polarization vs coexistence & cohesion
If a single status game becomes dominant, it breeds violence. Social fragmentation is a release valve.
Vernā Myers: How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them
ted.com“Stare at awesome black people…because when we look at awesome folks who are black, it helps to disassociate the associations that happen automatically in our brain.“
“Walk towards your discomfort”
Local journalism, no matter what form it’s in, truly does contribute to the fabric of a community. You’re not going to find too many large market sources of news reporting on your local city council or the high school basketball scores. Things like that might sound silly to a lot of people but truly are important to small communities... Keeps us ti... See more
Steven Waldman • How high school sports coverage can save democracy - Poynter
Doing stuff together, especially with people from different backgrounds than our own, is going to be really important for the future of the country. And it’s going to take a set of “muscular institutions”—institutions that aren’t bashful about asserting their prerogatives—to get us there.
The paradox of “muscular institutions”
Social Media Algorithms Can Shape Affective Polarization via ...
arxiv.orgThere is widespread concern about the negative impacts of social media feed ranking algorithms on political polarization. Leveraging advancements in large language models (LLMs), we develop an approach to re-rank feeds in real-time to test the effects of content that is likely to polarize: expressions of antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity (AAPA). In a preregistered 10-day field exper- iment on X/Twitter with 1,256 consented participants, we increase or decrease participants’ exposure to AAPA in their algorithmically curated feeds. We observe more positive outparty feelings when AAPA exposure is decreased and more neg- ative outparty feelings when AAPA exposure is increased. Exposure to AAPA content also results in an immediate increase in negative emotions, such as sadness and anger. The interventions do not significantly impact traditional engagement metrics such as re-post and favorite rates. These findings highlight a potential pathway for developing feed algorithms that mitigate affective polarization by addressing content that undermines the shared values required for a healthy democracy
Above all, Sloman seems to be arguing for thinking through the practical implications of one’s beliefs.
Most issues can be framed in terms of the consequences they produce. Rather than asking whether it is right or wrong to, say, allow people to carry concealed weapons, we can ask what the consequences of such a policy would be. And asserting a cons... See more
Most issues can be framed in terms of the consequences they produce. Rather than asking whether it is right or wrong to, say, allow people to carry concealed weapons, we can ask what the consequences of such a policy would be. And asserting a cons... See more
National service program as a way to bridge
