81–90 of 127 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know. I had one or two friends come out as anti-vax IRL and we didn't have a discussion, instead my opinion of them just plummeted.
Try to have that discussion. It's enlightening.
The only thing it can really do is inform me what sort of bizarre misinformation they have bought into. Unlikely ever to repair the drop in my opinion.
>> I implore you to seek out your opposite. When you hear someone cite “facts” that don’t support your viewpoint don’t think “that can’t be true!” Instead consider, “Hm, maybe that person is right? I should look into this.” Nooop. When the crazy uncle starts going on about how the lizard people at the US have formed a world government for the express purpose of using solar panels to take guns away from seniors ... no…
Well, we all generally agree that there aren't 'lizard people' in the US (we do agree that, right? ...right?), but increasingly less crazy ideas are now being regarded as similarly crazy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know. I had one or two friends come out as anti-vax IRL and we didn't have a discussion, instead my opinion of them just plummeted.
Does someone who opposes media-driven thinking (with supporting science to show why) about any one vaccine get lumped into "anti-vaxxers" in your mind? Because that all-or-nothing thinking fallacy is a key symptom of the problem.
But in general I was talking about folks who have, for whatever reason, said things like "oh we're not vaccinating our children", meaning all vaccines.
There is no reasonable basis for this outlook.
Having grown up in West Virginia and now living Silicon Valley, I see extremes from both sides. And they both _really_ think the other side is dumb. And that the president (Obama or Bush) is purposely trying to destroy the country. It is like two people in a marriage that has gone bad. Is there any way to fix it? My two cents is that a place to start is to try to make a single news source that both sides can read, to…
That's a culture shift (I've got family who worked DNR in WV). The "single news source" came up heavily in pg's recent writing on inequality et al. The cogent point he made, I think, was that the important part is not whether the source is authoritative or accurate but that it's universally experienced. And I don't think we'll get that back. I think the best we can hope for is benevolent mix algorithms in Facebook, G…
This is very well said. In Silicon Valley, for example, there has been only one major newspaper publisher for over 60 years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing that someone who has a firm grasp on an issue will often find is that most people on both sides don't actually know what they are talking about.
This is a painfully true observation. I think the first time I really realized it was when I was drifting away from my religion of birth, and actually started to listen to atheist people around me. I soon discovered that the only difference between most of them and the religious people I know was the value of $religion variable. For one group it was "God", for the other it was "no God". The thought patterns were exac…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, we all generally agree that there aren't 'lizard people' in the US (we do agree that, right? ...right?), but increasingly less crazy ideas are now being regarded as similarly crazy.
Like the US president is a secret muslim from kenya in office to take away the guns in furtherance of the global warming hoax? I see aspects of that narrative on TV almost every day. It's a daily reality for millions and millions of americans.
Having grown up in West Virginia and now living Silicon Valley, I see extremes from both sides. And they both _really_ think the other side is dumb. And that the president (Obama or Bush) is purposely trying to destroy the country. It is like two people in a marriage that has gone bad. Is there any way to fix it? My two cents is that a place to start is to try to make a single news source that both sides can read, to…
My experience is that such a news source would quickly be denounced as irretrievably biased by both sides.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try to have that discussion. It's enlightening.
In what sense? The only thing it can really do is inform me what sort of bizarre misinformation they have bought into. Unlikely ever to repair the drop in my opinion.
I spent some time talking to antivaxxers; I've shared my impressions in a parallel subthread:
Once you get over the smug thought of "ha! all those people and their cached thoughts!", you have to stop to think, which of your own principles have you actually really thought about?
I don't think it's so much about considering "The Other Side", instead it's about having clarity by knowing why you believe what you believe. Generally speaking, if it's "us vs them", you're being played anyway. Some tribe has a vested interest in playing you against another tribe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a painfully true observation. I think the first time I really realized it was when I was drifting away from my religion of birth, and actually started to listen to atheist people around me. I soon discovered that the only difference between most of them and the religious people I know was the value of $religion variable. For one group it was "God", for the other it was "no God". The thought patterns were exac…
I don't think this is very true--what significant/majority of religious thought patterns are the same in atheism? The only one I think you could make a case for is ingroup/outgroup thinking, but that is not a majority of religious belief.