Comment by icecap12 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by icecap12 | Hacker News Reader

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I'm guilty of effectively ending friendships after seeing things former-friends have posted or stated online. In most cases, their posts or social media content revealed fundamental hypocrisy in what they said versus how they lived, or a belief-system in direct contrast to my own. I really had a hard time with that, and decided that I didn't want to talk to the person anymore. In one case, it was somebody I'd known since like 4th grade.

It's hard to want to be friends with someone that might support the abolishment of something you like, or that supports something you should feel abolished (does it matter which?). It's still possible, but I've found that I eventually figure out where someone stands on something and gravitate away from them, even without social media. Ultimately one of the biggest problems is the total lack of civil discourse. If that was more prevalent, I think it would be easier to have friends with opposing views. Nowadays, people throw up their arms and accuse you of being X when they can't articulately argue a position. That gets tiring.

As the article mentions, in some cases, social media reveals the depths of someone's political positions, personal beliefs, or other that you might not have known. Is it worse to know those things, versus not know? Hard to say, but I personally like to have things in common with my friends. There are no easy answers here, so my personal solution was dumping most social media, like Facebook and Instagram. I hate Twitter, but find myself having to use it to keep up with news in the infosec community; even if the group on Twitter is an echo-chamber club that mostly uses their "status" in the community to influence on topics other than cyber (super annoying).

All I know is, my peace of mind seems to be much better without social media; I don't miss it at all.

[edit] spelling correction

This seems strange to me. I’m sure I’m friends with people who want to abolish the IRS (American tax agency) or folks who perhaps want to privatize other agencies like Social Security (American “pension” system) or folks who send their kids to charter schools. I couldn’t imagine ending a friendship over this.

So for me, it came down to the individual view. I have dumped friends for 'other' political views. But they didn't tend to be related to agencies, like you list.

They're the personal ones. People who don't believe gays should be allowed to be married by the state. People who don't believe women or minorities should be allowed to vote. People who believe all immigrants come here to kill/steal/crime whatever.

The difference is when it's an institution (private versus public schools for example), that's pretty easy to disagree over. One side does not believe the other is inherently evil and a 'lesser' person. When it's about individual rights, and an attack on you as a person, and your inherent rights as an individual, that is almost impossible to overcome.

> The difference is when it's an institution (private versus public schools for example), that's pretty easy to disagree over. One side does not believe the other is inherently evil and a 'lesser' person. When it's about individual rights, and an attack on you as a person, and your inherent rights as an individual, that is almost impossible to overcome.

I think you articulated it far better than me. Certain things I could hardly care what another person says or thinks on the matter. But on certain issues or rights if there's a fundamental disagreement, I find the opposing position not just in direct opposition, but in a way actively working to undermine my position. I can't be friends with someone when there's such a basic difference in values; if we don't agree on that, there might not be much else we agree on.

Sure, I too won’t be friends who don’t want me or my friends to exist in society. But this kind of bigotry is rarely presented as “abolishment.” The only thing I can think of is folks who think that various Offices of Civil Rights should be abolished — but this is a fairly uncommon culture war talking point in this century.

I've ended friendships with people that could not be civil over our idealogical differences, despite my indifference about the differences. Many get sucked up into what's online and let it lead them offline. It's sad.

I’d end a friendship if they were posting Proud Boys/GOP/QAnon memes, or otherwise racist content. I may even end a friendship if they promote abolishing the IRS because that wouldn’t do anything and is thus pretty stupid (it’s not like the government would stop taxing). But the rest is pretty tame and reasonable people can disagree.

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