This is just beyond parody. Everyone in the United States who's reading this, please make sure you're registered to vote and plan on doing so this fall. I guarantee you the wackos in this thread are planning on doing so hell or high water.
Well, back around the time I said "Aw, for Pete's sake," I pretty much
gave up on posts by that particular forum member and turned on the "ignoring" thing.
The funny thing is, my educated guess is that I'll probably vote the same as he does.
Now, if I made my decisions on the basis of "self association with a tribe," and
his posts were my sole exposure to that tribe, I almost certainly wouldn't. (I might, in fact, skip certain offices altogether.)
But I'm trying
not to vote based on tribal markings or tribal associations. (I think my personal experience probably has another name: "A Bad Sample Set." So I try to hedge my bets, whether or not the tiny subsets of Tribe X or Tribe Y whom I encounter strike me as sane, smart, or likeable...although it helps if they haven't
literally struck me.)
I think in the end that persons should vote on the basis of increasing the likelihood of a beneficial long-term outcome, or decreasing the likelihood of a detrimental one.
That's helpful, because it liberates you from feeling like you have to approve of the candidate, themselves, either politically or personally. It means that in an election between Hitler and Franco, you can literally vote for Franco in order to try to keep Hitler out without having to feel bad about it (as if your vote for Franco somehow made you guilty of whatever dumb crap he does if elected). Ethicists call this principle "Double Effect"; but I just call it "The guy I want for mayor rarely is the guy I'd allow my daughter to date."
And, I think the outcomes of elections are not usually directly because of Candidate X's exercise-of-office, but rather from the fact that by Candidate X being in office, one empowers a set of unelected persons associated with Mr. X. These are always a mix of virtuous and venal persons with strengths and weaknesses, so it can be difficult sometimes to discern which crowd of yahoos and schemers will create the best long-term payoff. But when there is a significant gap between the long-term outcomes of Crowd A or Crowd B influencing the society, then I try to weigh the crowds more heavily than the candidate themselves. (This is especially true when the candidate, either temperamentally or for other reasons, is likely to be a non-strategic figurehead rather than the real motivating force behind the whole show.)
I dub this "the Zaphod Beeblebrox model" of thinking about political candidates.
I dunno if any of that is helpful to anyone else. I hope that it is.
But I do think the COVID threads would be more beneficial to all comers if, once a person's been identified as unhelpful, we just activated "ignore" on their posts and spent time listening most to whichever person seems to...
(a.) disagree with us most on the merits; and,
(b.) seem best-equipped to argue in a way that might help us either change our own minds, or modify our positions.
More light, less heat, y'know?
P.S. By inviting "ignore" to be used, I realize I'm in danger of getting "ignored" by some. That's fair. But hopefully it'll be folks who just don't like my overlong posts, and not because I've been stupid or rude to anyone. If I ever have, I apologize for that.
P.P.S. Because it took so long for me to type my reply, it looks like other folks have moved past the problem of political tribalism producing bad posts. So I don't know if what I said about that is still helpful. If not, I can modify.
