本文探讨了政治选举中出现的一种现象：候选人往往在某些关键议题上采取极端对立的立场，导致选民群体出现认知盲点和社会分裂。作者使用“剪刀式”来比喻这种现象，即候选人分别针对选民群体中存在的不同认知盲点设计策略，导致选民难以理解对方立场，并阻碍了不同群体间的沟通和理解。文章以一个玩具模型为例，说明了这种现象如何导致选民群体之间相互敌视和难以合作，并强调了这种现象对社会和政治的影响。

✂️ **剪刀式候选人**: 文章提出“剪刀式”候选人概念，指候选人在关键议题上采取极端对立的立场，分别针对选民群体中存在的不同认知盲点设计策略。

🤔 **选民认知盲点**: 选民在某些特定议题上存在认知盲点，导致他们难以理解与自己立场不同的观点，例如Susan对B议题的认知盲点导致她无法理解支持X候选人的理由。

💔 **社会分裂与沟通障碍**: 剪刀式候选人导致选民群体之间相互敌视和难以合作，因为“能够准确识别A”与“拒绝承认B”被社会关联起来，阻碍了不同群体间的沟通和理解。

🚧 **认知盲点难以修复**: 这种现象使得选民群体更难修复自身的认知盲点，因为对立的立场被强加于特定的群体，导致他们难以客观地看待其他观点。

Published on November 6, 2024 10:38 AM GMT

(Epistemic status: I spoke simply / without "appears to" hedges, but I'm not sure of this at all.)

I’m confused why we keep getting scissors statements as our Presidential candidates, but we do.  (That is: the candidates seem to break many minds/communities.)

A toy model:^[1]

Take two capacities, A and B.  Ideally anti-correlated.

Craft two candidates:

Candidate X, who seems acceptable if you’re A-blind (if you have a major gap in your situation awareness near A).Candidate Y, who seems acceptable if you’re B-blind (if you have a major gap in your situation awareness near B).

Now let voters talk.

“How can you possibly vote for X, given how it’ll make a disaster on axis A?”, asks Susan.  (She is B-blind, which is part of why she is so confused/irate/loud here.)  Susan inquires in detail.  She (accurately) determines the staunchest X-voters don't understand A, and (understandably, but incorrectly) concludes that this explains their X-voting, that they have nothing to teach her, and that she should despair of working well with anyone who voted for Candidate X.

““How can you possibly vote for Y, given how it’ll make a disaster on axis B?”, asks Robert.  He, too, inquires in detail.  And he (accurately) determines the staunchest Y-voters have a key basic blind spot where he and his friends/neighbors have sense... feels a sense of closure ("okay, it's not that they know something I don't know"), and despairs of working well with anyone who voted for Y.

The thing that annoys me about this process is that, in the wake, it is harder for both sets of voters to heal their own blind spots.  “Being able to see A accurately” is now linked up socially and verbally with “being one of the people who refuse to acknowledge B” (and vice versa).  (This happens because the ontology has been seized by the scissors-statement crafters – there is a common, salient, short word that means both “A matters” and “B is fake,” and people end up using it in their own head, and, while verifying a real truth they can see, locking in a blind spot they can’t see.)

1. ^{^}

   This is a toy model for how the "scissors-ness" works, not for why some process is crafting us candidates like that.  I don't have a guess about that part.  Though I like these articles.

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