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Comment by pstuart | Hacker News Reader

> american culture war between red and blue tribes continues unabated

Not unabated, but at an accelerated pace. Social media has now been weaponized and we are approaching civil war levels of hostility.

I think it's not an even split. The right is being conditioned to hate the left to a degree that is terrifying. Check out the propaganda that the NRA puts out. It is "Divide and Conquer 101"

The majority of the liberal commentary I register is more puzzlement, sadness, and fear (guns, guns, guns, baby!).

I would love to have dialog across the aisle but it seems impossible now. I can acknowledge plenty of "liberal failures" but that is a one way street.

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I don’t know, I see plenty of far left commentary that spews aggression and intolerance.

There's going to be outliers, and there's also the fact that social media is gamed now.

For any of that commentary that is actually genuine, I'd be curious about the context. Intolerance of intolerance is different than intolerance itself. And aggression in what form?

The "far left" is a distinct minority, and tends to be focused on corruption and inequality, not about killing Christians or how white people are ruining this country (save for the topic of the genocide used to clear the way).

This divisiveness is intentionally cultivated both domestically and abroad -- it's been reported that Russia created opposing protests to encourage direct conflict: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-pag...

One way street? The left wing has pulled fire alarms on Janice Fiamengo, held tribunal for Lindsay Shepherd for showing a 3 minute Jordan Peterson interview in her class, had Berkeley necessarily spend $600,000 to secure Ben Shapiro's safety to speak at the school after multiple successful deplatformings, had Alex Jones (an idiot) removed from Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, had Sargon of Akkad removed from Patreon, had Bret Weinstein protested out of Evergreen University for standing up against blatant anti-white racism, have increased efforts to add ill-defined "hate" speech legislature, and consistently deny invitations from Dave Rubin, Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, et all, to have moderated discourse.

What I've listed is the tip of the iceberg. There are attempts to extinguish any discussion of transgender issues, because a discussion necessarily implies "denial of a trans persons right to exist," a textbook example of catastrophizing. There is an increasing attempt to prevent people to speak on issues related to any gender or race that they themselves don't belong to, due to the lack of "lived experience" (something we used to call subjective, anecdotal, n=1 data). There is increasing social pressure on corporations that the proper response to someone like James Damore making academically backed claims when invited to give feedback is to terminate employment immediately.

You're right about a one way street, but you have the wrong direction. And please don't call the modern left liberals, they are absolutely not liberals in any sense of the word.

> Alex Jones (an idiot) removed from Facebook, YouTube and Twitter

Alex Jones engaged in stochastic terrorism. The lawsuit against him will likely confirm that. Unless perhaps you agree with him that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation and those parents were crisis actors?

Jordan Peterson is a quack but I believe in the right of people to have stupid opinions and express them.

Sorry but I'm going to ignore the "liberals" on campus because I think that is a unique situations and kids are obnoxious on both sides of the aisle. I will agree that they have gone way too far in censoring dialog but I also think that one could make a cogent argument that there is such a thing as "hate speech" that at a certain degree does not deserve a platform (the problem is qualifying what that degree is).

I was referring to adults when I made my statement. Although now I'll concede that most people have difficulty hearing the other side; I've certainly seen a lot of that on HN when it comes to social issues.

I'm an old school liberal raised to be anti-war, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-corporate-statehoodism, question authority, blah, blah, blah. I can still point out "gotchas" within all of those that most liberals can be blind to. Because no system is perfect.

I would love to have a civil dialog with you to see if you can see and admit that conservatism has flaws too.

You gave one example that we could debate:

> because a discussion necessarily implies "denial of a trans persons right to exist,"

Would you care to engage?

My experience is different. As a social scientist, I've never seen hatred like leftist hatred. I'm exposed to the academic left, which is seething with hatred and intolerance. As far as the mainstream, non-academic left, boy they sure hate Trump – and anyone who supports him.

And before Trump, leftists already had a pretty intense hatred of Republicans/conservatives, and libertarians to the extent they know about them. America is extremely partisan, and the two major camps tend to strongly dislike each other, sometimes popping out as real hatred. Research shows that conservatives tend to know more about leftist positions than leftists know about conservative positions, so that suggests that leftists may be operating with more emotion and less information.

(And when I use the word "hate", I mean hate as defined in common dictionaries. The left has infamously co-opted the word to refer to any negative appraisal or feeling about a person or group of persons experienced or expressed by a non-lefist. I'm sticking to hate as extreme animus.)

Academia is a small subset of the population, so your sample size there is suspect. As for Trump, I would be happy to summarize the reasons he is not loved by my tribe, to put it mildly.

I can point out my perceived flaws in Obama and Clinton without pause. Do you have any issues with the current President or his policies or administration?

Do you want to talk to this liberal and see if you can "reach across the aisle"?

Oh, I'm not a Trump voter if that's what you meant. I have plenty of issues with Trump, especially his Twitter behavior. I like some of the bills he's signed, and what he might achieve in opening foreign markets to American exports, esp. China.

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