I meet someone at a party and we become Facebook friends. I then post some sort of political article or comment to my feed. They see it, disagree with it, and (likely) either comment on it in a non-polite manner, or stay silent, but either way categorize me in their head as a crazy right/left winger. Why? Because these are what is easiest to do for 'crazy' opinions coming from strangers.
Compare that with what can happen in real life. I get to know someone over the course of multiple interactions; all my political comments are kept to those I already know and trust. Eventually we get to a point we know and trust each other, and I venture an opinion, one they disagree with. They say "I disagree with that", and we discuss it. Why? Because we already know each other, value each other, trust each other, and are seeking legitimately to understand and/or sway one another, while also preserving the relationship.
The internet has essentially made it so the thoughts we used to reserve for those we knew in depth, are becoming aired to strangers, and responded to accordingly.
While it means that insular bubbles of thought (the rural family who doesn't know anyone who believes in gun control, say) are encountering people who disagree with them, those people are strangers, and there's no reason to give them any credence. If anything, it just makes one even more vociferous, because now you can preach to people who -aren't- in the choir.
Become a regular in the comments section of certain blogs. Create aliases and join web forums or email lists or a Reddit subcommunity or something. And encourage diversity of discussion groups.
Just being on HackerNews is already a step in the right direction. And maybe some of us will build apps and sites that encourage people to form smaller groups to discuss issues without having to fight off trolls and uninformed newbie types.
The Internet used to have a lot more of that when mailing lists were the main way to have discussions. And there were services like the Well, and Compuserve that put a lot of effort into managing interest groups with sysops who kept them from getting out of hand.
The WELL in particular, put a lot of effort into the psychological aspects of humans in groups, in writing their guidelines for users and for the sysops managing the groups.
It's a tiny hope.
But in general I was talking about folks who have, for whatever reason, said things like "oh we're not vaccinating our children", meaning all vaccines.
There is no reasonable basis for this outlook.
The only thing it can really do is inform me what sort of bizarre misinformation they have bought into. Unlikely ever to repair the drop in my opinion.
I spent some time talking to antivaxxers; I've shared my impressions in a parallel subthread:
They dropped in my estimation because they allowed this emotional reaction to endanger their children.
Where I come from politics (in one form or another) are the first thing you talk about with new people that you meet. It's the most fruitful ground for conversation that goes beyond mundane boring smalltalk nobody cares about.
I mean, isn't that the whole basis for democracy? That people discuss these things?
Hell, isn't most mainstream-but-not-quite-pop art political in nature?
People often keep their political opinions private in polite society simply because of what this whole thread is about - it's very easy for people who don't know you very well to judge you by the political opinions you spout and then possibly treat you more poorly because of that. This is why I tend to keep my mouth shut about political stuff at my workplace. (It doesn't help that I know that, statistically speaking, my opinion will be at odds with most of the others in my industry and location.)
And if you differ because you are more informed about the topic than your peers, that only makes the social isolation problem worse.
'pg actually wrote an essay about it once.
The audiences who voted the winner, paid more attention to the quality of the debate, not to the question itself.
In a culture where this type of debate is practiced in the schools, people of all ages will be more open to discussing an issue in a social setting without strapping on revolvers and a bulletproof vest.
It is not a question of identifying who is the enemy, it is a question of figuring out which path will lead to a better world 100 moves in the future. Because real life really is like a chess game. The outcome of the next move is not the be all and end all.
But maybe British universities get it right. I don't know, I haven't had the experience. We had debates in my secondary school, and I remember that the best way to win those was to be the cleverest bullshitter in the room.
It's easy to see how this destroys any possibility of rational policy-making.
It doesn't help that most countries suffer from literally industrial levels of PR effort, media spin, and online astroturfing, all designed to persuade, influence, and manipulate, and not to inform.
See e.g. http://www.businessinsider.com/astroturfing-grassroots-movem... for a very incomplete list of examples.
The whole point of PR etc is to deny reality. So the idea that the other side might have a point worthy of respect is deeply problematic.
It would be true in a world where everyone had access to unbiased information, deliberately misleading the public was banned by law, and public education was a significant policy goal.
That isn't the world we live in.