Preamble starts> I’ve noticed that some insults are being thrown across the political divide(s) on a few threads.

When you’ve spent a lot of years coming to understand the world as best you can, it can be easy, day-to-day, to imagine that those who understand it differently must be malign or manipulated or misinformed or just plain dumb. But, while that is undoubtedly true of some, to some degree, the idea that it is very true for very many people... seems unlikely to me (attacks on 5G infrastructure etc., apart). Most people are decent enough in my experience.

I think we can also all fall into the trap of working back from our self-image as liberal/conservative/whatever to a position that fits our existing worldview, or philosophy if we’re feeling grandiose, rather looking at arguments on their merits. <preamble ends

To mix and freshen things up and challenge our preconceptions about the world and each other, I’d like to suggest mashing up elements of Fantasy Policy Advisor (not a real thing afaik) and the Stanford prison experiment (real thing, not without issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_ ... experiment)

I’m imagining two small teams, each containing right- and left-leaning members, coming up with four or five bullet point policies as the basis of a political manifesto for the UK, for discussion with and criticism by the other team.

Anybody want to play?

Preamble starts> I’ve noticed that some insults are being thrown across the political divide(s) on a few threads.

When you’ve spent a lot of years coming to understand the world as best you can, it can be easy, day-to-day, to imagine that those who understand it differently must be malign or manipulated or misinformed or just plain dumb. But, while that is undoubtedly true of some, to some degree, the idea that it is very true for very many people... seems unlikely to me (attacks on 5G infrastructure etc., apart). Most people are decent enough in my experience.

I think we can also all fall into the trap of working back from our self-image as liberal/conservative/whatever to a position that fits our existing worldview, or philosophy if we’re feeling grandiose, rather looking at arguments on their merits. <preamble ends

To mix and freshen things up and challenge our preconceptions about the world and each other, I’d like to suggest mashing up elements of Fantasy Policy Advisor (not a real thing afaik) and the Stanford prison experiment (real thing, not without issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_ ... experiment)

I’m imagining two small teams, each containing right- and left-leaning members, coming up with four or five bullet point policies as the basis of a political manifesto for the UK, for discussion with and criticism by the other team.

Anybody want to play?