{"id":1930,"date":"2015-12-21T02:20:03","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T02:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/?p=1930"},"modified":"2015-12-21T02:34:09","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T02:34:09","slug":"like-minded-filter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/21\/like-minded-filter\/","title":{"rendered":"like minded filter"},"content":{"rendered":"
I wasn’t feeling great the other\u00a0evening and just kinda sat around the house most of the time. \u00a0 At one point I was listening to music and flipping through facebook on my phone and I came across a couple of posts from a friend from college that caught my eye.<\/div>\n
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Both were very much pro-gun and suggested that the solution to the recent gun problems was to instead have more guns.\u00a0 A sentiment that I do not agree with.<\/div>\n
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I considered commenting on this – perhaps with an analogy about a house on fire not needing more fire – but ultimately decided it would do no good.\u00a0 I would be simply be trying to influence him to change his mind \u00a0– with the same lack of success \u00a0he had in changing mine.<\/div>\n
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Whether it’s politics, religion, human rights – pretty much anything that humans can choose a side on, they do. \u00a0 And I’ve noticed an increasingly visible polarization. \u00a0“I believe in A, B, C and you believe in X, Y, Z – and having a rational discussion about those opposing viewpoints is virtually impossible.<\/div>\n
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Humans are a stubborn species, aren’t we?<\/div>\n
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So, instead of engaging my friend from college in a debate, I took the easy route and simply unfollowed him.<\/div>\n
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I didn’t unfriend him – having a different opinion doesn’t make us not friends – but I just didn’t want to keep looking at his opinions.<\/div>\n
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The ones I didn’t agree with.<\/div>\n
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And that’s damn scary. \u00a0 Throw enough filters on our news, unfollow opposing viewpoints, read only things we already agree with – and suddenly we see only the ideas that are in our heads.<\/div>\n
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How can we grow as individuals if we aren’t challenged?\u00a0 How can we expand our understanding if everything presented to us is already sanitized?<\/div>\n
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Recognizing that, why did I unfollow the pro-gun posting friend?<\/div>\n
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[and, really, that’s unfair.\u00a0 He’s not just a data point or opinion – he’s a person with many ideas that happened to share some things that didn’t fit my world-view]<\/div>\n
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The answer is simple – it was easy.<\/div>\n
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When I was at the recent sushi party, I was surrounded by like-minded people.\u00a0 We had good food and good conversation – and if there were opposing viewpoints, we politely kept them to ourselves.<\/div>\n
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So, there was no conflict.\u00a0 We didn’t argue over news topics of the day – we just presented similar viewpoints on those stories.<\/div>\n
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All firmly on the same “side”.<\/div>\n
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And it was relaxing.\u00a0 And encouraging.\u00a0 And safe. \u00a0 \u00a0For a little while, we weren’t challenged and didn’t have to defend any viewpoints.<\/div>\n
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Arguing takes energy.\u00a0 It creates stress. \u00a0 \u00a0We have enough of that in our everyday lives \u00a0– why would we court more?\u00a0 We risk friendships when we argue – \u00a0and compromise and middle-grounds seem like unobtainable goals.<\/div>\n
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So, we quietly shake our heads at other people who are “wrong” and change the channel.<\/div>\n
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How do we get back to civil discourse?\u00a0 How do we have debates where we can give and take and compromise?\u00a0 How can we actually change opinion in a civil way?<\/div>\n
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I don’t know.\u00a0 Media companies want us to have more filters and further segment ourselves – it makes us easier to market to.<\/div>\n
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And maybe that’s the key.\u00a0 Maybe media itself is the problem.\u00a0 Not liberal media or conservative media – but media overall.\u00a0 The things that tie us together – like old friends from college – are also helping to polarize our thinking into distinct and un-mixable silos.<\/div>\n
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And I’m aware the irony of this post on my own very polarized blog is being shared on a media platform that exacerbates separate view-points.<\/div>\n
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Gotta start somewhere, I guess.<\/div>\n
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So maybe instead of posts on facebook with dozens of acquaintances, we have a few more parties and invite some people that don’t quite fit. \u00a0Maybe we’ll all learn something if we can share our opinions and viewpoints – without being able to unfollow.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wasn’t feeling great the other\u00a0evening and just kinda sat around the house most of the time. \u00a0 At one point I was listening to music and flipping through facebook on my phone and I came across a couple of posts from a friend from college that caught my eye. Both were very much pro-gun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1930"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1936,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1930\/revisions\/1936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}