For all of the author's bloviating and self-congratulating navel gazing, the article manages to largely overlook values, the only mention of them being to dismissively reduce them to irrational tribalism.
In truth, values and ethics are fundamental to effectively discussing politics. After all, all political decisions are ultimately about how we want to shape the world that we as humans live in. There can be no agreement about economic policy without a shared understanding of the ultimate goal of an economy. No agreement about foreign relations without a shared understanding of the role of nations as representatives for groups of humans, and how we believe one group of humans should interact with another group of humans through the lens of nations.
For the last 20 years at least, the leadership of the two main political parties in the US have largely invested in messaging around the values that they represent. The policies are different too, but over time we've gone from a world where there were at least some cases where the two parties had different policies for how to reach the same goals, and into a world where the parties policies are aiming to realize fundamentally different visions of the world, based on fundamentally different values.
In this world, asking "who did you vote for" isn't a matter of tribalism, but it is a (good) proxy for asking someone "what are your values". If you discover that someone has completely different values from you, then discussing policy isn't going to be useful anyway, because there's no way you'll agree on a single policy when you have different fundamental values.
The crucial question is what is "politics"? Are personalities politics? No. Are parties? No. Are inflammatory issues about race, sex or gender or political correctness or immigration? No!
Here is politics:
Are common American citizens able to afford and obtain reasonable health care?
Are common Americans paid a living wage? Can one person earn enough to have a family?
Do our children have a reasonable opportunity to grow, have a productive life and have a family if they want one?
Is the financial situation getting better for Americans or is the difference between earnings and expenditures growing larger. (Hint do we use code words like 'inflation' instead of calling it like it is).
A functioning democracy requires that the common people are enable to formulate and enact laws that they believe are in their best interests. Do the majority of the laws enacted in all the states meet this requirement?
A functioning democracy requires that the common people are able to use the law and courts to right wrongs. Are the common people able to use/afford access to the courts when wrongs are committed.
Do the common news media act as a forum for the common concerns and issues of the People. (Here's looking at you NYT).
Cuo Bono? If the laws passed are not in the interests of the People, and the courts are not accessible by People, who benefits? If the news media are not a forum for the interests of the People, whose interests do they represent. (Here's looking at you Jeff Bezos).
If advertising funds our primary sources of news, whose interests are represented.
Those are simply things you should discuss with your friends. They are questions not answers. This is not rocket science.
I'll provide an opposing viewpoint. In the last 10 years, I've lost friendships and family because people in my life have voted for candidates that stripped rights away from women, minorities, etc.
Having a vast difference between opinions is fine, but some of their decisions are fundamentally against my core beliefs and have done literal harm to many people I know.
For that reason, terminating family and friendships has been absolutely worth it for me.
Until we can live in a world where fundamental rights are protected and respected, we have no common ground, and it's pointless to tiptoe around these insanely harmful beliefs while maintaining a facade of friendship.
(Article starts off be asserting that they don't talk politics with friends then proceeds to describe how to talk politics with friends?)
Friends are people you should support and build up. You shouldn't try to make them feel bad by winning arguments with them. That said- a healthy society is only possible if individuals can exchange ideas about how to run things and then act collectively (aka "politics"). Sometimes people will have different interests and priorities, that lead to them having different ideas about stuff- most of the time this is totally fine.
This basically comes down to respect and communication skills- but for god's sake people- keep on talking about "politics"!
I guess I just don't see "tribalism". I know it's a popular description though for the divisiveness we find ourselves in politically.
But I consider the things important to me, the beliefs, the issues: and they, all of them, align with a progressive, left-leaning ideology. I'm not just glomming on to everything one "tribe" or another stands for ... one group actually reflects everything I believe. (I think I could split a few hairs here and there, but we're still talking perhaps 95% alignment.)
But I don't think that is too surprising. Others, smarter than me, have gone into great detail about the underpinnings of left-leaning or right-leaning world views in people. Fear of change, empathy ... a number of ideas have been put forth. By this reasoning it naturally follows that those of a certain "personality" will also share common beliefs, ideologies.
The implication instead seems to be that unless you are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum you must be "tribal". That feels dismissive.
I'm 52. For me, there was a time when it was considered impolite to talk about sex, religion and politics. Then it became super fun when done with open/questioning/rational/critical minds, and a lot of progress in my own thinking was achieved from the usually non-threatening but lively debates and fights among friends and family for ideas. Then it shifted in the last ten or fifteen years. When social media started having friends of friends, the tribalism kicked in. It was explained very well in a talk between Maria Ressa and Jon Stewart. She is brilliant, and well worth listening to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsHoX9ZpA_M
I can strongly sympathize. The image with the squares and circles hit home hard, from an early age, it's been pretty lonely. Depending on your environment it can be super hard to find others part of the 1%, so you really need to treasure them when you do find them.
One point of criticism:
The usage of the word "moderate". It seems PG's article is the one to blame here. The word "moderate" when used about politics means something to people in English. And given that meaning, saying that independent thought leads to one being "moderate", is straight up wrong. What the article is really talking about is that independent thought leads to a set of beliefs that is unlikely to be a very good fit for any particular ideology, and therefore, political party. That's true! But that's not "moderate". That's.. diverse, pragmatic, non-ideological. Those words aren't ideal either, but "moderate" is definitely not it.
The 99%/1% is also greatly overstated in a way. Firstly, it's definitely dependent on locale, culture, subculture, environment, as the writer already says themselves. More importantly, if you manage to somehow get people 1:1 in an environment where they feel safe, it turns out that many actually aren't that tribal/ideological after all, and they do actually have beliefs that span different mainstream tribes. But then that conversation finishes, and they go back to being a tribe member.
I'm pretty sure there's plenty of experiments that directly show the above. That when you give people policy choices that are non-obvious (e.g. they've never thought about), and then make them vote on them, they'll often vote against their tribe. But if you'd beforehand tell them which tribe voted which way, they'll always vote with the tribe.
I like it. There's an easier answer to "why don't people move from tribe to view". It's because it's painful to question one's own beliefs, and that's how that change happens. In fact such a move appears masochistic to many, since it almost never pays to undermine loyalty in favor of principle.
I hypothesize that we're seeing the influence of the legal system on the public turbo-charged by Citizens United money. An attorney is paid to be a "zealous advocate" for their client. This means never spending effort on anything that might be against the client's interest. Self-reflection is stochastically against their interest, so why even risk it? Considering alternative views might be against your interest, so why risk it? Therefore, in this new zeitgeist, such behavior is not just perverse and painful, but even unethical and wrong.
The problem, of course, is that for this system of adversarial argument you need an impartial judge. In theory that would be the public, but it turns out flooding people's minds with unethical lawyer screed 24x7 turns more people into lawyers, not judges. "The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it." This could very well refer to the value of dignity, honor, integrity, fairness in debate, respect for one's opponents. These are always under assault, but in the last 10 years they have been decimated to the point people don't remember they ever held sway and young people don't know what politics was like when they did.
> After seven years in San Diego, my wife and I have decided to uproot our family and move to the Bay Area. While there were many factors (a new job opportunity, family), a significant reason was finding a community of truth-seeking people.
Funny. The lack of truth-seeking and truth-telling is one of the chief reasons I moved away from the Bay Area.
I'll just add one thing I learned: what people do is way more important than what they say or what their politics is.
I now find it much more practical to focus on things we can agree on and actually do something about in the real world and try to build from that.
Generic political debates are not very actionable and they are risky for social reasons mentioned in the article, so I think they are largely a waste of time with negative externalities.
Thoughtful perspective on the social risks of political discussions. However, respectfully engaging with differing viewpoints is valuable for personal and societal growth. Perhaps focusing discussions on understanding each other's underlying values and experiences, rather than specific political positions, could lead to more productive conversations.
The "What [the political spectrum] Actually Is" graph shows more independent thinkers to be unintentional moderates. The chart is a claim that independence leads to moderation. I deny that. The most independently minded thinkers I know frequently drift off into extremes where most tribes dare not tread. The tribalists are so moderate in comparison that I would turn that christmas tree upside down.
An interesting blog post that would probably do well to look into something like Rob Kegan's theories of adult development [0] and looking up some stats on how many people fit into each category. People actually categorise fairly well into a model where ~66% of the population simply don't understand the concept of independent thought and rely heavily on social signalling to work out what is true.
That model explains an absurd number of social dynamics and a big chunk of politics - which is mostly people with a high level of adult development socially signalling to the masses what they are meant to be doing.
The important observation is that it isn't intellectual honesty that is the problem or truth-seeking the solution. It is actually whether someone is capable of identifying that truth != popular opinion. People who form their opinions by social osmosis can still be intellectually honest if they land in the right sort of community, but they fall apart under social pressure.
This is "both-sides-ism" of the worst sort. It's exactly the sort of navel-gazey pablum that gives technical people a bad name.
The author doesn't recognize that it's not "politics" today. Politics is disagreeing on how to fund road improvements. When one party wants to dismantle the state, remove protections for marginalized groups, disavow alliances, engage in absurd imperialism, and flagrantly disregard the rule of law, we're not talking about mere "politics" anymore.
This is "both-sides-ism" of the worst sort. And it gives one the impression that the author is fine being friends with people who hole absolutely horrible beliefs, as long as he doesn't have to know about them.
> By far, relationships determine the happiness of ones life, and relationships are not beholden to truth. In fact, they are very commonly built on the opposite. Whether a boss' reprimands are deserved or not, employees bond over a common enemy. Entire groups form on the basis of beliefs, false or otherwise. We have a word for this: “religion".
> Despite organized religion dropping in attendance, religious patterns of behavior are still everywhere, just adapted to a secular world. Health, exercise, politics, work, self-improvement -- these are all things I've seen friends employ their religious muscle into, across all spectrums and political aisles. And as we get older, I'm seeing more and more of my supposedly-secular friends engage in such behavior.
I have a hypothesis that all humans are compelled to indulge in a certain amount of magical thinking. We seem to be hard-wired to believe there is more underlying metaphysical order and pattern to the universe than there actually is.
I presume this is evolutionarily advantageous because it's better to assume you have more agency and ability to predict than you actually do. Over-assuming leads to occasional disappointment and frustration when things don't work out, but under-assuming leads to having less impact than you actually could have.
If that hypothesis is true, then probably the best thing for society is to provide cultural structures that let us indulge than impulse in non-harmful ways, instead of, say, giving it to religions that also tell us to murder gay people.
Sort of like how sports function as a safe pressure release valve for the compulsion towards competition and violence.
I find it astonishing that anyone would ask this. The only time I've ever been asked this question has been by pollsters. In my social circle, anyway, the taboo on this question is very strong.
Curious how many comments say "it's not about tribalism, it's just the other side is evil". Ctrl+f for this very word on the page yields interesting results.
A while back I realized that most news stations have a clear bias and eventually started to dive deeper on stories I was interested in.
I try to look into the source material when possible and found time and time again that the 'news' either left out key details or completely misrepresented the source material.
I never bring up politics, but friends will often repeat news stories and occasionally I'll bring up key facts that weren't reported on.
This has never changed anyone's opinion. Usually all it does is make the other person upset or they bring up another story to reaffirm their currently held belief.
Thankfully my relationships are strong enough that I haven't lost any friends over this, but it's incredibly isolating. Feels like brainwashing on a massive scale.
That's not to say that the news isn't to be trusted at all, some things are as reported. But, often times this isn't the case and it's more important than ever to think critically and not take news stories at face value. The division is mostly manufactured and I believe at our core most of us want the same things.
>> be able to understand and empathize with the various (and often opposing) groups involved in a topic
Interestingly, I have seen Elon (DOGE) and others outside of politics (that mega-church leader) telling the public (dare I say, their followers) that one of the main problems with America is empathy, and that we need to _stop_ empathizing with others.
I find it easy to discuss politics with friends. The hard part is listening, being open to persuasion yourself. Walzing into a discussion believing the other ones are stupid people with simple arguments rooted in misunderstandings — yeah, that won't fly.
You can smell it in the article. it's right there. The author thinks he's intellectually superior and arrived at his opinion though a pure intellectual pursuit, where the stupid conversation partners can't follow.
I completely understand how you're not having fruitful discussions.
I had quick scan of the comments but I didn't see anybody else make the point, so here is my 2c.
I believe the problem is the two party systems and how our government is set up, people vote for one tribe or the other. There is no _value_ to being educated on individual issues because ultimately you simply have to choose between 2 people who are affiliated with a party.
How awesome would it be if individuals could vote on specific issues, perhaps only after proving they have a working knowledge of the subject matter.
I have often observed something about how we build software; I just realized that my observations are of a more fundamental human problem.
First, people are not good at defining problems. They may describe the problem that they want to solve in terms of an outcome, but often times the outcome that they want also includes some aspect that benefits them personally that is separate from the problem that they are describing.
Second, people are not good at separating problem from implementation. in fact, people are horrible at this. I think people have a very difficult time envisioning that the problem and the existing solution implementation (which itself might be making the problem worse) are separate things. so most people rarely consider and often actively oppose, radically different solutions.
In the political sphere, ideology Influences how one frames the problem that one wants to solve, and limits the universe of acceptable solutions. This exemplifies the two points that I raised above.
For example, when talking about healthcare policy, the two main “sides” in the US, both have ideologies that define outcomes in terms of consumer access to medical services, and which constrain allowable implementations to something that resembles insurance, with key differences being about who pays and what is covered and how much coverage one gets.
Just for the purposes of elaborating on my premise, I would point out that not all healthcare delivery systems in the world are designed around the insurance model, And that such a model includes vested interests, regulatory capture, and often incentivizes many participants to optimize in ways that don’t forward the implicit goal of making more people more healthy.
Please don’t reply with your opinions on my imperfect example; I don’t want to have a healthcare policy discussion. I just wanted to provide an example my main points about how humans approach political problem-solving.
> a congregation member asking "you believe in god, right?"
That's a very good analogy.
For some, believing in god or not doesn't matter much and they'll go to church mostly to make friends and be part of a community.
For others, being expected (or not) to believe in God is a no go, and losing friends/family holding these expectations will be a price to pay.
We all have our boundaries, and disagreements on some specific topics will be out of them. Cutting friends/family with incompatible stances is just one instance of that IMHO, be it political, religious or anything else that matters enough.
>Most people don't have political views, they have political tribes
Agree with this. Also, I do believe most people are appallingly stupid (I might not not be an exception either), cruel and easy to manipulate, and as a result are incapable of making rational decisions that benefit society as a whole. I try to never ever discuss politics with anyone, it's one of the most damaging and useless activities there is.
Usually, interactions with people on (arguably) political issues just leave me stupefied - no, I don't think people born in certain geographical locations are subhuman because of decisions of their current government; no, I don't hate nor wish death and suffering to anyone; no, I don't think the war is necessary and I don't want anyone to be blown to bits by a drone; no, I don't think artificial lines on a map ("countries") define who is wrong and who is right and worth throwing your only life away for; no, I don't think decisions of the government reflect the opinion of the entire population of that country; yes, I do think people I disagree with are real human beings with capabilities of sense, emotion, and thought just like I am; and the list goes on and on. Anyway, most people have a very different idea on the aforementioned examples.
I don't care about the replies, just wanted to offload this filth off my head somewhat.
When did discussing politics with your community become a bad thing? In fact that's the primary place you should talk politics, share new ideas and hone your views. If more people did this they wouldn't be getting radicalized by online bots.
I believe in the future we will see a much more pronounced split between people who prefer reality to those who prefer un-reality.
Un-reality is the mediated, constructed "reality" that can be conjured up and perpetuated through mediums such as the Internet. It needs constant effort behind it to keep it going because it isn't tethered to actual experience. Un-reality is things like the hyper-partisan views on things that seem like they change on a whim, or extremist views on gender relations. It requires a tribalistic level of affiliation. It is something that has evolved to prize self-perpetuation (e.g. memes) over the views it claims to espouse. (This pattern of growth at all costs also occurs in other contexts, such as business.)
Reality, on the other hand, is the messy, boring, uncontrollable and unmediated thing we experience as humans. It is harder to transmit online because it isn't something that is easily swallowed, but it has a universal appeal to us as we recognize humanity in it. Reality has much bigger downs and ups than un-reality does, that's what makes us want to escape it sometimes. It also has really crappy truths and circumstances in it; there's no respawns or undo.
In some sense, this split already exists: fans of un-reality we often label as too online, implying that they prefer online life to actual life. I believe the biggest difference here lies in the preference for mediated vs unmediated interactions.
Is this an American thing? No one has ever in my life asked me "Who did you vote for?"
I have had plenty of people behave in a way that made it clear they assumed I agreed with them on political matters/issues that would have us voting the same way (sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly) but I have never been asked this question. Is it common or is it a contrivance in service of the article?
The author has a huge blindspot: discussing politics with others where it's not a co-operative search for truth; instead it's an opportunity to let your friends explain themselves. Don't challenge them, ask them questions. Let them talk it out. Offer your own observations not as ways to change their minds but as an invitation to elaborate and explore.
You don't need to share your opinions in every conversation. You don't need to challenge another's beliefs that you disagree with or think are factually wrong. You can bond over listening to them. And they can invite you to share your thinking non-judgementally.
I think it's somewhat funny that two of the images in this blog post, the two signs, and the miner, are commonly used to mock faux intellectualism and a feeling of moral superiority.
I think it's ok to be hypocritical and have friends with different vastly political beliefs, in the end relationships; friendships, lovers, etc are not usually an outcome of rational behavior, so I don't mind having friends who are politically different because it's the unconscious connection that brought us together.
In the country where I live, the problem is that it became much of a religious question. People feel like one candidate represents values different than mine, and that by not aligning with them, I'm not an ally. I don't have friends with such different values, but managing family has become a big problem during these times. It's very hard, for example, hearing your mother-in-law defending a change in the constitution that would forbid women to have an abortion, even when raped and at any time of pregnancy, when you have a small daughter. That person is actively trying to make the world a horrible place for my family, according to my values and honestly any sane person.
I do worry about seeing more of these posts, as a way of SV people - who bare a substantial burden of guilt for enabling the collective mess we’re in because the ad-tech/algorithm dollars were nice - collectively distancing themselves from facing said guilt.
No idea is this particular person is especially part of the problem, I’m just talking about general vibes.
Further, I mute and unfollow aggressively any family or friends that just constantly post political news/rants etc from Facebook and other social media platforms.
This paints a very binary picture. Either you are in or out. Part of this tribe, or this other tribe (ignorantly or not). The article seems to imply that people can't have opinions on political policies unless they are fully informed on not only global affairs but also philosophy and psychology.
I think reality is different - I don't think there are any absolutes that require "knowledge" of e.g. philosophy to get the "right" answer in politics. Instead the right answer (at least in western democracies) is what the people want, even if they are not fully informed.
I view it very much akin to trial by jury - there are highly informed and experienced judges, barristers, solicitors etc but ultimately it is down to the laymen in the jury to make a decision that they see as just. They might reach the "wrong" decision from the perspective of people who are fully informed on the legal processes and the law of the land etc, but that doesn't matter because it is the jury that makes the decision.
So it is for the electorate too.
I have no experience of voting in the US but it appears that a two-party system really stokes the "us Vs them" vibes. The only alternative you have is to totally switch sides. At least in European democracies there is often a plurality of parties to vote for. I've personally moved between the main 3 parties (and there are probably at least another 1 or 2 other minority parties that have different trajectories...) in the UK as my personal situation has changed over the years, and I think that is a very normal thing here.
I hear this soooo often. If you can't talk to friends about your honest opinions without being respectful to one another and also being willing to listen to their reasoning and opinions, what kind of friendship is that?
People do not change opinions because someone told them to. It has to be a result of a narrative with personal experiences. Which is why FAFO is still a big thing.
Hence, any effort trying to convince friends that blue is not green it is not gonna work. Sorry.
Political discussions for me are like programming. I enjoy them because I like finding bugs in people's logic like I do in programming.
I find a lot of people's political arguments wouldn't compile because of basic logic errors, and I try to point this out. But not many people are interested in this kind of analysis, they instead prefer the tribalist point-scoring like the OP mentions.
I dream of a world where political debates can be syntax-checked. I'm sure you could do it with AI today.
But in the end its all about feelings.
I can't describe how many times I will just go along with someone's passionate ranting on something I disagree with and egg them along because its makes them happy. This is tribalism. I will disagree with the group, and if you saw me you'd think I was the strongest supporter, but I actually vehemently disagree with everything.
There are very few people it's worth having a real discussion with these days.
I don't change my opinion of people for what they think, but it's very rare to find people who reciprocate this.
I think there should be a new rule that any time someone writes an article bragging about how he's† a badass independent thinker just like Paul Graham and Eliezer Yudkowsky, he must in the same article identify his major disagreements with Paul Graham and Elizer Yudkowsky. Because to me the authors of these articles seem exactly as tribal as mainstream political and religious groups, they just care about different things. Yeah, I shouldn't be able to guess your views on sex from your views on taxes, but I also shouldn't be able to guess your views on wokeness from your views on AI safety. Yet I can make both predictions with about equal accuracy.
† I have yet to see an article like this written by a woman.
One thing I definitely don't do anymore is discuss politics with any friends or family ONLINE.
It's just not worth it. Publish or tweet something if you have something to say and want to reach a lot of people. Talking to ONE person and risking your relationship has a lousy cost/benefit ratio.
Basically it argues the most moral thing in a democracy is to do nothing at all. You simply can never make a truly well informed decision over such a complex system, not even with several lifetimes of dedicated work towards it.
Generally speaking I don't take anyone's political opinion seriously unless they have read and have a cogent response to this paper. I'll gladly just let them yap away and think I agree with them, regardless of my actual views. It's sort of like not taking philosophers seriously unless they've considered the question of solipsism first.
I think the groupthink and independent thought axes need to be flipped. Way more toeing the party line and groupthink near the center. The more fringe you get the more independent thought there is. It might be crazy and wrong but it's not groupthink.
I really resonated with this blog article, and ended up reaching out to Ashwin on LinkedIn to connect. This is probably the most concise and clear description I've read of the problem, and I think sometimes recognizing the problem and really understanding is the first step to turning things around.
Like Ashwin, I don't believe that this is "fixable", in so much that humanity as a whole has a tendency towards tribalism that's innate to being human, and this is part of what allowed societies and civilizations to form, as much as it carries the downsides of interrupting reasoning and creating the conditions for warfare. Rather, I try to seek out people who are able to reason and have discussions.
I definitely appreciated reading this, as it felt very relatable in a way that most things do not.
It wasn’t always like this. I remember when you could be pro-gun and pro-environment—and still have thoughtful, respectful conversations with people who held different beliefs.
Today, if you’re not fully aligned with every talking point of a political party, you’re instantly labeled either a fascist or a communist. And sometimes it borders on absurd: the moment party leadership shifts its stance, the whole tribe flips with it. It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans staunchly opposed tariffs. Now? They’re all in.
My question is:
What changed?
When did we become so tribal—and why?
Cut a "rationalist centrist moderate" and a fascist who doesn't want to get cancelled because he still needs VC funding and Linkedin connections bleeds.
US politics has been increasingly polarized into positions congruent with facts and policy and our traditional ideals, and positions associated with a general stance of grievance, with an insistent selfishness, with anti-empathy, anti-intellectualism, with "palingenetic ultranationalism". This has been a test of your ideals, of your humanity. It wasn't very hard.
Yes, there is often a lot of nuanced truth in the middle of any argument. But less now, in politics, than in a long, long time. Only a very particular sort of person walks into a liberated Auschwitz and starts shouting "Both sides are too extreme and I'm better than them!" from the rooftops.
Speaking as somebody who spent a lot of time there: A lot of the tropes in the "rationalist" community are inherently conservative-pointing, and it's a general prerequisite for participating there that you have a coherent base of progressive terminal ideals and an attitude suited towards introspection and iteration of your beliefs. Because otherwise you go from zero to Nietzschean ubermensch to Nazi ubermensch to Musk/Thiel brownshirt in no time, having weaponized everything present there to support your priors and idly expand your confidence.
> I think there are two main reasons, the first being the sheer intellectual difficulty of crafting an informed political view leads people to tribalism out of convenience.
What's the difference between tribalism and deferring to experts on complex subjects, e.g. climate change? I have a deep skepticism of people who think they can personally reason through any complex topic from first principles. It shows a lack of humility and self-awareness. Nobody has the time to build that kind of expertise in every domain, and there is wisdom in deferring to the hard won experience of others. But the type to think they can reason through everything seems like the type to call this "tribal politics."
The article misses one pretty huge thing: up until maybe 10-15 years ago, politics was - mostly - differences around theories of economy, where both sides had valuable arguments for and against them. Out of that, you could cut compromises and work bi-partisan.
Now? It's by far not among differences in economic policies any more. The differences are much more fundamental: the rights of LGBT people to exist, the rights of women to have a life outside of breeding children, minorities having the same rights as the majority. The questions that form the divide are binary in nature, not a spectrum any more. When differences become existential in nature, reconciliation is impossible - either you grant the universal freedoms to everyone or you do not.
I was predicting within the first 500 words that the author was someone who symphatized with Rationalism. But how could this be? How could someone’s approach to rationality, so-called, be so correlated with their approach to politics?[1] Couldn’t people of many different backgrounds come to the same conclusion and my guess just have a small chance of being right?[2] Is it because of tribalism? No. The philosophy leads to a cluster of opinions. Just following its internal logic.
Apply that to other people and you’ll see how the article might be wrong.
[1] It’s not just the approach. There are a dozen things that are stated axiomatically which are not.
[2] Okay, okay. Being this website there is a SC bias already.
> And even with all this knowledge, can you empathize with both sides of common issues -- the poor renter vs struggling landlord? The tired worker vs underwater business owner? Rich vs poor, immigrant vs legacy, parent vs child -- the list goes on
To me having just two sides is a uniquely American way of thinking.
Between the renter and landlord there's the homeowner, between the tired worker and business owner there's the public sector/NGO/huge corporation worker/freelancer, rich and poor are relative terms which lie on a scale anyway.
Conflicts that actually have only two parties involved are rare and the very first thing one should do to be able to talk politics, is give up on the notion.
This article is what happens when you absolutely refuse to read anything from hundreds of years of political theory, and try to reinvent everything from first principles the way that self-proclaimed rationalists do. Very little reflection on why certain viewpoints often cluster together other than "it's tribalism, duh".
I enjoy debating politics in the way that others enjoy playing chess or a friendly game of bowling. But when the other party gets wrapped around the axle, I don't debate with them anymore. Unfortunately, most seem to be in the latter camp.
I think one of biggest problems the American voter has is two fold: 1. We have turned politicians into celebrities/heroes. ALL politicians are just like most of us: they are flawed and incomplete individuals who desperately try to hide their flaws. (Under normal circumstances, this isn't so bad. However, to be an elected official with all that power, it's fraud at the very least.
2. Once elected, we refuse to hold the politicians we elected to almost any accountability. (This is very hard to do, no doubt, because of the way the laws have been manipulated to stop this very accountability.)
As for religion in politics: I'm a devoted Christian who is sane enough to know that not everyone will believe the same as I do. I have one vote on election day, to manipulate other people's vote by having my candidate changing laws to thwart the constitution is theft and immoral. (As difficult as it is to say, Christians today should read 2 Peter Ch2, taking it to heart. Stop only glossing over the cheerful faith verses and start reading the one's that call for accountability.)
I can agree with parts of this article, but I believe it's missing a large part of the puzzle.
The author implicitly assumes that the constraints of our society are fixed and that it's therefore possible to determine which political systems are objectively better or worse. We should be doing that research (like astronomers trying to determine how the universe works) instead of religiously supporting ideological positions.
I fundamentally disagree with that assumption. I think we behave the way we do in large part due to the ideological principles we were raised with. This can be confirmed by observing various closed-off societies sometimes operating on principles that seem completely bonkers to most of us.
If you teach people capitalism/socialism, you build a capitalistic/socialistic system. It's impossible to live inside that system and objectively determine whether it's good or bad, let alone better or worse than other systems.
So in that context, I believe following an ideology is _not_ the opposite of thinking for yourself, as the author puts it. It is a conscious decision based on morality. You decide what your values are and you find a political option that aligns with them.
To be clear, that's still a very imperfect decision to make, many things can go wrong from that point on and I believe this is where the author is correct in many ways. We should reason about it constantly to make sure we're actually doing what we want to be doing and not just blindly repeating things.
One thing I didn't see mentioned, and maybe this is part of being tribal, but politics is often not about the positions you take, but about the game theory of how you stay in power, and convince a group of people about the positions you take.
One thing I hate about the trump administration, and maybe all politics is fundamentally like this, is you can't really disagree with them. You can't really disagree with them because it's really hard to figure out what position they're taking. I find it makes discussing things with family really difficult. I can intellectually agree that "A nation should protect it's borders" and have a nuanced perspective on how much immigration is the right amount, but then I'm never going to square that with what the politicians are actually doing, right? We can't have a nuanced conversation with what the right immigration policy is, when the administration is deporting people without due process, or when the current administration says the problem with immigration is that Joe Biden let judges run wild in 2019.
To have an informed view on any given issue, one needs to:
1. understand economics, game theory, philosophy, sales, business, military strategy, geopolitics, sociology, history, and more
2. be able to understand and empathize with the various (and often opposing) groups involved in a topic
3. detect and ignore their own bias
1) is a lot of work. Just finding out what's going on is hard. Partly because news-gathering organizations are far more thinly staffed than they used to be. There aren't enough reporters out there digging, which is hard work. There are too many pundits and influencers blithering. Read the output of some news outlet, cross out "opinion" items and stories based on press releases or press conferences, and there's not much left. The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the New York Times, and Reuters still have people who dig for facts. Beyond that, reporters are thin on the ground.
If you can only read one thing, read the Economist for a year. Each week they cover some country in detail, and over a year, most of the world gets a close look. (Although at the moment, their China coverage is weak, because their reporters were kicked out of China for doing too much digging.)
Background is necessary. Many pundits seem to lack much of a sense of history. Currently, understanding the runups to WWI and WWII is very useful. Understand what Putin is talking about when he references Catherine the Great and Peter the Great. Geography matters. Look at Ukraine in Google Earth and see that most of the current fighting is over flat farmland and small towns, much like Iowa. Look at Taiwan and realize how narrow and exposed an island it is. There's no room to retreat after an invasion, unlike Ukraine.
As for empathy, there's a huge split in America between the areas above and below 700 people per square mile. Above 1,500 per square mile, almost always blue. Below 400 per square mile, almost always red.[1] This effect dwarfs race, religion, ideology, or income level. It's very striking and not well recognized in public discourse.
There's a minimum viable population density below which small towns stop working as self-supporting entities.
(On the ground, this shows up as empty storefronts on Main Street and a closed high school.)
On bias, there are many people in the US whose lot has been slowly getting worse for decades now. That's the underlying source of most US political problems.
Politics dictates so much of daily life, at every level, that it's important to be able to have conversations about it. It's frankly self-righteous to see yourself as the one person with nuanced opinions in a crowd of simpletons, and while I do think that politics in many liberal democracies has become more polarized, you'll never restore nuanced debate or good-faith disagreement in political discussions by just avoiding the topic.
I'm not advocating for politics being the only thing you talk about with your friends, but if you and your friends are able to have useful discussions about the impact of some policies over others, can have constructive disagreements over reasonable political discourse, and can identify larger problematic trends in politics, a lot of good can come of that.
The article is titled Why I don't discuss politics with friends but it doesn't explain the why? Unless I missed it. It seems to just talk about the challenges.
Why don't you discuss politics with friends? Are you worried about loss of friends? Do the conversations ruin your day? Do you feel alienated?
Depending on the why, there's different points I'd argue for or against the reasoning. Without that piece, it's kind of hard to discuss the premise of the article without just guessing its implications.
I agree that "tribalism" exists. I'd add that sometimes political disagreements are actually differences in morality. And there is no way you can persuade someone to change their moral beliefs. Everyone accepts their moral beliefs as "axioms". But I still believe it's worth discussing politics in order to learn what kind of person someone is and their morality.
I always try to stay informed, rationalize well and always try to find arguments for both sides of a theory. I act like a detective in search of the truth or a mathematician confronted with a new conjecture or theory. I try to dig until I can see whether the theory has solid chances to be true or not. I try to make the process as fast as possible, because I don't like to procrastinate or lose time. Most of the time is fine if I know something has 60% chances of being true and I don't need 99.99% because I can back off and review the theory if I am wrong.
That being said, I don't pick a party solely on what I believe is the truth. I also try to see whether my interests align well with that party.
As for discussing politics with friends, most of my experience is the same as the author's. I started having a dislike for very long lawyer-like discussions and arguments that lead nowhere. I kind of detect fast if my discussion partner is seeking the truth, he is proceeding with an archeology or detective like mindset and proceed accordingly.
In my circle of family and friends, no one strays too far from the center, so I don't find it particularly difficult to navigate disagreement. We've gotten more carried away arguing about completely banal happenings. However, I sense not everyone else feels the same way.
What tends to happen at dinners or whatever is that some outspoken person (socially conservative on a pet issue) monopolizes conversation, and a couple of others keep mum because they don't like confrontation/arguing. The others don't care.
I am guilty of this in one particular case. I have a friend who describes himself as a classical Liberal, and when the subject comes up about pit bulls or the like, will say that "the problem is with the owners not the breed". What am I going to do, take out my crap phone and try to use data like a blunt instrument? I don't care enough to start an argument over it.
This article seems to be saying that religions are tribal by nature because it's made up of humans, and humans are tribal by nature -- ok fair enough. But the subtext I'm getting is that people in religions are less self-aware of it than the author or the people they admire.
People being more interested in comfortable beliefs rather than true beliefs has always been a concern throughout Biblical history. But that doesn't mean it never went unchallenged.
For instance, regardless of what you think of the Bible, it's interesting that Isaiah has the following to say to Judah (emphasis mine) because it shows an ever-present problem with human nature.
For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord;
*who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions”*
And before someone responds with a de jure objection to say that "the instruction of the Lord" is not looking for truth, I just want to make it clear that that is out of the scope of my point. My point is that, de facto, in the context, a religious text is agreeing that it is bad to "tribe-up and truth-out."
Lastly, on a personal note, as a human Christian, I think I have the same biases to groupthink as any other person because I am human. But because Christianity has a reputation, I have found that throughout my life, I've had to work harder to really test (not validate) my beliefs because I am constantly being challenged and, ironically, often ended up more informed about both my beliefs and my interlocutors' beliefs.
politics (and the truth itself) have always been tribal. People discussed things and disagreed in public and that's how they managed to slightly influence each other.
Avoiding to discuss politics is cowardly. It distances people from each other because they maintain a fake facade, and they express their true selves and beliefs only online.
Like the author, I tend towards being a function that returns the opposite of what the other person believes, rather than having a fixed political opinion. Mostly I lack the confidence to claim that this way or that way is the Right Way To Do Things -- and I'm fascinated (and envious, and also appalled) by those who do.
But on this I differ:
>Seriously, come prove some core belief I have as wrong and you will quite literally make my week.
I don't think I believe this at all. It's certainly not true of myself -- I aspire to it, but my ego is much too fragile. I have spent much time and effort carefully checking the small set of core principles that I do feel justified in calling "correct", and the reason for that is precisely to avoid the unpleasant surprise of discovering that they are demonstrably wrong after all.
You should however discuss politics with close friends -- they probably got close to you because you both share a worldview or they like hearing your worldview (even if it differs from yours).
Closeness means more sharing. That always comes with risks and rewards.
I have friends all over the political spectrum. I've read political philosophy ranging from Hegel, Marx, Foucault, Butler, Crenshaw, Gentile, Locke, Rawls, Friedman, Mises, Rand, ect.. I find myself actively engaging in political discussion frequently with these friends. The only friend I've stopped talking over politics were black block during the antifa riots. I viewed his actions as ultimately misguided and dangerous. I ultimately forgave him and now we are friends who actively debate policy in good faith.
It's easy to spot political tribalism - just reference the comments here. They ultimately misrepresent, and have never tried to understand, their opposition's political position. It's kind of sad because it allows them to be manipulated by propaganda and political powers much like my antifa friend.
My personal strategies...
1. I try to be indirect on what I think and just describe why some people think one opinion versus another. So I try not to convince people.
2. I try to stick to "is this going to work?" Style arguments when I do state my opinion. I acknowledge when my preferred party does or says something I disagree with.
3. I avoid getting bogged down with "do you agree with x y z??" Controversies that may be anecdotal and I'm not opinionated or familiar with. So I try not to argue the outage of the day.
This generally keeps me from arguing with relatives and in-laws, and on this site. So usually I can discuss differences without things going crazy.
I lived in China in the early-2000s, and one of the things I noticed is that no one ever talked about any sort of politics. Never. It was weird at first, as political discussion is so ingrained in the culture (in the US). Even just regular smalltalk, like, "How's it going, Bob? / It'd be a lot better if the city council would pull their heads out of their asses and fix these potholes!" - there was nothing like that.
I asked a few local friends about it, and got two basic explanations:
1. What's the point? No one is empowered to change anything, so why bother talking about it at all?
2. You can get in big trouble for saying the wrong thing in public.
The weirder thing I noticed is that I kinda enjoyed it. It was nice to not hear a bunch of bitching about the government (not saying the government shouldn't be criticized - it should; just saying it was nice to be completely removed from it for a time).
Not sure if it's still like this in China; I haven't been there in years, but yeah, this was really strange to me when I lived there.
I often talk politics with friends, mostly because we all like to moan about the state of things.
Maybe this doesn't translate to the US, but in the UK (and the largely British friend-group I have here in Australia) in my bubble we don't tend to strongly identify with any political party or politician, rather we tend to look down at the self-serving and/or myopic weirdos in parliament and decry their short-sighted, uninformed policy-making whichever side they're on. And I'm not trying to claim some great enlightened intellectual position for myself here - I think it's probably more common than not.
Tribalism really is the thing one has to individually overcome in order to gain some perspective, then maybe adhere to free thinking, before blooming as a free doer.
For me, it always was a voluntarily long and sinuous and silly and lonely path. It had to be.
An uncertain path as well, and one that was totally worth all the trouble it brought my way.
And as seducing as it is, the reality of crossing path with fellow free thinking/doing individuals always felt like falling for some other tribe.
Because in the end, that's what we do. While not following, we often become leaders of followers. How could it be otherwise is the only question left to answer.
Author thinks they are the lone person stuck in the middle between two tribes, but actually they are part of a third tribe that fallaciously believes that it is possible to write better policy, if only we took the time to study reality more and listen to more people and apply more reason etc. In short, Author distinguishes between the two established tribes (in which people make a very limited emotional engagement with the issues) and their tribe (in which people make a stronger emotional engagement). This is a fallacy because:
* It is not reasonable to expect most people to make strong emotional investments into voting choices that have little direct effect on their lives, and indeed we have a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy to recognize that reality
* Reality is far, far more complicated than can be summarized in journalism or articles; many researchers spend their entire careers attempting to learn deeply about *one* area, let alone many areas; much pertinent information is non-public. Policies that are effective in one community are completely counter-productive in another. Believing that you are The Exception and that you Know The Right Way To Run The Country because you "do your research" is the height of hubris.
People will seek out good leadership. People will switch leaders when their current leadership fails to make them happy. Good leaders defer to experts, each in their own domain, who may make imperfect decisions and other mistakes but nonetheless make well-intentioned efforts to improve over time and pass on their knowledge so that future generations can learn from their mistakes. All else is natural variance due to human imperfection.
I actually ask my friends what they think and don't judge them for it. Everyone has some way to build up their belief and it's interesting to listen to these.
They often have horrible reasoning but I don't try to talk them out of it, just nod, polite comment, move on.
It’s such a cultural thing. My friend group contains people from all sides of the political spectrum and they bicker like crazy when we go out but they are still friends. It might be a Spanish culture thing though.
A tribe is a collective brain.
That work when people put truth first (Christianity)
As the root of our culture fade out, we tilt toward satanism instead (serving self)
Thus the tribes and institutions can no longer be trusted, everything fall appart, everyone lie all the time to serve the current advantages.
I would say discard people and institutions that lie to you, shame them.
We don't have the time and brain power to find the truth in every decision.
I do have friends who are able to have nuanced views about politics/economics/AI, and generally high-level vague things that concern the entire human civilization.
But I also have friends that can't have those nuanced views, and when you try to engage in good faith discussion with them, they resort to tribalism and are not interested in finding nuance through reasoning.
With those I don't have any discussions about it.
If you are a friend - try to be someone from the first category. Don't engage in tribalism with your friends if you value them (unless your whole group is a bunch of bullies, in which case do whatever).
It’s super sad that the political establishment has managed to polarize people so much that a rational discussion about very important issues is not possible anymore for a lot of people. It’s a dream come true for unscrupulous politicians and oligarchs who can do whatever they want as long their propaganda is strong enough.
> Most people don't want to graduate from tribalism.
Even if you personally want to, others will still judge you based on it. And honestly, there's often enough people out there for you to pick a social circle that aligns with your own interests at least on fundamental issues.
As for the people that you don't choose to be around, e.g. at work, probably read the room first.
A good discussion. I've personally thought of political adherence similar to football teams. Fans are fans. That's it.
Escaping that tribalism or fandom is important, but you need to hold fast to your own sense of morality along the way.
Applying your own sense of right/wrong to political arguments and policies is a useful way to cut through the noise and distraction that accompanies political discourse.
The big issue is a lot of people will believe what they want to believe. Most folks are not scientists - they start by assuming their conclusions and will choose the soothing moral and emotional rhetoric over evidence.
Trying to see the world objectively puts you in a category of outliers. The people you become friends with due to proximity in everyday life will not be outliers.
> Often when someone asks "who did you vote for", what they're actually doing is verifying your adherence to group culture,
They are just checking to which group you belong, not verifying your adherence? It does not seem like a question you ask someone whose you know politics already.
I actively practice not discussing politics but intentionally being member of groups of different political affiliation.
I can only encourage everybody to do the same.
People usually know if you are a „filthy liberal“ or a „closet fascist“ anyways and my experience shows that just knowing you will draw them away from the political extremes.
> Bay Area … finding a community of truth-seeking people
I don’t know if I would entirely classify the Bay Area as truth seeking people. It’s eclectic but it definitely felt just as polarizing as living in other parts of the country, but perhaps it’s better defined as moving to live with more like minded people.
I think you're right, it is harder to discuss politics as widely as we once did.
That said, what do you think of money changing what is left/right and group/individual? The outcome of Citizens United to allow obscured spending to create seeming grass roots efforts on any topic that the monied want very effectively moving opinions.
I couldn't fathom not discussing politics with friends. Political life is an integral part of modern... well, life. And to the contrary, if there ever existed people you might have good faith conversations with, it should be your friends and family. If not, can you really call them so?
In my experience the (now ancient) Sequences are not of much use in learning how to change your mind. With only a cursory background in psychology, his advice tends to consist of generic platitudes. Not much practical application.
I’d recommend a short course in mindfulness instead, at whatever point in the spectrum between science and mysticism you’re comfortable with.
I'll never forget calling Yang a tool in a group of math nerds back around 2019. Instantly outgrouped. I don't think this alone caused our friendship to crumble, but the fact that we couldn't discuss actual policy makes me tend to agree with this post.
How does one even begin to do that? Looking at people I know who describe themselves as "truth-seeking", it seems that it is a one way ticket to Conspiracyland.
I do my best to avoid talking and or thinking too much about politics. If I do i then realize family members to friends have sold their mind, intelligence, ability to clearly point out right from wrong, etc to political emotional babble from either side.
To be honest, I enjoy discussing politics with my friends. They’re all pretty good at discussing it. We have lots of common interests otherwise so it’s easy to just step away and talk about other things in the group Slack instead.
I have to tell you and most people reading this is that you belong to a tribe of people who only think they are impartial and unbiased and reasoned thinkers, but they actually aren't.
The level of objectivity that we strive for is just really possible.
We often reach for black and white thinking which makes political discussions difficult. Both sides do it, and it stunts our empathy for why people vote the way they do.
for the author, only the centrists, his own group, can display independent thinking.
he assigns all virtues of the world to his group while others seems to be barely more than glorified barbarians.
this is, at best, laughable... and honestly quite reductive and insulting.
this seems to stem from the classic idea of "if everybody was informed and intelligent as i am we would all agree", which i thought had already been disproven long ago. people have different base assumptions. cultures are real things... individual differences matter too.
he also treats ideologies as unified things which is historically false, meanwhile his personal particular set of idea is not an ideology but something akin to objective truth (for which he explicitly argues) or something adjacent to it. any semi-consistent (if that) set of ideas instantly becomes an ideology as soon as you share that set to a group. there are myriads of ideologies that pop-up and die every day... the ones with staying power obviously have accumulated some following but they are rarely all compassing; we have a word for those, cults.
but first thing first, change country and you will get entirely different "centrists" with an entirely different set of ideas. there is no reason there would not be (in his own terms) "accidental" leftists and "accidental" right--ists???
in a locked 2 party system like what you get in the united states, stuff will probably have a tendency to degenerate though. things are way more fluid in countries where you have more democratic choice. there is a lot of fear in the american mix, that doesn't work well with free-thinking.
I was really enjoying the article until I realized there is zero attribution to the book _Thinking in Bets_, which IMO this is obviously heavily influenced by.
I don't think you can separate the mechanics from the content. Usually people feeling pushback against their political ideas don't realize they are dumb ideas even if they are complex.
Right. The only sort of person who could write something like this is a person who is not affected (or percieves themselves to not be affected) by "politics."
I find this to be painfully true in the US. Most of the rational discussions I have about politics are with friends from other countries (Soviet Russia, China, Africa, etc).
I'm looking forward to going back to the days when political disagreements were more along the lines of 'I think __TAX__ should be x%, rather than x+y%'
If you reduce politics to 'what politians do', sure, I avoid it too.
Even when I know that outside of the US, most of us have the same opinions on what the trump admin is doing (especially in the pen and paper RPG community, where not being transphobic is basically a requirement), I still hate comments and discussions about it, probably for the same reason than the author does.
I disagree with his axis though, I've read a lot, and I mean _a lot_ of books and the more I read, the more left I went. And I started almost tea-party libertarian, then liberal-libertarian (because logic, and my class) then I understood power and class and became original libertarian (think Emma Goldman).
But politics are much more than that, it's how society organize, and if you can't talk to everybody about your city evicting the parasites who mismanaged and eventually brought down the waterlines because you're afraid of 'groupthink', you are fucked.
I don't converse about politics at all, because conversation is not generally amenable to anything other than some vague virtue signaling in all but the very best of circumstances. For instance, a basic rule of conversation is that unless you have a very good reason, once a conversation wanders away from a topic, you don't drag it back to the same topic. That's great for idly chatting and catching up with friends, and it's a rule for a good reason, but it's quite far from what any sort of thought or an interaction that might actually change my mind on some topic requires.
While I don't disagree that people are quite tribal, I would observe that determining that people are tribal based on conversations can be a bit misleading, because the conversational form is extremely biased towards expressing things that will be indistinguishable from "tribalism", since all you have time to do is basically to put a marker down on the broadest possible summary of your position before the conversation baton must move on. That is, even a hypothetical Vulcan who has gathered all the data, pondered the question deeply, and come to the only logical conclusion, is going to sound tribal in a conversation, because that's all a conversation can convey.[1] Sufficient information conveyance to actually demonstrate the deep pondering and examination of all the evidence is ipso facto a lecture, or at best, a Socratic dialog or an interview, neither of which is a conversation in this sense.
For better and worse (and rather a lot of each), this medium we're working in right now at least affords itself to complete thoughts. It has its own well-known pathologies, like the interminable flame wars descending off to the right endlessly as two people won't let something go, and many others, but at least it's possible to discuss serious matters in a format similar to this, based on writing in text that can be as long as it needs to be without anyone needing to interrupt to maintain basic social niceties. There's a reason the serious intellectual discourse has been happening in books and articles for centuries if not millennia now.
Note how conversationally gauche it would be for me to monopolize a conversation long enough to simply read this post, and by the standards of intellectual discourse this is a rather simple point.
[1]: In fact, most people will read the Vulcan as exceedingly tribal, because no amount of reciting snap counterarguments against the Vulcan's position will cause him/her to so much as budge an inch or even concede that "perhaps reasonable people could think that" or any other such concession. The snap counteragument was encountered a long time ago, and analyzed in the light of all the other data, and they have long ago come to their conclusions on it. If they can be moved, it will take a lot more. This is difficult to distinguish from a maximized tribalist in any reasonable period of time in a conversation.
Maybe tribalism is ok in some respects, and maybe we should increase it.
For example, it would be fine if the people in the other tribe to do what they want - as long as when the taxes becomes too high, the beaurocracy stifling, the crime rampant, and they have to deal with issues they assumed other people would sacrifice for in order for them to feel good - as long as when it inevitably breaks down, they don't come to MY area learning nothing and try to replicate what they left.
"Unbiased" aggregators like Ground News, MSM, and the right blogosphere like Joe Rogan are doing their best to normalize dragging the Overton window to the right with haste. Progressives have a handful of obscure, disconnected, largely-unknown reputable sources with a wasteland of as many or more former progressives and once-promising journalist and journalist-adjacent personalities.
The author gains a great insight into the social consequences of discussing politics with friends, but I think it might be part of something larger, a sort of intellectual signaling of meta-contrarianism.
At least in the countries where I live, debating politics is less about civic duty and being a citizen, and has become a substitute for sports; people prioritize their passions, and they are not concerned with getting the government to implement the policies it promised in the first place, but with defending a side.
In Germany, we see on state broadcasts every single day discussions about how the USA is bad, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, how some war in a distant place is bad, and so on; and nothing related to local politics.
If you invite someone to go to the municipal legislative service to talk with someone about why we still have underinvestment in kindergartens, even with record revenue, while other groups of society are capitalizing on social benefits, nobody will show up.
Getting in front of a keyboard and brigading online to talk about federal elections and/or officials of other countries is cool: it gives you the latest scandal of the day, you can congregate with people of your chamber, it provides audience for podcasts, and it generates talking points that sound intellectually tasty.
At least for me, the politics that matter most are local politics; and this is the craziest thing: it's the kind of politics where you can do something as an individual, you will have someone to hear you out, and with some effort, you can make a real and direct difference for your community.
There is some good stuff here, but I generally disagree.
The difference for me is, I don't like everybody, and not everybody has to like me. That's okay, and it's not about disrespect, it's just that I like to surround myself with people who are thoughtful before they are opinionated.
If you know me, and you respect me, and I say something you think is crazy... if they first think you think is "Wait, I thought I respected him, but he's a bad person" instead of "Wait, I respect this person and they're saying something I disagree with. Am I wrong about that?", then, guess what, I'm not actually interested in having a deep relationship.
I studied philosophy in college and grad school. I had to "relearn" how to interact with people outside of the university setting for many of the reasons in this essay. However, upon reading the horrifying "how to win friends and influence people" way of interacting with normal people through flattery and shallow interaction, I thought fuck it, I just don't actually want to be close with people I can't have a real conversation with.
Not everyone gets to the right position right away, that's okay. I'm a strong small-"L" liberal, and I have friends that are conservatives, socialists, and even the occasional anarchist. The difference is that we're all still trying to figure it all out. We're not all pretending that "well if those people didn't exist then we'd have utopia already" because, well, all these system exist all over the earth and it ain't a utopia anywhere. We'll make our points, we'll needle each other in a friendly way, and we'll all say "fuck it, we're doing our best."
That doesn't mean I'm friendly with everyone (remember, I don't like everyone, and not everyone likes me), because there are plenty of political positions that pretty much require people to be unthoughtful. The views need to be consistent, and pretty much anything that end advocating substantial discrimination against certain people over other people isn't going to be internally consistent. Axioms are arbitrary, reason is not.
> 3. Most people don't want to graduate from tribes to views
I checked out of political conversations when I noticed I was teaching remedial civics over drinks and none of us were having fun. So I just sit back and watch people who just want to engage in reality tv style yelling confrontation.
Timur Kuran writes about this idea (preference falsification) in "Private Truths, Public Lies".
He explains that its this idea that had kept the Soviet Union (this bad idea/system) from dying sooner. People thought it was the system of oppression but in reality it was people who hated the system showed approval. https://youtu.be/xzjqjU2FOwA?si=aTG0GnJKVDoK_-qb&t=819
Additional point: Politics and Ideologies have long tail effects, which makes arguing over them often an exercise in futility. We're arguing over the next footstep in a race that's got infinity left to run.
Russia is/was a global powerhouse under (its version of) Communism.
The US reached (essentially) global domination under Capitalsm.
China is in line to be the next hegemony under an odd combination of Communism, Authoritarianism and (serving Western) Capitalism.
Little old Germany wasn't far from conquering the world under what began as some form of Socialism.
Any of the -isms can be argued against by mentioning -ism-subscribing regimes that have fallen. Where this falls down is that each regime has its own way of corrupting the ideals of the -ism to favour of those 'at the top' or 'with the power to decide'.
Trickle-down (voodoo, for Ferris Bueller fans) economics seems to raise its head regularly despite not having a great track record for an entire population. I think the reason is that its popular with the powerful, so its track record with the population at large is a feature not a bug.
im a nuance enjoyer when it comes to politics too but i wouldnt say i know adequate amounts about economics, politics, game theory, etc. i might know slightly more about my preferred fields than the average person, but im still woefully incompetent. so im always hesitant to lay judgement. especially because politics is such a complex system. its difficult to make the probabilities the author speaks of unless you make a bunch of assumptions. which is terrible and miserable. things get even worse when you think about things at a global vs local political level, which are just completely different in dynamics.
i hate rationalists because it's like. you cant logically reason your way out of this one buddy. the system is far too complex for rationalism to work. sometimes its easier to just align with the groupthink and focus on other things you deem more important. hanging out with friends vs spending all day in your room teaching yourself about tribal relations in central africa so you can have your own unique opinions on us foreign policy.
is "becoming truth seeking" not some sort of religion - like the sports team - and the bay area is your tribe? Perhaps you were already suggesting this in your article and I've missed this - if so I apologise.
you seem to suggest that truth-seeking > tribalism, and we should pity the poor fools who are about tribalism. In this way, you're being tribalist against tribalism, no?
If ignorant tribalism brings people community and happiness, isn't that just as valid and commendable as truth-seeking?
Truth-seeking might provide a level of understanding of the world which is of value to your operating in life. It is not necessarily a sublime good of it's own right. Too much of it will alienate you from your mates.
I'd wager types like you might find on HN, Bay Area, could do with a little less seeking, in fact.
The Underground Man comes to mind, and presents the extreme of this spectrum. But then maybe he'd find mates in an area filled with other Underground Men?
I'm not even sure what politics is anymore. I'm largely not on social media, so I am generally late to what's taboo or a hot button topic, like Tesla automobiles and SpaceX, or anything else connected to a billionaire.
In 2025, but before the Tesla burnings made the news, I was having some chitchat about possibly purchasing a Tesla as my next car, at which point, I got a tirade of anger mentioning words like "Nazi", "fascism" and so on. I was completely taken aback.
I realize we Americans are probably undergoing the results of some adversarial nation-state psychological operations[1], but we really need to chill out.
1. Coincidentally, most of my social media "usage" is identifying sock puppet accounts and their adversarial psyops campaigns.
I don’t talk politics much when I’m first getting to know someone because our country is so polarized that they automatically assume you are one of two extreme groups. Most people’s political beliefs are similar to religious beliefs, they have them because their parents/community had those beliefs or they attend a certain church(MSNBC, Fox News, etc.) that consistently reinforces their beliefs instead of encouraging critical thought about their positions. This also leads to overly moralizing political affiliation, you’re “one of them” and “a bad person”, not a thinking person whose beliefs can be changed with facts/discussion.
I think the solution is tolerance. Whatever your politics are they don’t typically affect me personally. I have a few friends that are far further right than Ben Shapiro and a couple that are far more left than Bernie Sanders and want literal Communism. They range from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian or various flavors of anarchist. Some want to ban guns entirely and some want personal ownership of bazookas. Diversity! I often enjoy hearing their thoughts and we have all been able to change each others’ minds on a few issues. People’s minds do change, but it’s a slow process.
That said, politics is a burden to me in some relationships. It’s hard to have a calm rational discussion when my family member says “The muslims are walking across the Gulf of Mexico and setting up terror cells in Texas”. They actually believe we’re experiencing terrorist attacks and its just not being reported. I guess my limit for a comfortable discussion is some level of contact with reality.
The author believes he is better than his friends and probably irritates friends when talking politics but can rationalize his way out of the problem while still blaming his friends.
Left/Right: First thing - add more axes. The most used standard example from politics or economics is liberalism/libertarism (not diving into the subtleties of definitions, their history, usage in different parts of the world, etc.). Look for more such axes, leave the political conceptual world behind.
After that, try Principal Component Analysis and look, what remains from these dimensions and the labels describing them. Think up names for the Eigenvectors / new axes. Investigate further. For example, look where people are concentrating in this high-dimensional space.
I disagree strongly with this. This is how we get into the state of political divisiveness that we are currently in. Discussing politics has always been a verboten topic with many families and friends, and now we are here where we think not talking about it is healthy.
Not discussing politics with friends is really indicative of the friendships you have. This is really an article about someone who has failed to discuss politics with "friends." As someone who routinely talks politics with friends (and we do NOT all agree with each other), it's a healthy experience. One where you can get a better understanding of people and their beliefs.
Stay in your bubble. But let's not pretend it's healthy or good.
Sharing my views here because they don't seem to be reflected in the comments yet.
I agree that politics are overwhelmingly tribal and resemble religion a lot (the "you believe in god, right?" analogy hits home).
I also used to be strictly anti-religious because religions tell lies and are anti-intellectual. I was against tribalism and in favor of rigorous debates on every topic.
I gradually changed my views though, and this happened not because I started to deny science but rather because I tried to apply it to deeper levels of reasoning. Basically I stopped seeing systems of beliefs (be it politics or religions) as independent entities of their own but rather as derivatives of the [ever changing] environment.
I now think that stable systems of beliefs exist not because they are true or false, or good or evil, but because in the past they helped their bearers to survive. The ones that failed at that task ceased to exist themselves because beliefs can't live outside of people's heads. That's the ultimate and objective test, provided by the nature itself. I don't think you can get more scientific in your ranking of beliefs.
Based on this I came to respect
both Christianity and Islam because they did such a good job at that. I still dislike Islam though: it's against my tribe, but more on that below. My point here is that you can respect your adversaires and recognize they are good at something. E.g even now Islam is better at maintaining its numbers than some other cultures.
Within this framework tribalism is not bad but likely necessary. I think that the approach of "we are the good tribe, we see ourselves as different from other tribes, we want our tribe to survive, if necessary by exterminating other tribes" results in more stable societies than "we are rigorous intellectuals who can't agree on anything". It's beneficial for everyone to have a rigorous faction within the society but I doubt that this faction can survive on their own.
And besides, expecting the majority of population to debate everything is just unrealistic. It takes a lot of time and energy and I feel that most of people would rather spend that energy at work and with their families. Kind of like of people just "side" with the Apple or Android tribes, instead of building their own OS from sources. You see the phone as an utility, not as a goal. You just pick the one that works well for others, along with its benefits and inevitably with its flaws too. The grave consequences of picking a bad system of beliefs (and more importantly not changing it when the environment changes) are of course much different from that of a phone, but you can still describe both within the same framework, just very far away on the same scale.
If you can afford to not discuss politics with friends these days, you are in an incredibly privileged position.
I don't enjoy discussing Vim vs Emacs, or Windows vs Linux, or Star Trek vs Star Wars, or the weather. Some people get way too enthusiastic about it, to the point of religious fanaticism, but in the end it doesn't really matter either way. I don't really care about the tribes, and in most cases nothing productive is going to come out of the discussion. If my friends are on the other "team", I can happily agree to disagree.
I also wouldn't enjoy discussing whether the room should be filled with air or neurotoxin - but I can't afford not to. I'm sure the pro-neurotoxin people would be very nice to hang out with if we set our differences aside. Except for, you know, the whole "filling the room with neurotoxin" thing. If their side wins, it's going to seriously ruin my day. I don't really care about the how or the why or their tribes, the thing that matters is that they are trying to fill the room with neurotoxin. If I were to hang out with friends, it is quite important to know whether I could trust them with the air handling equipment.
If you can afford not discussing politics, you're essentially saying that politics don't impact you. They are nothing more than a mild inconvenience, and friendships are too valuable to set aside over something as trivial as that. To you politics are nothing more than the weather: you might need to cancel your weekend hike because of heavy rain, but oh well.
A lot of people don't have that luxury. For a lot of people, politics are literally a matter of life and death. Ignoring it isn't an option.
Discussing politics with friends and relatives is what makes you a moderate overall.
Otherwise you will grow up inside an echo chamber, far away from reality.
People talking about politics IRL makes you understand and reason other points of views. If you can't tolerate others views, then you are clearly a radical.
(US Centric opinion comment) in the wake of moving away from religions to more secular societies, it's shocking how much folks have simply switched from religions like Christianity et. al. to Republican or Democrat or Left or Right etc.
What I'd consider healthy exploratory debate is now treated like heresy punishable by metaphorical death.(eg cancellation)
That's why I often stay my tongue and let people believe I'm on their side. Frankly it's not worth the consequences and I'll let them live in their delusions because giving feedback is too dangerous nowadays.
> It's not that the average person is any less tribal up there, but because Silicon Valley contains such a high concentration of people testing ideas in the world, it selects for people that must regularly re-evaluate their biases or fail.
I would have agreed with this article before Trump took office a 2nd time. I liked to think of myself as not belonging to a tribe, a moderate who didn't buy the propaganda from either side. But now I've seen what the Trump 2.0 looks like, and I've become convinced we're headed toward autocracy with a mix of techno-feudalism and Christian nationalism.
I don't think you can maintain moderate views on that sort of situation without becoming complicit. Yes, Elon is up to no good. Trump is not the sort of person that should have this kind of power. Putin turned Russia into an autocracy. It's happened in other countries as well. There is a playbook for this, and the Trump administration is following their version of it. We don't have to go back to WW2 to make comparisons. Putin is not a good person, and Trump admires him.
The problem with the reasonable independent thinker is that they are relatively powerless against autocratic takeover. You need to join a side that is resisting. Assuming you value democracy and it's institutions.
I completely disagree with this. A friend is someone who I can disagree politically with and still be friends with. I extend the tribe to political views that aren't too extreme (fascists, extreme populists, violent revolutionary socialists, islamists...), so 90% of the people I can probably be friends with or have family relations with. And it has happened probably about 1-2 times in my lifetime that I even e.g. un-friended someone on social media because of views that I wouldn't tolerate because they fell outside the "normal politics tribe".
And again, that's because I'm lucky enough to not live in the US. I'd unfriend a red hat on FB in a heartbeat. I'd probably break connections with a family member over it too. I'd have problems even having a professional relationship with my US colleagues if I had found out they had a red hat in a social media post. But I don't see the problem with this at all tbh.
> Being informed is tough. To have an informed view on any given issue, one needs to:
> Understand economics, game theory, philosophy, sales, business, military strategy, geopolitics, sociology, history, and more.
> Be able to understand and empathize with the various (and often opposing) groups involved in a topic.
> Detect and ignore their own bias.
> How can you prioritize limited resources with deadly consequences without understanding utilitarianism vs deontology (i.e. the trolley problem)?
> Understand China-US relations without understanding communism vs capitalism, the fear of tyranny vs the threat of invasion, or how and where computer chips are made? [etc.]
From Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit" (1986):
> Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require
someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. [...] People are
frequently impelled — whether by their own propensities or by
the demands of others — to speak extensively about matters of
which they are to some degree ignorant. Closely related instances
arise from the widespread conviction that it is the responsibility
of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything, or
at least everything that pertains to the conduct of his country’s
affairs. The lack of any significant connection between a person’s
opinions and his apprehension of reality will be even more severe,
needless to say, for someone who believes it his responsibility, as
a conscientious moral agent, to evaluate events and conditions in
all parts of the world.
TFA implicitly assumes that the only options are "belong to a political tribe where someone else is responsible for justifying your actions" or "become a perfect estimator and Effectively Altruistic so you can truthfully justify your actions" (the latter, coincidentally, indistinguishable to an outside observer from your joining the Gray Tribe). But surely he's omitting to discuss (and perhaps edging toward an example of) the Frankfurt option: "justify your own actions by coming up with some bullshit."
> The insidious nature of this question comes from the false representation as earnest, intellectual discourse. Many who ask it may truly believe they’re engaging earnestly, but their responses quickly reveal an angle more akin to religious police. ... Most vulnerable to this behavior are the intellectually honest + socially clueless, who engage in good faith, unaware of the pending social ambush.
My favorite thing about this enlightened centrist/individual thinker line to kick off with is it's almost universally used by people who have one or more abhorrent viewpoints in their back pocket, and the "social ambush" described here would be much better phrased as, well, disclosing what that is and just saving us all some time. I personally am deeply curious what beliefs Ashwin has been ambushed about.
If you have thoughts on how tax brackets should be constructed, or whether we should move to flat taxation, whether highway budgets should include beatification or whether that should be up to municipalities, what zoning restrictions are used for a given area, all that type of what should be politics, neither myself nor anyone I know would "ambush" you for those beliefs. Discussing and rounding out those kinds of issues is the foundation of how a Democracy works. We have to discuss them, and you should have opinions on at least a few of them, and you should share them! That's how it works. And for what it's worth, I can't fathom a situation I would ambush anyone over those sorts of issues. I might disagree, and I might ask for elaboration or perhaps suggest alternatives to what you want to do, but I wouldn't shame you for them.
If on the other hand you think horrible things that for some insane reason have gotten traction lately, like that putting tariffs on foreign goods is somehow going to bring back American manufacturing (it isn't), that some of your fellow citizens who might be gay, trans, both, or something else shouldn't enjoy a full set of rights under the law for whatever cockamamie reason you'd like to cite (they should), that children should be re-introduced to the labor market to bolster the amount of cheap labor available (they shouldn't), that the government should be doing genital inspections on children who want to play sports to make sure no one's "cheating" (stupid, horrifying, illegal in several ways) and I could go on, then yeah, you probably will find yourself socially ambushed. And you should be. That's how shaming works. That's what we have done to one another for thousands of years when we behave anti-socially: if you act anti-social, you are not going to have an easy time being social. That's, again, just how that works.
I of course don't wish that fate on anyone, I have been spurned from communities and it sucks! But I did survive that process and a number of those experiences, awful as they were at the time, shaped me into a better person overall with a more internally consistent and defensible belief system than the one I was indoctrinated into as a child.
And yeah, a lot of this is also just "political tribalism sucks!" Cosigned, 100%.
When you say people are "tribal," while as a fact perhaps has some truth, you're essentially saying you don't believe in democracy--which is a common sentiment these days. It ironically is a thought terminating cliche evidentiary of a bias; it necessarily implies you can ignore people's political instincts and impulses which requires a particular disposition (bias) towards others around you.
I know what social scientists say about tribalism but interpretation of those kinds of research is not meant for individuals you know personally. Individuals are not distributions, they're people. That is, they have agency, with a right to their own opinions that ought to be engaged with seriously and sincerely. Some people may not think too deeply and just hone to a particular opinion just by fiat. In my life, that really isn't anywhere near "most" people I come in contact with or talk to as the article puts it. Most people in my life just don't think too deeply about these things, that's it. It's a lot less mundane than "people are sheeple" and more like "people don't care" or at least "people only really care about X" where X might be something like their own job or life.
Right wingers love inventing new ways to say the same tired bs. Tbf I stopped reading somewhere between “wither the struggling landlord” and “demonstrating consistency in your worldview makes you a sheep” but did I really need to see any more?
Oh, the irony of saying "Understand China-US relations without understanding communism vs capitalism", which clearly betrays how little they understand historical Marxist communism, and how far away modern China is from it (not to mention how far it's moved since Maoism).
Not to mention there's a ton of work in psychology already covering much of what the author writes about.
The author sounds like a pseudo-intellectual who thinks they can logic their way to human understanding through first principles, instead of doing any real work to understand the literature. Sadly, this is real common on HN.
Frankly it sounds like someone who voted for Trump and wants to avoid having people criticize him for it, dressing up his "stop picking on me" schtick with pseudo-intellectual rationalizations.
You can't ignore politics when it's actively destroying your country - it's just not possible, and trying to ignore it is not the moral or ethical choice.
In a society where there is agreement on basic principles, public debates will focus mainly on policy. Policy, while less abstract than principle, is in a certain sense less tractable in a manner analogous to how mathematical proofs are more abstract yet more tractable than verifying empirical claims, like knowing whether there are an infinite number of primes versus whether there's a teapot orbiting the earth.
Good policy requires a more conspicuous application of prudential judgement, which entails the integration of information and opinion of varying trustworthiness to make a best effort decision, which is something a person must learn and develop.
But one thing that is characteristic about our political predicament is not disagreement over policy per se, but the reasons for our disagreement. Two people sharing the same principles can still disagree about policy, and because they share the same principles, a debate over policy is manageable, because the basic parameters circumscribe the debated subject matter. However, if you look closely to the policy disagreements we're seeing, it is clear people are talking past one another. Something deeper, unspoken, is at issue. That is because the agreement on matters of principle is shrinking. This is why some view today's disagreement in terms of religious warfare, because in a sense it is.
As I've written many times in comments on HN, "religion" is effectively just a synonym for "worldview". Many people have ad hoc and incoherent or strangely specific or even parochial intuitions of what religion is, but understood as a bona fide or coherent category, it is essentially just another word for worldview. Everyone has one, however implicit, so it isn't a question of whether you "have a religion", but which. You may not realize that you are subject to a worldview, just as the proverbial fish that has never left the ocean doesn't know what water is, but it's there influencing your decisions and the course of your life.
In the US and much of the West, this has generally meant liberalism. And we're all liberals. The right and the left? Both liberal. The conflict between them is less Hindu vs. Muslim and more Pharisee vs. Sadducee. But as time progresses, as the internal tensions of liberalism unfold within the human psyche and within society across time, as liberalism crashes in slow motion because of this dynamic, as the proverbial idols enter their twilight, the conflict can only deepen. And it won't be a left-right split per se.
Some miscellaneous remarks...
1. The author makes similar observations w.r.t. religion. For example, he notes that "[d]espite organized religion dropping in attendance, religious patterns of behavior are still everywhere, just adapted to a secular world." Absolutely. And this includes Silicon Valley ideology, which is just a variation of Americanism. You see plenty of "religious patterns of behavior" in SV (though I sense we are past the heyday of peak salvific SV eschatology; maybe it just has a different character now, unvarnished and naked).
2. The author's view of religion is nonetheless tendentious and rooted in stereotype and trope. For example, the history of martyrdom in the Catholic Church alone demonstrates that "going along to get along" or mob mentality are opposed to the Christian view of truth above all else. God Himself is taken to be the Truth, and Christ the incarnation of the Logos. The authentic Christian ethic, despite the dishwater often passing as Christianity, is morally austere in this regard, hence preferring to die for the truth (literally, as in "red martyrdom", or by suffering injustice, so-called "white martyrdom") than to betray it. Lying is categorically impermissible. Life is to be found only in the truth; only spiritual death is to be found in lies. Better for the body to die than the soul to die.
The notion that religion is about group cohesion even at the expense of the truth is certainly not a feature of Catholicism, but a common human tendency that it attacks, even if individual Catholics or groups of Catholics behave otherwise (again, a common human tendency). There is no authentic unity or authentic love outside of the truth. You cannot love what you do not know, and a society united in a lie is deficient in unity to the degree that the "unity" is rooted in the lie.
Wild how this person starts off with 'I don't like collective thought and action' and lands in 'so I joined a gambling addicted cult using discrete math from high school and advocates for it with pop culture tropes'.
The audacity to discard millennia of history and philosophy with 'no one's got time for that' and substituting it with a crude gambling scheme is just astounding. QAnon for the well-off, a cognitive technique to get out of having to deal with systemic injustice because 'sometimes rentiers also feel bad so there is actually suffering on both sides'.
In a way it's similar to some forms of antisemitism, antisemitism as "der Sozialismus der dummen Kerle", noticing some superficial conditions but instead of following through to develop a worldview copping out and getting an obsession with a simple, consistently applied reasoning. The jews did you nasty because you're not one of them. You did a bad bet because you were controlled by your tribe, unlike me, the enlightened high schooler who isn't loyal to anyone but myself.
Like antisemitism it's the position of a loser refusing to join forces with other people to try and cause systemic change based on their common material interests. Yes, I see that the banks are exploiting us, but no, I won't join your 'tribe', instead I'm going to make tables detailing the ancestry of the bankers. Yes, I see that were going down the drain but instead of joining your movement to put pressure on people in power I'm going to spend the evening making a flowchart and cherry pick some statistics and then give money to a cult that agrees with this approach.
If you meet someone like this, you should absolutely engage with them on contemporary, political issues. As soon as you get them to agree that something is bad, tell them to come to a meeting, be it a union, dinner, protest, whatever. Insist, don't take a no for an answer. Make it a challenge, whatever it takes. If it doesn't work the first time, try again next time you meet. These people need help and empathy, and to be among people at least sometimes when they're away from their screens.
This is such a wild perspective to me. I can't imagine considering somebody a friend while simultaneously not feeling comfortable discussing politics with them.
The next time I need to describe my disdain for "rationalists", I'll just be able to link this blog post for being entirely vacuous while patting itself on the back
A lot of people are in a particular tribe because they literally cannot be in the other tribe because the other tribe sees them as subhuman, as people who should be deported, who should lose their rights, etc. A lot of them realize that they're in a tribe and don't particularly like it, but since the political system is set up in a way where you can't reasonably have more than two parties, they don't have a choice.
Basically, the author is making it seem like everyone other than a select few are tribal idiots, but that's a fundamental outcome of our political system. You can pick and choose your policies, but at the end of the day, you're voting for one of two parties.
I’ve got strict rules on not discussing politics generally and I would even pretend to not know about things or only barely and not having any position. I do jump deep into topic with strangers for fun or build up slowly. Never would I share political views with my workplace and partner, I give them the freedom to keep theirs believes without altering them with the “truth”, if people are simple let them be. I also let anybody have their position especially family members and would be much less eager to tell them more. It’s mostly a blessing not having went down the rabbit hole and I don’t want to tamper with it. I like to argue with the opposite extrem position for fun.
For all of the author's bloviating and self-congratulating navel gazing, the article manages to largely overlook values, the only mention of them being to dismissively reduce them to irrational tribalism.
In truth, values and ethics are fundamental to effectively discussing politics. After all, all political decisions are ultimately about how we want to shape the world that we as humans live in. There can be no agreement about economic policy without a shared understanding of the ultimate goal of an economy. No agreement about foreign relations without a shared understanding of the role of nations as representatives for groups of humans, and how we believe one group of humans should interact with another group of humans through the lens of nations.
For the last 20 years at least, the leadership of the two main political parties in the US have largely invested in messaging around the values that they represent. The policies are different too, but over time we've gone from a world where there were at least some cases where the two parties had different policies for how to reach the same goals, and into a world where the parties policies are aiming to realize fundamentally different visions of the world, based on fundamentally different values.
In this world, asking "who did you vote for" isn't a matter of tribalism, but it is a (good) proxy for asking someone "what are your values". If you discover that someone has completely different values from you, then discussing policy isn't going to be useful anyway, because there's no way you'll agree on a single policy when you have different fundamental values.
The crucial question is what is "politics"? Are personalities politics? No. Are parties? No. Are inflammatory issues about race, sex or gender or political correctness or immigration? No!
Here is politics:
Are common American citizens able to afford and obtain reasonable health care?
Are common Americans paid a living wage? Can one person earn enough to have a family?
Do our children have a reasonable opportunity to grow, have a productive life and have a family if they want one?
Is the financial situation getting better for Americans or is the difference between earnings and expenditures growing larger. (Hint do we use code words like 'inflation' instead of calling it like it is).
A functioning democracy requires that the common people are enable to formulate and enact laws that they believe are in their best interests. Do the majority of the laws enacted in all the states meet this requirement?
A functioning democracy requires that the common people are able to use the law and courts to right wrongs. Are the common people able to use/afford access to the courts when wrongs are committed.
Do the common news media act as a forum for the common concerns and issues of the People. (Here's looking at you NYT).
Cuo Bono? If the laws passed are not in the interests of the People, and the courts are not accessible by People, who benefits? If the news media are not a forum for the interests of the People, whose interests do they represent. (Here's looking at you Jeff Bezos).
If advertising funds our primary sources of news, whose interests are represented.
Those are simply things you should discuss with your friends. They are questions not answers. This is not rocket science.
I'll provide an opposing viewpoint. In the last 10 years, I've lost friendships and family because people in my life have voted for candidates that stripped rights away from women, minorities, etc.
Having a vast difference between opinions is fine, but some of their decisions are fundamentally against my core beliefs and have done literal harm to many people I know.
For that reason, terminating family and friendships has been absolutely worth it for me.
Until we can live in a world where fundamental rights are protected and respected, we have no common ground, and it's pointless to tiptoe around these insanely harmful beliefs while maintaining a facade of friendship.
(Article starts off be asserting that they don't talk politics with friends then proceeds to describe how to talk politics with friends?)
Friends are people you should support and build up. You shouldn't try to make them feel bad by winning arguments with them. That said- a healthy society is only possible if individuals can exchange ideas about how to run things and then act collectively (aka "politics"). Sometimes people will have different interests and priorities, that lead to them having different ideas about stuff- most of the time this is totally fine.
This basically comes down to respect and communication skills- but for god's sake people- keep on talking about "politics"!
I guess I just don't see "tribalism". I know it's a popular description though for the divisiveness we find ourselves in politically.
But I consider the things important to me, the beliefs, the issues: and they, all of them, align with a progressive, left-leaning ideology. I'm not just glomming on to everything one "tribe" or another stands for ... one group actually reflects everything I believe. (I think I could split a few hairs here and there, but we're still talking perhaps 95% alignment.)
But I don't think that is too surprising. Others, smarter than me, have gone into great detail about the underpinnings of left-leaning or right-leaning world views in people. Fear of change, empathy ... a number of ideas have been put forth. By this reasoning it naturally follows that those of a certain "personality" will also share common beliefs, ideologies.
The implication instead seems to be that unless you are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum you must be "tribal". That feels dismissive.
I'm 52. For me, there was a time when it was considered impolite to talk about sex, religion and politics. Then it became super fun when done with open/questioning/rational/critical minds, and a lot of progress in my own thinking was achieved from the usually non-threatening but lively debates and fights among friends and family for ideas. Then it shifted in the last ten or fifteen years. When social media started having friends of friends, the tribalism kicked in. It was explained very well in a talk between Maria Ressa and Jon Stewart. She is brilliant, and well worth listening to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsHoX9ZpA_M
I can strongly sympathize. The image with the squares and circles hit home hard, from an early age, it's been pretty lonely. Depending on your environment it can be super hard to find others part of the 1%, so you really need to treasure them when you do find them.
One point of criticism:
The usage of the word "moderate". It seems PG's article is the one to blame here. The word "moderate" when used about politics means something to people in English. And given that meaning, saying that independent thought leads to one being "moderate", is straight up wrong. What the article is really talking about is that independent thought leads to a set of beliefs that is unlikely to be a very good fit for any particular ideology, and therefore, political party. That's true! But that's not "moderate". That's.. diverse, pragmatic, non-ideological. Those words aren't ideal either, but "moderate" is definitely not it.
The 99%/1% is also greatly overstated in a way. Firstly, it's definitely dependent on locale, culture, subculture, environment, as the writer already says themselves. More importantly, if you manage to somehow get people 1:1 in an environment where they feel safe, it turns out that many actually aren't that tribal/ideological after all, and they do actually have beliefs that span different mainstream tribes. But then that conversation finishes, and they go back to being a tribe member.
I'm pretty sure there's plenty of experiments that directly show the above. That when you give people policy choices that are non-obvious (e.g. they've never thought about), and then make them vote on them, they'll often vote against their tribe. But if you'd beforehand tell them which tribe voted which way, they'll always vote with the tribe.
I like it. There's an easier answer to "why don't people move from tribe to view". It's because it's painful to question one's own beliefs, and that's how that change happens. In fact such a move appears masochistic to many, since it almost never pays to undermine loyalty in favor of principle.
I hypothesize that we're seeing the influence of the legal system on the public turbo-charged by Citizens United money. An attorney is paid to be a "zealous advocate" for their client. This means never spending effort on anything that might be against the client's interest. Self-reflection is stochastically against their interest, so why even risk it? Considering alternative views might be against your interest, so why risk it? Therefore, in this new zeitgeist, such behavior is not just perverse and painful, but even unethical and wrong.
The problem, of course, is that for this system of adversarial argument you need an impartial judge. In theory that would be the public, but it turns out flooding people's minds with unethical lawyer screed 24x7 turns more people into lawyers, not judges. "The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it." This could very well refer to the value of dignity, honor, integrity, fairness in debate, respect for one's opponents. These are always under assault, but in the last 10 years they have been decimated to the point people don't remember they ever held sway and young people don't know what politics was like when they did.
> After seven years in San Diego, my wife and I have decided to uproot our family and move to the Bay Area. While there were many factors (a new job opportunity, family), a significant reason was finding a community of truth-seeking people.
Funny. The lack of truth-seeking and truth-telling is one of the chief reasons I moved away from the Bay Area.
I'll just add one thing I learned: what people do is way more important than what they say or what their politics is.
I now find it much more practical to focus on things we can agree on and actually do something about in the real world and try to build from that.
Generic political debates are not very actionable and they are risky for social reasons mentioned in the article, so I think they are largely a waste of time with negative externalities.
Thoughtful perspective on the social risks of political discussions. However, respectfully engaging with differing viewpoints is valuable for personal and societal growth. Perhaps focusing discussions on understanding each other's underlying values and experiences, rather than specific political positions, could lead to more productive conversations.
The "What [the political spectrum] Actually Is" graph shows more independent thinkers to be unintentional moderates. The chart is a claim that independence leads to moderation. I deny that. The most independently minded thinkers I know frequently drift off into extremes where most tribes dare not tread. The tribalists are so moderate in comparison that I would turn that christmas tree upside down.
An interesting blog post that would probably do well to look into something like Rob Kegan's theories of adult development [0] and looking up some stats on how many people fit into each category. People actually categorise fairly well into a model where ~66% of the population simply don't understand the concept of independent thought and rely heavily on social signalling to work out what is true.
That model explains an absurd number of social dynamics and a big chunk of politics - which is mostly people with a high level of adult development socially signalling to the masses what they are meant to be doing.
The important observation is that it isn't intellectual honesty that is the problem or truth-seeking the solution. It is actually whether someone is capable of identifying that truth != popular opinion. People who form their opinions by social osmosis can still be intellectually honest if they land in the right sort of community, but they fall apart under social pressure.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kegan#The_Evolving_Self
This is "both-sides-ism" of the worst sort. It's exactly the sort of navel-gazey pablum that gives technical people a bad name.
The author doesn't recognize that it's not "politics" today. Politics is disagreeing on how to fund road improvements. When one party wants to dismantle the state, remove protections for marginalized groups, disavow alliances, engage in absurd imperialism, and flagrantly disregard the rule of law, we're not talking about mere "politics" anymore.
This is "both-sides-ism" of the worst sort. And it gives one the impression that the author is fine being friends with people who hole absolutely horrible beliefs, as long as he doesn't have to know about them.
> By far, relationships determine the happiness of ones life, and relationships are not beholden to truth. In fact, they are very commonly built on the opposite. Whether a boss' reprimands are deserved or not, employees bond over a common enemy. Entire groups form on the basis of beliefs, false or otherwise. We have a word for this: “religion".
> Despite organized religion dropping in attendance, religious patterns of behavior are still everywhere, just adapted to a secular world. Health, exercise, politics, work, self-improvement -- these are all things I've seen friends employ their religious muscle into, across all spectrums and political aisles. And as we get older, I'm seeing more and more of my supposedly-secular friends engage in such behavior.
I have a hypothesis that all humans are compelled to indulge in a certain amount of magical thinking. We seem to be hard-wired to believe there is more underlying metaphysical order and pattern to the universe than there actually is.
I presume this is evolutionarily advantageous because it's better to assume you have more agency and ability to predict than you actually do. Over-assuming leads to occasional disappointment and frustration when things don't work out, but under-assuming leads to having less impact than you actually could have.
If that hypothesis is true, then probably the best thing for society is to provide cultural structures that let us indulge than impulse in non-harmful ways, instead of, say, giving it to religions that also tell us to murder gay people.
Sort of like how sports function as a safe pressure release valve for the compulsion towards competition and violence.
> when someone asks "who did you vote for"
I find it astonishing that anyone would ask this. The only time I've ever been asked this question has been by pollsters. In my social circle, anyway, the taboo on this question is very strong.
Curious how many comments say "it's not about tribalism, it's just the other side is evil". Ctrl+f for this very word on the page yields interesting results.
This hits too close to home.
A while back I realized that most news stations have a clear bias and eventually started to dive deeper on stories I was interested in.
I try to look into the source material when possible and found time and time again that the 'news' either left out key details or completely misrepresented the source material.
I never bring up politics, but friends will often repeat news stories and occasionally I'll bring up key facts that weren't reported on.
This has never changed anyone's opinion. Usually all it does is make the other person upset or they bring up another story to reaffirm their currently held belief.
Thankfully my relationships are strong enough that I haven't lost any friends over this, but it's incredibly isolating. Feels like brainwashing on a massive scale.
That's not to say that the news isn't to be trusted at all, some things are as reported. But, often times this isn't the case and it's more important than ever to think critically and not take news stories at face value. The division is mostly manufactured and I believe at our core most of us want the same things.
>> be able to understand and empathize with the various (and often opposing) groups involved in a topic
Interestingly, I have seen Elon (DOGE) and others outside of politics (that mega-church leader) telling the public (dare I say, their followers) that one of the main problems with America is empathy, and that we need to _stop_ empathizing with others.
I find it easy to discuss politics with friends. The hard part is listening, being open to persuasion yourself. Walzing into a discussion believing the other ones are stupid people with simple arguments rooted in misunderstandings — yeah, that won't fly.
You can smell it in the article. it's right there. The author thinks he's intellectually superior and arrived at his opinion though a pure intellectual pursuit, where the stupid conversation partners can't follow.
I completely understand how you're not having fruitful discussions.
I had quick scan of the comments but I didn't see anybody else make the point, so here is my 2c.
I believe the problem is the two party systems and how our government is set up, people vote for one tribe or the other. There is no _value_ to being educated on individual issues because ultimately you simply have to choose between 2 people who are affiliated with a party.
How awesome would it be if individuals could vote on specific issues, perhaps only after proving they have a working knowledge of the subject matter.
I have often observed something about how we build software; I just realized that my observations are of a more fundamental human problem.
First, people are not good at defining problems. They may describe the problem that they want to solve in terms of an outcome, but often times the outcome that they want also includes some aspect that benefits them personally that is separate from the problem that they are describing.
Second, people are not good at separating problem from implementation. in fact, people are horrible at this. I think people have a very difficult time envisioning that the problem and the existing solution implementation (which itself might be making the problem worse) are separate things. so most people rarely consider and often actively oppose, radically different solutions.
In the political sphere, ideology Influences how one frames the problem that one wants to solve, and limits the universe of acceptable solutions. This exemplifies the two points that I raised above.
For example, when talking about healthcare policy, the two main “sides” in the US, both have ideologies that define outcomes in terms of consumer access to medical services, and which constrain allowable implementations to something that resembles insurance, with key differences being about who pays and what is covered and how much coverage one gets.
Just for the purposes of elaborating on my premise, I would point out that not all healthcare delivery systems in the world are designed around the insurance model, And that such a model includes vested interests, regulatory capture, and often incentivizes many participants to optimize in ways that don’t forward the implicit goal of making more people more healthy.
Please don’t reply with your opinions on my imperfect example; I don’t want to have a healthcare policy discussion. I just wanted to provide an example my main points about how humans approach political problem-solving.
If you don't talk politics with friends, who are you going to talk to about that?
Probably nobody.
Who will win the elections then? The forces whose supporters do talk politics with friends.
> a congregation member asking "you believe in god, right?"
That's a very good analogy.
For some, believing in god or not doesn't matter much and they'll go to church mostly to make friends and be part of a community.
For others, being expected (or not) to believe in God is a no go, and losing friends/family holding these expectations will be a price to pay.
We all have our boundaries, and disagreements on some specific topics will be out of them. Cutting friends/family with incompatible stances is just one instance of that IMHO, be it political, religious or anything else that matters enough.
>Most people don't have political views, they have political tribes
Agree with this. Also, I do believe most people are appallingly stupid (I might not not be an exception either), cruel and easy to manipulate, and as a result are incapable of making rational decisions that benefit society as a whole. I try to never ever discuss politics with anyone, it's one of the most damaging and useless activities there is.
Usually, interactions with people on (arguably) political issues just leave me stupefied - no, I don't think people born in certain geographical locations are subhuman because of decisions of their current government; no, I don't hate nor wish death and suffering to anyone; no, I don't think the war is necessary and I don't want anyone to be blown to bits by a drone; no, I don't think artificial lines on a map ("countries") define who is wrong and who is right and worth throwing your only life away for; no, I don't think decisions of the government reflect the opinion of the entire population of that country; yes, I do think people I disagree with are real human beings with capabilities of sense, emotion, and thought just like I am; and the list goes on and on. Anyway, most people have a very different idea on the aforementioned examples. I don't care about the replies, just wanted to offload this filth off my head somewhat.
Something I try to remember when discussing politics or playing Scrabble: "You can be right, or you can have friends"
When did discussing politics with your community become a bad thing? In fact that's the primary place you should talk politics, share new ideas and hone your views. If more people did this they wouldn't be getting radicalized by online bots.
I believe in the future we will see a much more pronounced split between people who prefer reality to those who prefer un-reality.
Un-reality is the mediated, constructed "reality" that can be conjured up and perpetuated through mediums such as the Internet. It needs constant effort behind it to keep it going because it isn't tethered to actual experience. Un-reality is things like the hyper-partisan views on things that seem like they change on a whim, or extremist views on gender relations. It requires a tribalistic level of affiliation. It is something that has evolved to prize self-perpetuation (e.g. memes) over the views it claims to espouse. (This pattern of growth at all costs also occurs in other contexts, such as business.)
Reality, on the other hand, is the messy, boring, uncontrollable and unmediated thing we experience as humans. It is harder to transmit online because it isn't something that is easily swallowed, but it has a universal appeal to us as we recognize humanity in it. Reality has much bigger downs and ups than un-reality does, that's what makes us want to escape it sometimes. It also has really crappy truths and circumstances in it; there's no respawns or undo.
In some sense, this split already exists: fans of un-reality we often label as too online, implying that they prefer online life to actual life. I believe the biggest difference here lies in the preference for mediated vs unmediated interactions.
Is this an American thing? No one has ever in my life asked me "Who did you vote for?"
I have had plenty of people behave in a way that made it clear they assumed I agreed with them on political matters/issues that would have us voting the same way (sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly) but I have never been asked this question. Is it common or is it a contrivance in service of the article?
The author has a huge blindspot: discussing politics with others where it's not a co-operative search for truth; instead it's an opportunity to let your friends explain themselves. Don't challenge them, ask them questions. Let them talk it out. Offer your own observations not as ways to change their minds but as an invitation to elaborate and explore.
You don't need to share your opinions in every conversation. You don't need to challenge another's beliefs that you disagree with or think are factually wrong. You can bond over listening to them. And they can invite you to share your thinking non-judgementally.
I think it's somewhat funny that two of the images in this blog post, the two signs, and the miner, are commonly used to mock faux intellectualism and a feeling of moral superiority.
I think it's ok to be hypocritical and have friends with different vastly political beliefs, in the end relationships; friendships, lovers, etc are not usually an outcome of rational behavior, so I don't mind having friends who are politically different because it's the unconscious connection that brought us together.
As long as there's respect that's what matters.
Name-calling by commentators dehumanised the debates. I still don't understand why it is considered OK.
"They do it" should not be enough of a reason, but it affects youtube income for individuals, so let the market work, I guess? /sarcasm
On average people are incapable of holding a moral position through to the end.
- Bad parenting is bad, we should have a permit for it --> are you ready to get denied the right to try having kids?
- Thou shalt not kill --> except those really bad people I don't like!
- Stealing is bad --> except when you're "starving"
Our perception of good and evil are multifaceted, with most of it happening in our background cognition.
There is a strange "mirror" stopping people from exchanging once a rift has opened. Someone else posited that it might be a fight or flight reaction.
I posit that our cognition is based on negation, and thus the shape of our tool impact our results.
In the country where I live, the problem is that it became much of a religious question. People feel like one candidate represents values different than mine, and that by not aligning with them, I'm not an ally. I don't have friends with such different values, but managing family has become a big problem during these times. It's very hard, for example, hearing your mother-in-law defending a change in the constitution that would forbid women to have an abortion, even when raped and at any time of pregnancy, when you have a small daughter. That person is actively trying to make the world a horrible place for my family, according to my values and honestly any sane person.
EDIT: typo.
I do worry about seeing more of these posts, as a way of SV people - who bare a substantial burden of guilt for enabling the collective mess we’re in because the ad-tech/algorithm dollars were nice - collectively distancing themselves from facing said guilt.
No idea is this particular person is especially part of the problem, I’m just talking about general vibes.
Further, I mute and unfollow aggressively any family or friends that just constantly post political news/rants etc from Facebook and other social media platforms.
This paints a very binary picture. Either you are in or out. Part of this tribe, or this other tribe (ignorantly or not). The article seems to imply that people can't have opinions on political policies unless they are fully informed on not only global affairs but also philosophy and psychology.
I think reality is different - I don't think there are any absolutes that require "knowledge" of e.g. philosophy to get the "right" answer in politics. Instead the right answer (at least in western democracies) is what the people want, even if they are not fully informed.
I view it very much akin to trial by jury - there are highly informed and experienced judges, barristers, solicitors etc but ultimately it is down to the laymen in the jury to make a decision that they see as just. They might reach the "wrong" decision from the perspective of people who are fully informed on the legal processes and the law of the land etc, but that doesn't matter because it is the jury that makes the decision.
So it is for the electorate too.
I have no experience of voting in the US but it appears that a two-party system really stokes the "us Vs them" vibes. The only alternative you have is to totally switch sides. At least in European democracies there is often a plurality of parties to vote for. I've personally moved between the main 3 parties (and there are probably at least another 1 or 2 other minority parties that have different trajectories...) in the UK as my personal situation has changed over the years, and I think that is a very normal thing here.
I hear this soooo often. If you can't talk to friends about your honest opinions without being respectful to one another and also being willing to listen to their reasoning and opinions, what kind of friendship is that?
People do not change opinions because someone told them to. It has to be a result of a narrative with personal experiences. Which is why FAFO is still a big thing.
Hence, any effort trying to convince friends that blue is not green it is not gonna work. Sorry.
Political discussions for me are like programming. I enjoy them because I like finding bugs in people's logic like I do in programming.
I find a lot of people's political arguments wouldn't compile because of basic logic errors, and I try to point this out. But not many people are interested in this kind of analysis, they instead prefer the tribalist point-scoring like the OP mentions.
I dream of a world where political debates can be syntax-checked. I'm sure you could do it with AI today.
But in the end its all about feelings.
I can't describe how many times I will just go along with someone's passionate ranting on something I disagree with and egg them along because its makes them happy. This is tribalism. I will disagree with the group, and if you saw me you'd think I was the strongest supporter, but I actually vehemently disagree with everything.
There are very few people it's worth having a real discussion with these days.
I don't change my opinion of people for what they think, but it's very rare to find people who reciprocate this.
I think there should be a new rule that any time someone writes an article bragging about how he's† a badass independent thinker just like Paul Graham and Eliezer Yudkowsky, he must in the same article identify his major disagreements with Paul Graham and Elizer Yudkowsky. Because to me the authors of these articles seem exactly as tribal as mainstream political and religious groups, they just care about different things. Yeah, I shouldn't be able to guess your views on sex from your views on taxes, but I also shouldn't be able to guess your views on wokeness from your views on AI safety. Yet I can make both predictions with about equal accuracy.
† I have yet to see an article like this written by a woman.
One thing I definitely don't do anymore is discuss politics with any friends or family ONLINE.
It's just not worth it. Publish or tweet something if you have something to say and want to reach a lot of people. Talking to ONE person and risking your relationship has a lousy cost/benefit ratio.
Ah, another apt time to mention one of my favorite papers, Michael Huemer's In Praise of Passivity. https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/papers/passivity.htm
Basically it argues the most moral thing in a democracy is to do nothing at all. You simply can never make a truly well informed decision over such a complex system, not even with several lifetimes of dedicated work towards it.
Generally speaking I don't take anyone's political opinion seriously unless they have read and have a cogent response to this paper. I'll gladly just let them yap away and think I agree with them, regardless of my actual views. It's sort of like not taking philosophers seriously unless they've considered the question of solipsism first.
I think the groupthink and independent thought axes need to be flipped. Way more toeing the party line and groupthink near the center. The more fringe you get the more independent thought there is. It might be crazy and wrong but it's not groupthink.
I really resonated with this blog article, and ended up reaching out to Ashwin on LinkedIn to connect. This is probably the most concise and clear description I've read of the problem, and I think sometimes recognizing the problem and really understanding is the first step to turning things around.
Like Ashwin, I don't believe that this is "fixable", in so much that humanity as a whole has a tendency towards tribalism that's innate to being human, and this is part of what allowed societies and civilizations to form, as much as it carries the downsides of interrupting reasoning and creating the conditions for warfare. Rather, I try to seek out people who are able to reason and have discussions.
I definitely appreciated reading this, as it felt very relatable in a way that most things do not.
Excellent post.
It wasn’t always like this. I remember when you could be pro-gun and pro-environment—and still have thoughtful, respectful conversations with people who held different beliefs.
Today, if you’re not fully aligned with every talking point of a political party, you’re instantly labeled either a fascist or a communist. And sometimes it borders on absurd: the moment party leadership shifts its stance, the whole tribe flips with it. It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans staunchly opposed tariffs. Now? They’re all in.
My question is: What changed? When did we become so tribal—and why?
Cut a "rationalist centrist moderate" and a fascist who doesn't want to get cancelled because he still needs VC funding and Linkedin connections bleeds.
US politics has been increasingly polarized into positions congruent with facts and policy and our traditional ideals, and positions associated with a general stance of grievance, with an insistent selfishness, with anti-empathy, anti-intellectualism, with "palingenetic ultranationalism". This has been a test of your ideals, of your humanity. It wasn't very hard.
Yes, there is often a lot of nuanced truth in the middle of any argument. But less now, in politics, than in a long, long time. Only a very particular sort of person walks into a liberated Auschwitz and starts shouting "Both sides are too extreme and I'm better than them!" from the rooftops.
Speaking as somebody who spent a lot of time there: A lot of the tropes in the "rationalist" community are inherently conservative-pointing, and it's a general prerequisite for participating there that you have a coherent base of progressive terminal ideals and an attitude suited towards introspection and iteration of your beliefs. Because otherwise you go from zero to Nietzschean ubermensch to Nazi ubermensch to Musk/Thiel brownshirt in no time, having weaponized everything present there to support your priors and idly expand your confidence.
> I think there are two main reasons, the first being the sheer intellectual difficulty of crafting an informed political view leads people to tribalism out of convenience.
What's the difference between tribalism and deferring to experts on complex subjects, e.g. climate change? I have a deep skepticism of people who think they can personally reason through any complex topic from first principles. It shows a lack of humility and self-awareness. Nobody has the time to build that kind of expertise in every domain, and there is wisdom in deferring to the hard won experience of others. But the type to think they can reason through everything seems like the type to call this "tribal politics."
The article misses one pretty huge thing: up until maybe 10-15 years ago, politics was - mostly - differences around theories of economy, where both sides had valuable arguments for and against them. Out of that, you could cut compromises and work bi-partisan.
Now? It's by far not among differences in economic policies any more. The differences are much more fundamental: the rights of LGBT people to exist, the rights of women to have a life outside of breeding children, minorities having the same rights as the majority. The questions that form the divide are binary in nature, not a spectrum any more. When differences become existential in nature, reconciliation is impossible - either you grant the universal freedoms to everyone or you do not.
I was predicting within the first 500 words that the author was someone who symphatized with Rationalism. But how could this be? How could someone’s approach to rationality, so-called, be so correlated with their approach to politics?[1] Couldn’t people of many different backgrounds come to the same conclusion and my guess just have a small chance of being right?[2] Is it because of tribalism? No. The philosophy leads to a cluster of opinions. Just following its internal logic.
Apply that to other people and you’ll see how the article might be wrong.
[1] It’s not just the approach. There are a dozen things that are stated axiomatically which are not.
[2] Okay, okay. Being this website there is a SC bias already.
Wrote this after noticing myself repeating the same conversational pattern over the years w/ friends, across the political spectrum
> And even with all this knowledge, can you empathize with both sides of common issues -- the poor renter vs struggling landlord? The tired worker vs underwater business owner? Rich vs poor, immigrant vs legacy, parent vs child -- the list goes on
To me having just two sides is a uniquely American way of thinking.
Between the renter and landlord there's the homeowner, between the tired worker and business owner there's the public sector/NGO/huge corporation worker/freelancer, rich and poor are relative terms which lie on a scale anyway.
Conflicts that actually have only two parties involved are rare and the very first thing one should do to be able to talk politics, is give up on the notion.
I don’t discuss politics with anyone anymore. Just wish I had made that decision 30 years ago…
This article is what happens when you absolutely refuse to read anything from hundreds of years of political theory, and try to reinvent everything from first principles the way that self-proclaimed rationalists do. Very little reflection on why certain viewpoints often cluster together other than "it's tribalism, duh".
Trying to imagine writing 3,000 words about how Paul Graham and I have ascended beyond tribes without realizing I’m just in a tribe with Paul Graham
I enjoy debating politics in the way that others enjoy playing chess or a friendly game of bowling. But when the other party gets wrapped around the axle, I don't debate with them anymore. Unfortunately, most seem to be in the latter camp.
I think one of biggest problems the American voter has is two fold: 1. We have turned politicians into celebrities/heroes. ALL politicians are just like most of us: they are flawed and incomplete individuals who desperately try to hide their flaws. (Under normal circumstances, this isn't so bad. However, to be an elected official with all that power, it's fraud at the very least.
2. Once elected, we refuse to hold the politicians we elected to almost any accountability. (This is very hard to do, no doubt, because of the way the laws have been manipulated to stop this very accountability.)
As for religion in politics: I'm a devoted Christian who is sane enough to know that not everyone will believe the same as I do. I have one vote on election day, to manipulate other people's vote by having my candidate changing laws to thwart the constitution is theft and immoral. (As difficult as it is to say, Christians today should read 2 Peter Ch2, taking it to heart. Stop only glossing over the cheerful faith verses and start reading the one's that call for accountability.)
I can agree with parts of this article, but I believe it's missing a large part of the puzzle.
The author implicitly assumes that the constraints of our society are fixed and that it's therefore possible to determine which political systems are objectively better or worse. We should be doing that research (like astronomers trying to determine how the universe works) instead of religiously supporting ideological positions.
I fundamentally disagree with that assumption. I think we behave the way we do in large part due to the ideological principles we were raised with. This can be confirmed by observing various closed-off societies sometimes operating on principles that seem completely bonkers to most of us.
If you teach people capitalism/socialism, you build a capitalistic/socialistic system. It's impossible to live inside that system and objectively determine whether it's good or bad, let alone better or worse than other systems.
So in that context, I believe following an ideology is _not_ the opposite of thinking for yourself, as the author puts it. It is a conscious decision based on morality. You decide what your values are and you find a political option that aligns with them.
To be clear, that's still a very imperfect decision to make, many things can go wrong from that point on and I believe this is where the author is correct in many ways. We should reason about it constantly to make sure we're actually doing what we want to be doing and not just blindly repeating things.
One thing I didn't see mentioned, and maybe this is part of being tribal, but politics is often not about the positions you take, but about the game theory of how you stay in power, and convince a group of people about the positions you take.
One thing I hate about the trump administration, and maybe all politics is fundamentally like this, is you can't really disagree with them. You can't really disagree with them because it's really hard to figure out what position they're taking. I find it makes discussing things with family really difficult. I can intellectually agree that "A nation should protect it's borders" and have a nuanced perspective on how much immigration is the right amount, but then I'm never going to square that with what the politicians are actually doing, right? We can't have a nuanced conversation with what the right immigration policy is, when the administration is deporting people without due process, or when the current administration says the problem with immigration is that Joe Biden let judges run wild in 2019.
To have an informed view on any given issue, one needs to:
1. understand economics, game theory, philosophy, sales, business, military strategy, geopolitics, sociology, history, and more
2. be able to understand and empathize with the various (and often opposing) groups involved in a topic
3. detect and ignore their own bias
1) is a lot of work. Just finding out what's going on is hard. Partly because news-gathering organizations are far more thinly staffed than they used to be. There aren't enough reporters out there digging, which is hard work. There are too many pundits and influencers blithering. Read the output of some news outlet, cross out "opinion" items and stories based on press releases or press conferences, and there's not much left. The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the New York Times, and Reuters still have people who dig for facts. Beyond that, reporters are thin on the ground. If you can only read one thing, read the Economist for a year. Each week they cover some country in detail, and over a year, most of the world gets a close look. (Although at the moment, their China coverage is weak, because their reporters were kicked out of China for doing too much digging.)
Background is necessary. Many pundits seem to lack much of a sense of history. Currently, understanding the runups to WWI and WWII is very useful. Understand what Putin is talking about when he references Catherine the Great and Peter the Great. Geography matters. Look at Ukraine in Google Earth and see that most of the current fighting is over flat farmland and small towns, much like Iowa. Look at Taiwan and realize how narrow and exposed an island it is. There's no room to retreat after an invasion, unlike Ukraine.
As for empathy, there's a huge split in America between the areas above and below 700 people per square mile. Above 1,500 per square mile, almost always blue. Below 400 per square mile, almost always red.[1] This effect dwarfs race, religion, ideology, or income level. It's very striking and not well recognized in public discourse. There's a minimum viable population density below which small towns stop working as self-supporting entities. (On the ground, this shows up as empty storefronts on Main Street and a closed high school.)
On bias, there are many people in the US whose lot has been slowly getting worse for decades now. That's the underlying source of most US political problems.
[1] https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-pol...
I strongly disagree with most of this post.
Politics dictates so much of daily life, at every level, that it's important to be able to have conversations about it. It's frankly self-righteous to see yourself as the one person with nuanced opinions in a crowd of simpletons, and while I do think that politics in many liberal democracies has become more polarized, you'll never restore nuanced debate or good-faith disagreement in political discussions by just avoiding the topic.
I'm not advocating for politics being the only thing you talk about with your friends, but if you and your friends are able to have useful discussions about the impact of some policies over others, can have constructive disagreements over reasonable political discourse, and can identify larger problematic trends in politics, a lot of good can come of that.
The article is titled Why I don't discuss politics with friends but it doesn't explain the why? Unless I missed it. It seems to just talk about the challenges.
Why don't you discuss politics with friends? Are you worried about loss of friends? Do the conversations ruin your day? Do you feel alienated?
Depending on the why, there's different points I'd argue for or against the reasoning. Without that piece, it's kind of hard to discuss the premise of the article without just guessing its implications.
A lot of the comments in this thread show how difficult it can be to talk about politics. So many strawmen arguments and ad hominims.
I agree that "tribalism" exists. I'd add that sometimes political disagreements are actually differences in morality. And there is no way you can persuade someone to change their moral beliefs. Everyone accepts their moral beliefs as "axioms". But I still believe it's worth discussing politics in order to learn what kind of person someone is and their morality.
I always try to stay informed, rationalize well and always try to find arguments for both sides of a theory. I act like a detective in search of the truth or a mathematician confronted with a new conjecture or theory. I try to dig until I can see whether the theory has solid chances to be true or not. I try to make the process as fast as possible, because I don't like to procrastinate or lose time. Most of the time is fine if I know something has 60% chances of being true and I don't need 99.99% because I can back off and review the theory if I am wrong.
That being said, I don't pick a party solely on what I believe is the truth. I also try to see whether my interests align well with that party.
As for discussing politics with friends, most of my experience is the same as the author's. I started having a dislike for very long lawyer-like discussions and arguments that lead nowhere. I kind of detect fast if my discussion partner is seeking the truth, he is proceeding with an archeology or detective like mindset and proceed accordingly.
In my circle of family and friends, no one strays too far from the center, so I don't find it particularly difficult to navigate disagreement. We've gotten more carried away arguing about completely banal happenings. However, I sense not everyone else feels the same way.
What tends to happen at dinners or whatever is that some outspoken person (socially conservative on a pet issue) monopolizes conversation, and a couple of others keep mum because they don't like confrontation/arguing. The others don't care.
I am guilty of this in one particular case. I have a friend who describes himself as a classical Liberal, and when the subject comes up about pit bulls or the like, will say that "the problem is with the owners not the breed". What am I going to do, take out my crap phone and try to use data like a blunt instrument? I don't care enough to start an argument over it.
This article seems to be saying that religions are tribal by nature because it's made up of humans, and humans are tribal by nature -- ok fair enough. But the subtext I'm getting is that people in religions are less self-aware of it than the author or the people they admire.
People being more interested in comfortable beliefs rather than true beliefs has always been a concern throughout Biblical history. But that doesn't mean it never went unchallenged.
For instance, regardless of what you think of the Bible, it's interesting that Isaiah has the following to say to Judah (emphasis mine) because it shows an ever-present problem with human nature.
And before someone responds with a de jure objection to say that "the instruction of the Lord" is not looking for truth, I just want to make it clear that that is out of the scope of my point. My point is that, de facto, in the context, a religious text is agreeing that it is bad to "tribe-up and truth-out."Lastly, on a personal note, as a human Christian, I think I have the same biases to groupthink as any other person because I am human. But because Christianity has a reputation, I have found that throughout my life, I've had to work harder to really test (not validate) my beliefs because I am constantly being challenged and, ironically, often ended up more informed about both my beliefs and my interlocutors' beliefs.
Nice article, the comments in here also reinforced the title.
politics (and the truth itself) have always been tribal. People discussed things and disagreed in public and that's how they managed to slightly influence each other.
Avoiding to discuss politics is cowardly. It distances people from each other because they maintain a fake facade, and they express their true selves and beliefs only online.
Like the author, I tend towards being a function that returns the opposite of what the other person believes, rather than having a fixed political opinion. Mostly I lack the confidence to claim that this way or that way is the Right Way To Do Things -- and I'm fascinated (and envious, and also appalled) by those who do.
But on this I differ:
>Seriously, come prove some core belief I have as wrong and you will quite literally make my week.
I don't think I believe this at all. It's certainly not true of myself -- I aspire to it, but my ego is much too fragile. I have spent much time and effort carefully checking the small set of core principles that I do feel justified in calling "correct", and the reason for that is precisely to avoid the unpleasant surprise of discovering that they are demonstrably wrong after all.
Telling people they don't have political views, that they only belong to a tribe, is a great way to lose friends.
You should not discuss politics with friends.
You should however discuss politics with close friends -- they probably got close to you because you both share a worldview or they like hearing your worldview (even if it differs from yours).
Closeness means more sharing. That always comes with risks and rewards.
I have friends all over the political spectrum. I've read political philosophy ranging from Hegel, Marx, Foucault, Butler, Crenshaw, Gentile, Locke, Rawls, Friedman, Mises, Rand, ect.. I find myself actively engaging in political discussion frequently with these friends. The only friend I've stopped talking over politics were black block during the antifa riots. I viewed his actions as ultimately misguided and dangerous. I ultimately forgave him and now we are friends who actively debate policy in good faith.
It's easy to spot political tribalism - just reference the comments here. They ultimately misrepresent, and have never tried to understand, their opposition's political position. It's kind of sad because it allows them to be manipulated by propaganda and political powers much like my antifa friend.
The stance of always taking the opposite because fuck tribalism makes it hard to identify what one’s actual values and opinions are.
My personal strategies... 1. I try to be indirect on what I think and just describe why some people think one opinion versus another. So I try not to convince people. 2. I try to stick to "is this going to work?" Style arguments when I do state my opinion. I acknowledge when my preferred party does or says something I disagree with. 3. I avoid getting bogged down with "do you agree with x y z??" Controversies that may be anecdotal and I'm not opinionated or familiar with. So I try not to argue the outage of the day.
This generally keeps me from arguing with relatives and in-laws, and on this site. So usually I can discuss differences without things going crazy.
I lived in China in the early-2000s, and one of the things I noticed is that no one ever talked about any sort of politics. Never. It was weird at first, as political discussion is so ingrained in the culture (in the US). Even just regular smalltalk, like, "How's it going, Bob? / It'd be a lot better if the city council would pull their heads out of their asses and fix these potholes!" - there was nothing like that.
I asked a few local friends about it, and got two basic explanations:
1. What's the point? No one is empowered to change anything, so why bother talking about it at all?
2. You can get in big trouble for saying the wrong thing in public.
The weirder thing I noticed is that I kinda enjoyed it. It was nice to not hear a bunch of bitching about the government (not saying the government shouldn't be criticized - it should; just saying it was nice to be completely removed from it for a time).
Not sure if it's still like this in China; I haven't been there in years, but yeah, this was really strange to me when I lived there.
I often talk politics with friends, mostly because we all like to moan about the state of things.
Maybe this doesn't translate to the US, but in the UK (and the largely British friend-group I have here in Australia) in my bubble we don't tend to strongly identify with any political party or politician, rather we tend to look down at the self-serving and/or myopic weirdos in parliament and decry their short-sighted, uninformed policy-making whichever side they're on. And I'm not trying to claim some great enlightened intellectual position for myself here - I think it's probably more common than not.
Tribalism really is the thing one has to individually overcome in order to gain some perspective, then maybe adhere to free thinking, before blooming as a free doer.
For me, it always was a voluntarily long and sinuous and silly and lonely path. It had to be.
An uncertain path as well, and one that was totally worth all the trouble it brought my way.
And as seducing as it is, the reality of crossing path with fellow free thinking/doing individuals always felt like falling for some other tribe.
Because in the end, that's what we do. While not following, we often become leaders of followers. How could it be otherwise is the only question left to answer.
Author thinks they are the lone person stuck in the middle between two tribes, but actually they are part of a third tribe that fallaciously believes that it is possible to write better policy, if only we took the time to study reality more and listen to more people and apply more reason etc. In short, Author distinguishes between the two established tribes (in which people make a very limited emotional engagement with the issues) and their tribe (in which people make a stronger emotional engagement). This is a fallacy because:
People will seek out good leadership. People will switch leaders when their current leadership fails to make them happy. Good leaders defer to experts, each in their own domain, who may make imperfect decisions and other mistakes but nonetheless make well-intentioned efforts to improve over time and pass on their knowledge so that future generations can learn from their mistakes. All else is natural variance due to human imperfection.I actually ask my friends what they think and don't judge them for it. Everyone has some way to build up their belief and it's interesting to listen to these.
They often have horrible reasoning but I don't try to talk them out of it, just nod, polite comment, move on.
It’s such a cultural thing. My friend group contains people from all sides of the political spectrum and they bicker like crazy when we go out but they are still friends. It might be a Spanish culture thing though.
Why I don't discuss politics with Hacker News (6,000 comments)
I don't discuss friends with politicians either
A tribe is a collective brain. That work when people put truth first (Christianity) As the root of our culture fade out, we tilt toward satanism instead (serving self) Thus the tribes and institutions can no longer be trusted, everything fall appart, everyone lie all the time to serve the current advantages.
I would say discard people and institutions that lie to you, shame them. We don't have the time and brain power to find the truth in every decision.
This is a good stance, but with a caveat.
I do have friends who are able to have nuanced views about politics/economics/AI, and generally high-level vague things that concern the entire human civilization.
But I also have friends that can't have those nuanced views, and when you try to engage in good faith discussion with them, they resort to tribalism and are not interested in finding nuance through reasoning.
With those I don't have any discussions about it.
If you are a friend - try to be someone from the first category. Don't engage in tribalism with your friends if you value them (unless your whole group is a bunch of bullies, in which case do whatever).
That's the biggest problem these days - people don't talk about much meaningful - but they do chat and spend ridiculous amounts of time on socials
If you can’t talk about politics with your friends, then they are not your friends.
It’s super sad that the political establishment has managed to polarize people so much that a rational discussion about very important issues is not possible anymore for a lot of people. It’s a dream come true for unscrupulous politicians and oligarchs who can do whatever they want as long their propaganda is strong enough.
I think the bigger problem is the tribal ape brains have been programmed by history's most sophisticated propaganda engines 24/7.
Wow, great article.
I’ve lost respect for so many people because they couldn’t temper their political views. I wish more articles of this kind were published.
> Most people don't want to graduate from tribalism.
Even if you personally want to, others will still judge you based on it. And honestly, there's often enough people out there for you to pick a social circle that aligns with your own interests at least on fundamental issues.
As for the people that you don't choose to be around, e.g. at work, probably read the room first.
Author says SF Bay Area is truth seeking, but that's far from truth.
More like, it's truth seeking within its echo chamber.
A good discussion. I've personally thought of political adherence similar to football teams. Fans are fans. That's it.
Escaping that tribalism or fandom is important, but you need to hold fast to your own sense of morality along the way.
Applying your own sense of right/wrong to political arguments and policies is a useful way to cut through the noise and distraction that accompanies political discourse.
Welcome to the Bay Area!
The big issue is a lot of people will believe what they want to believe. Most folks are not scientists - they start by assuming their conclusions and will choose the soothing moral and emotional rhetoric over evidence.
Trying to see the world objectively puts you in a category of outliers. The people you become friends with due to proximity in everyday life will not be outliers.
> Often when someone asks "who did you vote for", what they're actually doing is verifying your adherence to group culture,
They are just checking to which group you belong, not verifying your adherence? It does not seem like a question you ask someone whose you know politics already.
But yes still is a problem
I actively practice not discussing politics but intentionally being member of groups of different political affiliation.
I can only encourage everybody to do the same.
People usually know if you are a „filthy liberal“ or a „closet fascist“ anyways and my experience shows that just knowing you will draw them away from the political extremes.
I feel pretty much the same, except the political situation here (central Europe) is pretty mild. I can't imagine being in the US right now.
> Bay Area … finding a community of truth-seeking people
I don’t know if I would entirely classify the Bay Area as truth seeking people. It’s eclectic but it definitely felt just as polarizing as living in other parts of the country, but perhaps it’s better defined as moving to live with more like minded people.
> A reader might fairly ask what my tribe is. I'm not sure.
Oh brother. Self-awareness about your political conditioning and biases should be step 1.
Being unaware of your (intellectual) tribe implies a lack of good-faith understanding about other tribes.
"What's water?" says the young fish.
I think you're right, it is harder to discuss politics as widely as we once did.
That said, what do you think of money changing what is left/right and group/individual? The outcome of Citizens United to allow obscured spending to create seeming grass roots efforts on any topic that the monied want very effectively moving opinions.
I couldn't fathom not discussing politics with friends. Political life is an integral part of modern... well, life. And to the contrary, if there ever existed people you might have good faith conversations with, it should be your friends and family. If not, can you really call them so?
In my experience the (now ancient) Sequences are not of much use in learning how to change your mind. With only a cursory background in psychology, his advice tends to consist of generic platitudes. Not much practical application.
I’d recommend a short course in mindfulness instead, at whatever point in the spectrum between science and mysticism you’re comfortable with.
The writer does not discuss politics with their friends because they do not respect them
If you can't discuss politics with them or other personal topics then they're acquaintances not friends. There's a difference.
Adherence to tribal views is how you end up with the space shuttle Columbia crash.
I'll never forget calling Yang a tool in a group of math nerds back around 2019. Instantly outgrouped. I don't think this alone caused our friendship to crumble, but the fact that we couldn't discuss actual policy makes me tend to agree with this post.
> 1. become truth-seeking
How does one even begin to do that? Looking at people I know who describe themselves as "truth-seeking", it seems that it is a one way ticket to Conspiracyland.
I do my best to avoid talking and or thinking too much about politics. If I do i then realize family members to friends have sold their mind, intelligence, ability to clearly point out right from wrong, etc to political emotional babble from either side.
People interested in this subject would be wise to pick up the book Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations by Amy Chua
Friendship is more of an ideal.
https://www.wilde-online.info/the-devoted-friend.html
To be honest, I enjoy discussing politics with my friends. They’re all pretty good at discussing it. We have lots of common interests otherwise so it’s easy to just step away and talk about other things in the group Slack instead.
In normal times this would be okay.
I have to tell you and most people reading this is that you belong to a tribe of people who only think they are impartial and unbiased and reasoned thinkers, but they actually aren't.
The level of objectivity that we strive for is just really possible.
We often reach for black and white thinking which makes political discussions difficult. Both sides do it, and it stunts our empathy for why people vote the way they do.
for the author, only the centrists, his own group, can display independent thinking.
he assigns all virtues of the world to his group while others seems to be barely more than glorified barbarians.
this is, at best, laughable... and honestly quite reductive and insulting.
this seems to stem from the classic idea of "if everybody was informed and intelligent as i am we would all agree", which i thought had already been disproven long ago. people have different base assumptions. cultures are real things... individual differences matter too.
he also treats ideologies as unified things which is historically false, meanwhile his personal particular set of idea is not an ideology but something akin to objective truth (for which he explicitly argues) or something adjacent to it. any semi-consistent (if that) set of ideas instantly becomes an ideology as soon as you share that set to a group. there are myriads of ideologies that pop-up and die every day... the ones with staying power obviously have accumulated some following but they are rarely all compassing; we have a word for those, cults.
but first thing first, change country and you will get entirely different "centrists" with an entirely different set of ideas. there is no reason there would not be (in his own terms) "accidental" leftists and "accidental" right--ists???
in a locked 2 party system like what you get in the united states, stuff will probably have a tendency to degenerate though. things are way more fluid in countries where you have more democratic choice. there is a lot of fear in the american mix, that doesn't work well with free-thinking.
I was really enjoying the article until I realized there is zero attribution to the book _Thinking in Bets_, which IMO this is obviously heavily influenced by.
I don't think you can separate the mechanics from the content. Usually people feeling pushback against their political ideas don't realize they are dumb ideas even if they are complex.
Right. The only sort of person who could write something like this is a person who is not affected (or percieves themselves to not be affected) by "politics."
Well that’s an interesting title given he uprooted his family for political [adjacent] reasons
I find this to be painfully true in the US. Most of the rational discussions I have about politics are with friends from other countries (Soviet Russia, China, Africa, etc).
I'm looking forward to going back to the days when political disagreements were more along the lines of 'I think __TAX__ should be x%, rather than x+y%'
If you reduce politics to 'what politians do', sure, I avoid it too.
Even when I know that outside of the US, most of us have the same opinions on what the trump admin is doing (especially in the pen and paper RPG community, where not being transphobic is basically a requirement), I still hate comments and discussions about it, probably for the same reason than the author does.
I disagree with his axis though, I've read a lot, and I mean _a lot_ of books and the more I read, the more left I went. And I started almost tea-party libertarian, then liberal-libertarian (because logic, and my class) then I understood power and class and became original libertarian (think Emma Goldman).
But politics are much more than that, it's how society organize, and if you can't talk to everybody about your city evicting the parasites who mismanaged and eventually brought down the waterlines because you're afraid of 'groupthink', you are fucked.
I don't converse about politics at all, because conversation is not generally amenable to anything other than some vague virtue signaling in all but the very best of circumstances. For instance, a basic rule of conversation is that unless you have a very good reason, once a conversation wanders away from a topic, you don't drag it back to the same topic. That's great for idly chatting and catching up with friends, and it's a rule for a good reason, but it's quite far from what any sort of thought or an interaction that might actually change my mind on some topic requires.
While I don't disagree that people are quite tribal, I would observe that determining that people are tribal based on conversations can be a bit misleading, because the conversational form is extremely biased towards expressing things that will be indistinguishable from "tribalism", since all you have time to do is basically to put a marker down on the broadest possible summary of your position before the conversation baton must move on. That is, even a hypothetical Vulcan who has gathered all the data, pondered the question deeply, and come to the only logical conclusion, is going to sound tribal in a conversation, because that's all a conversation can convey.[1] Sufficient information conveyance to actually demonstrate the deep pondering and examination of all the evidence is ipso facto a lecture, or at best, a Socratic dialog or an interview, neither of which is a conversation in this sense.
For better and worse (and rather a lot of each), this medium we're working in right now at least affords itself to complete thoughts. It has its own well-known pathologies, like the interminable flame wars descending off to the right endlessly as two people won't let something go, and many others, but at least it's possible to discuss serious matters in a format similar to this, based on writing in text that can be as long as it needs to be without anyone needing to interrupt to maintain basic social niceties. There's a reason the serious intellectual discourse has been happening in books and articles for centuries if not millennia now.
Note how conversationally gauche it would be for me to monopolize a conversation long enough to simply read this post, and by the standards of intellectual discourse this is a rather simple point.
[1]: In fact, most people will read the Vulcan as exceedingly tribal, because no amount of reciting snap counterarguments against the Vulcan's position will cause him/her to so much as budge an inch or even concede that "perhaps reasonable people could think that" or any other such concession. The snap counteragument was encountered a long time ago, and analyzed in the light of all the other data, and they have long ago come to their conclusions on it. If they can be moved, it will take a lot more. This is difficult to distinguish from a maximized tribalist in any reasonable period of time in a conversation.
> How can you prioritize limited resources with deadly consequences without understanding utilitarianism vs deontology (i.e. the trolly problem)?
Can you explain this to me?
Maybe tribalism is ok in some respects, and maybe we should increase it.
For example, it would be fine if the people in the other tribe to do what they want - as long as when the taxes becomes too high, the beaurocracy stifling, the crime rampant, and they have to deal with issues they assumed other people would sacrifice for in order for them to feel good - as long as when it inevitably breaks down, they don't come to MY area learning nothing and try to replicate what they left.
That is a worldwide problem actually.
What percentage of the comments here fall exactly in line with the tribal groupthink the article was about? 90% 95% 98%?
"Unbiased" aggregators like Ground News, MSM, and the right blogosphere like Joe Rogan are doing their best to normalize dragging the Overton window to the right with haste. Progressives have a handful of obscure, disconnected, largely-unknown reputable sources with a wasteland of as many or more former progressives and once-promising journalist and journalist-adjacent personalities.
The author gains a great insight into the social consequences of discussing politics with friends, but I think it might be part of something larger, a sort of intellectual signaling of meta-contrarianism.
At least in the countries where I live, debating politics is less about civic duty and being a citizen, and has become a substitute for sports; people prioritize their passions, and they are not concerned with getting the government to implement the policies it promised in the first place, but with defending a side.
In Germany, we see on state broadcasts every single day discussions about how the USA is bad, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, how some war in a distant place is bad, and so on; and nothing related to local politics.
If you invite someone to go to the municipal legislative service to talk with someone about why we still have underinvestment in kindergartens, even with record revenue, while other groups of society are capitalizing on social benefits, nobody will show up.
Getting in front of a keyboard and brigading online to talk about federal elections and/or officials of other countries is cool: it gives you the latest scandal of the day, you can congregate with people of your chamber, it provides audience for podcasts, and it generates talking points that sound intellectually tasty.
At least for me, the politics that matter most are local politics; and this is the craziest thing: it's the kind of politics where you can do something as an individual, you will have someone to hear you out, and with some effort, you can make a real and direct difference for your community.
There is some good stuff here, but I generally disagree.
The difference for me is, I don't like everybody, and not everybody has to like me. That's okay, and it's not about disrespect, it's just that I like to surround myself with people who are thoughtful before they are opinionated.
If you know me, and you respect me, and I say something you think is crazy... if they first think you think is "Wait, I thought I respected him, but he's a bad person" instead of "Wait, I respect this person and they're saying something I disagree with. Am I wrong about that?", then, guess what, I'm not actually interested in having a deep relationship.
I studied philosophy in college and grad school. I had to "relearn" how to interact with people outside of the university setting for many of the reasons in this essay. However, upon reading the horrifying "how to win friends and influence people" way of interacting with normal people through flattery and shallow interaction, I thought fuck it, I just don't actually want to be close with people I can't have a real conversation with.
Not everyone gets to the right position right away, that's okay. I'm a strong small-"L" liberal, and I have friends that are conservatives, socialists, and even the occasional anarchist. The difference is that we're all still trying to figure it all out. We're not all pretending that "well if those people didn't exist then we'd have utopia already" because, well, all these system exist all over the earth and it ain't a utopia anywhere. We'll make our points, we'll needle each other in a friendly way, and we'll all say "fuck it, we're doing our best."
That doesn't mean I'm friendly with everyone (remember, I don't like everyone, and not everyone likes me), because there are plenty of political positions that pretty much require people to be unthoughtful. The views need to be consistent, and pretty much anything that end advocating substantial discrimination against certain people over other people isn't going to be internally consistent. Axioms are arbitrary, reason is not.
> 3. Most people don't want to graduate from tribes to views
I checked out of political conversations when I noticed I was teaching remedial civics over drinks and none of us were having fun. So I just sit back and watch people who just want to engage in reality tv style yelling confrontation.
A good friend of mine confessed that he doesn't argue to change other people's mind, he does it to change his own.
Something I have observed also, and why I'd consider myself a sort of pragmatic centrist.
It looks like unintentional moderate and intentional moderate on chart switched, unless I'm misunderstanding?
Timur Kuran writes about this idea (preference falsification) in "Private Truths, Public Lies".
He explains that its this idea that had kept the Soviet Union (this bad idea/system) from dying sooner. People thought it was the system of oppression but in reality it was people who hated the system showed approval. https://youtu.be/xzjqjU2FOwA?si=aTG0GnJKVDoK_-qb&t=819
"Accordingly, for all the hardships of life under communism, they remained politically submissive for years on end." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification
Must be nice.
Only the favored majority have the privilege of deciding not to talk about politics.
If your friends are the sort that stick to tribes instead of thinking independently get smarter friends.
Additional point: Politics and Ideologies have long tail effects, which makes arguing over them often an exercise in futility. We're arguing over the next footstep in a race that's got infinity left to run.
Russia is/was a global powerhouse under (its version of) Communism.
The US reached (essentially) global domination under Capitalsm.
China is in line to be the next hegemony under an odd combination of Communism, Authoritarianism and (serving Western) Capitalism.
Little old Germany wasn't far from conquering the world under what began as some form of Socialism.
Any of the -isms can be argued against by mentioning -ism-subscribing regimes that have fallen. Where this falls down is that each regime has its own way of corrupting the ideals of the -ism to favour of those 'at the top' or 'with the power to decide'.
Trickle-down (voodoo, for Ferris Bueller fans) economics seems to raise its head regularly despite not having a great track record for an entire population. I think the reason is that its popular with the powerful, so its track record with the population at large is a feature not a bug.
Who is right? What does it mean to be right?
What are the Acceptance Critiera?
im a nuance enjoyer when it comes to politics too but i wouldnt say i know adequate amounts about economics, politics, game theory, etc. i might know slightly more about my preferred fields than the average person, but im still woefully incompetent. so im always hesitant to lay judgement. especially because politics is such a complex system. its difficult to make the probabilities the author speaks of unless you make a bunch of assumptions. which is terrible and miserable. things get even worse when you think about things at a global vs local political level, which are just completely different in dynamics.
i hate rationalists because it's like. you cant logically reason your way out of this one buddy. the system is far too complex for rationalism to work. sometimes its easier to just align with the groupthink and focus on other things you deem more important. hanging out with friends vs spending all day in your room teaching yourself about tribal relations in central africa so you can have your own unique opinions on us foreign policy.
is "becoming truth seeking" not some sort of religion - like the sports team - and the bay area is your tribe? Perhaps you were already suggesting this in your article and I've missed this - if so I apologise.
you seem to suggest that truth-seeking > tribalism, and we should pity the poor fools who are about tribalism. In this way, you're being tribalist against tribalism, no?
If ignorant tribalism brings people community and happiness, isn't that just as valid and commendable as truth-seeking?
Truth-seeking might provide a level of understanding of the world which is of value to your operating in life. It is not necessarily a sublime good of it's own right. Too much of it will alienate you from your mates.
I'd wager types like you might find on HN, Bay Area, could do with a little less seeking, in fact.
The Underground Man comes to mind, and presents the extreme of this spectrum. But then maybe he'd find mates in an area filled with other Underground Men?
Does the author really believe anyone can transcend tribalism?
Everything is political, so have a nice time discussing the weather with your friends.
I'm not even sure what politics is anymore. I'm largely not on social media, so I am generally late to what's taboo or a hot button topic, like Tesla automobiles and SpaceX, or anything else connected to a billionaire.
In 2025, but before the Tesla burnings made the news, I was having some chitchat about possibly purchasing a Tesla as my next car, at which point, I got a tirade of anger mentioning words like "Nazi", "fascism" and so on. I was completely taken aback.
I realize we Americans are probably undergoing the results of some adversarial nation-state psychological operations[1], but we really need to chill out.
1. Coincidentally, most of my social media "usage" is identifying sock puppet accounts and their adversarial psyops campaigns.
I don’t talk politics much when I’m first getting to know someone because our country is so polarized that they automatically assume you are one of two extreme groups. Most people’s political beliefs are similar to religious beliefs, they have them because their parents/community had those beliefs or they attend a certain church(MSNBC, Fox News, etc.) that consistently reinforces their beliefs instead of encouraging critical thought about their positions. This also leads to overly moralizing political affiliation, you’re “one of them” and “a bad person”, not a thinking person whose beliefs can be changed with facts/discussion.
I think the solution is tolerance. Whatever your politics are they don’t typically affect me personally. I have a few friends that are far further right than Ben Shapiro and a couple that are far more left than Bernie Sanders and want literal Communism. They range from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian or various flavors of anarchist. Some want to ban guns entirely and some want personal ownership of bazookas. Diversity! I often enjoy hearing their thoughts and we have all been able to change each others’ minds on a few issues. People’s minds do change, but it’s a slow process.
That said, politics is a burden to me in some relationships. It’s hard to have a calm rational discussion when my family member says “The muslims are walking across the Gulf of Mexico and setting up terror cells in Texas”. They actually believe we’re experiencing terrorist attacks and its just not being reported. I guess my limit for a comfortable discussion is some level of contact with reality.
The author believes he is better than his friends and probably irritates friends when talking politics but can rationalize his way out of the problem while still blaming his friends.
What a jerk.
Because you gonna lose them if you don’t agree
Left/Right: First thing - add more axes. The most used standard example from politics or economics is liberalism/libertarism (not diving into the subtleties of definitions, their history, usage in different parts of the world, etc.). Look for more such axes, leave the political conceptual world behind.
After that, try Principal Component Analysis and look, what remains from these dimensions and the labels describing them. Think up names for the Eigenvectors / new axes. Investigate further. For example, look where people are concentrating in this high-dimensional space.
I can not be friends with someone that votes for ppl that try to literally erase me.
If these ppl come into power i have to leave my country and i would rather not have to do it.
I disagree strongly with this. This is how we get into the state of political divisiveness that we are currently in. Discussing politics has always been a verboten topic with many families and friends, and now we are here where we think not talking about it is healthy.
Not discussing politics with friends is really indicative of the friendships you have. This is really an article about someone who has failed to discuss politics with "friends." As someone who routinely talks politics with friends (and we do NOT all agree with each other), it's a healthy experience. One where you can get a better understanding of people and their beliefs.
Stay in your bubble. But let's not pretend it's healthy or good.
No compromise with fascism!
I discuss politics with my communist friend, as an anarcho-capitalist. It never leads to a fight.
I think curiosity and a desire to learn goes a long way.
Sharing my views here because they don't seem to be reflected in the comments yet.
I agree that politics are overwhelmingly tribal and resemble religion a lot (the "you believe in god, right?" analogy hits home).
I also used to be strictly anti-religious because religions tell lies and are anti-intellectual. I was against tribalism and in favor of rigorous debates on every topic.
I gradually changed my views though, and this happened not because I started to deny science but rather because I tried to apply it to deeper levels of reasoning. Basically I stopped seeing systems of beliefs (be it politics or religions) as independent entities of their own but rather as derivatives of the [ever changing] environment.
I now think that stable systems of beliefs exist not because they are true or false, or good or evil, but because in the past they helped their bearers to survive. The ones that failed at that task ceased to exist themselves because beliefs can't live outside of people's heads. That's the ultimate and objective test, provided by the nature itself. I don't think you can get more scientific in your ranking of beliefs.
Based on this I came to respect both Christianity and Islam because they did such a good job at that. I still dislike Islam though: it's against my tribe, but more on that below. My point here is that you can respect your adversaires and recognize they are good at something. E.g even now Islam is better at maintaining its numbers than some other cultures.
Within this framework tribalism is not bad but likely necessary. I think that the approach of "we are the good tribe, we see ourselves as different from other tribes, we want our tribe to survive, if necessary by exterminating other tribes" results in more stable societies than "we are rigorous intellectuals who can't agree on anything". It's beneficial for everyone to have a rigorous faction within the society but I doubt that this faction can survive on their own.
And besides, expecting the majority of population to debate everything is just unrealistic. It takes a lot of time and energy and I feel that most of people would rather spend that energy at work and with their families. Kind of like of people just "side" with the Apple or Android tribes, instead of building their own OS from sources. You see the phone as an utility, not as a goal. You just pick the one that works well for others, along with its benefits and inevitably with its flaws too. The grave consequences of picking a bad system of beliefs (and more importantly not changing it when the environment changes) are of course much different from that of a phone, but you can still describe both within the same framework, just very far away on the same scale.
Oh man yeah, you're vibing and all of a sudden "you like who?!!!"
If you can afford to not discuss politics with friends these days, you are in an incredibly privileged position.
I don't enjoy discussing Vim vs Emacs, or Windows vs Linux, or Star Trek vs Star Wars, or the weather. Some people get way too enthusiastic about it, to the point of religious fanaticism, but in the end it doesn't really matter either way. I don't really care about the tribes, and in most cases nothing productive is going to come out of the discussion. If my friends are on the other "team", I can happily agree to disagree.
I also wouldn't enjoy discussing whether the room should be filled with air or neurotoxin - but I can't afford not to. I'm sure the pro-neurotoxin people would be very nice to hang out with if we set our differences aside. Except for, you know, the whole "filling the room with neurotoxin" thing. If their side wins, it's going to seriously ruin my day. I don't really care about the how or the why or their tribes, the thing that matters is that they are trying to fill the room with neurotoxin. If I were to hang out with friends, it is quite important to know whether I could trust them with the air handling equipment.
If you can afford not discussing politics, you're essentially saying that politics don't impact you. They are nothing more than a mild inconvenience, and friendships are too valuable to set aside over something as trivial as that. To you politics are nothing more than the weather: you might need to cancel your weekend hike because of heavy rain, but oh well.
A lot of people don't have that luxury. For a lot of people, politics are literally a matter of life and death. Ignoring it isn't an option.
The first step “become truth-seeking”, is problematic because the truth that can be found is often just opinion or propaganda, disguised as truth.
Many a conspiracy believer will tell you they already have the truth (unlike unenlightened you).
Better is to remain inquiring and skeptical in forming conclusions or beliefs.
Discussing politics with friends and relatives is what makes you a moderate overall.
Otherwise you will grow up inside an echo chamber, far away from reality.
People talking about politics IRL makes you understand and reason other points of views. If you can't tolerate others views, then you are clearly a radical.
(US Centric opinion comment) in the wake of moving away from religions to more secular societies, it's shocking how much folks have simply switched from religions like Christianity et. al. to Republican or Democrat or Left or Right etc.
What I'd consider healthy exploratory debate is now treated like heresy punishable by metaphorical death.(eg cancellation)
That's why I often stay my tongue and let people believe I'm on their side. Frankly it's not worth the consequences and I'll let them live in their delusions because giving feedback is too dangerous nowadays.
> It's not that the average person is any less tribal up there, but because Silicon Valley contains such a high concentration of people testing ideas in the world, it selects for people that must regularly re-evaluate their biases or fail.
Is this true?
I would have agreed with this article before Trump took office a 2nd time. I liked to think of myself as not belonging to a tribe, a moderate who didn't buy the propaganda from either side. But now I've seen what the Trump 2.0 looks like, and I've become convinced we're headed toward autocracy with a mix of techno-feudalism and Christian nationalism.
I don't think you can maintain moderate views on that sort of situation without becoming complicit. Yes, Elon is up to no good. Trump is not the sort of person that should have this kind of power. Putin turned Russia into an autocracy. It's happened in other countries as well. There is a playbook for this, and the Trump administration is following their version of it. We don't have to go back to WW2 to make comparisons. Putin is not a good person, and Trump admires him.
The problem with the reasonable independent thinker is that they are relatively powerless against autocratic takeover. You need to join a side that is resisting. Assuming you value democracy and it's institutions.
well played .. I mean posted
I completely disagree with this. A friend is someone who I can disagree politically with and still be friends with. I extend the tribe to political views that aren't too extreme (fascists, extreme populists, violent revolutionary socialists, islamists...), so 90% of the people I can probably be friends with or have family relations with. And it has happened probably about 1-2 times in my lifetime that I even e.g. un-friended someone on social media because of views that I wouldn't tolerate because they fell outside the "normal politics tribe".
And again, that's because I'm lucky enough to not live in the US. I'd unfriend a red hat on FB in a heartbeat. I'd probably break connections with a family member over it too. I'd have problems even having a professional relationship with my US colleagues if I had found out they had a red hat in a social media post. But I don't see the problem with this at all tbh.
From TFA:
> Being informed is tough. To have an informed view on any given issue, one needs to:
> Understand economics, game theory, philosophy, sales, business, military strategy, geopolitics, sociology, history, and more.
> Be able to understand and empathize with the various (and often opposing) groups involved in a topic.
> Detect and ignore their own bias.
> How can you prioritize limited resources with deadly consequences without understanding utilitarianism vs deontology (i.e. the trolley problem)?
> Understand China-US relations without understanding communism vs capitalism, the fear of tyranny vs the threat of invasion, or how and where computer chips are made? [etc.]
From Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit" (1986):
> Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. [...] People are frequently impelled — whether by their own propensities or by the demands of others — to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant. Closely related instances arise from the widespread conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything, or at least everything that pertains to the conduct of his country’s affairs. The lack of any significant connection between a person’s opinions and his apprehension of reality will be even more severe, needless to say, for someone who believes it his responsibility, as a conscientious moral agent, to evaluate events and conditions in all parts of the world.
TFA implicitly assumes that the only options are "belong to a political tribe where someone else is responsible for justifying your actions" or "become a perfect estimator and Effectively Altruistic so you can truthfully justify your actions" (the latter, coincidentally, indistinguishable to an outside observer from your joining the Gray Tribe). But surely he's omitting to discuss (and perhaps edging toward an example of) the Frankfurt option: "justify your own actions by coming up with some bullshit."
> The insidious nature of this question comes from the false representation as earnest, intellectual discourse. Many who ask it may truly believe they’re engaging earnestly, but their responses quickly reveal an angle more akin to religious police. ... Most vulnerable to this behavior are the intellectually honest + socially clueless, who engage in good faith, unaware of the pending social ambush.
My favorite thing about this enlightened centrist/individual thinker line to kick off with is it's almost universally used by people who have one or more abhorrent viewpoints in their back pocket, and the "social ambush" described here would be much better phrased as, well, disclosing what that is and just saving us all some time. I personally am deeply curious what beliefs Ashwin has been ambushed about.
If you have thoughts on how tax brackets should be constructed, or whether we should move to flat taxation, whether highway budgets should include beatification or whether that should be up to municipalities, what zoning restrictions are used for a given area, all that type of what should be politics, neither myself nor anyone I know would "ambush" you for those beliefs. Discussing and rounding out those kinds of issues is the foundation of how a Democracy works. We have to discuss them, and you should have opinions on at least a few of them, and you should share them! That's how it works. And for what it's worth, I can't fathom a situation I would ambush anyone over those sorts of issues. I might disagree, and I might ask for elaboration or perhaps suggest alternatives to what you want to do, but I wouldn't shame you for them.
If on the other hand you think horrible things that for some insane reason have gotten traction lately, like that putting tariffs on foreign goods is somehow going to bring back American manufacturing (it isn't), that some of your fellow citizens who might be gay, trans, both, or something else shouldn't enjoy a full set of rights under the law for whatever cockamamie reason you'd like to cite (they should), that children should be re-introduced to the labor market to bolster the amount of cheap labor available (they shouldn't), that the government should be doing genital inspections on children who want to play sports to make sure no one's "cheating" (stupid, horrifying, illegal in several ways) and I could go on, then yeah, you probably will find yourself socially ambushed. And you should be. That's how shaming works. That's what we have done to one another for thousands of years when we behave anti-socially: if you act anti-social, you are not going to have an easy time being social. That's, again, just how that works.
I of course don't wish that fate on anyone, I have been spurned from communities and it sucks! But I did survive that process and a number of those experiences, awful as they were at the time, shaped me into a better person overall with a more internally consistent and defensible belief system than the one I was indoctrinated into as a child.
And yeah, a lot of this is also just "political tribalism sucks!" Cosigned, 100%.
This article is this xkcd in article form:
https://xkcd.com/610/
When you say people are "tribal," while as a fact perhaps has some truth, you're essentially saying you don't believe in democracy--which is a common sentiment these days. It ironically is a thought terminating cliche evidentiary of a bias; it necessarily implies you can ignore people's political instincts and impulses which requires a particular disposition (bias) towards others around you.
I know what social scientists say about tribalism but interpretation of those kinds of research is not meant for individuals you know personally. Individuals are not distributions, they're people. That is, they have agency, with a right to their own opinions that ought to be engaged with seriously and sincerely. Some people may not think too deeply and just hone to a particular opinion just by fiat. In my life, that really isn't anywhere near "most" people I come in contact with or talk to as the article puts it. Most people in my life just don't think too deeply about these things, that's it. It's a lot less mundane than "people are sheeple" and more like "people don't care" or at least "people only really care about X" where X might be something like their own job or life.
Right wingers love inventing new ways to say the same tired bs. Tbf I stopped reading somewhere between “wither the struggling landlord” and “demonstrating consistency in your worldview makes you a sheep” but did I really need to see any more?
Oh, the irony of saying "Understand China-US relations without understanding communism vs capitalism", which clearly betrays how little they understand historical Marxist communism, and how far away modern China is from it (not to mention how far it's moved since Maoism).
Not to mention there's a ton of work in psychology already covering much of what the author writes about.
The author sounds like a pseudo-intellectual who thinks they can logic their way to human understanding through first principles, instead of doing any real work to understand the literature. Sadly, this is real common on HN.
Frankly it sounds like someone who voted for Trump and wants to avoid having people criticize him for it, dressing up his "stop picking on me" schtick with pseudo-intellectual rationalizations.
You can't ignore politics when it's actively destroying your country - it's just not possible, and trying to ignore it is not the moral or ethical choice.
We must distinguish between policy and principle.
In a society where there is agreement on basic principles, public debates will focus mainly on policy. Policy, while less abstract than principle, is in a certain sense less tractable in a manner analogous to how mathematical proofs are more abstract yet more tractable than verifying empirical claims, like knowing whether there are an infinite number of primes versus whether there's a teapot orbiting the earth.
Good policy requires a more conspicuous application of prudential judgement, which entails the integration of information and opinion of varying trustworthiness to make a best effort decision, which is something a person must learn and develop.
But one thing that is characteristic about our political predicament is not disagreement over policy per se, but the reasons for our disagreement. Two people sharing the same principles can still disagree about policy, and because they share the same principles, a debate over policy is manageable, because the basic parameters circumscribe the debated subject matter. However, if you look closely to the policy disagreements we're seeing, it is clear people are talking past one another. Something deeper, unspoken, is at issue. That is because the agreement on matters of principle is shrinking. This is why some view today's disagreement in terms of religious warfare, because in a sense it is.
As I've written many times in comments on HN, "religion" is effectively just a synonym for "worldview". Many people have ad hoc and incoherent or strangely specific or even parochial intuitions of what religion is, but understood as a bona fide or coherent category, it is essentially just another word for worldview. Everyone has one, however implicit, so it isn't a question of whether you "have a religion", but which. You may not realize that you are subject to a worldview, just as the proverbial fish that has never left the ocean doesn't know what water is, but it's there influencing your decisions and the course of your life.
In the US and much of the West, this has generally meant liberalism. And we're all liberals. The right and the left? Both liberal. The conflict between them is less Hindu vs. Muslim and more Pharisee vs. Sadducee. But as time progresses, as the internal tensions of liberalism unfold within the human psyche and within society across time, as liberalism crashes in slow motion because of this dynamic, as the proverbial idols enter their twilight, the conflict can only deepen. And it won't be a left-right split per se.
Some miscellaneous remarks...
1. The author makes similar observations w.r.t. religion. For example, he notes that "[d]espite organized religion dropping in attendance, religious patterns of behavior are still everywhere, just adapted to a secular world." Absolutely. And this includes Silicon Valley ideology, which is just a variation of Americanism. You see plenty of "religious patterns of behavior" in SV (though I sense we are past the heyday of peak salvific SV eschatology; maybe it just has a different character now, unvarnished and naked).
2. The author's view of religion is nonetheless tendentious and rooted in stereotype and trope. For example, the history of martyrdom in the Catholic Church alone demonstrates that "going along to get along" or mob mentality are opposed to the Christian view of truth above all else. God Himself is taken to be the Truth, and Christ the incarnation of the Logos. The authentic Christian ethic, despite the dishwater often passing as Christianity, is morally austere in this regard, hence preferring to die for the truth (literally, as in "red martyrdom", or by suffering injustice, so-called "white martyrdom") than to betray it. Lying is categorically impermissible. Life is to be found only in the truth; only spiritual death is to be found in lies. Better for the body to die than the soul to die.
The notion that religion is about group cohesion even at the expense of the truth is certainly not a feature of Catholicism, but a common human tendency that it attacks, even if individual Catholics or groups of Catholics behave otherwise (again, a common human tendency). There is no authentic unity or authentic love outside of the truth. You cannot love what you do not know, and a society united in a lie is deficient in unity to the degree that the "unity" is rooted in the lie.
TL;DR: He doesn't discuss politics with his friends because he thinks he's more rational than them.
HN is definitely a tribe of Biden and Harris. Any more conservative opinions expressed here are immediately met with downvotes.
Wild how this person starts off with 'I don't like collective thought and action' and lands in 'so I joined a gambling addicted cult using discrete math from high school and advocates for it with pop culture tropes'.
The audacity to discard millennia of history and philosophy with 'no one's got time for that' and substituting it with a crude gambling scheme is just astounding. QAnon for the well-off, a cognitive technique to get out of having to deal with systemic injustice because 'sometimes rentiers also feel bad so there is actually suffering on both sides'.
In a way it's similar to some forms of antisemitism, antisemitism as "der Sozialismus der dummen Kerle", noticing some superficial conditions but instead of following through to develop a worldview copping out and getting an obsession with a simple, consistently applied reasoning. The jews did you nasty because you're not one of them. You did a bad bet because you were controlled by your tribe, unlike me, the enlightened high schooler who isn't loyal to anyone but myself.
Like antisemitism it's the position of a loser refusing to join forces with other people to try and cause systemic change based on their common material interests. Yes, I see that the banks are exploiting us, but no, I won't join your 'tribe', instead I'm going to make tables detailing the ancestry of the bankers. Yes, I see that were going down the drain but instead of joining your movement to put pressure on people in power I'm going to spend the evening making a flowchart and cherry pick some statistics and then give money to a cult that agrees with this approach.
If you meet someone like this, you should absolutely engage with them on contemporary, political issues. As soon as you get them to agree that something is bad, tell them to come to a meeting, be it a union, dinner, protest, whatever. Insist, don't take a no for an answer. Make it a challenge, whatever it takes. If it doesn't work the first time, try again next time you meet. These people need help and empathy, and to be among people at least sometimes when they're away from their screens.
in my experience people who are on the political left are very rude and dismissive of any heterodox position as some moral sin
This is such a wild perspective to me. I can't imagine considering somebody a friend while simultaneously not feeling comfortable discussing politics with them.
The next time I need to describe my disdain for "rationalists", I'll just be able to link this blog post for being entirely vacuous while patting itself on the back
The problem with this view is it treats politics as having the same stakes for everyone.
When one side is arguing for the death of a group, or that women shouldn’t have rights and be kept as sex slaves, the stakes are much different.
You do not in fact have to be friends with fascists.
A lot of people are in a particular tribe because they literally cannot be in the other tribe because the other tribe sees them as subhuman, as people who should be deported, who should lose their rights, etc. A lot of them realize that they're in a tribe and don't particularly like it, but since the political system is set up in a way where you can't reasonably have more than two parties, they don't have a choice.
Basically, the author is making it seem like everyone other than a select few are tribal idiots, but that's a fundamental outcome of our political system. You can pick and choose your policies, but at the end of the day, you're voting for one of two parties.
I’ve got strict rules on not discussing politics generally and I would even pretend to not know about things or only barely and not having any position. I do jump deep into topic with strangers for fun or build up slowly. Never would I share political views with my workplace and partner, I give them the freedom to keep theirs believes without altering them with the “truth”, if people are simple let them be. I also let anybody have their position especially family members and would be much less eager to tell them more. It’s mostly a blessing not having went down the rabbit hole and I don’t want to tamper with it. I like to argue with the opposite extrem position for fun.