Unless you consider the radical and sometimes dubious nature of dogmatic politics (left and right) to be a mental hazard worth avoiding.

I wonder if theres a way to temper a user, such that you expose them to more vitriolic bullshit on either side with some survey based feedback, and pull back again to allow for recovery, you go to and fro until you filter some undesirable components, idk maybe you have this pseudo-personality profile you target or you just want to minimise usage of a set of biases and you include lessons alongside it.

Thing is, one day those politics may come knocking at your door and there will be no way to avoid.

Today's super polarised identity politics was „mental hazard worth avoiding“ 20 years ago. Maybe the society at large should have paid more attention to it.

Im more with you than not.

I think my failing in this context is more to do with apathy inspired by everyone looking like assholes or idiots. Watching people interact poorly doesnt inspire positive behaviour by itself. It puts you in a position where the norms are unhealthy, and youre the one left with the additional mental work of struggling against those norms and making them better.

Maybe its necessary for society though, in some balance, because of what youre saying. Its easier to deescalate when there are people in the room that arent seeing red and blue and its easier to fall into dogma when youre only chilling with your political color.

Assuming the above is valid, maybe these questions are worth considering - How likely is consuming a bunch of blue v red perspectives to prompt a healthy and thought out response?

Whats the process in going from uninitiated to someone with a healthy, well adapted stance?

How do we make it more likely that people make it through that process, across social strata?

Well, if people try to stay away from polarised politics, that definitely won't improve the situation.

IMO the importance in reading all sides (IMO there're much more than 2 sides, even in US, let alone Europe and the rest of the world) is to learn that all sides deep bellow have some good ideas, some bad ideas and then there's reasoning behind them. And different contexts where some bad ideas actually are an improvement and good ideas would be net negative.

Of course, it's takes energy to read into that. It needs smart and thinking population to work. Personally I think classic philosophy is a good starting point. Pre-modern-era history. It gives some perspective how different contexts shape people. How things change in a sort of circular way. How societies were built and how they crashed.

It's the curse of democracy. On one hand, it's great. On the other hand, it's damn hard work to keep it well oiled.

At the end of the day, I think there's no need to „unify“ people for the sake of it. Different people live in different contexts and naturally they come to different conclusions. What we need is to get people into more intelligent mode. All camps need to get to the root of their issues and think of a constructive way to fix them. Rather than just destroy the world and hope the issue fixes itself. And then we need more autonomy at all levels so people living different contexts can try out their ideas at small scale.

Nah, I don't really need to hear anything from people saying I shouldn't exist because of my ethnicity, sexuality etc.

I mean I'd like to be aware it's happening, I just don't want to give them any more of a platform.

I don't think „don't giving them platform“ works. Soviet union worked hard to give no platform. Yet people invented all sorts of background channels. From book printing to discussion clubs to underground music shows. And when the system cracked just a bit, it washed away the system. While many people, both inside and outside, were completely unprepared for that. Because if stuff is hidden under the carpet it ain't happening, right?

Same pattern with Brexit or Trump.

Then you don't need to add them to your feed. That's the whole idea, you control your own feed

You can't prevent what you deny. Knowing the evil is the first step to dealing with it.