Sometimes I think it would be comforting to write off the opinions of my fellow citizens as (influenced by) paid shills. But I’m pretty sure it would be a rationalization to avoid the unpleasant reality of genuine conflicts and differences.
I also see a lot of genuine local grassroots stuff that makes my blood boil (NIMBYism), so I don’t really attach a moral credit to those qualities.
Personally, I'm not big on accepting personal blame for fifty years of bad urban planning decisions made by other people, almost entirely before I could vote. But I understand that that's not a helpful, satisfactory, or emotionally resonant response to someone looking for an enemy to accuse of wrecking everything they hold dear. Certainly not when they have someone who represents all those evils right before them.
I've learned to cut such people off immediately. Nothing good can come of attempting to offer sympathy, solidarity, or compassion to someone who views you as a mustache-twirling cartoon villain.
You should feel bad for doing it, because it only contributes to the growing divide between people. There's a fairly large cohort of people with opinions that straddle both sides of the aisle from whom you couldn't fill in most of their opinions based on just a single opinion.
Frequently, people have political opinions that are incredibly nationalistic, to the point of sounding like complete gibberish to anyone outside their bubble.
I generally don't assume that they are bots, shills, or trolls, even if they sound like them. I need only look at the outcome of elections to know that those positions have incredibly broad grassroots support.
Yes because then you can easily break them down by showing people that those people are scumbags. Otherwise you will only see increased support if you do not let them express their opinions.
I do this too. I don't block people based on their politics because I don't want to be in a bubble, but I do block people that make bad faith arguments. Unfortunately, that means I end up in a bit of a bubble because so many folks of a particular political persuasion love to make bad faith arguments.
Why should I take credit for people I don't agree with? Do you think it fair if I lump you together with people you don't like because they are in roughly the same part of the political spectrum as yourself?
That's perfectly fine. I just want to enjoy myself instead of engaging with the negativity of others. I try to hold my elected representatives accountable for what I can, and that's about all I can reasonably control.
Uhh, bad together, form a PAC, and use lobbyists to distribute money to politicians that support their aims?
I am sympathetic to people who peacefully protest and without disrupting others, or who get permits for expected disruption so that accommodations can be made for affected people.
I’m also sympathetic to people who refuse to comply with unfair laws, e.g. Rosa Parks.
What I’m not sympathetic to is people who intentionally try to torment others under the guise of protest.
“Hate” is too much. I can exist in a society with opponents and allies pretty smoothly. But morally, I’m going to bucket people, yeah.
If you vote one way, you don’t care all that much about key issues that matter to me. I do. It’s relevant to my life. It doesn’t matter what you say. The truth is you don’t care as much as I do.
I don’t have to oppose anything. That’s you projecting. Knowing who is opposing me is not opposing them. It’s just knowing the landscape. I’m quite comfortable not opposing someone even if they oppose me, but I do insist on knowing they oppose me.
I think the piece you are missing is that someone could reasonably apply the same logic you are to your politics. If I feel that taxation is theft or that bombing Pakistan with drones is grossly immoral I could ostracize anyone who holds those beliefs under this logic. Maybe even target supporters of those arranging such activities like say anyone who gave money to Obama. You can either deal with opinions you don't like or you can freak out try to target those who hold them. It's your life.
For what it's worth, my experience has been that many strangers are borderline ecstatic over the opportunity to share their political opinions in a somewhat hostile tone. And many, I'm sure, are not.
I think that's disingenuous. We are all caught up in political ideologies. We may be resisting and still desirous of truth. We might have both desire and fear, and fear might be winning.
I think the practice of ad homineming your political enemies is harmful to anyone's political aims. It strengthens your hold over your base, but it makes it harder for you to grow the boundary beyond it.
That's honestly the most realistic approach. I make a conscious effort not to follow politics nowadays, too much negativity, but doing so online seems to always cause folks to fly into defensive mode. In person less so. Facial cues, maybe?
"If you're not with us, you're against us" is a pretty reductive, American-centric way of approaching politics. There are plenty of topics which I'm happy to not hold a strong opinion on and I'll probably spend my entire life that way. Folks who feel strongly about _any_ issue will always tell moderates they're just shills for the other side, which is part of what makes the argument so tiresome.
I think that's the point. If you look at /r/the_Donald as an example, they believe that all their ideological opponents are paid actors.
This is insidious belief that lets you dismiss different view points as the evil machinations of your favorite villain (Soros and Democrats on one side and Russia on the other).
I think it's much more likely that some people hold different views and express them online. Believing an evil power is hiring people to pretend to disagree with you is probably evidence of unhealthy delusion.
Unless you consider the radical and sometimes dubious nature of dogmatic politics (left and right) to be a mental hazard worth avoiding.
I wonder if theres a way to temper a user, such that you expose them to more vitriolic bullshit on either side with some survey based feedback, and pull back again to allow for recovery, you go to and fro until you filter some undesirable components, idk maybe you have this pseudo-personality profile you target or you just want to minimise usage of a set of biases and you include lessons alongside it.
I also see a lot of genuine local grassroots stuff that makes my blood boil (NIMBYism), so I don’t really attach a moral credit to those qualities.
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