Subj : Re: Politics
To   : Avon
From : DustCouncil
Date : Sun Mar 06 2022 10:21 am

If we could measure all of the words and energy spent online advocating for one political point or another, and somehow quantify it: blood pressure points, characters or words typed, or number of time spent doing this, and measured it against a metric of how many people changed their minds because of a better argument, it'd be interesting to see that ratio.

Why I don't like politics is arguing politically is like a psychological tic for people.  In the best case, you argue in a kind of Socratic way with truth or logic being the goal.

But it never is.  It's a war of reality tunnels, frames, and narratives, driven by poorly-informed, heavily-biased, highly summarized, and non-nuanced news sources which exist across the political spectrum from one side to the other.

Ultimately the argument becomes about a person's sense of reality: the map of the world and how it works in their heads, and not the specific issue or topic.  When someone steps up to argue, it is a threat to the person's very grasp of reality itself.

This is why I wonder what the purpose is.  It is an excercise in weaponized cognitive dissonance, bumper-sticker-like sloganeering, and, especially the Dunning-Kruger effect on full display.

In essence, people don't really know what they're talking about, and don't much care.  The motivation is something other than reality as it is.

Not that anyone uses my board, but I'd carry (and currently carry) such echoes but don't subscribe to them.  It is hard to understand the benefit.  It creates discord and even hatred between people, without ever really being illuminating on any level.  If discord and anger is the price, what's the countervailing benefit?  

I don't see one.

I am surprised that so many people are so certain of so many things.  I've only become more doubtful and less committed as I get older as the complexity and apparent contradictions of the world we live in make it obvious no one really knows what's going on.  Cheap platitudes about caring about this concept or value or this group of people are understandable, but the political policies or ideologies people recommend to ameliorate what they perceive to be injustices are often simplistic or destructive (I am reminded of the Dead Kennedy's sarcastic "Kill the Poor" for some reason.)

I expect 18 year olds to have not learned this yet.  It is surprising fully-grown adults are so so sure about everything and seem to truly believe they have the solutions to problems that have vexed humankind for millennia.

I guess people have a lot more time to read than I do, because the last I looked there are experts with PhDs and decades of experience studying exclusively, say, the military affairs of a single country and are tentative when they express opinions on these things even near the ends of their career.

People on the Internet, in bars -- a whole other matter.  They have it all figured out.  They will state absolutes in declarative sentences without any trace of self-conscious or irony.  Certain Fidonet echoes are populated with people like this.

Must be a whole different way of looking at the world.

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