Ask HN: How to Stay Apolitical? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to Stay Apolitical?

3 pointsfariss16 comments

In our increasingly politically world, what strategies and guidance can you give me to stay apolitical?

1) Don't pick a side. Don't join a party.

2) Along the same lines, refuse to buy into the narrative that *everything* is binary. It's not. It makes for great theatre - and media profits - that every issue is binary. Unfortunately, that narrative is a lie.

3) You're not going to like this one but...Don't vote. Doing so creates a bias. It's difficult to remain evenly balanced, voting will add a bias and upset any attempt at balance.

> Don't vote

Disagree with don't vote. If reasonable don't vote, then only extremes are voting, creating an even more polarized society/community. I say vote for anyone if they make sense to you, regardless of party affiliation.

The criteria wasn't "reasonable". It's apolitical.

Psychologically, making a choice creates a bias. A bias that makes people less likely to change their position, change their mind, etc. Sound familiar?

I'm not necessarily suggesting voting in and of itself is bad. I am directly saying that voting without realizing you've unwillingly opted in to a bias can be dangerous and create problems. Again, sound familiar?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/invisible-influences-how-choi...

A bias may preclude someone from considering a different perspective, but I am not sure all biases are inherently damaging to society.

I didn't say that either. I'm not judging the bias. I'm simply pointing out

- biases are real;

- that 99% of most people are oblivious to that fact;

- that 99% of elites / leadership make make no effort to educate the masses on how biases - in this case specifically the act of voting - impacts discourse;

- that how such a bias decreases compromise (i.e., people won't change their minds) and therefore increases divisiveness;

- that biases are an unavoidable human given which means the addressable problem is the ignorance of such things.

- Conclusion: Individual biases *are* going to have broader societal impact. Ignorance - especially when it's used to manipulate behaviour -is never good for society.

Those are the facts. If you have counter facts, please share. If there's something else outside these facts I welcome the opportunity to move beyond my biases.

Me personally? I just don't engage time wasting morons. (The fact that I'm engaging with you means I don't put you in the "time wasting moron" category.)

Maybe a better way to say this is "you don't have to engage people who don't share your political bent."

Thanks for the nice reply.

Sometimes it is not that easy to just ignore what is going and pretend the world is at peace. I find myself taking a stance unconsciously..

I hear you. "Don't engage" is more like an aspirational statement. Though in the last year I've been doing better at it. It may be because I spend more time reading these days than I did a year or two ago.

If your solution to avoiding political anxiety is to deny reality, then you're more likely to fall into cognitive bias and irrational reasoning patterns than accepting you have political inclinations and subjecting them to critical inquiry, being willing to change your mind and so on.

In what context? Work? friends? Family?

I don’t think it is possible to always be apolitical. I think there are many instances where you need to be aware of what sort of political statement you are making.

To elaborate: the easiest way to stay apolitical is to never say anything. But that’s no way to live. Depending on the context you may want to be more or less opinionated or - alternatively- know when to say nothing v saying something.

I suspect that the ideal method would be to live alone in a remote, off-grid situation.

Why would that be something that you would want?

To avoid bias, maintain objectivity, and focus on my personal interests and professional responsibilities without being influenced by any political affiliations or agendas.

If you have any values at all, you have bias. If you eat food and generally use resources that other people have labored for, you are a political entity by the choices you make. Even taking up space as a hermit requires making choices for self-government, and your existence has an impaon other life around you.

However, if you're taking a narrow definition of political to be what happens at the representative layer of this (ideally) representative democracy (ideally because I don't want to spend my time reading and voting on all the bills, which is a political preference I have), just focus on what you have reasonable control over and keep striving to live the life you feel suits you (which naturally may change over time).

I used to think I was immune to advertising. I used to think I was rational and in control of my emotions. Once I realized I was delusional, I took steps to limit my exposure and to focus on old-school hedonism- what really, truly, feels right. I quit all social media except hn, recently quit all videogames, quit alcohol and coffee, increased sleep duration and quality, and read more books, applying what I learn to be a less-grumpy caretaker and companion to myself and my family members. I now procrastinate less, because I can identify what I'm feeling and sometimes why, and address the causes rather than hide from the stress. I'm not perfect at this, but at least it feels like a healthy track rather than a holding pattern.

Good luck finding what you're looking for.

You cannot “maintain” objectivity, because humans access the universe through subjective experience, and you cannot “avoid bias”, you can only recognize bias in one thing as compared to another.

OTOH, if you want to cultivate a distance from the concerns of the material world that will help you avoid the kind of concerns that would result in having a political affiliation or agenda, there are religious traditions that can probably help with that – OTOH, the same disregard that helps distance you from political concerns may or may not be compatible with the “personal interests and professional responsibilities” that you seem to have as the reason for seeking that. OTOH, if that is genuinely what you value, trying to avoid political affiliations or agendas may not actually be what you want; personal and professional interests are generally where people’s political affiliations and agendas are rooted, rather than being being a competing interest.

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