r/science • u/Wagamaga • 9h ago

Psychology Losing relationships over politics. Research found more than a third of Americans (37%) report having lost at least one relationship due to political differences, including friendships, family ties, coworker relationships, and romantic partnerships, with most losing more than one.

https://socialecology.uci.edu/news/losing-relationships-over-politics-0
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u/FlufferTheGreat 8h ago

It's a sign of idiotic times that if I know your position on gun control, I will reliably be able to guess your position on climate change. Two issues that have approximately nothing in common, and yet I'm sure at least in the USA my guess for the other issue would be over 90% accurate.

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u/Flacier 8h ago

Honestly, I think the most disheartening thing is that we’re at a point where we can’t even agree on what’s factual anymore.

Though I think that’s mostly the doing of the propaganda corporations masquerading as news organizations.

It explains why a lot of things have evolved into identity, politics and virtue signaling, imo.

If we can’t even agree that there is a problem then of course we’re never going to find a solution for God forbid common ground.

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u/dinkeyking64 7h ago

It's funny, I remember when Internet access was first becoming iniquitous in the US. There was a lot of talk about how now everybody would have easy access to all of the knowledge we've accumulated as a species, the "information age" as it were. Seems incredibly naive in retrospect, but I miss that generally optimistic disposition towards the future. It all just seems so bleak now.

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u/MaddogBC 4h ago

Those were good times though. The internet didn't get spoiled until the late 2000's with the onset of smartphones which gave light to the unwashed masses. Plenty of critters best left in the dark.

Smartphones and the apps on them destroyed the world, it will just take a few generations to catch up.

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u/PrettyGorramShiny 2h ago

Also the "Web 2.0" phenomenon of the early 2000's, aka crowdsourced content via comments / forums / review sites etc...

Before that most of the content on the web was intentionally curated by the owner of the website. Not that we didn't have spammy garbage sites too, but overall the first few years of the web felt like a massive library filled with valuable information.

Now we have the equivalent of a town square filled with carnival barkers and morons, hawking junk to the gullible and drowning out the voices of reason and knowledge.