It seems like the 'correct' solution doesn't lie at one of these poles, unfortunately.
We all know what happens when we stop reaching across the divide. We go into our holes, there is miscommunication, and small disagreements turn into wars.
Focusing on the areas where we disagree widens the chasm. We can bridge it by looking for common goals.
As near as I can tell, the political process converts ideas from logical propositions into group signaling devices. Once a idea becomes a signal, any question of its truth or falsehood is commonly ignored for several human generations.
Keeping ideas that have already become signals quarantined, and minimizing overlap between groups in a context where they are likely to "go tribal" and convert more ideas into signals seems vitally important to me. That online discourse seems to have shifted towards a war of tribes rather than a crowd of individuals is (to me) a tragedy of the highest order.
> This is the nationalist mindset. "Create more walls. Diversity is difficult."
I do not think this course of action appeals to me because of a "nationalist mindset," but rather from a desire to see less topics become part of such mindsets. I guess I'd agree with "Create more walls. Partisanship is difficult." (though on the condition that the walls were around already partisan topics, and not in general)
> We all know what happens when we stop reaching across the divide. We go into our holes, there is miscommunication, and small disagreements turn into wars.
This is a shocking/wrong statement to me. We see tribal wars precisely when there is political outreach, not when there is focus on other things.
Consider HackerNews. Lately it has been taken over by heated discussions centered around political topics, in my model mostly because of the increased outreach due to this being an election year. Once the election passes, I hope, we will go back to discussing technical topics in blissful/ignorant harmony.
> Focusing on the areas where we disagree widens the chasm. We can bridge it by looking for common goals.
Yes exactly, hence the importance of keeping walls around partisan topics...
I love the way you put it; this goes straight into my quotes file.
> Keeping ideas that have already become signals quarantined, and minimizing overlap between groups in a context where they are likely to "go tribal" and convert more ideas into signals seems vitally important to me.
In a way, it's what some people do without realizing the idea. It's obvious that once a topic becomes a political issue, the general population loses the ability to discuss it in any reasonable way, so it's best to ignore that topic altogether until at least it falls off the news cycle. But maybe we need a more social-wide tools to "cordon off" topics that were exposed to the disease politics is.
I think it's unfortunate when people stop talking about the issues. You're right, people may have made up their minds, but the debate process is not just practice for the candidates, it's also practice for the public to get to know the issues the country is facing.
Of course, it's always up to you what you want to ignore.
1. Propaganda works really really well. Repetiton of propaganda, being a form of intellectual violence, will get people to believe almost anything. Thus, people who control the channels of repetitive messages delivered to the masses control what people believe.
2. The truth is out there, but due to the Dunning-Kruger effect, people who know the least think they know the most and they focus their energy on the most trivial issues due to bikeshedding. Thus, unless carefully vetted, discussion participants will overwhelmingly be people conditioned by repetition, think they're experts and be drawn to triviality.
In order to side step the nut house, just let people believe whatever they want to believe and charge big bucks for delivering messages, especially repetitivly, that do not easily fit in to the ruts in their cognitive road. That's because each time this is done, a small amount of cognitive violence is occurring to your viewers. Most people aren't intellectual masochists so it will drive them away eventually if done too much.
I am, it is..
> As near as I can tell, the political process converts ideas from logical propositions into group signaling devices. Once a idea becomes a signal, any question of its truth or falsehood is commonly ignored for several human generations.
This is true for more than just politics. Our language, culture, habits, facial expressions etc. are all learned from society. You can find evidence of ideologies in all of these.
> We see tribal wars precisely when there is political outreach, not when there is focus on other things.
I think both can be true. Best, to me, is if we can foster environments that both provide different views and also allow new ideas to grow without being persecuted. I don't think this happens by building walls around everything. There is a balance to strike.