I agree with you man. The polarizing nature of these debates gets out of hand in many ways. The issues arent actually discussed to create discourse and understanding or to expand knowledge. They are about winning an us vs them battle, as you pointed out. Pick any political topic that has relevance of the day and you can basically watch it turn into a mindless "battle of the memes." The documentary called "manufacturing consent" is really interesting in its relation to this topic. It demonstrates how lobbyists for special interest groups convince the public to think about a topic the way they want them to, often by mimicking or impersonating scientists. Smoking cigarettes is an example from the past of how they convinced the public to smoke, and now many of the same techniques that were used then are being used on the issues of today, like climate change and such. But anyway, yeah social media like FB right now is basically just memes and click bait articles on the same topic over and over again but from a left or right perspective. Its Madness

Posted using Partiko Android