Modern transportation contributed towards physical obesity. Technology became so efficient and so cheap that we became isolated from physical reality... we have to work out in order to stay physically fit.
I propose that modern communication has had a similar impact. We've been binging on the conflict-free interactions we enjoy, but we haven't been eating our veggies or working out. This is a mental "obesity epidemic".
We drive between similarly minded social gatherings. We keep contact with similarly minded people by calling them. We're in constant communication with our social groups with little time for disruptive ideas to slip in... each of us is deeply connected to our pocket of the world, but many of us are equally disconnected from the rest of the world.
Say what you want about holiday themed drinks, but the coffee shop, bar, and church are essentially the only mass, small-town American discussion forums. And I'd say only the first tended to really breed in-depth conversations between unlikeminded neighbors.
Coffee chains could give two shits about inspiring conversation. In fact, it's downright bad for business (at best more seating requirement, at worst danger of disagreement). So it's optimized away.
The Fourth Turning -- on the patterns that generations tend to fall into -- might also be interesting.
Instead, most of it is ill-informed, without willingness to learn, and for the last 12 months or so with a good helping of death threats, at least in my interactions.
And so, yes, we start avoiding disagreement, because the pain inflicted upon us is so intense. For better or worse, the Internet is failing miserably at fostering healthy debate. We have inadvertently created the tools that allow bullies to silence on a global level.
Or maybe it's just a regression to the mean - we've been physically disconnected from the rest of the world for most of history.
I tried to explain. Edward Snowden said to ask people to give you their phones unlocked for half an hour. I extend the metaphors, I give concrete examples, but emotional bias trumps anything I bring up. I get angry, nobody wins anything.
Debating in the abstract is something you need passion or training for. Our brains aren't built for it. Logic isn't what you need to wage debate, evidence is.
Depends on your goal and your audience. When talking to people who aren't particularly interested in the logic of a given argument, evidence won't help you.
>To successfully debate people, focus on actions and consequences that are relevant to their life, and back it up with an understanding of what their life is
However, you nailed it with this!
My guess is that open-mindedness must be cultivated from a young age by exposing kids to a wide-variety of cultures/ideas.
I agree. People are much more civil face to face. It also helps in a disagreement to see body language and facial expressions. If I'm trying to argue a point and see someone getting visibly upset then I may change my tact or soften the moment for a bit. This is so much harder to do over the internet.
Our body language reading machinery is weak and ignorable when a person is reduced to a small 2 dimensional image, let alone text. And it's the signals that this machinery produces that trigger empathy. Without it, and especially when talking to strangers, it's easy to slip into a mild kind of psychopathy.
I think this statement is completely untrue. Compare to how people were divided around the world a hundred years ago.
Technology has gathered people together, but it also makes differences clearer to see.
Doesn't the last part of your comment contradict your entire comment? Imagine gathering a hundred people together and making the differences between each person clear. Instead of uniting everyone, what will ensue is hatred. Shouldn't the point be to find a common ground and not focus on our differences?
Standing in long lines at the DMV in Virginia in 2000-something, a man says to me, "See what happens when you let the Democrats run things?"
Watching the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, a woman told me, "My grandmother said this would happen. She said the economy always collapses under Republicans."
Working IT at the Coast Guard for ten years, people talked politics all the time. All of that talk about as informed as the quotes above, but I try not to think less of people who are misinformed. Politics is hard. It's complicated, but we are all expected to participate in it and try to stay informed while most of us are unaware of how much or cognitive biases cause us to misunderstand and misremember the things we learn about the whole complex morass that is almost entirely run by lawyers.
For me, this election is now an exercise in compassion. I overheard two coworkers talking yesterday about how they both voted for Trump because they hated Clinton so much. What surprised me was the tone of fear and uncertainty in their voices at having won. They want what's best for America, just like their political opponents do, and they honestly thought their candidate was the better choice--with strong reservations. My life is great at the moment, so I sincerely hope their candidate delivers what they feel is missing in their own lives.
I'm not saying any of this to detract from this tool or any of the other interesting tools linked here, I think its great to try to find as many solutions as possible but its just been my observation recently that humans interact best face to face, hopefully we can find a more scalable solution though.