Journal shanen's Journal: The End of Civil Discussion? 9
Perhaps leading to the end of civilization? Or perhaps I have missed a recent breakthrough in psychology regarding persuasion and brainwashing?
Let me try to make it more personal: These days are you meeting more people you can't talk with? Or even to?
There's an old saying about politely avoiding the topics of religion, politics, and money, but I think it's gotten much worse than that. If I asked you to name an example of a person you can't talk with, then that's where the safest bets would be as regards the basis of disagreement.
My own bane has been politics, so I'm going to pick an example from politics, from way back in 2016. I remember some meetings with old friends that led to bitter disagreements about a certain election. If we hated the same candidate, then we could talk about it, but if not, then no discussion was possible. Especially impossible to ask about why, but I still noticed something strange. Reasons would be expressed in every direction, but they mostly seemed like random arrows. Eventually I was led to the hypothesis that many people had been targeted, and each of them had been hit by a specific arrow of disinformation. Apparently it was stuck somewhere deep, and there was no sense in pointing out how absurd it was... And let me assure you that some of their beliefs were utterly absurd and have NOT gotten better with age.
In hindsight I now think it was social media contagion. The worst examples involved video links. That meant YouTube was the primary vector of transmission, but the infection source was somewhere else, usually Facebook or Twitter...
However if there had been a major scientific breakthrough in the technologies of scientific persuasion, then I should have heard some of the details by now. Even though psychology is a rather fuzzy, even hairy, field, I still read a lot of books on the topic, and I haven't spotted it yet. The closest thing might be the reason problem, as best described in The Enigma of Reason by Sperber and Mercier. Short summary is that we almost always act without thinking and without reason, but we can easily fool ourselves afterwards with our "excellent" "my side" reasons that are actually confabulations. So my hypothesis is that the masters of persuasion have somehow skipped past the reasoned persuasion part and are now going directly to the actions--and most people are evidently going along with the gag.
Is there a ray of hope to be found? The book suggests that certain kinds of discussions can lead to good reasons and even good solutions to real problems. However I increasingly feel like "You can't get there from here", per the ancient joke, and in particular I can't get anywhere with my available time...
AC need not (Score:2)
Anything.
Discussion? (Score:1)
There is no "discussion" in the _extreme_ polarisation in the whole world (and special in USA). ,and live, it's own buble.
Everybody has
Online discussions have become toxic. (Score:4, Insightful)
Insert Always Has Been [imgflip.com] meme:
Bob: Online discussions have become toxic.
Alice: Always Has Been.
There have always been flame wars in Usenet but as the world ditched that and moved to social media (/. then Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, etc.) I've found discussions have taken a serious nosedive. Some of the problems include:
* No respect / civility for the person,
* No respect for an "heretical" idea,
* You are automatically "wrong". Why? Reasons.
* Emotional responses over logical responses.
* Complete lack of critical thinking.
* Echo Chamber.
* How DARE you question the narrative!
I've actually had civil discussions on YouTube (ha!) about the taboo topics: religion, politics, and money. The topics are NOT the problem, but the general immaturity level of people online. Most people DON'T want their world views challenged.
Fundamentalists (whether they be Atheists, Christians, Flat Earthers, etc.) give the rest of the group a bad name. A true skeptical flat earther would listen to reason and realize his position is insanity. But sadly most will "double down" and refuse to listen. There is an old saying that summarizes the problem:
A mind is like a parachute, both work best when open.
The solution is to teach people to respect others, and more importantly, themselves.
Re: (Score:1)
Pretty much concurrence, though I think your solution approach is on the weak side. But do you remember the first principle of the old IBM?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't really follow IBM but I assume you mean these principles [ibm.com]?
Education is always the key to changing behavior. If you don't change your beliefs, your emotions won't change, and thus you'll repeat your actions.
Re: (Score:1)
That's the one. It's easy to respect certain individuals, but the trick of applying the principle is to universalize it. Never my forte, but the best I could do was believe that each person must have many aspects worthy of respect--and then I kept running into folks who seemed determined to be the counterexample.
Still lacking time to respond properly to your thoughtful comment. Lack of time is one of the key problems...
It's A Matter of Quality Over Quantity (Score:1)
Over the last 25 years of being on the Internet, I've seen a lot of people come and go, a lot of flame wars, and I've even seen those wars spill over into the physical world. People with behavioral issues getting banned from IRL events, when their bad behavior got too extreme.
But even 20 years ago, people had jobs that could still provide a halfway decent living. You were still able to put yourself through college, pay rent and buy groceries. And more importantly, you actually had free time.
You had the a
Re: (Score:1)
Interesting and thoughtful presentation. Especially appealing to me for your focus on the time side of things. Time has becoming more and more central to my philosophic positions over time. Unfortunately I don't have time just now to do more than express "mostly concurrence".
Or is that a circular reasoning joke?