The root culprit is the Internet. I will speak primarily of USA politics because it's what I'm most familiar with, being a citizen of USA, but the logic used herein applies globally by nature. If you were to look at the history of US politics you'd find a two-party system at its core (Whigs vs. Tories), so the "Dem vs. GOP" split isn't anything new. Polarizing issues - Slavery, Taxation, Representation, Abortion, Religion - are all nothing new. And of course, the taking of humanist issues (man vs. man) and attempting to spin them for some type of gain is nothing new. None of this is earth-shattering, it's all old as fudge. What IS new, is the HOW's, not the WHAT's. HOW we retrieve, parse, and disseminate information. HOW we react to conflicting sources of information. HOW we determine what even IS information, and what is merely "fake news." And the answer is predominately via an instantaneous - or near enough to make no difference - pace. It's no longer a waiting game. As soon as I'm done posting this message, it's available forever, at will, for the entire world to peruse. And before you even read word one you've likely already formed a first impression. By the time you see some keywords you've already determined (at least in your point of view) where I stand on "the issues" and whether you will even attempt to take me seriously. And by the end of it all, nothing will have made a difference because it's "just" a post on a video game forum. That's all thanks to the Internet. For better or for worse, you don't have to worry about waking up next to me (unless you happen to be my girlfriend, but I highly doubt she's going to read this). You don't have to worry about seeing me across the fence bordering our yard. You don't have to worry about who I am or what I do and how it all relates to you; all you need be concerned about is "did Dimlhugion say stuff I agree with?" That trans-humanist cyber-philosophy is simultaneously our greatest freedom and our greatest cage. It offers limitless potential - to view ideas in the naked objective. But what it too often yields - case in point, most of these tug-of-war non-debate threads - is an echo-chamber of predefined subjective. "YOU just listen to Faux News!" "YOU blindly trust the liberal government!" Back and forth ad nauseum. And it is nauseating. It's repulsive. We are BETTER than this. But the siren's song is just too strong, is what I think. I think we as a country have become irreparably incapable of holding a true debate. Instead, we just Google the latest headlines, browse the buzzwords, and eat the margarine words. We've all gone fat. Lack of intellectual exercise, and the Internet is our vice. It's the fast food of media consumption, always there, always easy, always prompt. TL;DR VERSION: the reason this topic devolved into yet another pointless back-and-forth is because that's how we communicate as a society these days. It's either hit the Like button, or Report the post. No middle ground, because who has time for that? The advent of the Internet has morphed us into binary monkeys continually bashing at each other with (digital) rocks. And all I'm doing by posting this is tossing my own stone into the pool. But damn if it isn't pleasant to imagine the resulting ripples Butterfly-Effecting into something larger...
