Free yourself from your filter bubbles | Joan Blades and John Gable

00:09:19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtVIDBs60S8

Summary

TLDRJoan Blades and John Gable emphasize the value of having politically diverse friendships to bridge societal divides. Joan, a progressive, and John, a conservative, found common ground despite their differing backgrounds. Joan co-founded MoveOn.org and noticed increasing societal polarization, prompting her to reach out across the political spectrum. John, initially involved in Republican politics, shifted to technology and founded AllSides.com to counter media bias by showing different perspectives. The speakers highlight the dangers of filter bubbles that can reinforce extreme beliefs and advocate for 'Living Room Conversations' — structured, respectful dialogues that can heal political and personal differences. Their message stresses incorporating diverse perspectives in relationships and fostering thoughtful communication across divides.

Takeaways

  • 🤝 The importance of embracing politically diverse friendships.
  • 📢 Joan Blades co-founded MoveOn.org to address division.
  • 📰 John Gable created AllSides.com to highlight media bias.
  • 📶 Technology can create filter bubbles, leading to extremism.
  • 🏠 Living Room Conversations facilitate healing discussions.
  • 🌎 Embracing diverse perspectives strengthens communities.
  • 👥 Respectful dialogues can bridge ideological divides.
  • 🚫 Avoiding echo chambers is crucial for healthy debates.
  • 🎥 Media and technology should help unite, not divide.
  • 💬 Genuine conversations promote understanding and empathy.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:09:19

    Joan Blades discusses her journey from having no conservative friends as a progressive living in a progressive area to interacting and forming friendships with people across the political spectrum, including John Gable, a Republican. They reflect on their backgrounds, with Joan being a cofounder of MoveOn.org, aimed at reducing polarization following the Clinton impeachment, and John, who worked in Republican politics and later technology. They emphasize the importance of political diversity in friendships and how it can foster understanding and collaboration. Blades recounts how meetings with different groups led to powerful experiences, such as supporting net neutrality with someone from the Christian Coalition.

Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • Who are the main speakers in the talk?

    Joan Blades and John Gable.

  • What is the main topic of the discussion?

    The importance of having politically diverse friendships and bridging divides.

  • What initiative did Joan Blades co-found that is mentioned in the talk?

    MoveOn.org

  • What does John Gable do currently that relates to media biases?

    He started AllSides.com to provide different perspectives and counter media bias.

  • What is one activity Joan mentions for healing political and personal differences?

    Living Room Conversations.

  • What is John Gable's background before moving into technology?

    He grew up in a Republican family in the conservative South and worked in Republican politics.

  • What concept did John mention that leads to more extreme beliefs?

    Technology filtering out ideas leads to extreme beliefs and less tolerance.

  • What does Living Room Conversations aim to achieve?

    To begin healing political and personal differences through structured conversations.

  • What kinds of diversity do Joan and John promote?

    They promote diversity in information and relationships, including political, age, and background diversity.

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  • 00:00:12
    Joan Blades: Do you have politically diverse friends?
  • 00:00:15
    What do you talk about with them?
  • 00:00:18
    I'm a progressive; I live in a town full of progressives,
  • 00:00:20
    and 15 years ago, I didn't have any conservative friends.
  • 00:00:24
    Now I have a wonderful mix of friends,
  • 00:00:27
    and they include John.
  • 00:00:29
    John Gable: I am not a progressive.
  • 00:00:31
    I'm a Republican who grew up in a Republican family
  • 00:00:34
    in the conservative South,
  • 00:00:35
    and even worked in Republican politics, locally and at the national level.
  • 00:00:39
    But the last 24 years, I've been in technology
  • 00:00:42
    and living in a very progressive area.
  • 00:00:44
    So I have a lot of progressive friends,
  • 00:00:46
    including Joan.
  • 00:00:48
    JB: I was born in Berkeley, California,
  • 00:00:51
    a notoriously progressive college town.
  • 00:00:54
    And I live there now.
  • 00:00:56
    In 1998, six months into the Monica Lewinsky-Clinton impeachment scandal,
  • 00:01:02
    I helped cofound MoveOn.org with a one-sentence petition:
  • 00:01:07
    "Congress must immediately censure the president
  • 00:01:10
    and move on to pressing issues facing the nation."
  • 00:01:13
    Now, that was actually a very unifying petition in many ways.
  • 00:01:17
    You could love Clinton or hate Clinton
  • 00:01:19
    and agree that the best thing for the country was to move on.
  • 00:01:23
    As the leader of MoveOn, I saw the polarization just continue.
  • 00:01:28
    And I found myself wondering
  • 00:01:31
    why I saw things so differently
  • 00:01:34
    than many people in other parts of the country.
  • 00:01:36
    So in 2005, when I had an opportunity to get together with grassroots leaders
  • 00:01:42
    across the political divide,
  • 00:01:45
    I grabbed it.
  • 00:01:47
    And I became friends with a lot of people
  • 00:01:49
    I never had a chance to talk to before.
  • 00:01:53
    And that included leadership in the Christian Coalition,
  • 00:01:56
    often seen as on the right the way MoveOn is seen as on the left.
  • 00:02:00
    And this lead to me showing up on Capitol Hill
  • 00:02:04
    with one of the Christian Coalition leaders, my friend,
  • 00:02:08
    to lobby for net neutrality.
  • 00:02:10
    That was powerful.
  • 00:02:11
    We turned heads.
  • 00:02:13
    So this work was transformational for me.
  • 00:02:17
    And I found myself wondering:
  • 00:02:20
    How could vast numbers of people have the opportunity
  • 00:02:24
    to really connect with people that have very different views?
  • 00:02:28
    JG: I was born Oneida, Tennessee,
  • 00:02:31
    right across the state border from a small coal mining town,
  • 00:02:35
    Stearns, Kentucky.
  • 00:02:37
    And I lived there for the first few years of my life,
  • 00:02:39
    before moving to another small town, Frankfort, Kentucky.
  • 00:02:42
    Basically, I grew up in small-town America,
  • 00:02:44
    conservative at its heart.
  • 00:02:46
    Now, Stearns and Berkeley -- they're a little different.
  • 00:02:50
    (Laughter)
  • 00:02:53
    So in the '90s I moved out west to a progressive area
  • 00:02:57
    to work in technology --
  • 00:02:58
    worked at Microsoft, worked at Netscape.
  • 00:03:00
    I actually became the product manager lead for Netscape Navigator,
  • 00:03:04
    the first popular web browser.
  • 00:03:06
    Now in the early days of the internet,
  • 00:03:08
    we were just moved and inspired by a vision:
  • 00:03:11
    when we're connected to all these different people around the world
  • 00:03:14
    and all these different ideas,
  • 00:03:16
    we'll be able to make great decisions,
  • 00:03:17
    and we'll be able to appreciate each other
  • 00:03:20
    for the beautiful diversity that the whole world has to offer.
  • 00:03:23
    Now I also, 20 years ago, gave a speech
  • 00:03:24
    saying it might not work out that way,
  • 00:03:27
    that we might actually be trained to discriminate against each other
  • 00:03:31
    in new ways.
  • 00:03:34
    So what happened?
  • 00:03:36
    It's not like we just woke up one day and decided to hate each other more.
  • 00:03:40
    Here's what happened.
  • 00:03:42
    There's just too much noise -- too many people, too many ideas --
  • 00:03:45
    so we use technology to filter it out a little bit.
  • 00:03:47
    And what happens?
  • 00:03:49
    It lets in ideas I already agree with.
  • 00:03:52
    It lets in the popular ideas,
  • 00:03:54
    it lets in people just like me who think just like me.
  • 00:03:56
    That sounds kind of good, right?
  • 00:03:58
    Well, not necessarily,
  • 00:04:01
    because two very scary things happen
  • 00:04:04
    when we have such narrow worldviews.
  • 00:04:06
    First, we become more extreme in our beliefs.
  • 00:04:11
    Second, we become less tolerant of anybody who's different than we are.
  • 00:04:18
    Does this sound familiar?
  • 00:04:20
    Does this sound like modern America? The modern world?
  • 00:04:24
    Well, the good news is that technology is changing,
  • 00:04:26
    and it could change for the better.
  • 00:04:28
    And that's, in fact, why I started AllSides.com --
  • 00:04:31
    to create technologies and services to free us from these filter bubbles.
  • 00:04:35
    The very first thing we did was create technology that identifies bias,
  • 00:04:38
    so we could show different perspectives side by side
  • 00:04:42
    to free us from the filter bubbles of news media.
  • 00:04:46
    And then I met Joan.
  • 00:04:49
    JB: So I met John outside of Washington, DC,
  • 00:04:52
    with an idealistic group of cross-partisan bridge builders,
  • 00:04:58
    and we wanted to re-weave the fabric of our communities.
  • 00:05:02
    We believe that our differences can be a strength,
  • 00:05:06
    that our values can be complimentary
  • 00:05:09
    and that we have to overcome the fight
  • 00:05:12
    so that we can honor everyone's values
  • 00:05:14
    and not lose any of our own.
  • 00:05:17
    I went for this wonderful walk with John,
  • 00:05:19
    where I started learning about the work he was doing
  • 00:05:21
    to pierce the filter bubble.
  • 00:05:23
    It was powerful;
  • 00:05:25
    it was brilliant.
  • 00:05:27
    Living in separate narratives is not good.
  • 00:05:30
    We can't even have a conversation or do collaborative problem-solving
  • 00:05:34
    when we don't share the same facts.
  • 00:05:38
    JG: So one thing you take away from today
  • 00:05:40
    is if Joan Blades asks you to go on a walk,
  • 00:05:43
    go on that walk.
  • 00:05:44
    (Laughter)
  • 00:05:45
    It changed things. It really changed the way I was thinking about things.
  • 00:05:49
    To free ourselves from the filter bubbles,
  • 00:05:51
    we can't just think about information filter bubbles,
  • 00:05:54
    but also relationship and social filter bubbles.
  • 00:05:56
    You see, we human beings -- we're not nearly as smart as we think we are.
  • 00:06:00
    We don't generally make decisions intellectually.
  • 00:06:02
    We make them emotionally, intuitively,
  • 00:06:04
    and then we use our big old brains
  • 00:06:06
    to rationalize anything we want to rationalize.
  • 00:06:08
    We're not really like Vulcans like Mr. Spock,
  • 00:06:12
    we're more like bold cowboys like Captain Kirk,
  • 00:06:15
    or passionate idealists like Dr. McCoy.
  • 00:06:19
    OK, for those of y'all who prefer the new "Star Trek" crew,
  • 00:06:22
    here you go.
  • 00:06:23
    (Laughter)
  • 00:06:24
    JB: Don't forget the strong women!
  • 00:06:26
    JG: Come on, strong women. OK.
  • 00:06:28
    JB: All right.
  • 00:06:29
    John and I are both "Star Trek" fans.
  • 00:06:31
    What's not to love about a future with that kind of optimism?
  • 00:06:36
    JG: And having a good future in mind is a big deal -- very important.
  • 00:06:40
    And understanding what the problem is is very important.
  • 00:06:42
    But we have to do something.
  • 00:06:44
    So what do we do?
  • 00:06:45
    It's actually not that hard.
  • 00:06:46
    We have to add diversity to our lives --
  • 00:06:48
    not just information, but relationship diversity.
  • 00:06:52
    And by diversity, I mean big "D" diversity,
  • 00:06:54
    not just racial and gender, which are very important,
  • 00:06:57
    but also ...
  • 00:06:59
    diversity of age, like young and old;
  • 00:07:02
    rural and urban;
  • 00:07:04
    liberal and conservative;
  • 00:07:07
    in the US, Democrat and Republican.
  • 00:07:10
    Now, one of the great examples of somebody freeing themselves
  • 00:07:13
    from their filter bubbles
  • 00:07:14
    and getting a more diverse life
  • 00:07:16
    is, once again, next to me -- Joan.
  • 00:07:19
    JB: So the question is:
  • 00:07:21
    Who among you has had relationships lost or harmed
  • 00:07:25
    due to differences in politics, religion or whatever?
  • 00:07:29
    Raise your hands.
  • 00:07:31
    Yeah.
  • 00:07:33
    This year I have talked to so many people
  • 00:07:35
    that have experienced that kind of loss.
  • 00:07:41
    I've seen tears well up in people's eyes as they talk about family members
  • 00:07:45
    from whom they're estranged.
  • 00:07:48
    Living Room Conversations were designed
  • 00:07:51
    to begin to heal political and personal differences.
  • 00:07:57
    They're simple conversations
  • 00:07:59
    where two friends with different viewpoints each invite two friends
  • 00:08:04
    for structured conversation,
  • 00:08:05
    where everyone's agreed to some simple ground rules:
  • 00:08:08
    curiosity, listening, respect, taking turns --
  • 00:08:12
    everything we learned in kindergarten, right?
  • 00:08:14
    Really easy.
  • 00:08:16
    So by the time you're talking about the topic you've agreed to talk about,
  • 00:08:20
    you actually have the sense that,
  • 00:08:22
    "You know, I kind of like this person,"
  • 00:08:24
    and you listen to each other differently.
  • 00:08:26
    That's kind of a human condition;
  • 00:08:28
    we listen differently to people we care about.
  • 00:08:31
    And then there's reflection
  • 00:08:33
    and possibly next steps.
  • 00:08:36
    This is a deep listening practice;
  • 00:08:38
    it's never a debate.
  • 00:08:41
    And that's incredibly powerful.
  • 00:08:43
    These conversations in our own living rooms
  • 00:08:47
    with people who have different viewpoints
  • 00:08:50
    are an incredible adventure.
  • 00:08:52
    We rediscover that we can respect and even love people
  • 00:08:55
    that are different from us.
  • 00:08:58
    And it's powerful.
  • 00:09:01
    JG: So, what are you curious about?
  • 00:09:04
    JB: What's the conversation you yearn to have?
  • 00:09:07
    JG: Let's do this together.
  • 00:09:09
    Together.
  • 00:09:10
    JB: Yes.
  • 00:09:11
    (Laughter)
  • 00:09:12
    (Applause)
  • 00:09:15
    JB and JG: Thank you.
Tags
  • political diversity
  • friendship
  • polarization
  • Living Room Conversations
  • MoveOn.org
  • AllSides.com
  • filter bubbles
  • communication
  • diversity
  • bridge building