Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers • Hacker News Board

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#181

Post by 0xcde4c3db » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

Noos wrote: post #45

api wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing a lot of people miss is that there is a profit motive here. You can make money, sometimes a lot of money, by building a huge social media following being a political outrage merchant. You can find examples of people doing this on all sides, especially at the extremes where outrage and other powerful negative emotions can most easily be stirred up. All the outrage over "cancel culture" is not about censorshi…

Not really. Like a recent cancel attempt was Scott Cawthon, creator of the game series Five Nights at Freddy's. His crime? Voting for trump. No really, that's it. His games weren't political, and while he was open about who he was, he pretty much seemed to be inoffensive in practice. But since his fanbase has a lot of LGBT, they felt betrayed because he did so, and as far as i know he was definitely not trolling them…

> His crime? Voting for trump.

> No really, that's it.

No, that's really not it. Cawthon contributed thousands of dollars to multiple Republican campaigns in 2020, including some noted hate magnets (e.g. Devin Nunes and Mitch McConnell). This naturally sparked discussion of boycotting his products, some of which was level-headed and some of which wasn't. As has happened countless times for many other vendors and issues across the political spectrum.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#182

Post by dbrueck » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #116

hn8788 wrote: post #31

An underrated way to get out of your echo chamber is to actually talk to people in person. I lean fairly conservative, while my wife and her friends are very liberal. Whenever we happen to talk about political topics, most of the time we end up understanding where each other are coming from, even if we still don't agree.

Perhaps your political viewpoints are fairly mild compared to mainstream conservative discourse? It's difficult to have civil discourse with someone who says your identify (or the identify of those you love) should be outlawed or otherwise severely restricted by the state. That's been a core tenet of conservative politics and policy for several years now and I do not have the intellectual tools nor the emotional stre…

You could not have more completely proven his point.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#183

Post by threatofrain » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #151

threatofrain wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard here is being barely adequate, not perfect. Anyone who is part of an immigrant community knows how hard it is to be adequate. That's why you pass on this optimism to the next generation while you blindly chase cultural fads, hoping your kids will fit in. You smile and nod your way through. Anyways, the call here is for community integration, not for individual action.

Are you saying fictional media are incapable of having a barely adequate portrayal of immigrants?

Are you integrated into an immigrant community? Are you part of a church that deals with immigration? Or an ethnic business community that is part of the immigration chain? Or is your community well integrated with those you seek to understand?

Why go it alone?

Is one's clarity on community affairs the difference between choosing WION and India Times? Or The World Journal?

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#184

Post by antiterra » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

slumdev wrote: post #89

XorNot wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But since his fanbase has a lot of LGBT, they felt betrayed because he did so The LGBT community was [1] and still are violently attacked for the mere act of existing. The idea that people's political beliefs, what, don't affect other people who live in that country? Is insane. Voting is a political act which affects others. If someone votes for a politician who gives cover and support to a group which - as an exam…

Running a gay bar in New York City wasn't illegal in 1969. The Stonewall Inn was effectively a brothel with mafia protection, not a gay version of Cheers.

Homosexual behavior was branded disorderly conduct and liquor licenses were revoked as a consequence. So yes, it was effectively illegal if you didn’t bribe the cops. People were arrested because the police didn’t consider their genitals to match their clothes.

Drug deals and transactions for sex occurred at Stonewall just as they have occurred on Discord, but I’ve not seen any credible evidence that it was a primary function of the place.

It seems somewhat a habit of yours to find something bad about victims and then use that to dismiss any wrong done to them. Someone subjected to police abuse? Oh they had a criminal record, so it’s ok. Indigenous people being tortured, enslaved and slaughtered by Spain? Oh, it’s ok because some of them practiced human sacrifice. There’s no going the extra step and recognizing Spain was in the middle of the Inquisition and creating their own murderous horror, or that the Spanish allied with the Aztecs to eliminate groups that didn’t have human sacrifice, or that the Spanish cruelty was applied to the people in the Caribbean as sport from Columbus. It reads like intellectual laziness.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#185

Post by cbsmith » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

vsskanth wrote: post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

> They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives.

The coverage/focus is the perspective.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#186

Post by threatofrain » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

unknown_error wrote: post #132

threatofrain wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google News gives you precisely this portfolio of vendors. Why would anyone subscribe to a single news vendor? I'd also advise adding WION, Al Jazeera, Axios, and The Guardian + BBC.

Al Jazeera, Guardian, BBC, etc. are all left of center by US standards, especially the Guardian (which is way left). Some center-right outlets that are still worth reading* (and I say this as a raging leftist): The Hill, National Review, Foreign Affairs, Wall Street Journal, The Economist *(as in they provide both informational "what's happening" and insightful analysis without venturing into flat out fake news... as…

If you don't like Google News, then you can go with the next best -- Apple News.

But then you can see the consequence. Apple News has less crazy but sometimes misses entire stories. Google catches what Apple misses. For the purposes of understanding the news landscape, it is more important to know that a conversation exists and to estimate its trajectory, than it is to get correct takes.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#187

Post by duxup » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

vsskanth wrote: post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

What is "the other side" ?

Is it some fake news site, or some radio personality's take? Or is it some twitter spat / spam?

I don't think 'the other side' is all that simple to cover / has an obvious quantity to include with every news article.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#188

Post by throwaway894345 » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

sandyarmstrong wrote: post #124

> I would be shocked if 60+% of American film characters are identifiably Christian How often do you see Christmas used as a plot device? Or a church used as a setting? Or a priest character? I would be shocked if context didn't imply that > 95% of American film characters are Christian.

Christmas and church settings don't indicate Christianity. Most secular Americans celebrate Christmas or attend weddings and funerals in Christian churches or officiated by Christian clergy. Indeed, for a very long time it was the norm to have one's own funeral or wedding at a church, officiated by Christian clergy, even if one was atheist or agnostic and even today it's quite common.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#189

Post by whimsicalism » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #175

whimsicalism wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Christmas doesn’t signify religion in America Yes it does...

Eh, not really. Christmas may have been a product of Christianity (hijacking a pagan holiday...), but it has long since become just a western culture tradition with no particular religious significance for a lot of people. Most Christmas movies don't even mention Christ.

> it has long since become just a western culture tradition with no particular religious significance for a lot of people

I think that people have a tendency to underestimate the degree of Christian influence on their way of life, and the vast majority of people who practice xmas are Christian, even if they are not weekly church attendees.

I was raised in an atheist household, we definitely viewed Christmas as a religious thing. Most of the songs are very religious, people go to mass, etc.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#190

Post by danbmil99 » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

vsskanth wrote: post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

I think the internet's control over what you give your attention to is a major factor that has not received enough attention, so to speak.