Two years ago, I thought these sort of ideas were way more fringe among the far left than I do now. I could just have terrible luck, but I encountered these sort of ideas way, way, way more than I ever expected I would. And it wasn’t just once or twice or with people all in the same social circle. It was at least nine different unconnected individuals or unconnected social circles/​social contexts/​communities where someone expressed support for at least one of these ideas. Since it’s happened so many times, it’s hard for me to write it off.
In the conversations I’ve had with friends I still have now and don’t endorse any of these extreme opinions, they’ve told me their experiences are similar to mine. So, still anecdotal, but still hard to just write off as just my bad luck.
I would find it comforting to see polling that found these to be truly fringe positions within the far left, so if anyone knows of any, please share it.
None of the nine examples I’m thinking of were algorithmic social media feeds (some were people I knew in real life, some were local people in my community posting online, some were small and semi-private online communities). However, algorithmic social media feeds tend to amplify extreme views. So, if you step into that arena, even if a minority of minority believes something (e.g. 10-20% of the far left which is 5% of the U.S. population, so 0.5-1% of Americans overall), it might get disproportionate attention (e.g. it might look like 10% of the overall American population believes it).
Overall, this is just a warning to anyone who wants to get into the fray of these sort of TikTok/​Twitter short-form algorithmic social media debates with the far left that it might be disconcerting and crazymaking. And a concern that this format/​medium, in general, may just not be a productive way of changing people’s minds about anything or having serious conversations.
Two years ago, I thought these sort of ideas were way more fringe among the far left than I do now. I could just have terrible luck, but I encountered these sort of ideas way, way, way more than I ever expected I would. And it wasn’t just once or twice or with people all in the same social circle. It was at least nine different unconnected individuals or unconnected social circles/​social contexts/​communities where someone expressed support for at least one of these ideas. Since it’s happened so many times, it’s hard for me to write it off.
In the conversations I’ve had with friends I still have now and don’t endorse any of these extreme opinions, they’ve told me their experiences are similar to mine. So, still anecdotal, but still hard to just write off as just my bad luck.
I would find it comforting to see polling that found these to be truly fringe positions within the far left, so if anyone knows of any, please share it.
None of the nine examples I’m thinking of were algorithmic social media feeds (some were people I knew in real life, some were local people in my community posting online, some were small and semi-private online communities). However, algorithmic social media feeds tend to amplify extreme views. So, if you step into that arena, even if a minority of minority believes something (e.g. 10-20% of the far left which is 5% of the U.S. population, so 0.5-1% of Americans overall), it might get disproportionate attention (e.g. it might look like 10% of the overall American population believes it).
Overall, this is just a warning to anyone who wants to get into the fray of these sort of TikTok/​Twitter short-form algorithmic social media debates with the far left that it might be disconcerting and crazymaking. And a concern that this format/​medium, in general, may just not be a productive way of changing people’s minds about anything or having serious conversations.