Silos
A comforting scourge.
If there was an asteroid that might hit the earth on Nov 5 but might not we'd all be fascinated.
I'm fascinated by Trump and MAGA in a similar way.
I get a lot of absolutely damning information about Trumpists every day but nobody on the MAGA side seems to be hearing it. I survey Fox News' headlines to get a bit of a feel for what they are talking about. I don't read the articles and really can't stand to get deeper into right wing media.
On Oct 6 there was a major fenanyl bust in California. A big white supremecist gang was taken down. They had 97 lb of fentanyl, guns and a plan to destabilize America. Fox didn't mention that at all.
I'd bet that that's because it contradicts a trumpist narrative that violent crime in America is being driven by illegal immigrants.
It's an example of a silo wall between 2 opinion groups.
Maybe not - Wapo and NYTimes are not reporting it either
There's a good reason why we have silos. It can make life a lot more comfortable.
The rule of not discussing politics or religion at dinner has a solid basis. It helps digestion and prevents food fights.
I suggest that sports is so popular. It gives people something to talk about outside their silo. I haven't been to a sports event in 50 years so I can't comment from experience. But I bet that stadiums tend to self organize with fans of the teams occupying different parts of the stadium.
That's a kind of silo - but it's not pernicious.
When I was a young man I jumped out of middle class life into the hippie silo. It wasn't quite a good fit. Hippies didn't know what to make of a guy who was into science and math and philosophy.
Once at a fair I went to Vicky Starfire who did palm readings. She thought I'd be a skeptic (though I was really just curious) and refused to read my palm.
I try to practice communicating across silo walls. In the past I've thought of that as "accurate communication across belief boundaries. It isn't easy. Not many people are into that sort of exploration.
Long ago when I was just an attendee at a philosopher's cafe in North Vancouver a fellow across the room (Ray) called out that there wasn't a shred of evidence for natural selection. I called out "That's not true!" but we let it drop because it was off topic.
At the end of the meeting I went to him and introduced myself and gave him my email and asked if he'd like to email about it. So we did!:-) That turned into regular Saturday meetings in a coffee shop where we talked about evolution that went on for years.
Ray was an enthusiast for Intelligent Design (AKA Creation Science) but he was also pretty well versed in science. Our conversation was wide ranging and deep and extremely interesting.
Neither of us came away convinced by the other but we were good friends who could respect each other as sincere and well informed
When I was moderating a philosophy cafe at the beach one time I met a couple - Dan and Jenny. They were devout Christians hoping to convert me. We became good friends. When they retired and moved to Italy they were giving stuff away. I can touch the bookcase they gave me from my chair here.
Jenny introduced me to a discussion method she called the Reflection Method. The method is that one person presents a statement and then the listener has to convince the presenter that they understand the statement before being able to comment on it.
Then the commenter makes a statement and the process repeats. It's a very slow method. But it does allow glimpses across a silo wall.
Long ago Thothica's discussion groups were much larger than now. We'd commonly get 10 or 15 people. One of the purposes of setting a topic with an introduction is to give a limited common ground for people with different ideas to converse within. And the job of moderating was much trickier because lots of people would try to steer the discussion into their silo.
The group is smaller now and generally we are all on the same wavelength. A while ago a trumpist came and he was from a different silo for sure. We parted calling each other chicken.
Silos are a scourge though no matter how comforting they are. I think that each of us has a structure of understanding that converts data into meaningful information. A world is how reality seems after the data is processed through that structure of understanding. Silos mean that two people looking at the same thing can take away very different impressions about what they see.
This makes it very hard to understand each other as friends and allies.
What do you think
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.