Oddbean new post about | logout
 It's exactly why people are too tribal that one must be careful to endorse people (essentially, endorsing their ego). If we say we are for or against someone, we disregard not only the potentially healthy actions/words they may be saying in other respects, but we may essentially be banning them from any further critical thinking. 

One could say, we would be acting like Twitter.

But this would not be surprising, because networks shape us. Our environment shape us, and when we want to grow and our environment stifles us, we move to one that is healthier for growth and even challenges us for that growth. Rinse and repeat.

It's not easy. Saying that maybe someone has one or more good qualities might mean we are pro-them because of the social pressure to choose in a binary way... goes to show how deeply engraved the tools we use might be changing us already.

So I look at the actions/words of a person and speak of that, not the person. For the person always changes, even on a daily basis depending on who  and where they are interacting with, wearing many masks, and we don't really know who they are.. because inversely, do we know who we really are?