Brexit, French poll, PO-PiS, Clinton- Trump, etc. -- is polarisation growing?

Such challenges as Brexit, the French election, PO-PiS, Clinton-Trump, etc. seem to suggest that many socieites have become increasingly polarised. Of course poltical anatgonisms are as old as mankind, but do you get the impression that nowadays, in peacetime (despite the terrorist issue) societal splits have been deepening?

Societal splits have been deepening and accelerating due to the public currently having access to the internet and being able to learn and discuss matters which matter to them rather than being filtered out, spun and censored by state controlled or leftist owned and operated media.

In the examples of polarisaiton I've mentioned and probably others as well the division is usually between arrogant, better-to-do urban snobs who claim they know what's best for everyone, and ordinary citizens, the "salt of the earth", who feel discriminated against and believe their needs, priorities and values are being ignored or downplayed by the snooty elites.

Everything has its downside. Re the web, it has lowered the level of public debate, encouraged verbal aggression, granted a publicci stage to all kinds of unbalanced crazies to spout any and all abuse at will and not be held accountable or even identifiable. A sure-fire way to restore some semblance of sanity and moderation to the Internet is to ban anonymous comments. Also on PF -- every poster should be identified with their true, email address and even phone number. That would eliminate the web's cockroaches hiding behind elusive nicks and venting their frustratoion on others.

A nation might enjoy full employment, might achieve constant economic growth and live in peace for a very long time, and you will still have certain groups that are left behind simply because they are unable to adapt. The division is not between "urban snobs" and "ordinary citizens", but between mobile people with a good education and a well-paying job, and immobile folks with a good (or bad) education and hardly any well-paying jobs in their neck of the woods. Why do you blame the "arrogant" city dwellers who are in the majority? They are not at fault that the "hillbilly minority" don't move to where the jobs are.

This is true. Urbanites completely take for granted those in the suburban and rural areas even though it is the cities which are completely dependent on drawing resources from and sending their waste to the places they look down upon.

Urbanities are also like caged animals literally competing all the time for more space in a constrained area with ever increasing costs. This cutthroat competitiveness done out of desperation causes them to see normal people who don't need to compete with them as weak or lacking smarts.

And rather than being enriching it is cities (particularly the more diverse they are) which are very much characterized by their lack of civility, civic pride, and social cohesion as well as by having higher levels and more violent types of crime.


Anonymity can indeed bring out the worst in some people. But as we have all seen on PF some characters do not respect the opinions of others and never will. So much so that they have used personal information they managed to glean to go after people in real life to destroy their careers or personal relationships which is bad enough. There have been horror stories though of people being physically harmed or even murdered elsewhere and I would not put it past some on here to be violent if they thought they could get away with it.

You will always have horror stories and less violent abuses, but on balance do you not believe requiring full idenetification to make online comments or join a forum woudl civilise posters and foster morer decorum and restraint? A poster wanting to dump dirt on someone would be less inclined to if he knew his contact data were visible in his post.

Not disagreeing with you there. I dare say that several posters here would vanish overnight should their real identity be available.

Ready identifiability is the principal reason people in small towns and villages are usually more restrained and careful about what they do in public. Big cities have always allowed people to anonymously lose themselves in the crowd and (both figuratively and in actuality) get away with murder.

I don't believe it necessarily would.

There would first have to be some independent means of validating at least some of the personal information such as using a paywall in order to post here. Without this mechanism the use of full names and contact information could still be falsified.

Also, if someone lives alone and is isolated (like being long-term unemployed, living in a very remote area, or having no friends, neighbors, or relatives they socialize with) then having their contact information would be rather useless. If asking antisocial posters on here to behave doesn't work then calling them at home wouldn't help either. The only positive use of having personal information would be if a poster did something truly outrageous like threatened to harm themselves or others. Then their information could be useful to pass along to local police authorities or other emergency services. However, I don't see a situation though of the police being willing to raid someone's home because they bruised someone else's ego on here.

People in real life often have fallouts even if they know a lot about each other (sometimes because they know too much about each other). Neighbors being at war with each other is universal and has been that way since the dawn of humanity.

We also live in an era now where people "overshare" things online anyway. So posting names and contact information doesn't have a governing effect especially because in the real world social pressure is not as strong as it used to be. On sites like Twitter and YouTube there are many content producers who make it a point to go overboard on their opinions in order to attract more followers.

Another concern is hackers, criminals, marketers and data miners seeing any names and contact information as well. It would be openly available to them and all they would use it for are nefarious and/or profit making purposes. Heck, even posters on here could be incentivized to collect other people's personal data and try to sell it. And they would have no obligation to respect and protect the use of any freely given personal information of others even if the intent for providing it on here was to build a climate of respect.

All I know is i cannot wait for the Netflix doc of roger stone to come out. It will premier at the tribeca film festival on may 23. The guy has been in politics and is often seen as an archetypal villain but I love the guy. Stone is a legend!

French philosopher Bernard Henri Levy gets cake in face at Belgrade event/VIDEO

b92.net/eng/news/society.php?yyyy=2017&mm=05&dd=11&nav_id=101247

fmreview.org/destination-europe/szczepanik-tylec.html here

Thank God for little wonders. Imagine Hillary Clinton as US president. She would already grilled entire world

This country would be up for sale to the highest bidder thats for sure. The good news is they are getting even closer to locking her up:)