If you went to a party (meaning a social event) and started loudly proclaiming that anyone who does not vote for your favourite political party is a selfish git, people would tell you you were being rude, and you might be asked to leave (unless everyone there shares your views).

But on facebook, this sort of behaviour is perfectly acceptable. And once you get used to this online, it carries over into offline life. Faced with this onslaught, people with descenting views either shut up about it or change their views to match the majority.

I dunno if I use anecdotal evidence too much, but from my experience, five years ago it was possible for people to have different political views, to have a civilised conversation about policies, to agree to disagree. Now virtually everyone I know has the same political views and no-one discusses policies (you can't fit policies into a tweet, its too complex).

More generally I get the impression that even physical violence in the pursuit of political aims seems to be argued as justified more frequently, from rioting to throwing stones at politicians to angry jokes about arson against people who support the wrong party.

Tomorrow its the general election here in the UK. Five years ago I would have had several conversations about who to vote for, with no hard feelings on either side. This time, I'm not telling anyone I know in real life who I'm voting for, and all I can think is that all this anger isn't worth it, that posting a picture captioned "We have people who need jobs, we have jobs that need to be done, why don't we just print the money needed? Share if you agree!" is not a sensible way to determine macroeconomic policy, and that we would all be better off if people got into office through examinations or futarchy.