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I suppose this is a fundamental flaw of 'online communication' having low bandwidth when it comes to conveying information. We humans spent most of our history interacting with people in a more direct way, and having out 'gut' conclude things about another person based on what they say, do, how they look, how they sound, and so on, was and is important to our survival. If I meet a person face to face who says 'Bush did x', I might also notice the tone of voice, that the have a Southern drawl, that they're wearing camo and a red hat with MAGA on it. In this situation I'm not likely to conclude that they're pro-Obama despite their critical statement wrt Bush. I've noticed this flaw in myself as well, and it's frustrating and takes effort to counter. When I see a politically loaded comment on HN, I really have to make an effort to not jump to conclusions. All that said, I have a little plugin that allows me to tag users and while plenty of commenters surprise me, I find that most are almost shockingly consistent when it comes to which 'bucket' I put them in (right, alt-right, conservative, liberal, socialist, libertarian, evangelical, etc.). So perhaps it's not so strange or inaccurate that many of us jump to conclusions based on very limited information. (not that I think it's a good thing to do so. I do agree with your comment.) |
Stereotypes are convenient when you need to make decision in a pinch, but they are horribly ignorant and misguided when talking to people. You can easily dispel your ignorant bias by asking a single pointed question.
As far as politically loaded hyperbole and labeled stereotype buckets I find Bush and Obama far more in common than Trump and that Trump and Clinton have far more in common. When I look at these people I don’t care what their politics are or how charming they are. I am trying to examine their motivations and how they interact with people. I am not sure which labeled bucket that would put me in and I don’t really care because I despise political labels.