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Notes -
Think you dropped something here?
I think most people do a mix. We use broad heuristics to narrow down someone we are likely to have enough in common with to make it worth knowing them more intimately. The only way to be exposed to foreign ideas we will likely accept is if the other person is similar enough to us, and we respect them enough, to actually listen and be persuaded.
Put another way - let's say I lined up a random selection of people in front of you. You have an 80 year old chain smoking racist, a young hothead convict, a relatively well off and intellectual techie, a single mother desperately trying to raise a family of four, tons of poor people from Africa, India, and China barely making ends meet, etc. There would probably only be one or two people in there that you could relate to enough to have your mind changed from a conversation with them.
Most people don't value truth as their highest value, or at least one of their top priorities, like folks on the Motte tend to. (At least more than the general public.) The majority of educated, well off Western women for instance have the right to abortion as one of, if not the, highest priority values in their life. It really doesn't make sense for them to spend time talking to someone who doesn't believe in abortion because there is no way to convince them. As far as they are concerned, if they all the sudden started rejecting abortion and respected people who did the same, they would effectively be a different person.
This seems like hyperbole to me. Most people don't need to know all facets, they just need to know general political alignment.
Eh, I think it would be better if you knew how they voted but didn't discriminate and actually debated them. That seems to be the optimal strategy to me.
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