I think it's more common than you think to stay out of it. The unfortunate thing about the asymmetrical communication afforded by social media is that you don't see the hundreds of people that didn't engage with what someone said.
At least that's what I tell myself when i see a bunch of comments that are out there. All the people that aren't crazy probably just didn't want to engage.
Because it's true?
> I've heard this argument before a lot, and it just seems like a massive assumption. You can't read peoples minds.
One doesn't need to. Some logical reasoning is sufficient. Also, they often spell it out -- just like you did here:
> There are several plausible reasons to ignore and not discuss politics:
And they (almost) all boil down to "not wanting to rock the boat", i.e. tacitly or explicitly supporting the status quo.
> - You don't want to argue
= You value not arguing over changing something even if it were better to change it.
> - You don't think it will change anything
= You value not bothering over even trying to change what should be changed.
> - You don't want to lose friends and acquaintances
= You value your friends and acquaintances over necessary change even when they are against it
> - You don't want to find out someone you respect is "one of them"
= You covet your acquaintances so much you don't even want to know if they're actually for all that is evil in the world? Wow, that's really small-minded.
> - If the aggregate political beliefs of your industry does not match your own, you don't want to "out" yourself
Finally one that is at least understandable. But, still boils down to turning a blind eye to everyone supporting the (potentially evil) status quo in favour of making a living.
> - You want to change the status quo, but not in the way other people want it changed
= That is a political reason, only the tactical one of probably not getting your particular politics through.
> - Your political beliefs are not strongly held
= Again, valuing the political status quo over the discomfort of advocating your weakly held convictions.
> - You don't feel knowledgeable enough (I wish this was more common and people would share their opinions less when they know close to nothing).
Another at least semi-valid one. One alternative would of course be to educate oneself about one's weakly held convictions, so one could either abandon them if they turn out to have been wrong, or represent them with some conviction if they were right. I mean, what's the use of having any opinions at all if one is apathetic about them?
> I personally don't want to discuss politics much even if people agree with me - it either turns into a weird intellectual circle jerk, or gripe session about how evil the "other" is. Neither of which I really enjoy.
OK, true. Not very applicable to Twitter as a whole, though, AFAICS: it's big enough that there's always some non-apathetic discussion going on about pretty much anything.
> In short there are a lot more reasons to try and avoid politics than there are to seek them out. Being happy with the status quo is one needle in a haystack of other reasons.
Nope, as shown above almost all those reasons boil down to being more OK with the status quo than with trying to change it, which is a political stance in favour of the status quo. It's a tree-sized "needle" in a small-to-medium haystack.
Not saying you personally are an absolute arsehole for this stance; I'm much the same myself (as are, I assume, most of us). Just thought you should at least know that this is actually what you're doing, in stead of deceiving yourself (and, with the comment above, abetting others in deceiving themselves).
Do you want to hear from them a lot? Do you wish there were more of them in your twitter feed?
Maybe yours do matter. Maybe you're a player with NGOs, elected government, media, academia, big business, or civil service. Mine don't though, I'm just another peasant who wants to keep his family safe and healthy. I wish things could be better but I see no viable path for that to happen that involves arguing politics on the internet.
The one concrete thing that could improve things for me and mine is making more money. LARPing as somebody important on twitter by arguing politics would just be a distraction from that.
lol wut? Not parent poster, but I post here precisely because I know my views don't matter. This is idle chitchat with people in a similar line of work. There were a few times I've actually had something to say, and you can bet your ass I didn't post it on Hacker News.
But even taking you at your word, I think you're wrong. You clearly believe the view you're promoting here, and it's obviously important to you to contradict me, important enough to spend both your time and mine on it. There are a million ways you could spend your idle time, and it's not an accident that you picked this one over the other 999,999 options.
@dang, please un-deadify those if you can. (Yeah, I know: Don't argue about downvotes, yadda yadda. But also: Don't abuse flagging, right? So sometimes, in order to point out the latter, you have to do the former.)
___
[1]: i.e. not this one, but the grandparent and great-great-grandparent (or thereabouts).
[2]: Just to take the most inflammatory examples that came immediately to mind.
[3]: And, at least AFAICS, factually true.
Everyone says politics is about values, but it's more than that. Politics is values plus an implementation. Sometimes I see the worst takes or disdain from people who's values I fundamentally agree with, but we disagree on the implementation.
I've heard this argument before a lot, and it just seems like a massive assumption. You can't read peoples minds.
There are several plausible reasons to ignore and not discuss politics:
- You don't want to argue
- You don't think it will change anything
- You don't want to lose friends and acquaintances
- You don't want to find out someone you respect is "one of them"
- If the aggregate political beliefs of your industry does not match your own, you don't want to "out" yourself
- You want to change the status quo, but not in the way other people want it changed
- Your political beliefs are not strongly held
- You don't feel knowledgeable enough (I wish this was more common and people would share their opinions less when they know close to nothing).
I personally don't want to discuss politics much even if people agree with me - it either turns into a weird intellectual circle jerk, or gripe session about how evil the "other" is. Neither of which I really enjoy.
In short there are a lot more reasons to try and avoid politics than there are to seek them out. Being happy with the status quo is one needle in a haystack of other reasons.