I finally read 's book "Why We're Polarized," and really enjoyed it!
Ezra came on my podcast to discuss his model of how Republicans & Democrats became so ideologically & demographically different over the years
Audio + transcript:
rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/260-why-were-p
Conversation
Replying to
One useful takeaway for me was just teasing apart a bunch of related phenomena so we can think more clearly
1. Opinion polarization: People becoming more strongly PRO or CON on an issue
2. Sorting: The PRO people going to one party, the CON people going to another party
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3. Sorting by identity: People of one race / education level / gender / etc going disproportionately to one party over the other
4. Affective polarization: People in one party hating or fearing the other party
5. Partisanship: People reflexively agreeing with their own party
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As Ezra recognizes, the conversation around "polarization" gets really muddied because people use that word to refer to any / all of these things. But they each have different effects, and not all are inherently bad
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Was interesting to see that he had similar thoughts as Talebs concept of "intolerant minority" for single issue voters
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Adding to your list of recommended books :)
Simply, "The friend of my friend is my friend, the enemy of my friend is my enemy, the enemy of my enemy is my friend." That's all it takes.
He came off more of a pro-book burning kind of guy in his discussions with
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