Comment by rf15 a day ago
European here. I'm on the left, but I don't hang out much with people from the left: they're really often driven by ideology and cannot for the life of them come up with working political plans to push the needle. 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.
I think you're taking the graph way too literally.
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 graph isn't "agrees with Republican" and "agrees with Democrat" as the axis (I also would say you can agree with people and still be a free thinker, viewing positions as independent doesn't really make sense, there's underlying ideology that heavily correlates them but all of this is besides the point). The idea that the far left is agreeing dogmatically with the democratic platform is clearly factually incorrect to anyone who has met people actually on the far left (they rarely even agree with other people on the far left) and a similar thing can be said about the far right.
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 graph X axis could just as well have been labelled "agrees with Republicans" and "agrees with Democrats"; perhaps it would've been clearer that way. But really, any polarization axis would've worked.
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 not just that the axes are wrong, there's a fundamental problem with the idea of the graph in an article about considering viewpoints and overcoming tribalism. Fundamentally the author put a graph in the article about tribalism and not considering other views where only people close to him ideologically are "free thinkers" (it's especially weird since "free thinkers" are congregated where most people are). You can sorta see this problem with the rest of the article, there are a lot of claims about how other people think badly and how he thinks is good. This is his perogative but it makes the article deeply insular and not really about how to understand and reason with other people.
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.
Even more so when you see how quickly these coalitions will shift their beliefs or take on new beliefs when they’re signaled to do so by leaders of the coalition.
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.
AI's ability to sift through text is almost to the point of being able to pick out these idiots so they can be ignored.
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.
This. 100%
Same behaviour, or should we call it helplessness, can be witnessed in democrats responses since this whole thing went into round 2.
I'm shocked on how little actionable and constructive goals are part of the "conversation".
I think you're talking about a subtly different thing. OP was simply saying "it's very possible to be a rational independent thinker and yet be non-centrist". What you're saying is "a lot of people I've met who are more left than me are impractical".
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.
American here. Otherwise, fairly similar.
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).
Sure I mean a lot of people on every political leaning don't have practical policies but that's besides the point (people can even have bad independent thoughts so impractical policies aren't inherently relevant). The graph isn't even "often people who disagree with me are tribal" it's "literally only some people near me ideologically are independent thinkers".
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...