Most people don't think that hard most of the time

This post is directed at myself but may be useful to you.

Most people don't think that hard, most of the time.*

1. Most people won't have based and nuanced takes -- they don't need to.

Most of a political base will not have a deep knowledge abbout the issues they vote on. Most people can't defend their positions effectively. Politics is very much based on vibe; thinking hard and dealing with ambiguity is uncomfortable, so most people won't do it, or at least won't do it to the extent that they should.

This means that it's easy to victimize yourself with confirmation bias. If you believe [some group] is wrong, you'll be receptive to critiques of the people in the group who obviously didn't think that hard. When people critique your group's stupid people, you can discard them as "the stupid people in our group".

I say this as a reminder that it's not a reasonable argument to say that some group is stupid because you've seen a lot of thoughtless people in representing it. Maybe the group is on average less thoughtful -- but you need to have a hell of a lot more evidence to back that up.

Even that is not necessarily a critique by itself; time to think and research is a luxury which the world does not afford to all, and 'finding truth' is generally the priority of people who have the cultural and economic resources to worry about it.

2. Most people won't think that hard about how they're impacting their immediate vicinity.

Generally people have other things on their mind -- generally your teammates or coworkers are focused on their job and not being deliberately sensitive to your feelings.

This means that it's easy for people to hurt others unintentionally. If they don't know that they've hurt you, you should tell them. If you don't want to tell them, spend your emotional energy focused on paying attention to other people and how you're impacting them. If they ignore you, speak up louder so you ascertain whether they're ignoring you. If you want their attention, make an effort to talk to them.

Also, get more sleep.

There have been plenty of times where I've stressed about what other people have said (or not said, or not done) in regular interactions. They weren't focused on me specifically, and I felt hurt when they ignored me, or interrupted me and changed the subject, or didn't laugh at my joke, or phrased something in a way that disappointed me. Usually things like these can either be let go of or dealt with through a simple conversation. When I'm well-rested, interactions like that don't get to me, but when I'm exhausted, even small feelings of not being cared about can make me want to withdraw socially. In a phrase, I become much more vulnerable and insecure when I'm tired.

3. Most people don't think that hard about how they judge people.

First impressions are often more than enough. People generally suffer from fundamental attribution error: we tend to attribute others' behavior much more to enduring factors, like personality, and much less to situational factors, than is warranted.