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Division is the goal of the adversary. We should stop arguing for no good reason if we don't have to.

We shouldn't allow people to spread lies and demonize one side unchecked. If were going to talk about problems, its best we don't scape goat on one side and admit there are flaws in both parties.

Letting them scape-goat and demonize unchecked doesn't help anything either.

I stand by what I said. Focus on what you have in common and deal with disagreements by leveraging conflict de-escalation techniques such as NVC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication. Think about what you stand to gain arguing with someone on the internet. Consider what it does to your mindset. I agree with you on civil disagreement and standing up for what you believe.

For instance - I disagree with you on the lab leak theory and laptop comments. I understand you feel about them strongly, but I think you are smart and should reconsider the source material for those claims. Further, I feel the way you expressed it was regrettable: "blood on their hands" is unnecessary and inaccurate. You could have phrased that in ways that were more accurate, more effective, and less inflammatory.

Everyone is literally less intelligent, less capable of rational decision making, and more susceptible to manipulation when they are angry. I have certainly been guilty of this before, and I am just trying to share some of what I have learned.

One final comment: one thing that all social media including HN could do is remove user-visible up and downvotes. It engages the brain in a similar way to gambling (https://www.brainfacts.org/diseases-and-disorders/addiction/...) and creates self-reinforcing conflict that can be exploited.

AnthonyMouse 1575 days ago

> For instance - I disagree with you on the lab leak theory and laptop comments. I understand you feel about them strongly, but I think you are smart and should reconsider the source material for those claims. Further, I feel the way you expressed it was regrettable: "blood on their hands" is unnecessary and inaccurate. You could have phrased that in ways that were more accurate, more effective, and less inflammatory.

Notice what you're doing though. The information content of this is effectively the polite version of "stop being mad and wrong, go read a book."

It contains no actual rebuttal of anything. You present no new facts or reasoning, only an assertion that you disagree which was already implied.

Sorry, I don't have much time to reply but you have a good point.

That is correct and intentional. My core point is that everyone can benefit changing how we disagree and when we choose to disagree. In what you quoted, I was just trying to make the point less abstract with a concrete example. I wasn't trying to be persuasive or reach some sort of resolution. I could have been more effective, thank you.

So your saying Democrats are not in favor of censorship? Are we just going to pretend this is a one sided issue and they were not guilty in trying to cover up the lab leak theory or going after journalists who try to write stories about hunter bidens laptop?

I don't see how pointing how both parties are guilty of engaging in censorship is wrong. I am advocating for the position that censorship is a tool used unfairly by both parties when they are given the chance, I don't like conservatives or republicans either for how they treated Edward Snowden and Juliane Assange.

Your second paragraph stands alone on its own well without the first. I think human flaws spread around pretty evenly. It's actually a pretty good starting point for thinking humanizing the person you are disagreeing with and establishing common ground. If it's okay, I don't want to talk about the lab leak or laptop here - I don't want to distract from the separate topic of this law imposing 15 year prison sentences threat to Russian journalists.. "fake news" has only been brought into the discussion because of headline editorializing. I have to go back to work and likely cannot reply further but didn't want you to think I ignored you.

FWIW I despise censorship, irregardless of which party it comes from, and can tell we both see a lot of flaws in human nature in general so don't think we are far off in disagreement here. Journalists should be left the fuck alone, certainly.

By the way the "source" I am invoking are MIT scientists for the lab leak theory being plausible https://www.amazon.com/Viral-Search-Covid-19-Alina-Chan-eboo... and when it comes to dissenting views on COVID I am referencing Dr. Robert Malone(holds a patent for mRNA vaccines) and the great barrington declaration https://gbdeclaration.org/ which was created and signed by many Ivy League medical researchers and practitioners about how flawed our strict lockdown measure are.

Hunter Biden has gone on record saying that laptop might have been his.

Don't presume a persons sources without asking first. You strike me as a smart person as well and should check these sources out with an open mind before dismissing them.

AnthonyMouse 1575 days ago

It's the censorship making the division worse.

Social media already has a big problem with filter bubbles. If you go to a place where 99% of people there are one party's partisans and try to rebut their misinformation, you get dogpiled. People insult you and sling baseless accusations of racism, which deters people from attempting to debate when they're highly outnumbered. So any place which has any partisan bias gets an even bigger one until everything is totally polarized.

Platform censorship makes it even worse because the platform's censors will be in one bubble or the other, their censorship decisions will be biased in that direction and push anyone on the other team onto other platforms and we end up with entirely partisan platforms that never talk to each other, and are thereby both highly misinformed about different sets of things.