Why I don't discuss politics with friends

My thought is that if someone aligns exactly with X political ideology, they aren’t really thinking for themselves and are just adopting whatever their tribal group believes about X subject. I see this all the time - collections of beliefs that otherwise have nothing to do with each other, but are adopted by the same people because “that’s what X group thinks about it.” This is very rarely a conscious thing.

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.

I once read an interesting article that said in multipolar political systems, coalitions between opinion groups happen after the election; whereas in two-party systems, the coalition forms before the election.

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.

The graph in the article of "what the political spectrum actually is" where independent thought was only found in the middle was so funny to me that I had to do a double take. Maybe this is a joke or April Fool's prank or something?

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

One quality of “tribal” that I think gets overlooked is that those that are part of a “tribe” are not willing to be wrong.

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.

It's natural to internalise the groups we belong to. In other words they become me. Or my identity is formed by the group.

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.

By definition, reason can only take you so far in politics, as it’s the arena in which decisions must be made without complete information. No matter how well reasoned your arguments, no matter how well informed you are, you’re still going to resist switching allegiances. So, imo, politics is just about 99% loyalty.

Martin Luther King was pretty clear what he thought of "the middle":

> 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

Looking at it from a left-right one-dimensional space, the middle would be the non-tribal choice. The political spectrum is however not a one-dimensional space, and countries with multiple political parties, with center parties, can demonstrate that well in polls and self tests. It is perfectly possible for a single individual to be in 50% agreement with every single political party, from left, center and right, agreeing to the individual policies from each party that they find to be correct and disagreeing with policies they disagree with.

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.

The most visible example of tribalism is when groups fail to update their ideas and beliefs as facts start to come in. You can't escape the religious parallel.

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."

I think there sadly exists an overlay in a lot of politics, basically tribalism, but I think the better phrasing is "teams" as in "team sports".

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.

Is it really likely that an intelligent person like yourself could hold 95% intellectual alignment with one of the two lowest common denominators (largest pluralities) in a country on complex political topics? Consider how much each party's platform has changed in the last 20 years, and how much more they will change in the next 20. I would say it's more likely that someone like yourself is quite intelligent and creative and is instead unaware of those deeply ingrained tribal instincts.

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...

If you think these beleifs are inherent in the temperament of people, that doesnt explain the change of these beliefs over time. Progressive, left leaning ideology had different stances 20 years ago, let alone 50 years or in China or India.

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

I think the claim is that a lot of people stick with the tribe regardless of how closely it matches their world views. It might be dismissive but it resonates. I've seen people keep voting for the same parties even when the policies have shifted very significantly.

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.

> 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.

I think it refers to people, who I have run into quite a lot, who when faced with a new fact about politics or the behaviour of politicians, back the team over the idea.

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.

> 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.

Always remember that internet conversations are carried by a small group of antisocial losers, and a most of media articles complaining about society are specifically targeting that small but loud group.

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.

>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.

imo it's not dismissive it's just the truth. the chances of someone's values completely lining up with the current agenda of any political party are effectively zero, so anybody who fits that description has just picked a team and decided to roll with it, there just isn't any other explanation.

> 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.

In the US, you vote for one party or the other. It reduces to tribalism, so why do the extra work to get to the reductive result?

You are right that you don't take part in tribalism, because you first have a value structure and then you looked critically at the political landscape and found where you have the largest overlap.

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 :(

How do you avoid being "tribal" if you are not centerish?

Tribalism is part metaphor, part euphemism. What it’s really getting at is cult behavior. Agreeing with someone on a lot of things isn’t tribal and isn’t cult.

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.

The United States especially is having a face to face with tribalism - if you live here and you don't see it you are basically blind.

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.

I think tribalism is being thought of as a pejorative when it isn’t. It merely is a phenomenon. What you describe above about yourself is pure tribalism of how you identify with the liberal tribe and could never even picture yourself as a member of other tribe. This is no different to me than a rabbi or priest talking about the tenets of their faith and how that leaves them no option but to be a member of that religion due to the moral underpinnings of those tenets that they believe in.

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.

> 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.

Just in the last election cycle, we saw tribal Democratic voters try and silence those protesting the Biden administration and then immediately go "we have always been at war with Eurasia" and do the exact same thing for Kamala.

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.

Everything is because of increasing wealth inequality, it is the root cause of almost every societal problem. It was easier to have non-threatening debates because everyone felt more secure. When people are stressed and afraid, the debates aren’t just intellectual exercises but things that could mean the loss of real opportunities in their lives. This is a trend that has been going on for a very long time, Pikkety showed mathematically that it’s easier to make money when you already have money and this runaway process is nearing an extreme.

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.

Very much this. The world has changed. It used to be that assuming other people have a low capacity for political reason was itself a "political position" - namely elitism. Folks like Orwell come from a long, long tradition of the educated and socially astute working class. Social media turned the joy of everyday political banter, rational scepticism, and good-natured disputation into a bourgeois pissing contest with seemingly life-or-death stakes.

> 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.

Agree social media is a big problem. It lets people live in an imaginary reality echo chamber.

However in the real world and 1:1 you can still have good discussions with smart people who disagree with you. And we need to have those.

yeah I actually also enjoy it when the other party is more interested in learning than winning

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

There's a specific explanation saying that that's not what it's saying

Challenging your own viewpoints is not just hard, it's downright dangerous. You can really lose your sense of identity and question your own morals if you are not well-grounded. It's much easier to dig your heels in and try to limit your self-reflection to be more "safe". (I still think you should question your viewpoints, but I don't blame people for being a little afraid.)

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.

"since it almost never pays to undermine loyalty in favor of principle"

nailed it imo, thanks for reading!

> There's an easier answer to "why don't people move from tribe to view"

yep, it's "why would i risk finding out i'm wrong when everybody around me already thinks i'm right"

They become too entangled with identity. The advantage of holding one's identity loosely, and attributing it one's actions, is it facilitates changing one's mind about certain things, or updating beliefs in increments.

.. "we will need writers who remember freedom" Ursula Le Guin

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 like this, but what we do, is vote. Between work and kids there is no more time “to do”. I donate to UNICEF but that’s it.

You'll find unquestioning dogmatism everywhere you go unfortunately.

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.

You can't say that and then not share where you moved to. Now I'm curious. I don't live in the Bay Area so not defending it in any way.

curious where you moved?

I completely understand it could not have what we're looking for, which is why this was only one component among larger ones (family + new job)

I have no reason to "respectfully engage" with beliefs like 'trans people should all be put in jail' (https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/texa...) or 'kill all the Jews' (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/nazis-r...).

This can be done, carefully, through in-person conversations. I think it may be nearly impossible on social media, whose primary purpose seems to be to enforce group identity.

This. I try to meet everyone where they are when entering into political discussions. I’ve learned a lot from people as a result of this and — I’d like to think — have successfully communicated an understanding of my own perspectives. Being able to sit down and talk to someone you disagree with is so important and I feel it is something we have gradually lost over time.

The perspective of the article is completely delusional. The idea that the author thinks they are above the petty "tribe" politics and have based their views on rationality and scientific evidence is complete bollocks.

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?

this was based off Paul Graham's piece: https://www.paulgraham.com/mod.html

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

Extreme views seem to scale most with education. Those highly decoupled from either tribe can be educated as well, but does seem more common with those less politically engaged. I am optimistic about the resurgence of an "abundance" agenda pushed by center-left Liberals.

> The most independently minded thinkers I know frequently drift off into extremes where most tribes dare not tread.

They've found another tribe.

A friend lamented in 2016 "If I vote for X I'll lose my friends. If I vote for Y I'll upset my family."

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

Thanks for reading!

Yeah it seems there is less of a taboo among my friends, despite a strong tilt in one political direction.

I suspect this is because most people assume everyone shares the same opinion in our state

It's not that shocking. It makes a really good short hand question to find out where someone is politically. You could spend ten hours discussing what the perfect immigration system looks like or you could ask who they voted for and get a baseline to go off of. The question only removes nuance if you stop right after.

I just try and imagine people having this debate in 1932 Germany.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weAopdKILLw

I sometimes grin and say "it's a secret ballot" and how they react to that can be revealing.

[flagged]

In my friend group it's clear as day: either you voted to kill and deport other people in the friend group or you didn't. Pretty obvious the group would like to know if you're secretly interested in their demise.

On one hand, it feels like this question is a lot more relevant than ever. It's easier to ignore politics when each side doesn't see the other as an existential threat to their way of life.

Like it would be easy not to ask someone's religion when there isn't a 35% chance they're going to say "extremist martyr".

But I don't ask this question if I don't think I know the answer already, and I only ask it with people I think I can have a conversation with.

Not me! (My comment is currently just above yours). We have all been victimized by the information space which has been polluted by increasingly unhinged vitriol, itself funded by Citizens United money and amplified by novel internet platforms. It is not a coincidence that virtually all pundits are lawyers, and PR firms probably have a lot of them too. They know how to zealously advocate for a client, and have applied those skills to the public sphere. It's worse than that, because outside of a courtroom they can lie, distort, and fabricate at will for their clients, with no judge to scold them. The average human adult cannot stew in this poison for a decade and not be harmed by it. My heart goes out to all those who's egos have been inflated, who's feelings of hatred and ill-will encouraged, not because they chose it, but because it's impossible to get away from it.

Way more than anyone should be comfortable with.

Looks through thread

Tribalism and purity tests abound.

Okay, I Ctrl+F'ed for "evil" and found... nobody calling anyone else evil (actions, not people, were described as evil by one commenter--the rest were discussing ethics in the abstract, not describing anyone or any action as evil).

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.

Is it tribalism to say Hitler is evil? Recognizing a universal negative isn't tribalism. The view that all things are equal and nothing matters is more so of the nihilist tribe.

It's disappointing to see.

It’s not a matter of evil or good, those are subjective naturally.

It’s a matter of harm.

For example, some conservatives in the state level are trying to allow insurance to not provide PrEP based on religious grounds. For context, PrEP is medicine that prevents HIV infection and is required to be covered at a low cost by insurance.

The result is more HIV or AIDS in gay male populations in those states. There’s no charitable way to interpret these conservative pushes.

I am a gay man. My friends are gay men. I cannot be friends with someone who is actively trying to harm me and my community. This is NOT subjective. This is objective fact - these policies harm me, and my friends. If you interpret that to mean “evil” then that is on you, and perhaps should spark some introspection.

The point is, me being friends with people who are voting in policies that literally, tangible, undeniably, harm me is pathetic and self-destructive.

Maybe you’re okay with being pathetic and self-destructive. Or, more likely, there exists no policies like this for you or any demographics you belong to.

> If that hypothesis is true, then probably the best thing for society is to provide cultural structures that let us indulge than impulse in non-harmful ways, instead of, say, giving it to religions that also tell us to murder gay people.

I agree with this take a lot, and actually tried to imagine what Religion 2.0 could be based on this premise

Interesting. From what I've seen, the lack of empathy is the root of most of the political problems in the US.

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?

Completely agree and it is an oversimplification when you graph people on even a 2-dimensional axis.

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.

agreed, this would be ideal if maybe practically impossible

appreciate it! (and thanks for reading)

yeah the religious enforcement is what always popped into my head when I watched it unfold

Hah! One of mine:

I'd rather be right than popular, and I usually am.

great quote, I agree

> 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.

People aren't good at defining problems when it comes to political views because - as far as I can tell - nearly everyone has zero interest in actually solving the issue, or putting in work to do so.

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.

> 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.

Yeah I sympathize with the author, but it’s not hard to talk about these things with a little bit of tact. Intellectual humility also helps. I’ve come to realize I and most others know approximately 0 about most political issues, so it’s an opportunity to not truth seek but to get to know the other persons and their values better.

This is actually how most of my conversations operate, I rarely share my beliefs in conversation, but ask questions -- often geared towards a tribal view I've detected