sports to make sure no one's "cheating" (stupid, horrifying, illegal in several ways) and I could go on, then yeah, you probably will find yourself socially ambushed. And you should be. That's how shaming works. That's what we have done to one another for thousands of years when we behave anti-socially: if you act anti-social, you are not going to have an easy time being social. That's, again, just how that works.
I of course don't wish that fate on anyone, I have been spurned from communities and it sucks! But I did survive that process and a number of those experiences, awful as they were at the time, shaped me into a better person overall with a more internally consistent and defensible belief system than the one I was indoctrinated into as a child.
And yeah, a lot of this is also just "political tribalism sucks!" Cosigned, 100%.
I've been ambushed for explaining: - to right-leaning folk that most migrants are seeking a better life - to left-leaning folk that securing a border is not a crazy idea - to right-leaning folk that subsidies to help restore agency to people who've had a rougher start and benefit everyone - to left-leaning folk that merely allocating money to an government agency does not necessarily mean anything beneficial happens
Not even taking a stand, just pointing out opposing points -- hardly an anti-social, horrible act
The assumption that social ambushes only occur for horrific beliefs is an amazingly naive take on humanity. By this logic it's implied that the women burned in the Salem witch trials must've done something to deserve it.
That is an incredible leap in logic with far too many layers to properly litigate.
I've been ambushed for explaining: - to right-leaning folk that most migrants are seeking a better life - to left-leaning folk that securing a border is not a crazy idea - to right-leaning folk that subsidies to help restore agency to people who've had a rougher start and benefit everyone - to left-leaning folk that merely allocating money to an government agency does not necessarily mean anything beneficial happens
I think you're wholely unaware of the concept of dog-whistles and their role in our modern politics.... I mean not even modern, those go back centuries.
In any case:
- You were probably ambushed for suggesting migrants are seeking a better life because many right leaning people are propagandized so heavily into thinking every migrant is a rapist felon drug selling child molester.
- You were probably ambushed for endorsing border security for the same reason, because it's become a dog-whistle for unhinged levels of racism and nationalism projected by the right. And while I don't endorse that level of over-correction on the part of whoever ambushed you, I also don't not-understand it. The dehumanizing rhetoric around immigrants is fucking disgusting and shameful, literally the stuff of Nazi's, and especially given the ongoing abuses by border patrol, the active deportations of people who've committed no crime due to administrative incompetence on their and other agency's parts, again, I'm not surprised people might be telling you to can it about needing more of that.
- Again, this is a ridiculous amount of propaganda going back to the 80's, where the Reagan campaigns created outright fiction about "welfare queens" (and again, more racism there as they were always implied to be black) that's led to decades of "welfare reform" which is better stated as "fucking over the poor for profit."
- And you likely got ambused about the last thing because.... it's wrong, and again, not only is it wrong, it's a hot button issue that's been, again, ruined by the Reagan administration who, along with their compatriots in the Thatcher administration and similar austerity administrations and politics worldwide, have systematically defunded uncountable numbers of public services, which leads to a degradation in those services, which leads to more justifications for more cuts, which leads to a death spiral which is why virtually no government agencies anywhere are effective anymore.
Not even taking a stand, just pointing out opposing points -- hardly an anti-social, horrible act
And like, I get that you personally aren't advocating for these things, but what you are doing, unintentionally, is invoking bad faith rhetoric that is, at the risk of sounding dramatic, behind the political movement that is more or less responsible for the fact that nothing works anymore and every government on Earth is struggling. And for you, that's probably a minor, or perhaps major annoyance. For other people, it's life threatening. For certain groups of people, they may not only find the actions of border control and immigration courts abhorrent, they might well be the targets of those actions relatively soon.
To put it another way, you may not have strong feelings about zoning regulations or deciding where a sewage line goes in your town. However, if you say that to the person who's back yard is full of overflow sewage and it's causing their family to become ill and their home to be borderline unlivable, they're probably going to be quite pissed off with you because just because something isn't a critically important issue to you doesn't mean it isn't to someone else.
Context is important. I would encourage you the next time you feel so ambushed, instead of getting defensive and/or running away, ask questions. Why is this issue so important to this person? Why are they so upset with what you're saying? Is there another angle to this that you're unaware of?
I think you're wholely unaware of the concept of dog-whistles and their role in our modern politics...
I'd think the opposite actually. If you bring up border security, then the conversation can go in one of two ways: a discussion of the actual policies of border security, or a conversation that hears the dog whistle and proceeds under the context that you fall into the tribe that uses that dog whistle. The latter is an ambush. The policies themselves still exist even outside of their historical context as dog whistles. The question is if can you have a conversation with someone that talks about the policies themselves or not
And, I have to say, I thought it was pretty amusing that you appear to treat someone discussing tariffs with the same severity as someone discussing mandatory genital inspections.
It wasn’t always like this. I remember when you could be pro-gun and pro-environment—and still have thoughtful, respectful conversations with people who held different beliefs.
Today, if you’re not fully aligned with every talking point of a political party, you’re instantly labeled either a fascist or a communist. And sometimes it borders on absurd: the moment party leadership shifts its stance, the whole tribe flips with it. It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans staunchly opposed tariffs. Now? They’re all in.
My question is: What changed? When did we become so tribal—and why?
What's changed now is how visible it's become and how much easier it is to mass organize people and split up into echo chambers that favor a specific viewpoint.
Before, people were not well organized. The internet has been a revolution in spreading views and allowing like minded people to hang out together. Turns out that's not always for the best. But there's no going back. It's only going to get worse until something happens that unites people more than it divides them.
It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans staunchly opposed tariffs. Now? They’re all in.
Which Republicans are we talking? The old guard that held leadership positions for decades, making the decisions while most of the public weren't invested? Or the new guard that hijacked the Republican party after the population started getting invested after recent events?
Every "conservative" I know is in favor of protectionism, and tariffs are a strong manifestation of that. Don't conflate the get-what-you-get leadership, and the disenfranchised voterbase for having been the same people.
(and possibly also a general dumbification of everything due to bad education combined with lowering social standards for who is allowed to have a public voice and be take seriously; confusingly thus was one of the points of a standard of decorum, because it served as a filter on who was intelligent enough to be a thought leader.)
Witch-hunts (last conviction in Europe was 1944), jews, communists, americans, non-americans, all sorts of religious groups, ... history is full of that.
One thing that changed recently is that nowadays propaganda is very organized and well funded. I also think there was a pretty calm period for a few decades (but only in certain regions of the planet). In the cold war period the tribes were very fixed and the evil was always far away, so locally not much happened.
I agree that politics are overwhelmingly tribal and resemble religion a lot (the "you believe in god, right?" analogy hits home).
I also used to be strictly anti-religious because religions tell lies and are anti-intellectual. I was against tribalism and in favor of rigorous debates on every topic.
I gradually changed my views though, and this happened not because I started to deny science but rather because I tried to apply it to deeper levels of reasoning. Basically I stopped seeing systems of beliefs (be it politics or religions) as independent entities of their own but rather as derivatives of the [ever changing] environment.
I now think that stable systems of beliefs exist not because they are true or false, or good or evil, but because in the past they helped their bearers to survive. The ones that failed at that task ceased to exist themselves because beliefs can't live outside of people's heads. That's the ultimate and objective test, provided by the nature itself. I don't think you can get more scientific in your ranking of beliefs.
Based on this I came to respect both Christianity and Islam because they did such a good job at that. I still dislike Islam though: it's against my tribe, but more on that below. My point here is that you can respect your adversaires and recognize they are good at something. E.g even now Islam is better at maintaining its numbers than some other cultures.
Within this framework tribalism is not bad but likely necessary. I think that the approach of "we are the good tribe, we see ourselves as different from other tribes, we want our tribe to survive, if necessary by exterminating other tribes" results in more stable societies than "we are rigorous intellectuals who can't agree on anything". It's beneficial for everyone to have a rigorous faction within the society but I doubt that this faction can survive on their own.
And besides, expecting the majority of population to debate everything is just unrealistic. It takes a lot of time and energy and I feel that most of people would rather spend that energy at work and with their families. Kind of like of people just "side" with the Apple or Android tribes, instead of building their own OS from sources. You see the phone as an utility, not as a goal. You just pick the one that works well for others, along with its benefits and inevitably with its flaws too. The grave consequences of picking a bad system of beliefs (and more importantly not changing it when the environment changes) are of course much different from that of a phone, but you can still describe both within the same framework, just very far away on the same scale.
Thus the problem is not political but philosophical, how would we decide what to do when we cant decide what is worth more. We are stuck in a local maximum, with Reality as the fitness function :p
Stable socioeconomic systems that in isolation could've existed for millennia are constantly getting crushed by their slightly more effective neighbors. When they're not crushed from the outside, they get consumed from within. In the end the better economy wins most of the time.
As long as there's respect that's what matters.
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 to 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 dense population centers for a long time.
you're highly unlikely to going to grow up with liberal views in Tennessee
Don't pretend like Nashville doesn't exist. It's very much rural very homogeneous areas versus more urban and diverse areas. It's much easier to label entire demographics as The Enemy and then vote to elect someone to attack The Enemy when you've literally never met The Enemy and just rely on what your news stations of choice tell you. Who The Enemy is changes. It's been women's suffrage and and civil rights. It's been "Mexicans" and Arabs and Gays and now Trans folk. But conservatives will literally always have The Enemy to rally against.
Growing up in more diverse areas means you're more likely to have met a Muslim who doesn't want to "kill or convert you" or a trans person who just wants to live a normal life in the best way they can, or a DACA recipient just trying to make a life in the only place they have ever known as home. Knowing these people builds empathy for outgroups. The key trait conservatives seem to lack. More they seem incapable of comprehending it. So "liberals" can't support "illegal immigrants" because they actually want the best outcome for people. That's a concept conservatives can't comprehend. So it must be that liberals support them for all the "illegal voting" that "illegal immigrants" are doing. Never mind that these people cannot vote. Never mind that if these people could vote, they are far more religious and far more likely to ascribe to the conservative social political agenda. It makes absolutely no sense that "liberals" support "illegal immigrants" to capture their votes. But that's a hard fact to conservatives.
It’s not that truth-seeking is a requirement for friendship, far from it.
agree (and thanks for reading)
In truth, values and ethics are fundamental to effectively discussing politics. After all, all political decisions are ultimately about how we want to shape the world that we as humans live in. There can be no agreement about economic policy without a shared understanding of the ultimate goal of an economy. No agreement about foreign relations without a shared understanding of the role of nations as representatives for groups of humans, and how we believe one group of humans should interact with another group of humans through the lens of nations.
For the last 20 years at least, the leadership of the two main political parties in the US have largely invested in messaging around the values that they represent. The policies are different too, but over time we've gone from a world where there were at least some cases where the two parties had different policies for how to reach the same goals, and into a world where the parties policies are aiming to realize fundamentally different visions of the world, based on fundamentally different values.
In this world, asking "who did you vote for" isn't a matter of tribalism, but it is a (good) proxy for asking someone "what are your values". If you discover that someone has completely different values from you, then discussing policy isn't going to be useful anyway, because there's no way you'll agree on a single policy when you have different fundamental values.
As someone said in this thread, in the US two-party system, coalitions are formed before the vote vs after in other countries
The whole purpose of this piece is to precisely encourage pointed discussion about values directly and skip the proxying
The author has less self-awareness that the classic "I voted for the guy everyone else is voting for" guy. At least the later has a hint of consciousness about his own limitations.
Every ideology under the sun thinks they are based on objective truth. In reality our political views are shaped by the friends we have, our family, our upbringing, our social class, the media we consume, the experiences we made, our deep core vales and so much more. Most of it is not even conscious.
If you think you are above it all, you are just deluding yours. You just enjoy being in the enlightened centrist tribe or whatever.
Not choosing a stance is also choosing stance. If you see injustice and decide to stay neutral you decided to side with the oppressor.
In the end it is up to you to decide which tribe you want to belong. Do you want to march with those that fight for human dignity and social progress or those that want to oppress the many for the benefit of the few. Or do you want to sit by the sidelines while other people are striped of their human rights?
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Courtesy:_Daryl_Dav...
Sometimes you have to fight¹, but other times engaging with an open mind² really is the most efficient strategy. Shouting at the opposition only cements them in their own thinking; to change minds you have to understand and engage them where they’re at. And yes, this is way easier said than done and can be quite frustrating.
¹ You probably won’t convince a fascist dictator to change their ways by appealing to their better nature, and it would take too long while irreperable damage is being done.
² Even if the other side believes in something appallingly hateful.
Not discussing politics with friends is really indicative of the friendships you have. This is really an article about someone who has failed to discuss politics with "friends." As someone who routinely talks politics with friends (and we do NOT all agree with each other), it's a healthy experience. One where you can get a better understanding of people and their beliefs.
Stay in your bubble. But let's not pretend it's healthy or good.
Unless I encounter a signal that someone wants to remain in their bubble
On HN, your title should match what the article actually says ("Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait" -https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
I think if we change the title to "When I don't discuss politics with friends", that would be more accurate given what you've written here.
Edit: I looked at the article and didn't see anything that particularly mitigated the title, so I've put it back to "Why" above.
I think reality is different - I don't think there are any absolutes that require "knowledge" of e.g. philosophy to get the "right" answer in politics. Instead the right answer (at least in western democracies) is what the people want, even if they are not fully informed.
I view it very much akin to trial by jury - there are highly informed and experienced judges, barristers, solicitors etc but ultimately it is down to the laymen in the jury to make a decision that they see as just. They might reach the "wrong" decision from the perspective of people who are fully informed on the legal processes and the law of the land etc, but that doesn't matter because it is the jury that makes the decision.
So it is for the electorate too.
I have no experience of voting in the US but it appears that a two-party system really stokes the "us Vs them" vibes. The only alternative you have is to totally switch sides. At least in European democracies there is often a plurality of parties to vote for. I've personally moved between the main 3 parties (and there are probably at least another 1 or 2 other minority parties that have different trajectories...) in the UK as my personal situation has changed over the years, and I think that is a very normal thing here.
They are then rendering a judgement [in good faith].
When I have had to do jury service we have explicitly been told not to research anything about the case outside of the court room. Everything the jury bases their decisions on should only be what was discussed in the court room, and on your own lived experience.
First, people are not good at defining problems. They may describe the problem that they want to solve in terms of an outcome, but often times the outcome that they want also includes some aspect that benefits them personally that is separate from the problem that they are describing.
Second, people are not good at separating problem from implementation. in fact, people are horrible at this. I think people have a very difficult time envisioning that the problem and the existing solution implementation (which itself might be making the problem worse) are separate things. so most people rarely consider and often actively oppose, radically different solutions.
In the political sphere, ideology Influences how one frames the problem that one wants to solve, and limits the universe of acceptable solutions. This exemplifies the two points that I raised above.
For example, when talking about healthcare policy, the two main “sides” in the US, both have ideologies that define outcomes in terms of consumer access to medical services, and which constrain allowable implementations to something that resembles insurance, with key differences being about who pays and what is covered and how much coverage one gets.
Just for the purposes of elaborating on my premise, I would point out that not all healthcare delivery systems in the world are designed around the insurance model, And that such a model includes vested interests, regulatory capture, and often incentivizes many participants to optimize in ways that don’t forward the implicit goal of making more people more healthy.
Please don’t reply with your opinions on my imperfect example; I don’t want to have a healthcare policy discussion. I just wanted to provide an example my main points about how humans approach political problem-solving.
Second, people are not good at separating problem from implementation. in fact, people are horrible at this. I think people have a very difficult time envisioning that the problem and the existing solution implementation (which itself might be making the problem worse) are separate things. so most people rarely consider and often actively oppose, radically different solutions.
I'm bouncing back and forth on this. One thing I've learned over nearly two decades of programming, is that problems often are not separate from implementation - the one often defines or shapes the other to a large degree. Moreover, often enough it's not worth it to aim for clean separation - that's the road to becoming an "architecture astronaut".
I've also noticed this generalizes outside of programming. The key insight being, when people accuse "techies" of being "know-it-alls" and coming up with simplistic solutions (or my pet peeve of a term, "technological solutions to social problems"), what they're complaining about is generalizations - the kind you get when you focus on the abstract problem and forget about implementation details. This is particularly notable when one then tries to transfer a general solution/framework from one problem space to another, because whether or not it applies is largely determined by implementation details.
An example: understanding exponential growth and connecting it with basic virology is good. Applying that model to virological problems is okay - but the devil's in the details. Transferring that model to something else by means of analogy? Well, that very much depends on which assumptions you borrowed from virology, and it's helpful to be aware of those assumptions (implementation details) in the first place.
Seen plenty of that on every side of argument during COVID.
They want someone else to do the hard work and play Monday morning quarterback. To extend the sportsball metaphor, the football team is doing the actual work and they're just spectators rooting for their team.
No one wants to do work without being compensated, and virtually no one is being compensated to actually solve these problems. Politicians are there to get re-elected first and anything else second. Charitable organizations pay little to nothing, and get the kind of personnel that are OK with that.
At this point, there's so much tribalism wrapped around policy issues that it might be impossible to get anyone to try to objectively solve the issue. And all too often, there is no viable way to A/B test the solution and people have to hope that their solution works best, which is... Not a great way to get great results.
I asked a few local friends about it, and got two basic explanations:
1. What's the point? No one is empowered to change anything, so why bother talking about it at all?
2. You can get in big trouble for saying the wrong thing in public.
The weirder thing I noticed is that I kinda enjoyed it. It was nice to not hear a bunch of bitching about the government (not saying the government shouldn't be criticized - it should; just saying it was nice to be completely removed from it for a time).
Not sure if it's still like this in China; I haven't been there in years, but yeah, this was really strange to me when I lived there.
Life under autocracy can be terrifying, as it already is in the United States for immigrants and trans people. But those of us with experience can tell you that most of the time, for most people, it's not frightening. It is stultifying. It's boring. It feels like trying to see and breathe under water — because you are submerged in bad ideas, being discussed badly, being reflected in bad journalism and, eventually, in bad literature and bad movies.
Un-reality is the mediated, constructed "reality" that can be conjured up and perpetuated through mediums such as the Internet. It needs constant effort behind it to keep it going because it isn't tethered to actual experience. Un-reality is things like the hyper-partisan views on things that seem like they change on a whim, or extremist views on gender relations. It requires a tribalistic level of affiliation. It is something that has evolved to prize self-perpetuation (e.g. memes) over the views it claims to espouse. (This pattern of growth at all costs also occurs in other contexts, such as business.)
Reality, on the other hand, is the messy, boring, uncontrollable and unmediated thing we experience as humans. It is harder to transmit online because it isn't something that is easily swallowed, but it has a universal appeal to us as we recognize humanity in it. Reality has much bigger downs and ups than un-reality does, that's what makes us want to escape it sometimes. It also has really crappy truths and circumstances in it; there's no respawns or undo.
In some sense, this split already exists: fans of un-reality we often label as too online, implying that they prefer online life to actual life. I believe the biggest difference here lies in the preference for mediated vs unmediated interactions.
The big issue is a lot of people will believe what they want to believe. Most folks are not scientists - they start by assuming their conclusions and will choose the soothing moral and emotional rhetoric over evidence.
Trying to see the world objectively puts you in a category of outliers. The people you become friends with due to proximity in everyday life will not be outliers.
Like there's an even bigger group of people who think they're scientific and unbiased and impartial but they actually aren't. That group is more likely the group you and I are in.
The group of actual objective people is so small that you may never meet a single person like this in your lifetime. That person may even be autistic.
Some questions don't have definite answers, it's the sophistication of the analysis that counts.
I don't enjoy discussing Vim vs Emacs, or Windows vs Linux, or Star Trek vs Star Wars, or the weather. Some people get way too enthusiastic about it, to the point of religious fanaticism, but in the end it doesn't really matter either way. I don't really care about the tribes, and in most cases nothing productive is going to come out of the discussion. If my friends are on the other "team", I can happily agree to disagree.
I also wouldn't enjoy discussing whether the room should be filled with air or neurotoxin - but I can't afford not to. I'm sure the pro-neurotoxin people would be very nice to hang out with if we set our differences aside. Except for, you know, the whole "filling the room with neurotoxin" thing. If their side wins, it's going to seriously ruin my day. I don't really care about the how or the why or their tribes, the thing that matters is that they are trying to fill the room with neurotoxin. If I were to hang out with friends, it is quite important to know whether I could trust them with the air handling equipment.
If you can afford not discussing politics, you're essentially saying that politics don't impact you. They are nothing more than a mild inconvenience, and friendships are too valuable to set aside over something as trivial as that. To you politics are nothing more than the weather: you might need to cancel your weekend hike because of heavy rain, but oh well.
A lot of people don't have that luxury. For a lot of people, politics are literally a matter of life and death. Ignoring it isn't an option.
After seven years in San Diego, my wife and I have decided to uproot our family and move to the Bay Area. While there were many factors (a new job opportunity, family), a significant reason was finding a community of truth-seeking people.
Funny. The lack of truth-seeking and truth-telling is one of the chief reasons I moved away from the Bay Area.
For what it's worth, the odds for rationally evaluating political ideas tend to go up around folks that have gone to universities that are known for some decent level of intellectual rigor.
Still not great though, some of the most dogmatic people I've met in my life were professors and undergrads. But those that were the opposite more than made up for that.
But let me present a possibility: what if one side really is doing evil things? If you were transported to literal Nazi Germany or the Stalinist USSR, where millions of people were being murdered by one party, would it be "tribalism" to call that party's actions evil? Or would it be an accurate description of murdering millions of people?
Obviously we aren't at the point of "murdering millions of people" in the US yet, but I suspect a lot of this "enlightened centrism" which presents both sides as somehow just equally valid viewpoints would happily go all the way to watching millions get murdered and still not be willing to call evil by its name.
Looks through thread
Tribalism and purity tests abound.
People being more interested in comfortable beliefs rather than true beliefs has always been a concern throughout Biblical history. But that doesn't mean it never went unchallenged.
For instance, regardless of what you think of the Bible, it's interesting that Isaiah has the following to say to Judah (emphasis mine) because it shows an ever-present problem with human nature.
For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord;
*who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions”*
Lastly, on a personal note, as a human Christian, I think I have the same biases to groupthink as any other person because I am human. But because Christianity has a reputation, I have found that throughout my life, I've had to work harder to really test (not validate) my beliefs because I am constantly being challenged and, ironically, often ended up more informed about both my beliefs and my interlocutors' beliefs.
Sort of summarized by the sentence here:
If someone is self-aware enough to consciously acknowledge their choice to remain in the bubble, that’s totally fair. I respect it like I’d respect anyone who chooses to participate in a more traditional religion. My issue is when this view is falsely passed off as an intellectually-driven one.
One point of criticism:
The usage of the word "moderate". It seems PG's article is the one to blame here. The word "moderate" when used about politics means something to people in English. And given that meaning, saying that independent thought leads to one being "moderate", is straight up wrong. What the article is really talking about is that independent thought leads to a set of beliefs that is unlikely to be a very good fit for any particular ideology, and therefore, political party. That's true! But that's not "moderate". That's.. diverse, pragmatic, non-ideological. Those words aren't ideal either, but "moderate" is definitely not it.
The 99%/1% is also greatly overstated in a way. Firstly, it's definitely dependent on locale, culture, subculture, environment, as the writer already says themselves. More importantly, if you manage to somehow get people 1:1 in an environment where they feel safe, it turns out that many actually aren't that tribal/ideological after all, and they do actually have beliefs that span different mainstream tribes. But then that conversation finishes, and they go back to being a tribe member.
I'm pretty sure there's plenty of experiments that directly show the above. That when you give people policy choices that are non-obvious (e.g. they've never thought about), and then make them vote on them, they'll often vote against their tribe. But if you'd beforehand tell them which tribe voted which way, they'll always vote with the tribe.
I now find it much more practical to focus on things we can agree on and actually do something about in the real world and try to build from that.
Generic political debates are not very actionable and they are risky for social reasons mentioned in the article, so I think they are largely a waste of time with negative externalities.
1. become truth-seeking
How does one even begin to do that? Looking at people I know who describe themselves as "truth-seeking", it seems that it is a one way ticket to Conspiracyland.
my method is to constantly try and prove my beliefs wrong, via the "oscillating" I describe in the piece
Even when I know that outside of the US, most of us have the same opinions on what the trump admin is doing (especially in the pen and paper RPG community, where not being transphobic is basically a requirement), I still hate comments and discussions about it, probably for the same reason than the author does.
I disagree with his axis though, I've read a lot, and I mean _a lot_ of books and the more I read, the more left I went. And I started almost tea-party libertarian, then liberal-libertarian (because logic, and my class) then I understood power and class and became original libertarian (think Emma Goldman).
But politics are much more than that, it's how society organize, and if you can't talk to everybody about your city evicting the parasites who mismanaged and eventually brought down the waterlines because you're afraid of 'groupthink', you are fucked.
But politics are much more than that, it's how society organize, and if you can't talk to everybody about your city evicting the parasites who mismanaged and eventually brought down the waterlines because you're afraid of 'groupthink', you are fucked.
Yeah I guess I differentiate between the individuals who could help you determine the truth of the mismanaging parasites vs the ones that just blindly support or hate them.
Just observing the epidermic reactions to MMT, the strawmaning, and all the Schopenhauer playbook thrown at a new, Occam's razor compatible economic explanation of how money works is probably what made me doubt this 'reasonable' stance, and I'm now convinced that once you've been persuaded that _you_ and your group are the 'reasonable', you're in fact so entrenched in your beliefs you'll dismiss anything that shake your worldview as unreasonable and strawman it (the lessWrong community is the perfect, small-scale example).
The only dots you should find on top, outside of groupthink are the one who read, and wrote new concepts.
Yeah I guess I differentiate between the individuals who could help you determine the truth of the mismanaging parasites vs the ones that just blindly support or hate them
The justice system found them guilty and they got fined, but if no one acted, they would have sold their water rights to a company with suspiciously the same executives and owners during bankruptcy. Political movement made the municipality sweep in during bankruptcy, claim the water rights as part of repayment, and now administer the water lines and cleaning stations (and the watchdog are happy with cleaner water, and we locals are happy with cheaper water).
When everybody ignore politics, you'll have the West Virginian 'Freedom Industry' turn into 'Lexycon LLC', and nobody will say anything, because 'it's political'.
he assigns all virtues of the world to his group while others seems to be barely more than glorified barbarians.
this is, at best, laughable... and honestly quite reductive and insulting.
this seems to stem from the classic idea of "if everybody was informed and intelligent as i am we would all agree", which i thought had already been disproven long ago. people have different base assumptions. cultures are real things... individual differences matter too.
he also treats ideologies as unified things which is historically false, meanwhile his personal particular set of idea is not an ideology but something akin to objective truth (for which he explicitly argues) or something adjacent to it. any semi-consistent (if that) set of ideas instantly becomes an ideology as soon as you share that set to a group. there are myriads of ideologies that pop-up and die every day... the ones with staying power obviously have accumulated some following but they are rarely all compassing; we have a word for those, cults.
but first thing first, change country and you will get entirely different "centrists" with an entirely different set of ideas. there is no reason there would not be (in his own terms) "accidental" leftists and "accidental" right--ists???
in a locked 2 party system like what you get in the united states, stuff will probably have a tendency to degenerate though. things are way more fluid in countries where you have more democratic choice. there is a lot of fear in the american mix, that doesn't work well with free-thinking.
for the author, only the centrists, his own group, can display independent thinking.
Yeah it’s this.
It’s always funny to watch a centrist invent centrism and then declare that they alone have achieved the apotheosis of correct perfect opinions that breaks the shackles of being in a group, when in reality they’ve just joined the single largest political cohort of folks — people that don’t feel strongly enough about anything to begin to ponder the bare minimum effort it takes to affect literally any change (talking to other people about politics)
It is the same thing as watching other people do things and then “inventing” sitting around and doing nothing. That’s not an invention! Babies are born doing nothing!
Maybe this doesn't translate to the US, but in the UK (and the largely British friend-group I have here in Australia) in my bubble we don't tend to strongly identify with any political party or politician, rather we tend to look down at the self-serving and/or myopic weirdos in parliament and decry their short-sighted, uninformed policy-making whichever side they're on. And I'm not trying to claim some great enlightened intellectual position for myself here - I think it's probably more common than not.
There are better and worse politicians and parties, certainly, and your vote and who gets power does matter. They certainly aren’t all as bad as each other but neither are any of them heroes or gods, and identifying strongly with a particular party is weird.
E.g. I'm moderately left but I'll still engage in healthy conversation with right-leaning friends and acquaintances because I like to understand where they're coming from. However I have some friends who I love dearly but know that despite their intelligence and how much I enjoy their company, they've become very tribal in their politics, so I don't bother engaging in political discussions with them beyond basic diplomatic contributions. Or posing questions that offer new perspectives. I still trust them and value their friendship though.
I believe the problem is the two party systems and how our government is set up, people vote for one tribe or the other. There is no _value_ to being educated on individual issues because ultimately you simply have to choose between 2 people who are affiliated with a party.
How awesome would it be if individuals could vote on specific issues, perhaps only after proving they have a working knowledge of the subject matter.
In reality we all have beliefs that are formed by our "in groups". People have groups beliefs formed from their religion, work, hobbies, study, and internet consumption. These all form our views and then get flattened to a 2-party system.
Unfortunately people can now form their identity solely on a political identity primarily due to social media.
Probably nobody.
Who will win the elections then? The forces whose supporters do talk politics with friends.
Who will win the elections then? The forces whose supporters do talk politics with friends.
Well.. who go around reinforcing team allegiances, not people who talk politics. That's a pretty big distinction imo.
If we're philosophising, the isolated suburb life style precludes having a friend group and forces humans - because they need to belong - into tribal allegiances towards larger groups: political, sports fans, some church, Rust, "AI"...
It's not that the average person is any less tribal up there, but because Silicon Valley contains such a high concentration of people testing ideas in the world, it selects for people that must regularly re-evaluate their biases or fail.
Is this true?
(not all ofc - i would say this forcing function applies to < 1% of the population in SFBay, but that is still a far greater concentration than anywhere else i've seen).
i find similar truth-seeking-ness in long-term investors. cultures that are more short-term oriented, and who have less feedback from the market, seem to deviate away from truth-seeking because the forcing function becomes weak: you aren't quickly penalized for being wrong.
I would be very curious to know what people here even consider "rational debate", probably a bunch of centrist takes on gay people, abortion, immigrants, guns or whatever would be my guess.
The most independently minded thinkers I know frequently drift off into extremes where most tribes dare not tread.
They've found another tribe.
where individual views may hit extremes, but the average of those views will be in the middle for independent thinkers
his essay explains it better, though I do agree there should be some dots on either end and up high
I have had plenty of people behave in a way that made it clear they assumed I agreed with them on political matters/issues that would have us voting the same way (sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly) but I have never been asked this question. Is it common or is it a contrivance in service of the article?
Prior to Trump it wasn't really a thing, because both parties were still following the law and maintaining a functioning democracy, so people could date across party lines and just agree-to-disagree about taxes or whatever.
In a society where there is agreement on basic principles, public debates will focus mainly on policy. Policy, while less abstract than principle, is in a certain sense less tractable in a manner analogous to how mathematical proofs are more abstract yet more tractable than verifying empirical claims, like knowing whether there are an infinite number of primes versus whether there's a teapot orbiting the earth.
Good policy requires a more conspicuous application of prudential judgement, which entails the integration of information and opinion of varying trustworthiness to make a best effort decision, which is something a person must learn and develop.
But one thing that is characteristic about our political predicament is not disagreement over policy per se, but the reasons for our disagreement. Two people sharing the same principles can still disagree about policy, and because they share the same principles, a debate over policy is manageable, because the basic parameters circumscribe the debated subject matter. However, if you look closely to the policy disagreements we're seeing, it is clear people are talking past one another. Something deeper, unspoken, is at issue. That is because the agreement on matters of principle is shrinking. This is why some view today's disagreement in terms of religious warfare, because in a sense it is.
As I've written many times in comments on HN, "religion" is effectively just a synonym for "worldview". Many people have ad hoc and incoherent or strangely specific or even parochial intuitions of what religion is, but understood as a bona fide or coherent category, it is essentially just another word for worldview. Everyone has one, however implicit, so it isn't a question of whether you "have a religion", but which. You may not realize that you are subject to a worldview, just as the proverbial fish that has never left the ocean doesn't know what water is, but it's there influencing your decisions and the course of your life.
In the US and much of the West, this has generally meant liberalism. And we're all liberals. The right and the left? Both liberal. The conflict between them is less Hindu vs. Muslim and more Pharisee vs. Sadducee. But as time progresses, as the internal tensions of liberalism unfold within the human psyche and within society across time, as liberalism crashes in slow motion because of this dynamic, as the proverbial idols enter their twilight, the conflict can only deepen. And it won't be a left-right split per se.
Some miscellaneous remarks...
1. The author makes similar observations w.r.t. religion. For example, he notes that "[d]espite organized religion dropping in attendance, religious patterns of behavior are still everywhere, just adapted to a secular world." Absolutely. And this includes Silicon Valley ideology, which is just a variation of Americanism. You see plenty of "religious patterns of behavior" in SV (though I sense we are past the heyday of peak salvific SV eschatology; maybe it just has a different character now, unvarnished and naked).
2. The author's view of religion is nonetheless tendentious and rooted in stereotype and trope. For example, the history of martyrdom in the Catholic Church alone demonstrates that "going along to get along" or mob mentality are opposed to the Christian view of truth above all else. God Himself is taken to be the Truth, and Christ the incarnation of the Logos. The authentic Christian ethic, despite the dishwater often passing as Christianity, is morally austere in this regard, hence preferring to die for the truth (literally, as in "red martyrdom", or by suffering injustice, so-called "white martyrdom") than to betray it. Lying is categorically impermissible. Life is to be found only in the truth; only spiritual death is to be found in lies. Better for the body to die than the soul to die.
The notion that religion is about group cohesion even at the expense of the truth is certainly not a feature of Catholicism, but a common human tendency that it attacks, even if individual Catholics or groups of Catholics behave otherwise (again, a common human tendency). There is no authentic unity or authentic love outside of the truth. You cannot love what you do not know, and a society united in a lie is deficient in unity to the degree that the "unity" is rooted in the lie.
you seem to suggest that truth-seeking > tribalism, and we should pity the poor fools who are about tribalism. In this way, you're being tribalist against tribalism, no?
If ignorant tribalism brings people community and happiness, isn't that just as valid and commendable as truth-seeking?
Truth-seeking might provide a level of understanding of the world which is of value to your operating in life. It is not necessarily a sublime good of it's own right. Too much of it will alienate you from your mates.
I'd wager types like you might find on HN, Bay Area, could do with a little less seeking, in fact.
The Underground Man comes to mind, and presents the extreme of this spectrum. But then maybe he'd find mates in an area filled with other Underground Men?
I absolutely joke I am "tribal against tribalists", which to me is sorta like someone implying their greatest fear is fear itself.
I do mention it is a totally fair belief to have in that piece, and respect conscious decisions to value that like I respect people's decisions to follow more traditional religions, but only have issue when it's passed off as a truth-seeking value
Have not heard of the Underground Man, will check it out -- thanks for reading btw!
One thing I hate about the trump administration, and maybe all politics is fundamentally like this, is you can't really disagree with them. You can't really disagree with them because it's really hard to figure out what position they're taking. I find it makes discussing things with family really difficult. I can intellectually agree that "A nation should protect it's borders" and have a nuanced perspective on how much immigration is the right amount, but then I'm never going to square that with what the politicians are actually doing, right? We can't have a nuanced conversation with what the right immigration policy is, when the administration is deporting people without due process, or when the current administration says the problem with immigration is that Joe Biden let judges run wild in 2019.
Because then the discussions/research switch toward data and evidence, with the results downstream of those
Overall when people can agree "I understand stance 1 if the data says X, or stance 2 if the data says Y", and then all the energy goes into the data analysis, I consider that a successful conversation
Basically, the author is making it seem like everyone other than a select few are tribal idiots, but that's a fundamental outcome of our political system. You can pick and choose your policies, but at the end of the day, you're voting for one of two parties.
Only time I have issue is when a view is presented as truth-seeking instead of tribal
But agreed, our political system is setup this way
I do have friends who are able to have nuanced views about politics/economics/AI, and generally high-level vague things that concern the entire human civilization.
But I also have friends that can't have those nuanced views, and when you try to engage in good faith discussion with them, they resort to tribalism and are not interested in finding nuance through reasoning.
With those I don't have any discussions about it.
If you are a friend - try to be someone from the first category. Don't engage in tribalism with your friends if you value them (unless your whole group is a bunch of bullies, in which case do whatever).
It's easy to spot political tribalism - just reference the comments here. They ultimately misrepresent, and have never tried to understand, their opposition's political position. It's kind of sad because it allows them to be manipulated by propaganda and political powers much like my antifa friend.
It's easy to spot political tribalism - just reference the comments here. They ultimately misrepresent, and have never tried to understand, their opposition's political position.
Can you explain the Trump administration's political aims this term? Because this sounds very much like both sides are the same, and I'm not seeing that at all with what Trump and Elon are trying to accomplish.
You don't need to share your opinions in every conversation. You don't need to challenge another's beliefs that you disagree with or think are factually wrong. You can bond over listening to them. And they can invite you to share your thinking non-judgementally.
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...
as I like to say, "I'm tribal against tribalists" :)
Buddy if you can sum up your entire political philosophy as disdain for outgroups I don’t think you’ve quite achieved the liberation from the karmic wheel of suffering that is partisan politics that you wrote so many words about
While I don't disagree that people are quite tribal, I would observe that determining that people are tribal based on conversations can be a bit misleading, because the conversational form is extremely biased towards expressing things that will be indistinguishable from "tribalism", since all you have time to do is basically to put a marker down on the broadest possible summary of your position before the conversation baton must move on. That is, even a hypothetical Vulcan who has gathered all the data, pondered the question deeply, and come to the only logical conclusion, is going to sound tribal in a conversation, because that's all a conversation can convey.[1] Sufficient information conveyance to actually demonstrate the deep pondering and examination of all the evidence is ipso facto a lecture, or at best, a Socratic dialog or an interview, neither of which is a conversation in this sense.
For better and worse (and rather a lot of each), this medium we're working in right now at least affords itself to complete thoughts. It has its own well-known pathologies, like the interminable flame wars descending off to the right endlessly as two people won't let something go, and many others, but at least it's possible to discuss serious matters in a format similar to this, based on writing in text that can be as long as it needs to be without anyone needing to interrupt to maintain basic social niceties. There's a reason the serious intellectual discourse has been happening in books and articles for centuries if not millennia now.
Note how conversationally gauche it would be for me to monopolize a conversation long enough to simply read this post, and by the standards of intellectual discourse this is a rather simple point.
[1] In fact, most people will read the Vulcan as exceedingly tribal, because no amount of reciting snap counterarguments against the Vulcan's position will cause him/her to so much as budge an inch or even concede that "perhaps reasonable people could think that" or any other such concession. The snap counteragument was encountered a long time ago, and analyzed in the light of all the other data, and they have long ago come to their conclusions on it. If they can be moved, it will take a lot more. This is difficult to distinguish from a maximized tribalist in any reasonable period of time in a conversation.
a congregation member asking "you believe in god, right?"
That's a very good analogy.
For some, believing in god or not doesn't matter much and they'll go to church mostly to make friends and be part of a community.
For others, being expected (or not) to believe in God is a no go, and losing friends/family holding these expectations will be a price to pay.
We all have our boundaries, and disagreements on some specific topics will be out of them. Cutting friends/family with incompatible stances is just one instance of that IMHO, be it political, religious or anything else that matters enough.
1. understand economics, game theory, philosophy, sales, business, military strategy, geopolitics, sociology, history, and more
2. be able to understand and empathize with the various (and often opposing) groups involved in a topic
3. detect and ignore their own bias
1) is a lot of work. Just finding out what's going on is hard. Partly because news-gathering organizations are far more thinly staffed than they used to be. There aren't enough reporters out there digging, which is hard work. There are too many pundits and influencers blithering. Read the output of some news outlet, cross out "opinion" items and stories based on press releases or press conferences, and there's not much left. The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the New York Times, and Reuters still have people who dig for facts. Beyond that, reporters are thin on the ground. If you can only read one thing, read the Economist for a year. Each week they cover some country in detail, and over a year, most of the world gets a close look. (Although at the moment, their China coverage is weak, because their reporters were kicked out of China for doing too much digging.)
Background is necessary. Many pundits seem to lack much of a sense of history. Currently, understanding the runups to WWI and WWII is very useful. Understand what Putin is talking about when he references Catherine the Great and Peter the Great. Geography matters. Look at Ukraine in Google Earth and see that most of the current fighting is over flat farmland and small towns, much like Iowa. Look at Taiwan and realize how narrow and exposed an island it is. There's no room to retreat after an invasion, unlike Ukraine.
As for empathy, there's a huge split in America between the areas above and below 700 people per square mile. Above 1,500 per square mile, almost always blue. Below 400 per square mile, almost always red.[1] This effect dwarfs race, religion, ideology, or income level. It's very striking and not well recognized in public discourse. There's a minimum viable population density below which small towns stop working as self-supporting entities. (On the ground, this shows up as empty storefronts on Main Street and a closed high school.)
On bias, there are many people in the US whose lot has been slowly getting worse for decades now. That's the underlying source of most US political problems.
[1] https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-pol...
3. Most people don't want to graduate from tribes to views
I checked out of political conversations when I noticed I was teaching remedial civics over drinks and none of us were having fun. So I just sit back and watch people who just want to engage in reality tv style yelling confrontation.
Not to mention there's a ton of work in psychology already covering much of what the author writes about.
The author sounds like a pseudo-intellectual who thinks they can logic their way to human understanding through first principles, instead of doing any real work to understand the literature. Sadly, this is real common on HN.
What I'd consider healthy exploratory debate is now treated like heresy punishable by metaphorical death.(eg cancellation)
That's why I often stay my tongue and let people believe I'm on their side. Frankly it's not worth the consequences and I'll let them live in their delusions because giving feedback is too dangerous nowadays.
- Bad parenting is bad, we should have a permit for it --> are you ready to get denied the right to try having kids?
- Thou shalt not kill --> except those really bad people I don't like!
- Stealing is bad --> except when you're "starving"
Our perception of good and evil are multifaceted, with most of it happening in our background cognition.
There is a strange "mirror" stopping people from exchanging once a rift has opened. Someone else posited that it might be a fight or flight reaction.
I posit that our cognition is based on negation, and thus the shape of our tool impact our results.
* It is not reasonable to expect most people to make strong emotional investments into voting choices that have little direct effect on their lives, and indeed we have a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy to recognize that reality
* Reality is far, far more complicated than can be summarized in journalism or articles; many researchers spend their entire careers attempting to learn deeply about *one* area, let alone many areas; much pertinent information is non-public. Policies that are effective in one community are completely counter-productive in another. Believing that you are The Exception and that you Know The Right Way To Run The Country because you "do your research" is the height of hubris.
Being informed is tough. To have an informed view on any given issue, one needs to:Understand economics, game theory, philosophy, sales, business, military strategy, geopolitics, sociology, history, and more.
Be able to understand and empathize with the various (and often opposing) groups involved in a topic.
Detect and ignore their own bias.
How can you prioritize limited resources with deadly consequences without understanding utilitarianism vs deontology (i.e. the trolley problem)?
Understand China-US relations without understanding communism vs capitalism, the fear of tyranny vs the threat of invasion, or how and where computer chips are made? [etc.]
From Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit" (1986):
Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. [...] People are frequently impelled — whether by their own propensities or by the demands of others — to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant. Closely related instances arise from the widespread conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything, or at least everything that pertains to the conduct of his country’s affairs. The lack of any significant connection between a person’s opinions and his apprehension of reality will be even more severe, needless to say, for someone who believes it his responsibility, as a conscientious moral agent, to evaluate events and conditions in all parts of the world.
TFA implicitly assumes that the only options are "belong to a political tribe where someone else is responsible for justifying your actions" or "become a perfect estimator and Effectively Altruistic so you can truthfully justify your actions" (the latter, coincidentally, indistinguishable to an outside observer from your joining the Gray Tribe). But surely he's omitting to discuss (and perhaps edging toward an example of) the Frankfurt option: "justify your own actions by coming up with some bullshit."
The audacity to discard millennia of history and philosophy with 'no one's got time for that' and substituting it with a crude gambling scheme is just astounding. QAnon for the well-off, a cognitive technique to get out of having to deal with systemic injustice because 'sometimes rentiers also feel bad so there is actually suffering on both sides'.
In a way it's similar to some forms of antisemitism, antisemitism as "der Sozialismus der dummen Kerle", noticing some superficial conditions but instead of following through to develop a worldview copping out and getting an obsession with a simple, consistently applied reasoning. The jews did you nasty because you're not one of them. You did a bad bet because you were controlled by your tribe, unlike me, the enlightened high schooler who isn't loyal to anyone but myself.
Like antisemitism it's the position of a loser refusing to join forces with other people to try and cause systemic change based on their common material interests. Yes, I see that the banks are exploiting us, but no, I won't join your 'tribe', instead I'm going to make tables detailing the ancestry of the bankers. Yes, I see that were going down the drain but instead of joining your movement to put pressure on people in power I'm going to spend the evening making a flowchart and cherry pick some statistics and then give money to a cult that agrees with this approach.
If you meet someone like this, you should absolutely engage with them on contemporary, political issues. As soon as you get them to agree that something is bad, tell them to come to a meeting, be it a union, dinner, protest, whatever. Insist, don't take a no for an answer. Make it a challenge, whatever it takes. If it doesn't work the first time, try again next time you meet. These people need help and empathy, and to be among people at least sometimes when they're away from their screens.
At least in the countries where I live, debating politics is less about civic duty and being a citizen, and has become a substitute for sports; people prioritize their passions, and they are not concerned with getting the government to implement the policies it promised in the first place, but with defending a side.
In Germany, we see on state broadcasts every single day discussions about how the USA is bad, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, how some war in a distant place is bad, and so on; and nothing related to local politics.
If you invite someone to go to the municipal legislative service to talk with someone about why we still have underinvestment in kindergartens, even with record revenue, while other groups of society are capitalizing on social benefits, nobody will show up.
Getting in front of a keyboard and brigading online to talk about federal elections and/or officials of other countries is cool: it gives you the latest scandal of the day, you can congregate with people of your chamber, it provides audience for podcasts, and it generates talking points that sound intellectually tasty.
At least for me, the politics that matter most are local politics; and this is the craziest thing: it's the kind of politics where you can do something as an individual, you will have someone to hear you out, and with some effort, you can make a real and direct difference for your community.
I think the solution is tolerance. Whatever your politics are they don’t typically affect me personally. I have a few friends that are far further right than Ben Shapiro and a couple that are far more left than Bernie Sanders and want literal Communism. They range from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian or various flavors of anarchist. Some want to ban guns entirely and some want personal ownership of bazookas. Diversity! I often enjoy hearing their thoughts and we have all been able to change each others’ minds on a few issues. People’s minds do change, but it’s a slow process.
That said, politics is a burden to me in some relationships. It’s hard to have a calm rational discussion when my family member says “The muslims are walking across the Gulf of Mexico and setting up terror cells in Texas”. They actually believe we’re experiencing terrorist attacks and its just not being reported. I guess my limit for a comfortable discussion is some level of contact with reality.
That being said, I don't pick a party solely on what I believe is the truth. I also try to see whether my interests align well with that party.
As for discussing politics with friends, most of my experience is the same as the author's. I started having a dislike for very long lawyer-like discussions and arguments that lead nowhere. I kind of detect fast if my discussion partner is seeking the truth, he is proceeding with an archeology or detective like mindset and proceed accordingly.
- Bad parenting is bad, we should have a permit for it --> are you ready to get denied the right to try having kids?
- Thou shalt not kill --> except those really bad people I don't like!
- Stealing is bad --> except when you're "starving"
Our perception of good and evil are multifaceted, with most of it happening in our background cognition.
There is a strange "mirror" stopping people from exchanging once a rift has opened. Someone else posited that it might be a fight or flight reaction.
I posit that our cognition is based on negation, and thus the shape of our tool impact our results.
When you say people are "tribal," while as a fact perhaps has some truth, you're essentially saying you don't believe in democracy--which is a common sentiment these days. It ironically is a thought terminating cliche evidentiary of a bias; it necessarily implies you can ignore people's political instincts and impulses which requires a particular disposition (bias) towards others around you.
I know what social scientists say about tribalism but interpretation of those kinds of research is not meant for individuals you know personally. Individuals are not distributions, they're people. That is, they have agency, with a right to their own opinions that ought to be engaged with seriously and sincerely. Some people may not think too deeply and just hone to a particular opinion just by fiat. In my life, that really isn't anywhere near "most" people I come in contact with or talk to as the article puts it. Most people in my life just don't think too deeply about these things, that's it. It's a lot less mundane than "people are sheeple" and more like "people don't care" or at least "people only really care about X" where X might be something like their own job or life.
The author implicitly assumes that the constraints of our society are fixed and that it's therefore possible to determine which political systems are objectively better or worse. We should be doing that research (like astronomers trying to determine how the universe works) instead of religiously supporting ideological positions.
I fundamentally disagree with that assumption. I think we behave the way we do in large part due to the ideological principles we were raised with. This can be confirmed by observing various closed-off societies sometimes operating on principles that seem completely bonkers to most of us.
If you teach people capitalism/socialism, you build a capitalistic/socialistic system. It's impossible to live inside that system and objectively determine whether it's good or bad, let alone better or worse than other systems.
So in that context, I believe following an ideology is _not_ the opposite of thinking for yourself, as the author puts it. It is a conscious decision based on morality. You decide what your values are and you find a political option that aligns with them.
To be clear, that's still a very imperfect decision to make, many things can go wrong from that point on and I believe this is where the author is correct in many ways. We should reason about it constantly to make sure we're actually doing what we want to be doing and not just blindly repeating things.
The level of objectivity that we strive for is just really possible.
Russia is/was a global powerhouse under (its version of) Communism.
The US reached (essentially) global domination under Capitalsm.
China is in line to be the next hegemony under an odd combination of Communism, Authoritarianism and (serving Western) Capitalism.
Little old Germany wasn't far from conquering the world under what began as some form of Socialism.
Any of the -isms can be argued against by mentioning -ism-subscribing regimes that have fallen. Where this falls down is that each regime has its own way of corrupting the ideals of the -ism to favour of those 'at the top' or 'with the power to decide'.
Trickle-down (voodoo, for Ferris Bueller fans) economics seems to raise its head regularly despite not having a great track record for an entire population. I think the reason is that its popular with the powerful, so its track record with the population at large is a feature not a bug.
Who is right? What does it mean to be right?
What are the Acceptance Critiera?
You can't ignore politics when it's actively destroying your country - it's just not possible, and trying to ignore it is not the moral or ethical choice.
be able to understand and empathize with the various (and often opposing) groups involved in a topic
Interestingly, I have seen Elon (DOGE) and others outside of politics (that mega-church leader) telling the public (dare I say, their followers) that one of the main problems with America is empathy, and that we need to _stop_ empathizing with others.
If people put the welfare of others first, for example, taxpayer funded universal healthcare wouldn't even be something that was debated, it would be implemented with as much fuss as we have over painting lane markers on streets. But Americans care less for their fellow American than most other countries out there it seems.
How would removing what little empathy that there is improve matters?
Avoiding to discuss politics is cowardly. It distances people from each other because they maintain a fake facade, and they express their true selves and beliefs only online.
Now? It's by far not among differences in economic policies any more. The differences are much more fundamental: the rights of LGBT people to exist, the rights of women to have a life outside of breeding children, minorities having the same rights as the majority. The questions that form the divide are binary in nature, not a spectrum any more. When differences become existential in nature, reconciliation is impossible - either you grant the universal freedoms to everyone or you do not.
But on this I differ:
Seriously, come prove some core belief I have as wrong and you will quite literally make my week.
I don't think I believe this at all. It's certainly not true of myself -- I aspire to it, but my ego is much too fragile. I have spent much time and effort carefully checking the small set of core principles that I do feel justified in calling "correct", and the reason for that is precisely to avoid the unpleasant surprise of discovering that they are demonstrably wrong after all.
His comedy is about playing an out of context short clip, make funny face, cheap insult, and laugh track.
But how that plays out in political discussions is that 1 side wont have discussions and just repeats cheap insults. Which results in Trump getting into power.
Better yet, this 1 side who cant discuss politics then constantly hides away. Leaving their viewpoint unexpressed and further losing position.
And again, that's because I'm lucky enough to not live in the US. I'd unfriend a red hat on FB in a heartbeat. I'd probably break connections with a family member over it too. I'd have problems even having a professional relationship with my US colleagues if I had found out they had a red hat in a social media post. But I don't see the problem with this at all tbh.
Like Ashwin, I don't believe that this is "fixable", in so much that humanity as a whole has a tendency towards tribalism that's innate to being human, and this is part of what allowed societies and civilizations to form, as much as it carries the downsides of interrupting reasoning and creating the conditions for warfare. Rather, I try to seek out people who are able to reason and have discussions.
I definitely appreciated reading this, as it felt very relatable in a way that most things do not.
For me, it always was a voluntarily long and sinuous and silly and lonely path. It had to be.
An uncertain path as well, and one that was totally worth all the trouble it brought my way.
And as seducing as it is, the reality of crossing path with fellow free thinking/doing individuals always felt like falling for some other tribe.
Because in the end, that's what we do. While not following, we often become leaders of followers. How could it be otherwise is the only question left to answer.
PG explains it better here: https://www.paulgraham.com/mod.html
For example, it would be fine if the people in the other tribe to do what they want - as long as when the taxes becomes too high, the beaurocracy stifling, the crime rampant, and they have to deal with issues they assumed other people would sacrifice for in order for them to feel good - as long as when it inevitably breaks down, they don't come to MY area learning nothing and try to replicate what they left.
That is a worldwide problem actually.
I don't think you can maintain moderate views on that sort of situation without becoming complicit. Yes, Elon is up to no good. Trump is not the sort of person that should have this kind of power. Putin turned Russia into an autocracy. It's happened in other countries as well. There is a playbook for this, and the Trump administration is following their version of it. We don't have to go back to WW2 to make comparisons. Putin is not a good person, and Trump admires him.
The problem with the reasonable independent thinker is that they are relatively powerless against autocratic takeover. You need to join a side that is resisting. Assuming you value democracy and it's institutions.
What tends to happen at dinners or whatever is that some outspoken person (socially conservative on a pet issue) monopolizes conversation, and a couple of others keep mum because they don't like confrontation/arguing. The others don't care.
I am guilty of this in one particular case. I have a friend who describes himself as a classical Liberal, and when the subject comes up about pit bulls or the like, will say that "the problem is with the owners not the breed". What am I going to do, take out my crap phone and try to use data like a blunt instrument? I don't care enough to start an argument over it.
And even with all this knowledge, can you empathize with both sides of common issues -- the poor renter vs struggling landlord? The tired worker vs underwater business owner? Rich vs poor, immigrant vs legacy, parent vs child -- the list goes on
To me having just two sides is a uniquely American way of thinking.
Between the renter and landlord there's the homeowner, between the tired worker and business owner there's the public sector/NGO/huge corporation worker/freelancer, rich and poor are relative terms which lie on a scale anyway.
Conflicts that actually have only two parties involved are rare and the very first thing one should do to be able to talk politics, is give up on the notion.
† I have yet to see an article like this written by a woman.
EDIT: typo.
In 2025, but before the Tesla burnings made the news, I was having some chitchat about possibly purchasing a Tesla as my next car, at which point, I got a tirade of anger mentioning words like "Nazi", "fascism" and so on. I was completely taken aback.
I realize we Americans are probably undergoing the results of some adversarial nation-state psychological operations[1], but we really need to chill out.
1. Coincidentally, most of my social media "usage" is identifying sock puppet accounts and their adversarial psyops campaigns.
This generally keeps me from arguing with relatives and in-laws, and on this site. So usually I can discuss differences without things going crazy.
That said, what do you think of money changing what is left/right and group/individual? The outcome of Citizens United to allow obscured spending to create seeming grass roots efforts on any topic that the monied want very effectively moving opinions.
Bay Area … finding a community of truth-seeking people
I don’t know if I would entirely classify the Bay Area as truth seeking people. It’s eclectic but it definitely felt just as polarizing as living in other parts of the country, but perhaps it’s better defined as moving to live with more like minded people.
After that, try Principal Component Analysis and look, what remains from these dimensions and the labels describing them. Think up names for the Eigenvectors / new axes. Investigate further. For example, look where people are concentrating in this high-dimensional space.
Most people don't want to graduate from tribalism.
Even if you personally want to, others will still judge you based on it. And honestly, there's often enough people out there for you to pick a social circle that aligns with your own interests at least on fundamental issues.
As for the people that you don't choose to be around, e.g. at work, probably read the room first.
US politics has been increasingly polarized into positions congruent with facts and policy and our traditional ideals, and positions associated with a general stance of grievance, with an insistent selfishness, with anti-empathy, anti-intellectualism, with "palingenetic ultranationalism". This has been a test of your ideals, of your humanity. It wasn't very hard.
Yes, there is often a lot of nuanced truth in the middle of any argument. But less now, in politics, than in a long, long time. Only a very particular sort of person walks into a liberated Auschwitz and starts shouting "Both sides are too extreme and I'm better than them!" from the rooftops.
Speaking as somebody who spent a lot of time there: A lot of the tropes in the "rationalist" community are inherently conservative-pointing, and it's a general prerequisite for participating there that you have a coherent base of progressive terminal ideals and an attitude suited towards introspection and iteration of your beliefs. Because otherwise you go from zero to Nietzschean ubermensch to Nazi ubermensch to Musk/Thiel brownshirt in no time, having weaponized everything present there to support your priors and idly expand your confidence.
The author doesn't recognize that it's not "politics" today. Politics is disagreeing on how to fund road improvements. When one party wants to dismantle the state, remove protections for marginalized groups, disavow alliances, engage in absurd imperialism, and flagrantly disregard the rule of law, we're not talking about mere "politics" anymore.
This is "both-sides-ism" of the worst sort. And it gives one the impression that the author is fine being friends with people who hole absolutely horrible beliefs, as long as he doesn't have to know about them.
Escaping that tribalism or fandom is important, but you need to hold fast to your own sense of morality along the way.
Applying your own sense of right/wrong to political arguments and policies is a useful way to cut through the noise and distraction that accompanies political discourse.
I’d recommend a short course in mindfulness instead, at whatever point in the spectrum between science and mysticism you’re comfortable with.
I can only encourage everybody to do the same.
People usually know if you are a „filthy liberal“ or a „closet fascist“ anyways and my experience shows that just knowing you will draw them away from the political extremes.
You should however discuss politics with close friends -- they probably got close to you because you both share a worldview or they like hearing your worldview (even if it differs from yours).
Closeness means more sharing. That always comes with risks and rewards.
Often when someone asks "who did you vote for", what they're actually doing is verifying your adherence to group culture,
They are just checking to which group you belong, not verifying your adherence? It does not seem like a question you ask someone whose you know politics already.
But yes still is a problem
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
No idea is this particular person is especially part of the problem, I’m just talking about general vibes.
Why don't you discuss politics with friends? Are you worried about loss of friends? Do the conversations ruin your day? Do you feel alienated?
Depending on the why, there's different points I'd argue for or against the reasoning. Without that piece, it's kind of hard to discuss the premise of the article without just guessing its implications.
"And this is fundamentally why I don't discuss politics with friends.
It's not that I don't want or am scared of opposing views (in fact the opposite is true[8]), but rather because of how common others’ desire to "remain in the bubble" is."
I actually am willing to risk alienation to find people that enjoy this sort of discussion-based discovery as much as I do, but found most people I encounter don't actually want that -- so I try and respect what seems to be the average opinion.
That model explains an absurd number of social dynamics and a big chunk of politics - which is mostly people with a high level of adult development socially signalling to the masses what they are meant to be doing.
The important observation is that it isn't intellectual honesty that is the problem or truth-seeking the solution. It is actually whether someone is capable of identifying that truth != popular opinion. People who form their opinions by social osmosis can still be intellectually honest if they land in the right sort of community, but they fall apart under social pressure.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kegan#The_Evolving_Self
Many a conspiracy believer will tell you they already have the truth (unlike unenlightened you).
Better is to remain inquiring and skeptical in forming conclusions or beliefs.