Being around too many antagonistic people is stressful.

“The impact of election stress: Is political anxiety harming your health?: Psychological science shows that politics can harm our physical and mental health, but the positive aspects of political engagement can lead to greater well-being”

“In polarized communities, they found that bonding ties, or bonds between people who are similar (in this case, politically similar), were linked with better physical and mental health (International Political Science Review, Vol. 75, No. 3, 2022). Bridging ties—connections with dissimilar people—were associated with worse overall health for people who were politically isolated.”

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/10/managing-political-stress

There’s a big difference between analyzing your enemy and letting them shout at you constantly. I can research conservative evangelicals attitudes without having to let one set up a loudspeaker next to my house.

The conservative troll types are also the ones most likely to try and argue about echo chambers because their style of rage farming doesn’t work if everyone avoids them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/01/owning-the-libs-is-the-only-gop-platform/676692/

The consequence of that is if you do read it you effectively have superpowers over the non-readers.

The xz/ssh back door made it into Debian testing, So I felt I should wipe and reinstall.

Debian has had a rolling release for ages.