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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 18-Apr-2025 00:50:30 JST Paul Cantrell

   Today’s edition of Paul Pontificates Off the Cuff on Grandiose Theories of Society:

   “The Big Sort” was published 21 years ago. It talked about people moving to be near like-minded people, forming information and belief bubbles.

   Popular understanding of that book quickly slid into fatuous centrist nonsense about how we should all emulate David Brooks and “both sides” everything — and definitely not whack fascists over the head for being fascists.

   It’s a shame the discussion went that way, because the original thought is crucial now.

   1/

   • Blaise Pabón - controlpl4n3 repeated this.
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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 18-Apr-2025 00:55:06 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Susan Sontag remarked that 10% of a population will be kind no matter what, 10% will be cruel no matter what, and the remaining 80% could go either way.

     If you’re a vaguely racist US white person, when the government abducts people and sends them to a foreign gulag, it’s a lot either to believe that those people deserved it if you never know or interact with anyone who looks like them.

     Time and time again, people in that 80% prove willing to be racist to a generic person, but not to a •specific• person they actually know.

     2/

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 18-Apr-2025 00:59:24 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     The problem of The Big Sort isn't that we failed to [chin stroking emoji] Respect And Value All Viewpoints In An Intellectually Rich Way. Feh. It’s that

     (1) we need empirical challenges to our assumptions about the world, and specifically

     (2) we need real relationships with actual humans to prevent us from becoming cruel in the ways that we can only be cruel to a generic, faceless person.

     3/

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 18-Apr-2025 01:12:24 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     If I were updating The Big Sort for 2025 (and I'm not, so far out of my depth here, but if I were), I’d make two changes:

     First, I’d stop framing this as just about individual choices, and look hard at how the big sort has been

     - automated at scale by recommender algorithms etc, and

     - fomented and manipulated at scale by malicious actors, e.g. Putin.

     4/

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     Jeff Grigg (jeffgrigg@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 18-Apr-2025 04:05:27 JST Jeff Grigg

     in reply to

     @inthehands

     Re: "it’s a lot either to believe"

     easier?

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 18-Apr-2025 04:05:27 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jeff Grigg

     @JeffGrigg Thanks! Between voice transcription, phone autocorrect, and general brain rot, my posts are a treasure trove of typos.