Hacker News Reader

Comment by lukebechtel | Hacker News Reader

I favor the theory that polarization is due to decreasing attention spans, effectively preventing us from appropriately considering nuance.

https://open.substack.com/pub/josephheath/p/populism-fast-an...

View on HN

On top of that, text based communication for short attention spans is both brief and dehumanized, encouraging "dunking" behaviour. Hard to empathize with folks who have differing views when the discourse can broadly be described as "lol got'em!".

Being someone whose friends very clearly lean to one side, while generally not having a developed interest in politics, I really want to push back on this. Unless you intentionally talk to people whose views oppose yours (which won't happen by default, people sort themselves into tribes) real person communication is very prone towards dunking on people who aren't even there or might very well not even exist. Cue polarization.

In my view, if someone is reading text for stuff they disagree on that's already a win. It's better than the default.

I disagree. Being exposed to the opposition's views can very easily be a polarizing force in of itself. If it's not carefully curated, in all likelihood one's exposure to the other side is going to be dominated by the more extreme parts of that side. And then it's not an unreasonable leap to go think "if those self-proclaimed moderate people tolerate these more radical elements, then they're all evil".

Which I can't necessarily argue is a wrong thought process to follow. I used to be able to pretend that the average person on the right was merely a brainwashed idiot. Now, with the internet and rise of fascism, I have to contend with the fact that they know they're brainwashed idiots and are happy about it.

it does feel like there's been a slow shift from the Internet being a place to make friends to a place to make enemies.

The article that sticks in my mind is "Internet of Beefs": https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/ - ironically I have vague memories of the author being on the wrong side of various beefs, but the description of the phenomenon is spot-on.

Some corners of bluesky are resisting this with trying to form the habit of aggresive blocking of clickbait and anyone who comes into your mentions to beef. But overall it's gone horribly mainstream, everyone is just promoting themselves by whom they have beef with.

Agreed, there's so many headlines on X and Reddit that are obviously highly spun and could take 5 seconds of reading into it to see through the BS. But they kill as long as people agree with the phrasing and people go right to the comments to cheer it on instead of reading the article.

It's tough on the internet being a skeptic or generally thoughtful about the world. It's not even worth debunking stuff anymore. Much healthier to not engage entirely.

I can no longer engage in (controversial) debates on other social medias, as responses often indicate a lack of understanding with the other person - they glance over the arguments, make a prejudice-based opinion, and then they respond to their straw man, often loaded with bad emotions. It's quite frustrating and as you say, sadly only solution is to disengage, but in so doing the polarisation only increases as dissenting opinions are removing themselves.

> but in so doing the polarization only increases as dissenting opinions are removing themselves.

It used to make sense when the internet was smaller but now? Not so much. Especially when the people running platforms/media, content moderators and influencers explicitly don't care about the truth. You're not just fighting some dummy posting a comment.

The only positive thing I've seen in the last decade to address this was Community Notes on X.

Agree, with current dynamics, attempting to "correct" discourse as a user is like attempting to correct law in a society as a citizen. The impact moderation/police have is far too large for the users/citizens to really matter much.

I feel ya. It is true on hn too sadly. There are certain subjects that trigger people to fall into a rhetoric mode of clapbacks and us vs them mindset. Eg the individual disappears replaced by some form of ideology. It isnt a left right up down thing but a phenomenon of hyper polarization. It is especially scary to see it in person. Mobs are a dangerous thing.

It's super hard to have good faith discussions on the internet for years now. When someone has different opinions, those opinions are associated with certain groups (liberals, conservatives, etc). And it's very easy to demonize other groups, because social media shows curated content with extremely idiotic and malicious people in that group. Even if we have only slightly biased opinions, the algorithm knows watching content which follow your existing opinions are super engaging. We can't resist the satisfaction and dopamine hit of finding out our opinion is right. Attacking obviously wrong people from a moral high ground without risking being attacked by other people is also really attractive. After consuming such content for a long time, we come to see other groups as nothing but evil, and it makes it very difficult to have good faith conversations.

That's one of Chomsky's major points for decades.

> That's one of Chomsky's major points for decades

Curious for the source? To my recollection, Chomsky talked about distraction, i.e. repurposing attention. OP is talking about the pool of attention as a whole drying up (versus being misdirected).

Not to be flippant but this takes a couple of hours to essentially make the point that the complexities of the world resist summarization or at least the opportunistic summarization that can be used to sway the inattentive public (among other nuances to this) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BQXsPU25B60

embarrassingly haven't dug into Chomsky, this is another update towards me doing so soon!

OT: As someone in the same camp, does anyone have any recommendations on where would be best to start?

You can start with his recent Russian apologia where he blames the U.S. and Ukraine for forcing Russia to invade Ukraine. That might provide some context when you read one of his books.

Chomsky did so much good in his past but when leftism comes up he becomes stupid. He only realized the Khmer Rouge and pol pot were evil far far far after the rest of the world did. Anti-authoritarian leftists getting baited into supporting authoritarian fake leftists: name a better combo.

Chomsky needs to STFU about politics and go back to linguistics - though he’s not popular in linguistics right now either.

Yeah to be fair I dunno about that one yeesh

Disclaimer: I think the most correct criticism of Chomsky was by Everett, and the following shitshow that ensued is _really_ a shame for linguistics in the Anglo world [0] (Chomsky wasn't the instigator, but his silence doesn't paint him in a great light). Some of the other criticisms are also valid, but often too ideologically tainted or too incorrect to be worth your time (or anyone's time tbh).

I think you have to start with his criticism of Skinner (papers that criticize other papers are often the best and the most informative ones) and his theory of UG, then Everett's claim and Chomsky's rebuttal (sightly weak, but interesting to understand his views on UG). I know UG has been rebuilt (basically his theory was falsifiable, was falsified on the field, then UG people worked on another similar theory that corrected some mistakes), but it was post 2011 and i stopped followed humanities around that time, and never got back into linguistics, so you might want to read about that.

[0] Something similar happened in France with Furet, and the fact that Furet's school of thought still somewhat exist and the debate lasted decades on polite terms without ad hominem is a compliment to historian's values and practice. Saying "critical thinking" and running away from correct criticism is shameful.

The Chomsky-Foucalt debate is a classic [0], as is Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent [1].

[0]: https://youtu.be/eF9BtrX0YEE

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

The sad part is that these days Foucault is on the same tier as Chomsky in regards to their quality as scholars - and Foucault is a pseudoscientific charlatan grifter.

IMO these should be required reading for anyone unfamiliar with Chomsky's positions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial#Chom...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_genocide_denial

https://www.monbiot.com/2012/05/21/2181/ (Chomsky defending the decision to write a foreword for a book denying the Rwandan genocide)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair (Chomsky signed a petition supporting a Holocaust denier he felt had been mistreated)

The new editor-in-chief of CBS News, Bari Weiss, has been publishing genocide denial pieces, pointing ro various children dying in Gaza as false stories. That happened this week, you seem to be concerned that Chomsky signed a petition for Faurisson on the 1970s, that he should not be jailed for publishing his book on the holocaust. Chomsky signed hundreds of letters for jailed Soviet dissidents, Turkish authors on trial etc. That he did not want Faurisson jailed for his book is seen as a bad thing by those who don't believe in free speech and believe authors should be jailed by governments.

Regarding Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge coalition was pushed out in 1979 and the US began arming the KR coalition, providing UN support for it etc. You would think the US and Reagan arming the Khmer Rouge coalition more heinous, if you don't like them, than Chomsky saying the US should not bomb Cambodia in the 1970s etc.

The UN and every human rights organization in the world says the US has been and is involved in a genocide in Gaza. The denial of this in the US has been incredible, but now that the first stage is done the Press is more forthcoming about it. Something Chonsky opposed, the establishment supported.

It sounds like we both agree that genocide denial is a serious matter. By familiarizing themselves with the links I put above, people will be able to make an informed opinion on Chomsky's engagement with it.

The constant flood of short-form content definitely trains us to expect snap takes and instant clarity

i think this is a good article, but these statements,

> If populism is merely a strategy, not an ideology, then why are certain ideas seemingly present in all populist movements (such as the hostility to foreigners, or the distrust of central banking)? > For example, why are “the people” always conceptualized as a culturally homogeneous mass, even in the context of societies that are quite pluralistic (which forces the introduction of additional constructs, such as la France profonde, or “real Americans”)?

... are not quite as applicable to left-wing populism (for the latter --- at least, at the surface). post-colonial, _left-wing_ populism tended to be of international character, or at least of wider appeal than the nation (e.g., nasser). the "distrust of central banking" is of wildly unique impetuses for left- vs. right-wing populism.

the common-sense point is quite poignant, at least for me in the u.s., where each party paints their own solutions as explicitly "common-sense", for solutions as unique as harsh border control ("solutions") vs. city-owned grocery stores & free childcare.

there are certainly issues i imagine i don't hold the "elite" view on. many people don't consider the "elite" view at all --- anti-punitive justice, for example, is rejected for particular types of crimes, despite provenly worse outcomes if we simply punish these crimes. the rise of anti-intellectualism doesn't help :D

Reply on news.ycombinator.com