The magical thinking of guys who love logic
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The magical thinking of guys who love logic
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Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#2This has been posted twice in the past couple of days
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19188003
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#3While the author has come across somewhat passive-aggressive throughout the article, I do agree with the premise. I have many male friends who have quite clearly been gripped by YouTube's recommendation algorithms, and they have no interest in sensible discourse. I've had to distance myself from them because they have become almost religiously zealous in their praise of various right-learning, far-right, and alt-right political commentators. All of them young males with no real career path, hobbies or purpose, and these videos have done an excellent job of painting targets that they can now blame for all their woes. It's an easy trap to fall into.
I remember watching a Joe Rogan podcast with Jordan Peterson, followed it with a few of his lectures, and all of a sudden my feed was brimming with "Ben Shapiro DESTROYS SJW with FACTS and LOGIC" videos, or "Debunking feminism" and various other bile. It's a consequence of YouTube trying to keep people engaged on their platform, and it's only going to get worse if these algorithms keep feeding groups, both left and right, politically divisive content. I'm not sure what can be done about it either, other than heavy-handed government legislation.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#4So this turns out to be the article about U.S right-wing "logic" and the word "guys" = white males. It's not about the actual logic and "cargo culting", instead it's about the youtube-politics videos, this title seems like some click bait to me.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#5> They are also massive fans of declaring that they have “facts,” that their analysis is “unbiased,” that they only use “‘reason” and “logic” and not “emotions” to make decisions.
Ha! So true. I’ve yet to meet a single individual repeatedly mention their “logic” and “unbiased analysis” without basking in utter self-satisfaction over it.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#6This is packed full of manipulative language. It reads like propaganda.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#7> They are also massive fans of declaring that they have “facts,” that their analysis is “unbiased,” that they only use “‘reason” and “logic” and not “emotions” to make decisions. Ha! So true. I’ve yet to meet a single individual repeatedly mention their “logic” and “unbiased analysis” without basking in utter self-satisfaction over it.
Do you ever fall into the same trap yourself? Everyone (hyperbole) thinks that they are unbiased, but it’s rare to find someone who actually is.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#8While the author has come across somewhat passive-aggressive throughout the article, I do agree with the premise. I have many male friends who have quite clearly been gripped by YouTube's recommendation algorithms, and they have no interest in sensible discourse. I've had to distance myself from them because they have become almost religiously zealous in their praise of various right-learning, far-right, and alt-righ…
As a foreigner, when I read reddit I feel exactly the same way about left-wing politics. Reading subreddits such as /r/politics or /r/worldnews feels like people are so caught up in their bubble that they refuse to see anything other than what they have already decided upon.
Edit: I'm sure the same applies to right wing subreddits, but I don't run into explicitly right wing ones too often.
I think that this is not really an algorithm's or any specific platform's fault. It's a fault of ourselves, because we buy into this stuff so heavily. The only way around it is to teach people to keep an open mind.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#9> Repeat after me: calling something logic doesn’t make it so. Calling someone rational doesn’t make it so. Opinions from Youtube men are not facts. Getting mad about philosophers you haven’t read isn’t reason.
Finally somebody nailed it.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#10> They are also massive fans of declaring that they have “facts,” that their analysis is “unbiased,” that they only use “‘reason” and “logic” and not “emotions” to make decisions. Ha! So true. I’ve yet to meet a single individual repeatedly mention their “logic” and “unbiased analysis” without basking in utter self-satisfaction over it.
Do you ever fall into the same trap yourself? Everyone (hyperbole) thinks that they are unbiased, but it’s rare to find someone who actually is.
There's no way of measuring this kind of "bias", as far as I know. I get the impression it's a bogus concept.