Polarities, Idealism, Righteousness, and Extremism

[ti0]

If you haven’t felt and seen it already this may come as a news flash to you: the world, both in the physical and virtual dimension, is more fragmented and polarized than ever before. Everyone is claiming their space, their label, and everyone believes their perspective is the right one. Very often, this subjective perspective is portrayed as “the most right / correct of all the perspectives”. Naturally, when hundreds and thousands of such perspectives meet in one place, we find ourselves in the world we are surrounded by today. Conflicts on meaningless arbitrary topics, and arguments trying to convince others about how right we are.

Before you instantly react and say something as expected as “that’s so true”, or some version of that, I invite you to take a few moments to reflect and see the last time you did that. Even wanting to be open-minded, the most woke people have a tendency to project and fall into idealism and righteousness.

Acknowledging you have this trait doesn’t change what is real. It simply makes you aware of what is alive in you. And this is the space from which there is a real potential for transformation.

In this space let’s avoid the temptation to use words such as “right and wrong”, “good and bad” - we have enough other places to discuss what that is. Let us come up with new ways to respond, interact, and have constructive conversations where we at least attempt to understand others.

Ask questions to others on why they said something. Make the effort to understand the motivations and perspectives of others before writing them off with a label – that’s far too easy and puts the “blame” on the other. If you reacted it is likely something was triggered in you that you may not be consciously aware of yet. Take the opportunity to connect with yourself by understanding and connecting with the “other”.

As always, suggestions, discussions, evolution of the idea is welcome.

[217]

I tried this a couple of times and got accused of Trolling

@ti0

Ask questions to others on why they said something. Make the effort to understand the motivations and perspectives of others before writing them off with a label – that’s far too easy and puts the “blame” on the other. If you reacted it is because it has triggered something that is alive in you, but may not yet be in your conscious awareness. Take ten opportunity to connect with yourself by understanding and connecting with the “other”.

I tried this on multiple occasions recently and was accused of trolling. Perhaps I should reevaluate my strategy.

[ti0]

Without knowing much, all I can say is that people can use that as a defense mechanism when called out. And also, depends on where you do this - has it been explicitly welcomed? Most spaces are not designed for this. Most social platforms thrive on controversy and conflict, that is what makes them function. Perhaps I could go as far as saying that arriving at a healthy resolution would go against the “business model”.

The purpose of a facilitated space is to replace name-calling with healthy open communication with an intent of understanding people.

[Olly]

@ti0

Everyone is claiming their space, their label, and everyone believes their perspective is the right one.

I’m not sure if the intention is particularly about being right, but it’s definitely worded like that. When reading your words another aspect popped in my mind. How the common narrative for making money on the internet is to commercialize ones perspective through the nieching + putting yourself out there + personal branding and what not…
I predict we’ll have a massive retract movement of that in a few years where tons of those “perspective money makers” will delete their content. Either because they moved on from the business model or because their perspective has changed to much.

@ti0

Conflicts on meaningless arbitrary topics, and arguments trying to convince others about how right we are.

I also wanna raise the issue of confusion this creates in readers, as one is able to find a “self proclaimed expert” [1] for almost every possible point of view on pretty much every spectrum.

@ti0

Even wanting to be open-minded, the most woke people have a tendency to project and fall into idealism and righteousness.

Ooooh totally!!! Whenever I’m new to a topic or an opinion…
Or to say differently: Whenever I haven’t reflected big times!!!

@masalamama

I tried this on multiple occasions recently and was accused of trolling. Perhaps I should reevaluate my strategy.

I recently ended a friendship (not very close) other being labelled a troll continuously by that person.
For that person deep inquiery is not an option until drunk, the sober communication style is one where we are not compatible. I can’t change anything about that without being inauthentic or drunk (because the other party drinking alone is also not acceptable in their worldview). I feel like I exhausted my options.

And maybe/ possibly whenever we get accused of trolling, our questions trigger something our counterpart is not comfortable looking at

@ti0

Most social platforms thrive on controversy and conflict, that is what makes them function.

It reminds me of a quote that a friend relayed from her therapist:

Fighting is fucking

The energies are kinda similar, think of make-up sex… Or the common saying that a cranky person rly needs to get layed

@ti0

Perhaps I could go as far as saying that arriving at a healthy resolution would go against the “business model”.

Research into the attention economy revealed that triggering “outrage” is the fastest way to increase peoples time consumption & sharing on a platform, especially social media, video portals, …
Outrage spans the positive & negative spectrum, I believe this is what makes outrage a potent trigger. So the primary success metric and the business model are built around outrage, not healthy & balanced discourse. [2]

[1] For most times in the past it seems the expert status was granted by society (or a ruler), instead of claimed or taken as it happens in the internet society. Write 5 books on a topic and you’re an expert on the topic. Even if you contradict yourself with every new book…

[2] As unbelievable as it sounds, creating a platform that does allow for this healthy type of discourse and learning curve, actually facilitated by algorithms, is the vision of the Twitter founder. I find this awesome, because once they have solved the problem of machines understanding context within conversations, I see a possibility for a major shift.

[ti0]

@Olly

It reminds me of a quote that a friend relayed from her therapist:

Fighting is fucking

@Olly

Research into the attention economy revealed that triggering “outrage” is the fastest way to increase peoples time consumption & sharing on a platform, especially social media, video portals, …
Outrage spans the positive & negative spectrum, I believe this is what makes outrage a potent trigger. So the primary success metric and the business model are built around outrage, not healthy & balanced discourse. [2]

that is very interesting thanks for sharing that, definitely opens a whole new can of worms now that I think about it, I’ve definitely noticed high sexual tension in fight mode.

@Olly

Write 5 books on a topic and you’re an expert on the topic. Even if you contradict yourself with every new book…

I resonate with the first, but don’t totally agree with the second statement. If the contradiction is happening at a conscious level, I think this would be the essence of what I call comadism. Because I believe everything is paradoxical in nature, it is impossible not to contradict yourself.

But I think you are talking about mainstream where people just go with the current trend and within weeks become experts on the trend because they read the first 3 articles that came on google. and because of the pendulum effect, most trends tend to be polarized, going from one side to another. in which the “experts” come out looking foolish because they are pulled in the flow of the contradictory trends.

[ti0]

@Olly

As unbelievable as it sounds, creating a platform that does allow for this healthy type of discourse and learning curve, actually facilitated by algorithms, is the vision of the Twitter founder. I find this awesome, because once they have solved the problem of machines understanding context within conversations, I see a possibility for a major shift.

that is very interesting indeed, I had no idea that was the vision, though it is as far from that vision as it could be today. I wonder if machines can facilitate something like that, even if they understand context. Because I think there is more to it that machines are incapable of doing. But who knows… if they make that happen, that would change the social landscape completely.

[Olly]

@ti0

I resonate with the first, but don’t totally agree with the second statement. If the contradiction is happening at a conscious level, I think this would be the essence of what I call comadism. Because I believe everything is paradoxical in nature, it is impossible not to contradict yourself.

It can also be the reflection of your personal journey and you might enlighten some readers over time with it…

But the point that I wanted to make with the example is that quality and content of the message matters less than the quantity of your writings in regards of claiming “expert” title

@ti0

that is very interesting indeed, I had no idea that was the vision, though it is as far from that vision as it could be today.

Yes it is…
From what I know it’s also only mentioned in 1 podcast at all, cause all other podcasts focused on the miniscules details of why certain posts got blocked and others not. I’m not sure if promoting podcasts here is appropriate, so I intentionally left out where to find it. But I’m happy to point you at the episode in a DM if that is the better way

[ti0]

@Olly

quality and content of the message matters less than the quantity of your writings in regards of claiming “expert” title

undoubtedly, and the search engines, which are today the gods of judging and ranking content, have unfortunately favored the latter.

@Olly

I’m not sure if promoting podcasts here is appropriate

totally ok to do that, good suggestion, I need to make a post about what is ok to share. In general, everything is welcome. Except the obvious – spam (and maybe gifs, but that’s personal so I will leave it to the community to decide)

[Olly]

Cool…
You can find the episode with Jack Dorsey (twitter founder) here

Jack Dorsey On Solitude, Self-Care & Shouldering The Health of Global...