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Comment by mindslight | Hacker News Reader

There was another response (flagged now) saying that pro-Trump support was pan-political. I agree with that as well.

As far as actually engaging, that's the fundamental problem! Most of his support was basically founded on rejecting discussion and reason, voting the gut feeling of something latched on to from one of the many conflicting things he said, while being happy with other people's frustration because you've pigeonholed them into "the other". Like I'm a libertarian, I personally share many of the frustrations and criticisms that got Trump elected! Yet you've seemingly assumed some caricature of me where I've got a narrow understanding with "cherished viewpoints".

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We all have cherished ideas, like, say, libertarianism. (I wasn't making a specific insinuation, it was really just an innocent parenthetical.)

Regardless of the levity with which you intended it, is it not still an assertion that I haven't done the work to understand the viewpoints I am arguing against?

Ah no. The use of second person was meant to be applied more generally. You may have taken it personally, but it wasn't my intent.

Just to clarify, this is what was going through my mind

https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/

I don't find that comic compelling. It feels like a post-hoc rationalization more than the actual dynamic.

I'm a libertarian. I've tried for many years to engage with so-called conservatives on their own terms. I always get othered from not just repeating their thought-terminating party lines.

One of the most glaring instances was about surveillance. I completed agreed with where they were coming from. But trying to connect the abstract topic to the digital freedom tools I was working on/with somehow made it into an argument! The only thing they wanted to hear was validation of their helpless world view.

I wasn't saying the comic was right or wrong, but certainly it's what was running through my mind when I say that we all have 'cherished' or 'deeply held' beliefs. I think at some point deeply held beliefs will be challenged by edge cases, or can hold self-contradictions at the extremes, or turn out to be impractical when applied to the real world – specifically a world of people who won't ever align on a single set of deeply held beliefs, and specifically a world with a subset that would exploit those who hold too fast any kind of belief.

> I don't find that comic compelling.

Perhaps you don't, but I've certainly seen it play out in real life. People don't like beliefs shoved down their throats, no matter how much it might be in their favor.

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