polarization vs coexistence & cohesion
If a single status game becomes dominant, it breeds violence. Social fragmentation is a release valve.
Deliberative Technology: Designing AI and Computational Democracy for Peacebuilding in Highly-Polarized Contexts
The report discusses a workshop focused on utilizing deliberative technologies to enhance democratic processes, promote social cohesion, and address polarization in various global contexts, emphasizing citizen participation and collective intelligence.
toda.org
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”
The simplest way to tell the story of my life is as an ongoing formation through a series of very muscular institutions: family, the Church, an all-boys Catholic school, the Marine Corps, Little League, and my local Fire Department. Each of these institutions had strong norms that facilitated connecting across difference—and, in practice, each of t... See more
Jason Mangone • The paradox of “muscular institutions”
National service program as a way to bridge
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