Nostr Web Client

Suggest a reasonable test of this is if you do not have any friends with completely opposite political views then you may well be guilty of the thing you claim to hate the most.

Mike Brock 2y ago

My wife is a socialist. And I am very much not. I was a flaming libertarian when I met her. Next question.

Andressa 2y ago

Your wife is great, sending hugs to the comrade

LightningRoulette 2y ago

good

jack 2y ago

*neocon

92

nobody 2y ago

is that like an *oldcon, but renovated, or...?

hello 🪺 2y ago

well, in mike’s defense, george w bush would probably be a really fun hang over beers at a ball game, & we were all much, MUCH dumber in our pasts. …nice to see the intellectual growth & maturity. 😂😂

92

nobody 2y ago

libertarians are socialists -

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_anarchism_and_libertarianism

Andressa 2y ago

EXACTLY. THANK YOU VERY MUCH

92

nobody 2y ago

🤙🏻

DETERMINISTIC OPTIMISM 🌞 2y ago

Wife doesn't count.

QW 2y ago

Makes for angry sex. 😂 jk

Mike Brock 2y ago

My friend group is pretty ideologically diverse, too. 🤷🏻‍♂️

DETERMINISTIC OPTIMISM 🌞 2y ago

Mine progressively less.

Mike Brock 2y ago

I am more afraid of being in an echo chamber than I am afraid of having my views challenged. So I avoid the former through having a high tolerance for intellectual disagreement.

⚡️🌱🌙 2y ago

Agreeable disagreements are the best part of friendships.

My favourite conversations are the ones where you can express different opinions whilst laughing about it.

Self depreciation of beliefs is healthy, as is changing your mind with new information or beyond a threshold.

Mike Brock 2y ago

Once you've deeply connected your identity to your political beliefs, this becomes impossible.

HoloKat 2y ago

You can be an outside observe without fitting any definition…

Dan 2y ago

This is something that only people who are insulated from the effects of policy can say.

HoloKat 2y ago

And if your personal identity is not tied to any belief system?

Jac 2y ago

Personally, belief systems are like software on the computer, my personal identity is the firmware of the system, so no. Some software sucks, and maybe the firmware does too, but you’ll never see the firmware directly. Criticize the software all you want.

HoloKat 2y ago

No what? Don’t think firmware analogy is a good one. You don’t need an identity to run the hardware. Neanderthals didn’t identify as socialists or libertarians.

Mike Brock 2y ago

I think software and firmware are pretty terrible analogies for how to think about one's brain/mind. But that's a whole can of worms for another time.

Paul 2y ago

Isn’t the simulation all software?

Jac 2y ago

Touché!

signal_and_rage 2y ago

crystals

Mike Brock 2y ago

I think Bostrom's simulation hypothesis is nonsense, for what it's worth.

Jac 2y ago

Standing by. 😁

Jac 2y ago

That would be software level, and you do need firmware to run hardware. Not educated in a discipline where a CIS course was required eh?

Mike Brock 2y ago

That's probably a good thing! It's what I personally strive for.

92

nobody 2y ago

why wouldn't your identity be tied to your politics?

populism is an ideology, not a political spectrum.

i don't think as many people intentionally constrain their personal relationships as is popularly assumed: i thinks euro cal contraints are imposed on people through various means, and thus they are trapped in a cycle of constrain which reinforces contraints. like filter bubbles and team branding.

Mike Brock 2y ago

Because if I tie politics to my identity, then I need to take it personally if people attack my political beliefs. And I tend to think of political beliefs as ideas that are fair game for attack. I tend to view my politics as something I should be prepared to defend intellectually if challenged. And if I do not what to defend them, or cannot defend them, then I have no business holding them.

But at no point do I feel personally miffed by people holding opposing views or criticizing views I hold. Although, it will probably cause me to tune you out of you launch ad hominem attacks on me. Whereas, if you constrain your attacks to my ideas alone, without a personal dimension, you'll find I don't have a tendency to take such things personally at all.

This is possible, because I don't tightly tie my sense of identity to these ideas.

92

nobody 2y ago

why is a discourse based on disagreement considered an attack?

for myself: i deeply tie my political beliefs to my identity and i don't take it personally when others disagree with me, nor do i tune them out. making an interaction a profit generator or personal attack veiled in political interaction is a different conversation. i don't tolerate disrespectful interaction, but that has no baring on whether or not we agree on anything. some of the most simpatico-with-me aligned political individuals i know have stopped all communications with me because i refuse to flip my narrative and tolerate rude discourse because it's "how it's done". that has nothing to do with ideology or politics - it's about decency and a fundamental divergence of practice. they view me as dangerous; i am simply here. regardless, the point sit stands - if one doesn't have political principals in which they believe: what's the point?

a libertarian is an anarchistic radical progressive. that seems fairly opinionated to me...?

Mike Brock 2y ago

If you're not taking it personally, then you're probably using a different definition of identity than I am. Identity for me, is at the nexus of one's self-worth. It is your reason for being. Once you build your entire sense of self up from some political idea, your capacity to tolerate dissent goes down.

Jac 2y ago

Why would you build your entire sense of self from anything but your experiences and sentiment? As a child, my sense of self was installed in religious dogma. What a mistake for my family. I had to burn the whole thing down entirely and start fresh.

92

nobody 2y ago

all sense of self, whether it's a digital or in real life identity, or a symbiosis of the two is built. we are products of the biases around us. ultimately, if we are not constantly retooling and reimagining ourselves, we are stagnant. sameness and the refusal to explore the unknown - or our barricade from it in the case of filter bubbles and imposed social isolation - is a recipe for collapsed cultural engagement. as restrictions for communication capacity, style, and ability increase, so too does the chaos surrounding the inability to navigate difference because the exposure disappears, and complacency and rhetorical laziness reign.

92

nobody 2y ago

self-worth: as in monétisation of value? online or in reality? do you separate those two things?

so based on that premise that built identity (of any variety) limits tolerance, every political engagement which narrows my access to my religious beliefs (the banning of physical medical abortion for a jewish woman) is supposed to make me feel less tolerant of those who peddle that perspective? how am i to know how they arrived at it? what if it's a result of propaganda or the inability to access free and fair information? why would i tolerate them less if i would hope to understand and hopefully persuade them differently? if i cannot ask questions and listen to their réponse in real time - what's the point of engagement at all?

Mike Brock 2y ago

Here's perhaps the most fundamental point about why I don't tie my political/ideological beliefs close to my sense of who I am: because I'm not personally convinced that I'm not wrong about anything.

I'm a Bayesian. And my political views have shifted in sufficiently dramatic ways quite a few times in my life, that I'm pretty allergic to the idea that I know for certain that my beliefs are correct or optimal.

I am fundamentally open to the idea that I'm completely full of shit. And it's one of the reasons I'm so willing to debate and accept challenge. Out of a principle, I feel committed to the necessity of changing my mind if a better argument comes along.

So restricting myself to people who politically and ideologically agree with me, would cut me off from the possibility of gaining an insight that reveals the wrongness of my beliefs. This, to me anyways, seems stupid on its face.

⚡️🌱🌙 2y ago

Optimal politics is situational.

I could think of a dozen issues where I would advocate 1 policy in one country and a different policy in a different country.

Believing in a rigid universal application of a policy (politics) is dogmatic.

Mike Brock 2y ago

We'd probably get along!

92

nobody 2y ago

true -

which is different from relativism.

92

nobody 2y ago

being convinced you are correct about something doesn't preclude you from changing your mind later. they're not mutually exclusive. and neither has anything to do with convictions based on a personal compass of built identity.

"not wrong" is poor grammar, and i think it's pointless to use words like "stupid" if you wish to be properly understood or taken seriously.

bayesian? like as in "from a bay"? i hope you get some relief from your allergic lack of certainty 😏.

🤙🏻☀️✌🏻

Mike Brock 2y ago

Your semantic nitpicking aside, I would argue that absolute certainty is not compatible with changing one's mind. Because if you're absolutely certain something is true, it's logically correct to dismiss any evidence to the contrary as fraudulent.

Accepting the possibility some evidence could change your mind, is sort of predicated on the idea you *could* be wrong in order to provide a cognitive basis for evaluating such evidence in the first place.

92

nobody 2y ago

no one said anything about absolutism.

for my own perspective, i personally evolve my opinions constantly. do you? i also take great care in forming them initially so they are broad enough to evolve in the first place.

semantics in a world of weasel word "cognitive biases" and those who sling them, are critical so as not to be deliberately misinterpreted for profit or clout. hence why i do not use "right" and "wrong" or other tired phraseology.

so what are we evaluating? providing it's something other than my perspective. switch to a topic of discussion that interests you and let's apply your theory in practice instead of whatever this is.

sneagan 2y ago

All politics are identity politics. The family, not the individual, is the base unit of society.

Mike Brock 2y ago

Disagree. I think you tend to see a lot less identity-idea connection in a lot more centrist and moderate forms of politics, where there tends to be a greater emphasis on seeking evidence-based policy, compromise and affordance for accepting disagreement and loss.

sneagan 2y ago

I agree that these people lack a *meaningful* identity. As a result, they advocate on behalf of the “expert” class with whom they wish to identify and by whom they are directed. The priest caste who deliver the evidence to the enlightened centrists for their righteous consideration. This is an identity group.

Mike Brock 2y ago

Yeah. I disagree with that. I mean, I think there are shades of truth to it. But what I would say is we don't really have many centrists or moderates in the political class anymore.

sneagan 2y ago

If a centrist is by definition someone without a group identity then I agree. You cannot be a political actor without an identity, so such people don’t exist.

sneagan 2y ago

You can tell that they’re an identity group because they act like one. They use the same, predictable language as one another, identify the same enemies, and support the same allies. They may be unaware of their group identity, but that’s another matter.

Jac 2y ago

Do you think this is because extremism in general requires that sound logic and scientific validation be eschewed for emotional fervor and pseudoscience?

Mike Brock 2y ago

It requires that you hold certain conclusions as a condition of the group membership. It is unacceptable to challenge orthodoxy. Even if you say, disagree with a subset of policies, you are expected to keep it to yourself for the good of the group and to stay united. It demands hypocrisy of you.

sneagan 2y ago

Hypocrisy, like group identity, is unavoidable. I hate sin, yet I sin. Alas.

Jac 2y ago

I never sin, I do unproductive, disingenuous, and destructive actions sometimes, but never is it a sin.

sneagan 2y ago

Ignorance is a characteristic of the heathen identity group. 😘

Jac 2y ago

Alas, thou hast pierced by beating and bleeding heart with your discompassionate jousts. Et tú Brute?

sneagan 2y ago

A good laugh from a gentle ribbing is how peace can be maintained between otherwise incompatible identity groups. 😄

Mike Brock 2y ago

I try to avoid the hypocrisy, by simply not caring about whatever package-deal fallacy of ideas and beliefs that people might tend to associate with me based on whatever subset of things they've heard or read me say or write.

sneagan 2y ago

Sufficiently advanced acedia could, perhaps, make you free of hypocrisy. Doesn’t sound like any way to live to me.

Mike Brock 2y ago

I don't think anyone who knows me would consider me apathetic. Have you read my posts? 🤣

sneagan 2y ago

Here and there. You appear to have group identity(ies) like everyone else. “Group identity is dumb and I avoid it by not caring” is acedia, though.

Mike Brock 2y ago

What are my group identities?

sneagan 2y ago

I don’t generally like to call out specific group identity when people don’t say “I am X” because it’s trivial to just say “I’m not that and you’re wrong”. I prefer to deal with ideas. I’ll do so for the sake of this conversation. Liberal (in the political philosophy sense of the word), bitcoiner, enlightened centrist. I’m sure that, as a father (I think that’s true?), you have more private group identities as well, but I won’t speculate on those.

Jac 2y ago

Dude, admittedly I had to google acedia to know what it is, but you’re just being an arrogant asshole who is bullying an intelligent guy who puts his shit out here for analysis. I’m not a fan. Get real.

sneagan 2y ago

How so?

Jac 2y ago

Thank you for asking. I think this mono-polarized presentation of our person is not natural from an evolved community standpoint. When Brock says he avoids hypocrisy by not caring I thing that is truth, but an unfortunate truth. I thing that by accommodating the strong beliefs of others for the sake of peace we are forced to evaluate our own convictions, whether we express them to the dissenting person or not. With social media, I cannot apparently hold or express conflicting views without my digital legacy outing me as a apparent hypocrite, this is counter to the natural state of a human being existing in a community, where opposing views can be held, withheld, and expressed simultaneously for the sake of our relationships. Just my humble opinion, Brock probably doesn’t need me coming to his rescue in this conversation, but I feel compelled so here I am, though frankly he’s no particular ally in this conversation, he largely ignored me. Lol.

Jac 2y ago

Auto correct strikes again, thing is think. Ugh.

hello 🪺 2y ago

🤣🤣😭😭🥰🥰

Jac 2y ago

And there you have it folks, the reason I have been an outcast all my life. 😁

sneagan 2y ago

Having an identity is extremest? 🤣

annica 2y ago

I’m a human being, your a human being. I have likes,dislikes, preferences and so do you. And that’s ok.

Law of allowing.

There will be places that merge and edges that hit. Cool.

signal_and_rage 2y ago

Are there examples where identity politics can be good for a functioning pluralistic society?

Mike Brock 2y ago

Not really. Identity politics are part of the bad part of human nature, that we constantly struggle to contain.

signal_and_rage 2y ago

If you could change something that is a result of identity politics, what would it be?

Mike Brock 2y ago

I'd convince everyone to accept the possibility they are wrong about what they believe is right or true. And to be more modest and curious about people who take the time and effort to challenge the views they subscribe to.

signal_and_rage 2y ago

Would anything ever change in a society though? Would women be able to vote for example if the suffragists accepted the possibility that they were wrong?

Mike Brock 2y ago

Yes. Because accepting the possibility you are wrong does not mean that you do not act on your beliefs as if they are right. I somehow doubt that the suffragettes would have quickly come to the conclusion that their political subjugation was the correct answer merely by virtue of listening to the arguments. Especially because they had listened to arguments that women had no place in politics their entire life, and they didn't seem terribly convinced. Instead, they convinced everyone else.

So I don't really see your conundrum here as being of terrible concern to continued practical exercise of collective truth-seeking.

Zach 2y ago

Excellent points. I think the phrase #[4] used was “strong beliefs, weakly held.” In the face of valid counter evidence to your belief, you drop it. You don’t clutch them with a death grip.

signal_and_rage 2y ago

What impact on society would accepting the possibility you were wrong but not having any affect on your beliefs and actions?

Mike Brock 2y ago

It will permit me to explore, rather than reject, information that contradicts my views.

s3x_jay 2y ago

I’m a gay guy who who’s quite “woke”. I value my identity politics because it’s all based on the idea that people are people and bigots who try to divide people are bad. You make that sound bad… 🤨

Mike Brock 2y ago

What I would say to this, is you should want to make people who oppose your lifestyle to empathize with you. You should want to change their mind, and persuade them. Forcing them further into your outgroup is counterproductive for you and society.

This is why campaigns like "Love is Love" was so powerful at moving public sentiment in the first two decades of the 21st century. It spoke to a relatable sense of fundamental fairness.

Trying to draw a dividing line between yourself and your enemies, may at some level be ethically justifiable, given someone may not respect your rights. However, game theory would suggest, using approaches that makes said someone change their mind and respect your rights is the more strategic path.

s3x_jay 2y ago

You’re clearly not LGBT. That’s fine. Let me explain…

I grew up gay in a fundamentalist Christian home. For a time Jerry Falwell was my pastor.

After I came out I tried for years to get my parents to truly accept me. But it didn’t happen. So I walked away. I let them be them, but it was too painful and damaging to be part of their world.

What I learned in that process is that it’s not my job to make people accept me. It’s not my fault if they don’t. That’s not my responsibility. It’s not my purpose.

If people can’t see me as their equal, that’s their fault, not mine. They’re the problem, not me.

Intolerance of intolerance is not intolerance.

Mike Brock 2y ago

It is true that I am not LGBT. It is true however, than many of my close family are. It's also true, that I was highly politically active in Canada twenty years ago for legalizing same-sex marriage. I debated Michael Coren about it on TV. I also volunteered for years at the Pride Remembrance Run in Toronto at the beginning of Pride Week.

It may not be my lived experience personally, but as someone who has previously been politically active in pro-LGBT politics, I have certainly been under attack and experienced the bigotry. You really don't have to convince me.

I totally understand how unfair it is to have to fight for your rights and fight to exist. There's nothing fair about it.

But if you give up on trying to change people's minds, you're just ceding the playing field to the people who are willing to change people's minds against your own interests.

s3x_jay 2y ago

I haven’t given up. I’ve changed focus. I now work to help my community. My starting an explicitly sex-friendly relay - the first LGBT relay - is part of that. My working with Rabble to push forward on content moderation (needed by the LGBT community) despite significant opposition is part of that.

Bigots are a waste of my time.

Great bio, BTW!

Sikto 2y ago

I’ll attempt a little push back to further the discussion.

You’re simply substituting one identity badge for another. Your identity is defined by a beliefs system that reads, “My belief system is superior to yours because I’m able to surround myself with diverse thinkers that challenge my thinking.” You’ve placed yourself in a category, by placing others in the “out” group which you have previously stated to abhor.

You ar playing the same game, and wrapping it up in language that obfuscates what you are doing.

Your tribe may be better for a pluralistic society, but it is still a tribe nonetheless, that has in group and out group members.

Mike Brock 2y ago

Am I though? It's true I have a sense of identity. But I'd argue it's grounded in a far more humanist grounding, that tends to not demand people subscribe to my orthodoxy in order for me to hold cordial relations with them.

Sikto 2y ago

I would define cordial relationships as different than friendships. I do not know you, but I find it difficult to believe you and I would be friends if I did not align with your belief system. I don’t think you would take it as a personal attack, but I do not believe you would spend what limited time you have with an individual that was not open to exploring their beliefs in a humanistic way.

Mike Brock 2y ago

Not sure about that. I make friends pretty easily with people I disagree with quite easily, if they're the kinds of people who are open and curious about opposing views. I became friends with #[3] over a three hour argument, for example.

Sikto 2y ago

This was my point. You are able to establish relationships with people who you have assess to be open and curious. Even though you may disagree, they abide and align to your belief system which you use to identify yourself. Booth is part of your “in” group. The “out group”, are those that don’t align with your belief system. These people may be classified as ignorant, close minded and shallow.

We all do the same thing, you’ve just elevated your belief system above the others because you deem it to be superior.

Mike Brock 2y ago

I guess I'm a certain reducio form of the argument, you're correct? But I'd argue it's straying far from the underlying point, which perhaps I thought was implicit, but now I'll make it explicit, by revealing the normative claim: a society that tolerates diverse opinions, and a polity that accepts the idea that not everybody gets their way, but everyone is of equal franchise, is a good thing.

Mike Brock 2y ago

*in a certain reducio form of the argument.

Sikto 2y ago

Yes, this part of your note is easily understood and we are in agreement.

I was pushing back and exploring this part of your point:

“If your personal identity is tied to a belief system of any kind, and you consider attacks on that belief system to be a personal attack. And, you tend to constrain your personal relationships to people who share that belief system, you are simply part of identity politics. That is what identity politics is.”

72

nobody 2y ago

I’d also point out that those critical of identity politics are probably not using the same definition of it that he is. As is so often the case in communication, it is difficult when both sides aren’t using the same lexicon.

Sikto 2y ago

True.

Mike Brock 2y ago

They tend to be using a definition whereas a certain subset of left-wing politics is the only thing that counts as identity politics, yes.

72

nobody 2y ago

It's interesting that's where you went with it.

I was rather referring to identity politics tied to immutable genetic characteristics like race or gender.

Apatight⚡️ 2y ago

Are you open to exposing your bias in your belief of the existence of identity politics. Identity politics do not exist, except as a construct to build algorithmic bifurcation of society. To demonstrate, ask “far-right” about bodily autonomy as it relates to vax mandates. They will wholeheartedly decry authoritarianism while banning abortion. The “far left” will celebrate bodily autonomy for abortion, while wanting to inject “anti vaxxers”. Both want bodily autonomy for themselves, but want it limited for others.

Mike Brock 2y ago

You seem to be trying to have a completely different discussion, and are injecting poorly-related concepts to try and express a political point of sorts.

Apatight⚡️ 2y ago

Not really, just trying to pin down your non-local doublespeak. What I’m plainly asserting with a concrete example is there is no such thing as identity politics. It’s a bullshit concept.

Reply to this note

Discussion