Political Memes

This has been my experience as well. Let me be upfront and say that I was formerly part of the far-right echo chamber for quite a long time, but recently I've recognized that I've been duped and have been actively working on seeking out other perspectives, in the hope of getting a more accurate world view. When you ask questions about political issues that are "common sense" to most people, people often become sceptical of you, especially in groups. This makes sense, because people on the extreme sides of politics often use targetted questions in order to spread and/or defend their own opinions on topics. Most echo chambers have as a goal to recruit more people, so people in them actively try to influence others into their own beliefs. I also did this when I was part of the echo chamber.

Currently I want to discuss these kinds of things with others to get more perspectives, and also to share my own perspectives with them, so either other people are trying to sniff out the extremists that are trying to influence them, or they are overtaken by group-think/tribalism and don't want anything to do with people that have different opinions on topics to protect the group. I couldn't say, maybe both of them. It really depends on the people you talk to.

From my experience it's often fine talking about these things one-on-one if they're open to it, but the larger the group gets, the more everyone adheres to the "safe" political views, and the more sceptical they become of any outliers. Everyone is just trying not to get shunned is my best guess, seeking defence in the group, but who knows. I also wish it was different, it's tiring to hide your real thoughts for a prolonged time. It sucks that being quiet when others are talking about it is also suspicious, even if I'm not comfortable talking about things because of my limited knowledge. Even probing with slightly controversial things is seen as suspicious, while your honest intention is just to hear their perspectives on it.

To solve this my strategy has become to blend in with the political views of whatever group I'm currently in, and limit my actually political thoughts and ideas to small groups of 1-3 people, or one-on-one. Of course people don't like this idea, but this problem really exists for people that are honestly trying to hear others' perspectives, but it also exists for people in echo chambers trying to influence others.

I don't know, maybe there's still a bias caused by the time I was in an echo chamber and did actually try to influence people, which was not received well. Now that I think about it talking about my political views with others is currently better than it was before, but there's still a fear of being shunned for my political views that remains from my echo chamber time. I'm afraid people jump to conclusions too quickly based on who you associate with, but I'm not sure if that's even the case with most people if you're not trying to influence them. Maybe they're also in an echo chamber, I can't currently tell. When I was in an echo chamber myself I thought that others were the ones that were part of echo chambers, the ones with the cognitive dissonance, but it was actually me it turns out, so I really don't know if that's another false belief. I guess I just have to find out sometime and try bringing up controversial topics in groups again.