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Bastard_Orphan t1_j56ncfk wrote

Countries where dissent is literally illegal are less likely to openly dissent. Who would've thought?

What a shit measurement. Almos as if it was done by a PR firm working for Saudi Arabia. Oh wait, it is!

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Ragnangar t1_j57l1d3 wrote

Exactly my thoughts. Was looking for North Korea but it probably fell off the bottom left corner.

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BadHairDayToday t1_j5jhd3l wrote

The Edelman Trust Barometer is a Saudi PR firm? How do you figure?

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aksss7812 t1_j56j4eh wrote

There is a problem here which is that the measure was actually asking citizens their opinion on polarisation. This is an issue, for example, Americans might say their country is more polarised because they have Fox and CNN (based on media), but maybe an Argentinian would say the same thing based on some type of geographic polarisation. (Essentially this just measures citizens' perception of polarisation in their country. Well-established measures on polarisation can be found in "Working paper

Conceptualizing and measuring polarization: A review" (Bauer,2019).

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Aggravating_Unit_265 t1_j56n3t1 wrote

I get your point but in this case the divide is for similar reasons as that of the US, so it is a fair comparison

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aksss7812 t1_j56oa6q wrote

I agree with you intuitively, and I do think you would get similar results if you were to use decent measures. People do usually have a good idea of polarisation in their country. I'm just saying, as far as science goes, this is such a poor measure. Note, I was just using Argentina and USA as an example off top of my head.

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Super-Hotel-3784 t1_j5avcz7 wrote

Yes, but im familiar with the divisions of the two countries and for me the argentinian division is 10x worst than the american one, in america democrats and republicans both have the same work ethic and aproach to life, they just differ in things like guns, healthcare, drugs and those things.

Here in Argentina literally the two visions of half of the population are 100% opposite even in things like work ethic and how to progress in life. One side wants to do drugs, steal and free recieve money from the state without working and the other wants to study an progress.

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aksss7812 t1_j5ax5q1 wrote

That’s interesting. I don’t know anything about Argentinian politics or society, and my understanding of American politics comes solely through international media(not very reliable). I was just referencing an example to explain my point. I could have said country A and country B. My point was just that the measuring of polarisation is very poor and the alternatives are not complicated and are well known. I really don’t understand why they decided to measure it by asking a single question.

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JackdiQuadri97 t1_j5654tv wrote

I fail to grasp how countries with a single party can be not polarized, I suppose the poll was not done to people in jail. Also i guess Russia is so much in the bottom left they are outside the graph.

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DaBIGmeow888 t1_j56fevj wrote

Not polarized =/= Less polarized. The graph doesn't say not polarized, but less polarized. It's relative...

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JackdiQuadri97 t1_j56kb05 wrote

Polarization is measured on a scale, it's not black or white, obviously not polarized means with no particular/ with low polarization, the same way one would say something is not expensive or someone is not smart, it doesn't mean they are free or 0 IQ

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-Spin- t1_j56xicb wrote

I guess polarisation requires that it’s possible to be open about disagreements. Which is kind of a problem in a place like Saudi Arabia, where you risk getting sawed up and dissolved in acid.

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AfroInfo OP t1_j565ae8 wrote

Then there's countries so far to the top right that you don't realize are a part of the graph

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SiliconValleyIdiot t1_j567quy wrote

India being in the bottom left is... A statement! Wonder how religious minorities feel about India being in the bottom left.

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Lucapi t1_j56aksl wrote

That's the thing about minorities. When they're minor, they don't affect the polarization metrics much.

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anon702170 t1_j56h0kw wrote

I don't think the Sikhs would agree with this.

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Pros_n_cons t1_j59vnqm wrote

First of all, graph doesn't represent religious polarization, which is present, but maybe not at the doom level.

Secondly, Muslims aren't the only "minority", hell I wouldn't even consider the minority, maybe second majority. There Bhaudhs, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, these are real minority. And other religions. Not Muslims.

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Super-Hotel-3784 t1_j5auw5h wrote

La grieta explained to everyone that is not from Argentina here:

Half of the country wants to work their asses off to progress in life and to work out thing and the other half of the country just wants to do drugs, steal and vote for populism in order to obtain benefits and to recieve social pensions from the state without working.

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BadHairDayToday t1_j5jhn7a wrote

Now I want to hear what the populist drug doer group has to say about your side.

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Super-Hotel-3784 t1_j5k7bsx wrote

You will not understand them, they dont speak english, not even good spanish

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vacri t1_j587iba wrote

This graph is a fantastic demonstration of the weakness of self-reported studies.

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navagrw t1_j57rt4k wrote

India on the bottom left?! This is horseshit!

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Pros_n_cons t1_j59vaw0 wrote

Not on the basis of religion, but I think on the basis of trust of population on the government and it's agencies.

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navagrw t1_j59vlsb wrote

well for that matter nobody trusts the CBI lapdogs - and do you really think a Mig-21 shot down an F-16 ?

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Pros_n_cons t1_j59wize wrote

Attack CBI all you want, but do you really wanna question our military? There's no reason a Mig-21 can't shoot down a F-16 if the pilot was more experienced. You're taking word of Pakistan government over Indian, and it's not about goverment only, its about forces. You can have your opinion, but just don't perpetuate Pakistan's claims.

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navagrw t1_j59x5i8 wrote

I'm neither questioning the competence of our military, which is way >paf, nor perpetuating their claims, I'm shunning the Govt and IAF for lack of transparency, given how bad our squadron strengths are. People need to be realistic and solution oriented, and not get carried away by the harshness of the truth that our armed forces are suffering from bureaucracy and ineptitude.

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Pros_n_cons t1_j59y6gb wrote

I know limitations of our forces, that's why I don't perpetuate war with any nation. Our forces don't have modern arms, defence, equipments, etc. Major portion of our budget goes to pays and pensions. The bureaucracy and politics have almost made our military primitive, compared to other similar nations. But I do trust that things a looking up onwards. It will take decades to truly make our forces capable of fighting a two-front war, and winning without anyone's support. I have hope in Make in India initiative, whatever the result maybe, whoever business man makes money, if my India can get on with the global nations, I'm ready to pay the price.

And I think alot of people in India might think that way. I know, I know, realistically I shouldn't completely trust the goverment, but is there a choice. Majority of our politicians are inept to lead the nation. However many flaws might be present in this goverment, I do hope it retains the power.

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smithedition t1_j56rrow wrote

Kinda surprised to see Sweden in the company of the USA. Scandinavian politics and media don't seem that conducive to the kinds of toxic forces that drive polarization.

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EOwl_24 t1_j575b79 wrote

I don’t know how far this influences the metric, but I know that many parts of Scandinavia have a problem with rising gang violence, many people blame the governments for their bad immigration policies, perhaps clashing with the majority of left Scandinavians(?).

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marigolds6 t1_j56rlj3 wrote

The note in the corner is interesting, "Countries in this zone are very divided and doubtful that their differences can be overcome." Columbia is in that group and is 14th of 28 (from low to high) on the scale of "I do not feel these divisions can be overcome", putting them in the lower half of countries for doubt and below some countries even in the Moderately Polarized tier. The US sits at 17th, putting them also below countries in the Moderately Polarized tier.

On the other axis, Sweden has high doubt, but sits pretty close to the middle at 13th for degree of polarization, below some Moderately Polarized countires.

That might suggest that there should be a different way to group the countries when 1/2 of the severely polarized countries might not really represent the description of severely polarized?

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_OriamRiniDadelos_ t1_j5ag1am wrote

As a Colombian, maybe it’s a language thing?

Saying yes to “I do not feel this divisions can be overcome” sounds like Im saying that I think the country will collapse if the divisions aren’t completely fixed

“Overcome” means that you came out the other of a hard event still alive right?

Also we have a very politically apathetic culture (“what does it matter it’s always corrupt”) with a very very very toxic relation with social media (WhatsApp and Facebook) and very strong reasons to just hate either leftist or rightist politicians (if you had a family member killed by the FARC or rebels years ago you hate the left, if you had a family member killed by the Army or the paramilitary you hate the right). And our politicians play to all that in elections (since they always have any projects or economic improvements to point to)

The pandemic years where rough on political polarization. Look at Colombian news subreddits (and then think that WhatsApp groups where worse)

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gturk1 t1_j5c7715 wrote

I came here for sunglasses.

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selelee t1_j5czlpd wrote

i really dont understand how japan is polarized, never saw a sign of that but i dont live there. someone who lives there to explain?

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BadHairDayToday t1_j5jgtnf wrote

I think the y-axis (polarisation) is pretty good and it feels correct, but the x-axis (entrenchedness) seems to be quite random, and an unjustified amount of importance is given to it. Like the US and Brazil are obviously super divided; aided by a centuries long two-party system. This is a huge problem and there seem to be no clear solutions for it.

Compare that to Sweden and the Netherlands that have representative parliamentary democracies and well functioning institutions; but this graph somehow classifies them as equally bad.

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Taphouselimbo t1_j57xqt0 wrote

The Edelman firm is a PR firm for big business. I wouldn’t trust it as far as I could throw it. Who benefits from a divided lower class?

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iceytomatoes t1_j56ij1l wrote

i honestly find it hilarious that people think the US is extremely polarized

less than 0.1% of the population on either political extreme goes a little nuts and they suddenly don't think there's still 350m+ mentally stable and productive individuals existing there

its just gaslighting

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tactical_dick t1_j56vqiy wrote

Just because a small portion of people are insane doesn't mean the sides aren't incredibly polarized. That just means that they have radically different views from each other. Which our parties absolutely do. We are massively polarized right now and the most telling data point is the decrease in bi-partisan sponsored bills over the entirety of our history as a nation. We have only grown more polarized throughout our history.

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Fun_Scar_6275 t1_j56wzig wrote

Compared to the past and other countries like the Years of Lead in Italy or Colombia that has guerrillas and paramilitary groups in a state of civil war. It really is nothing.

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Gabagool1987 t1_j56eozp wrote

Easily USA #1 here. Basically have been 2 separate countries since 2016. 2 different peoples with different thoughts of what America should be. One has been dominating the other more or less non-stop since 2008 and it breeds huge resentment and paranoia by both sides.

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AfroInfo OP t1_j56fyxh wrote

You realize the chart has Argentina at #1 right?

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