[godelski]

I think it has to deal with how people think of optimization problems. Many people think there are global solutions. What we've learned over the last 200 years is that most problems are non-convex, lie in high dimensions, have long and coupled causal chains, are long-tailed, not-gaussian, non-zero summed (many positive, many negative), and are probabilistic in nature, but we assume the opposite of all these things (mostly due to approximations).

Needless to say, things are complicated. It's why we created specialization in the first place, but at the same time we expect people to be experts in many subjects (generalists). Because of this thinking many people will assume someone is being contradictory when they can criticize different things. The nature of reality is complex. No matter how you side on complicated issues there are reasons to critique different sides (Israel/Palestine, China/US, Communism/Socialism/Capitalism/xism, and so on). Simplifying things just causes us to argue over things we have no qualifications to argue over, but we'll do it with self-righteous indignation instead of as a way to learn or update our views. This is strange because arguing, debate, criticism, and self reflection are so important to democracies. It is far more important to critique your own philosophies (the ones you are fighting for) than those you oppose, since those are the things you have control over the direction of.

Sometimes it isn't about contradictions, sometimes (most of the times) we're just dumb and over simplifying.

[switchbak]

Increasingly I think arguments are in public and recorded for posterity, making the social cost of a mistake (or being poorly informed, etc) much higher. Given that, I think we're seeing many arguments that are more about group belonging and performance rather than a genuine effort to learn via debate and dialog.

Throw in some radical oversimplifications and that's a pretty strong recipe for polarization. One that's actively cultivated and amplified due to media profit incentives. Unfortunately it's a vicious cycle that seems to make us dumber and oversimplify even more.