Monday, January 1, 2018

FB Political Posts: What To Do?

What should one do when Facebook friends post political statements?

In the last month or so I have had 2 Conservative and 2 Liberal friends post political opinions / links on Facebook.  Now these are the smart capable friends with whom one should be able to have a rational discussion.  Not the crazy guy who is always sending out propaganda...

Of course me being me, I feel a compulsion to comment with questions or a more analytical view.  All the while knowing that these friends just want to espouse their views, have them reaffirmed and are not happy to have them questioned.

To their credit, they have occasionally entered into a discussion online. However one of them has called me an online troll and another said that I was sticking my nose in other people's business as usual.  Thankfully none of them have unfriended me yet.

Now I do post links to my G2A posts on my Facebook page, however I am always happy to discuss the questions and views I raise.  My questions today are what to do when others "go political" on Facebook?

  • Just ignore them, roll my eyes and say there they co again?
  • Add a comment well knowing that they just want one way communication?
  • Or comments that reassure them that their world view is the correct one?
  • Unfriend them so I never need to see their silliness again? 
The larger question is if people only read opinion / news sources that are friendly to their world view, only listen to friends who are friendly to their world view, want to propagate their world view without being questioned, etc.  How do we ever expect to close the massive political divide in our country?

55 comments:

Anonymous said...

It depends. If the posts seem to invite discussion, I might respond. Most people I know on facebook are involved in politics, and are of my political persuasion.

--Hiram

jerrye92002 said...

You have just posed the one problem you can solve when you are Emperor of the World. You will find the world more or less permanently divided into four kinds of people: 1) those that agree with you, 2) those that disagree with you, 3) those who do not know enough to be able to defend either for or against, and 4) those willing to actually listen if you can make a valid argument. We all know that the 4's are almost insignificant, thanks to 24/7 news and social media "tribalism." We know that the 3's are the majority, for much the same reason. Therefore, 2's remain 2's and 1's remain 1's, and if they become intolerable you have to ignore them. You can try to push them into 4's, but we all know how well that works.

jerrye92002 said...

Hiram, out of curiosity, do you ever find someone of "your political persuasion" saying something you think is stupid or factually wrong?

Anonymous said...

Oh sure. It's something I rail against elsewhere. And of course, I am often wrong myself, and am rarely altogether right. A bit reason I participate in various social media is to get the benefit of the critical thinking of others.

--Hiram

Laurie said...

It seems to me that you should refrain from challenging people's views as expressed in their FB posts. It doesn't seem very friendly. Your blog or Minnpost stories seem like more appropriate forums. If someone wants to discuss politics with you they can comment on your blog.

Over the years it does seem like you have a pattern of being perceived as very annoying to moderators and sometimes get kicked out.

John said...

Only kicked off once. I think it was called Mn publius

John said...

And that blog was very very left obsessive. So much so that it went the way of the dinosaurs.

As for MinnPost, I was only frustrated when they would not tell me how I could improve a few comments so they would meet their requirements.

“Sorry sir that is against company policy....”

By the way, I still love MinnPost and give yearly.

John said...

As for this particular FB post.

"Hey look, another American white guy killed a police officer and ambushed five others. Oh, and another American white guy was intercepted in time to prevent a mass shooting tonight in Houston. What are we going to do to keep these angry middle-aged gun toting white guys out of the country?"

Linked Story

To me the poster pretty much open the can of worms... I am learning a lot while researching the topic. It will be a post sooner or later.

Anonymous said...

In my personal facebook world, most of the people I communicate with are not political civilians. They are activists who are very comfortable with political give and take. For people outside that sphere, I mostly avoid politics except in the most positive way. I am sure some folks do get unwanted political posts from me, but in my experience they mostly ignore them.

--Hiram

John said...

The irony is that I ignore most of the junk from people who I do not care for or respect. I only question / correct folks who matter to me.

Of course I am certain that they are not feeling the love when I do this...

Laurie said...

What Trump didn’t do in 2017
Imagine if we had spent 2017 with a competent White House working to solve America’s hardest problems.


i expect John will be pleased with all the constructive things the Trump administration didn't do in 2017

John said...

Yep, I am fine with that list...

I feel for the addicted folks and families, but think States / Local government and charities should handle it.

Challenging foreign countries and the UN to deliver on promises after we have spent billions of dollars supporting them is okay with me.

Challenging the status quo thinking is great when it's trend is so threatening.. I wish he would do it more professionally and with honesty.

Sean said...

"Challenging the status quo thinking is great"

Is Donald Trump challenging "status quo thinking", though? Style-wise, he's been different. But from a policy perspective, he's been a pretty standard Republican (because he doesn't really have defined policy chops of his own).

John said...

From the VOX link.

"Politics in the Trump era is, for many, a terrorizing distraction, a daily obsession. It crowds out other questions, pursuits, ideas, discussions. Trump has weaponized social media and cable news, he has mastered the news cycle by owning our outrage, he has learned that he can command the conversation by lobbing incendiaries into our cultural and tribal divides.

As a result, he takes up inordinate mental space, among both his supporters and his opponents. As this analysis from Echelon Insights shows, Trump dominated the national conversation on every single day of 2017:

What if we had not spent all of 2017 thinking about Donald Trump? What if all those mornings hadn’t been dominated by his tweets, if all those evenings hadn’t been spent absorbing new evidence that his campaign was linked to Russia and that he was trying to obstruct the FBI’s investigation? What other conversations would we have had, what other issues would have filled the space?

I don’t pretend to know the answer. But I don't believe that the role politics is playing in so many of our lives now is healthy, that the daily pitch and tone of the conversation is constructive. Even if you celebrate political engagement, and I do, this isn’t a renewed civic spirit, but a sense of emergency, of threat. It, too, is a cost, and we are paying it daily, with untold long-term consequences for our country."

John said...

I guess given the conversations of the past 8 years... I don't think we are missing much... Remember these "high value add" topics:

- Who's bathroom should an adult male who claims he is a woman use?

- Should an LGBT person be able to get wedding flowers from a Religious Right business person?

- Should companies have to pay for a woman's birth control if it against their religious views?

- Should all people standing on American soil be given food, clothing, medical care, education, etc no matter their personal choices or effort?

- Should we deport people who illegally entered the USA or over stayed their VISAs?

- Should we give them a pardon and path to citizen?

- Should we increase the buffer strip from 15 to 50 ft?

- Should police man be indicted for shooting person that resists arrest?

- What should the minimum wage be?

- etc

John said...

My point is that the Liberal Elite are now forced to think about things that concern the normal working American. Not wind themselves up in their idealistic dream world.

NR Why Liberal Elite will never

Other things I have not heard about lately...

- What is happening to the bees and monarch butterflies?

- Is GMO food bad for us?

- How can we make inner city schools better while I run to the burbs, magnets and/or privates?

John said...

More things I am happy not to hear about...

2016 DNC Platform

I am really curious to see if the DEMs can narrow and prioritize their 2018 platform with so many idealistic liberals in the mix?

Laurie said...

liberals, such as myself, are normal working Americans

also sometimes you are surprisingly ignorant for someone with a college degree. it is really very easy to understand why one should be concerned about declining bee populations. I believe this is or could be taught in elementary school.

jerrye92002 said...

FB may not be the proper forum for discussing political issues. The 24/7 media cycle and rampant social media use means that "a lie can be halfway round the world before the truth gets its boots on." And it doesn't have to be lies; it can be deliberate or unintentional disinformation, or misinformation. For example, bee populations have started to stabilize and recover.

Thank goodness there are places where we can discuss these subjects rationally, like here. We still may be victims of bias or misinformation, but at least we don't have to scream at each other in ALL CAPS.

Laurie said...

Donald Trump’s Year of Living Dangerously
It’s worse than you think.

John said...

Jerry,
Speaking of Lies. It looks like our buddy is going to top 2000... Simply amazing...

Laurie,
Interesting piece. This paragraph seemed very candid and accurate to me... I always got a sense that Obama was a Thinker and not a Doer... Granted one needs balance, but both have there pros and cons.

"Perhaps not surprisingly, the official offers a starkly different analysis of the Trump White House at year’s end than those from other parts of the world: “People miss the point when they say, ‘Oh, the Trump administration is a mess.’ In the Obama administration there were so many meetings on the same subject without a decision; they would just have conversations and conversations without ever having an outcome. These guys they do make decisions. You can debate whether they’re right or not. But things get done.”

Anonymous said...

"But things get done.”

Was it you or jerry or both of you who've said that perhaps things don't always need to "get done"?

Moose

jerrye92002 said...

If the opposite of progress is Congress, then "getting things done for the American people" translates to "getting things done TO the American people," and both sides use the phrase. And getting things done does not mean the RIGHT things get done. In the current hyperpartisan environment, the WRONG things become more likely.

As for the Obama administration, Rush Limbaugh always characterized it as the "faculty lounge" administration.

Again, the best thing to do with FB rants is to ignore them. They are generally emotional outbursts, freed from any sense of objective reality, and no amount of facts and reason, however calmly phrased, is going to do anything but heighten the outrage.

John said...

Moose,
I am fine if a lot of things do not get done by government as long as they are not spending millions of tax dollars studying it and discussing it. Unfortunately I got the sense that Obama's world was full of a lot studying, churning, hand wringing and spending...

There has been a lot of moaning that government positions are not being filled, or that many career bureaucrats are quitting. Personally I have not noticed any distress due to this...

One "turn around" manager told me the first thing he does is cut head count and budgets by 10%. And if the company is still operating fine he cuts another 10%. Then he starts to add back only in the areas where distress is clear...

John said...

Laurie left this excellent comment, but it disappeared for some reason...

"Liberals, such as myself, are normal working Americans

Also sometimes you are surprisingly ignorant for someone with a college degree. it is really very easy to understand why one should be concerned about declining bee populations. I believe this is or could be taught in elementary school."

Please note that I think many of the topics above are important to resolve at some time. And they should be talked about...

The challenge is that if people do not prioritize their concerns... Too much effort and time is spent on lower hanging fruit. When we are spending a lot of time talking about the above when we have:

- Consumers preferring to buy low "American content" goods / services. (ie foreign)

- Too many children in broken homes and failing to be successful in K - 12

- Many more low skill low knowledge workers than our economy needs. (ie low pay)

- 11 million illegal workers putting downward pressure on wages.

- a HUGE entitlement bubble waiting to burst.

It seems that bees, butterflies and florist shops need to come in second.

John said...

By the way, my back ground is farming and a bee keeper maintains hives on our land. So yes I am aware of the importance of pollinators... :-)

FYI, we get rent in the form of honey... So I am never lacking for that.

Anonymous said...

"Unfortunately I got the sense that Obama's world was full of a lot studying, churning, hand wringing and spending..."

And now we have the opposite, a President that is not curious about a damn thing.

I'll take the former.

Moose

Anonymous said...

"It seems that bees, butterflies and florist shops need to come in second."

If you put the natural world in second place, you put humans in second place.
If bees disappear, humans will struggle to produce enough food.

Moose

John said...

Priorities, priorities, priorities...

And apparently bees don't have a monopoly...

jerrye92002 said...

A President, or anybody, doesn't need to be curious if he already knows it all. Or has people around him that do.

John said...

Remember that "Full Tea Cup"... It is a really bad thing...

It is really too bad that folks on the Far Left and Far Right apparently think they "know it all."


"Once, a long time ago, there was a wise Zen master. People from far and near would seek his counsel and ask for his wisdom. Many would come and ask him to teach them, enlighten them in the way of Zen. He seldom turned any away.

One day an important man, a man used to command and obedience came to visit the master. “I have come today to ask you to teach me about Zen. Open my mind to enlightenment.” The tone of the important man’s voice was one used to getting his own way.

The Zen master smiled and said that they should discuss the matter over a cup of tea. When the tea was served the master poured his visitor a cup. He poured and he poured and the tea rose to the rim and began to spill over the table and finally onto the robes of the wealthy man. Finally the visitor shouted, “Enough. You are spilling the tea all over. Can’t you see the cup is full?”

The master stopped pouring and smiled at his guest. “You are like this tea cup, so full that nothing more can be added. Come back to me when the cup is empty. Come back to me with an empty mind.”

Anonymous said...

"A President, or anybody, doesn't need to be curious if he already knows it all."

Funny, President Barack Obama is clearly more intelligent and knows many more things than the current blowhard in the Oval Office, yet he finds time to read and educate himself on a great many things.

Intelligent people know they don't know everything.

Moose

John said...

Moose,
Excellent summary!!!

"Intelligent people know they don't know everything."

John said...

And with every year I seem to be more curious / questioning.

I remember when I was a new young Engineer Husband etc... Everything was simpler back then because I "knew" pretty much everything. :-)

jerrye92002 said...

Moose, John, please look up the Iron Rule of Knowledge and then tell me that you are so intelligent that you don't know everything. Remember, "Those of you who think you know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."

John said...

Is this what you are referencing?

jerrye92002 said...

No. Surprisingly, I couldn't find it again, either, but this describes the phenomenon:

you think you are smart

And this one goes into more detail on our cognitive errors, despite their obvious bias.

facts do not matter

John said...

That's funny, to me the New Yorker article describes Trump and yourself to a T... :-)

"In “Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts That Will Save Us” (Oxford), Jack Gorman, a psychiatrist, and his daughter, Sara Gorman, a public-health specialist, probe the gap between what science tells us and what we tell ourselves. Their concern is with those persistent beliefs which are not just demonstrably false but also potentially deadly, like the conviction that vaccines are hazardous. Of course, what’s hazardous is not being vaccinated; that’s why vaccines were created in the first place.

“Immunization is one of the triumphs of modern medicine,” the Gormans note. But no matter how many scientific studies conclude that vaccines are safe, and that there’s no link between immunizations and autism, anti-vaxxers remain unmoved. (They can now count on their side—sort of—Donald Trump, who has said that, although he and his wife had their son, Barron, vaccinated, they refused to do so on the timetable recommended by pediatricians.)
The Gormans, too, argue that ways of thinking that now seem self-destructive must at some point have been adaptive. And they, too, dedicate many pages to confirmation bias, which, they claim, has a physiological component.

They cite research suggesting that people experience genuine pleasure—a rush of dopamine—when processing information that supports their beliefs. “It feels good to ‘stick to our guns’ even if we are wrong,” they observe.

The Gormans don’t just want to catalogue the ways we go wrong; they want to correct for them. There must be some way, they maintain, to convince people that vaccines are good for kids, and handguns are dangerous. (Another widespread but statistically insupportable belief they’d like to discredit is that owning a gun makes you safer.) But here they encounter the very problems they have enumerated. Providing people with accurate information doesn’t seem to help; they simply discount it.

Appealing to their emotions may work better, but doing so is obviously antithetical to the goal of promoting sound science. “The challenge that remains,” they write toward the end of their book, “is to figure out how to address the tendencies that lead to false scientific belief.”

“The Enigma of Reason,” “The Knowledge Illusion,” and “Denying to the Grave” were all written before the November election. And yet they anticipate Kellyanne Conway and the rise of “alternative facts.” These days, it can feel as if the entire country has been given over to a vast psychological experiment being run either by no one or by Steve Bannon. Rational agents would be able to think their way to a solution. But, on this matter, the literature is not reassuring. "

John said...

Now I agree that everyone is prone to confirmation bias, however I would argue that curious flip floppers are much less likely to be impaired. I mean what exactly am I trying to confirm as I review both views...

Whereas folks like yourself, Moose, etc have very strong believes regarding your knowledge and being correct... You have a WHOLE LOT of emotion tied up in being correct.

Consider what’s become known as “confirmation bias,” the tendency people have to embrace information that supports their beliefs and reject information that contradicts them. Of the many forms of faulty thinking that have been identified, confirmation bias is among the best catalogued; it’s the subject of entire textbooks’ worth of experiments.

...

If reason is designed to generate sound judgments, then it’s hard to conceive of a more serious design flaw than confirmation bias. Imagine, Mercier and Sperber suggest, a mouse that thinks the way we do. Such a mouse, “bent on confirming its belief that there are no cats around,” would soon be dinner. To the extent that confirmation bias leads people to dismiss evidence of new or underappreciated threats—the human equivalent of the cat around the corner—it’s a trait that should have been selected against. The fact that both we and it survive, Mercier and Sperber argue, proves that it must have some adaptive function, and that function, they maintain, is related to our “hypersociability.”
Mercier and Sperber prefer the term “myside bias.” Humans, they point out, aren’t randomly credulous. Presented with someone else’s argument, we’re quite adept at spotting the weaknesses. Almost invariably, the positions we’re blind about are our own.

...

The Gormans, too, argue that ways of thinking that now seem self-destructive must at some point have been adaptive. And they, too, dedicate many pages to confirmation bias, which, they claim, has a physiological component. They cite research suggesting that people experience genuine pleasure—a rush of dopamine—when processing information that supports their beliefs. “It feels good to ‘stick to our guns’ even if we are wrong,” they observe.

jerrye92002 said...

"... as I review both views..." And if you do that, you are the very rare human. Most of the real people I know are deeply ingrained in both confirmation bias and the Iron Law. I don't have to look further than most of your posts here to prove that to my satisfaction.

That said, we can work with that, so long as we don't try to sell our flavor of baloney to someone that prefers "pressed ham." Sean, for example, often points out places where I either have my "facts" wrong-- my iron law violation-- or where there are "alternative facts" to those I have confirmed in my own mind. Whether we have an emotional or rational conclusion from what we know, or think we know, is ANOTHER hurdle to be overcome. Again, that "can't reason a man out of..." problem.

And the big problem that remains, even after we "educate" each other, is that we may continue, and rightly, to dismiss the "facts" on the other side in preference to our own, or continue to disagree on our /interpretation/ of the those facts. The "myside bias" referenced is what others call "tribalism" and it is overwhelmingly visible in today's hyperpartisan politics.

Basically, because so few of us can discuss calmly, let alone rationally and with sufficient knowledge, it is best to simply save such discussions for the appropriate and limited fora. Thanks.

jerrye92002 said...

"...they want to correct for them. There must be some way, they maintain, to convince people that vaccines are good for kids, and handguns are dangerous." HAH! You would think so, but it simply isn't true! First of all, linking two such disparate controversies together means neither can be discussed intelligently. But assume that you could find someone willing to "listen" to another side of one of them [argument] (i.e. set confirmation bias aside) and then assume you could find someone with actual facts and reason on their side (i.e. free of the Iron Law). What would be the proof, "beyond a reasonable doubt" for either of these propositions sufficient to change the position of someone with facts and reason for the position they might already hold? Could both positions be "scientifically sound"? And wouldn't it be harder if someone had an EMOTIONAL basis for their position? Facts wouldn't matter!

Remember, confirmation bias is strengthened each time another "confirmation" appears, and with 24/7 news and social media, one can be "confirmed" a dozen times before breakfast. It is no wonder that our political debates have descended into shouting aspersions at one another.

John said...

I make a point to read VOX, CNN and FOX News regularly to fight confirmation bias. It also helps that I am indifferent to many of these topics.

My belief that there are few people with black or white hats helps also...

John said...

I am interested in which topics you see my confirmation bias showing?

jerrye92002 said...

mmmm, all of them? If it helps, I will accept that you quickly tend to confirm your own opinions, while initially having an open mind on the subject.

John said...

I'll need to give that some thought. It may make for a good post.

jerrye92002 said...

In order for us to change our minds about any subject, we must first have an agreement of "come, let us reason together." Now I do not discount human emotion as a very real fact that must be considered, but if that is the only "fact" we are not reasoning at all. Second step is that we must acknowledge what set of facts form the basis of discussion, and to what end our reasoning is to be employed. Are we trying to decide if Trump is fit for office? What to do about government [over]spending? Gun violence? What? And, when we have those facts and agree on them, do we have enough of them, or are they contradictory enough to support more than a single conclusion as to the nature of the problem? THEN we can address solutions.

We SO often take the shortcut to this problem solving process, leaping from an emotional reaction to unsubstantiated fact straight to some "solution" that has no bearing on the actual problem.

It is hard enough to imagine such an orderly process playing out here, let alone on Facebook. Can you imagine trying to do it in Twitter?

John said...

It seems the Far Left and Far Right folks won't be considering any other positions any time soon. :-(

That is pretty much what we have learned during this going on 10 year G2A experiment... I have linked to many 1,000s of documents of various views and pretty much everyone is right where they started.

That is kind of depressing...

jerrye92002 said...

I have been doing this (online debate) for a lot longer and I can probably count on the fingers (not counting the thumb) of one hand the number of times I've found an agreement from the "other side." I've done it for the challenge of stating my views clearly, convincingly and concisely. Only in the last few weeks have I finally realized not only how difficult it is, but WHY no minds are changed by my (ahem) brilliant arguments.

Don't be discouraged. Perhaps we could try to reach some consensus on some issues, or to honestly "agree to disagree" rather than using that phrase to admit that the other may have a point. You know, like good engineering problem-solving, rather than political sparring?

Anonymous said...

"...and pretty much everyone is right where they started."

Okay. You go first. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Moose

John said...

Jerry,
I used to try to convince people of things until they got angry. Now I just plant ideas, maybe water them occasionally and leave it to the recipient to see what they do with it...

I find watching how other people respond and analyze is at least as interesting as convincing them.

Moose,
I have moved quite a way Left from where I started in life. Please remember that Ma and Pa are Hard Right Country Folks.

jerrye92002 said...

If everyone remains right where they started, then either the problem is intractable, with multiple reasonable solutions, or somebody is stubbornly refusing the facts (or we don't have enough facts). Usually long before either situation is obvious, we descend into ad hominem of one sort or the other.

jerrye92002 said...

John, I long ago noticed a pattern to argumentation from the Leftists I dealt with (present company excluded). It was such that I counted a "win" as not when I convinced them to agree with me, but when they were unable to get me to agree with them, usually going off in sputtering rage.

I would much prefer wrestling these issues to some rational conclusion and course of action, however hypothetical (e.g. Trump SHOULD build the wall).

John said...

That is an excellent example of why we have problems reaching consensus.

One of my favorite team tools has been a decision matrix.

And things like "The Wall" all of us have different beliefs regarding evaluation criteria, weighting, etc and therefore we end up with different results.

And then when you throw in the complexity of what else the $18 Billion can used for... All bets are off.

John said...

Maybe I will try creating a decision matrix for one of our topics and see how far we can make it...

jerrye92002 said...

Great idea. I do it all the time. I suggest something simple because we cannot work simultaneously, and I know we will have disagreements and discussions all the way along on criterion, weighting, and ranking. I've always found it a great tool for one person to sort out his/her thoughts. But it would be interesting to see if we can reach an "objective" result. My other favorite tool, when there are many alternatives and few criteria, is the "forced choice matrix."