<story><title>Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study</title><url>https://www.thesaint.scot/post/university-study-finds-reducing-inequality-can-reverse-political-polarisation</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>HideousKojima</author><text>The study sounds like a crock of horseshit:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;In this model, we assume that a large population of individuals comprises two distinct identity groups. These identities are assumed fixed, and thus correspond to a fixed feature of identity such as race, religious heritage, or socioeconomic background. Although such identities are fixed in the model, the salience of the identity, and therefore its impact on behavior, varies.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The model assumes only two distinct and unchangeable identity groups, and assumes that these identity groups are solely based on a few specific unchangeable traits. And that&amp;#x27;s before you get into some of the wacky assumptions in their actual math model.&lt;p&gt;Also of note, they mention Charlottesville and the capitol riot as examples of political polarization, but make no mention of comparable events on the left like the BLM riots, the GOP baseball shooting, etc. Gives you a good idea of where the politics of the authors sit and suggests there may be motivated reasoning behind their arguments. &amp;quot;Solve political polarization by doing more of what the left has wanted to do for over a century!&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study</title><url>https://www.thesaint.scot/post/university-study-finds-reducing-inequality-can-reverse-political-polarisation</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>umvi</author><text>&amp;gt; The study says, “We see that sufficient redistribution can reduce both inequality and polarisation, although a high degree of redistribution is required to prevent
polarisation.”&lt;p&gt;Have they factored in the act of wealth redistribution itself being polarizing? From a statistical&amp;#x2F;theoretical perspective it checks out, but I bet practically speaking if you actually tried &amp;quot;a high degree of [wealth] distribution&amp;quot;, the middle and upper classes would start screaming and it would cause even more polarization. If the key thing needed to reduce polarization is &amp;quot;reducing inequality&amp;quot;, it would probably be good to investigate alternative methods of reducing inequality as well.</text></comment>