Live data from Hacker News

Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

wired.com

291–300 of 964 posts

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christmas doesn’t signify religion in America. And I can’t remember the last time I saw church in a movie that wasn’t a comedy using the setting for a set-up

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

It does, as much as talking about Sunday as a day off denotes Christianity.

Did you know that Sunday is a day off in China as well?

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for me, personally, absolutely not. I want thoughtful portrayal of character in media that I consume, but am in no way desiring yet more religious representation.

I haven’t seen a realistic Hollywood portrayal of an average American family in the last 20 years because the secular corporate culture is so willfully ignorant. This is argued as being a feature of interesting content though since ‘nothing average is interesting’. It has skewed perception, but whether that matters is up for debate.

What would a realistic portrayal of an average American family look like to you?

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They dont talk about or even cover the same things" - this is the number one fake news tactic in play. I'm not sure what to call it, but it's a 2x2 matrix - If a group is left-leaning, they'll report on everything good about the left and everything bad about the right, If a group is right-leaning, they'll report on everything good about the right and everything bad about the left. For example, you'll almost never se…

> For example, you'll almost never see CNN write an article critical about Democrats, Not true at all. Here's one critical about Democrats as being too beholden to progressives: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/opinions/democratic-party-pro... Here’s one critical about the current Democratic VP largely for being too concerned with (and ultimately ineffective at) undercutting Republican talking points. https://www.cnn.c…

COM Library has a ranking system for news organizations that seems to line up pretty well with my personal observations [0]. They show CNN as centrist but left-leaning. This agrees with my personal experience, except for news stories in the "woke" category, where CNN seems to skew far left.

[0] https://libguides.com.edu/c.php?g=649909&p=4556556

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#294

The elephant in the room is that this sort of enlightened centrism, while it sounds noble, rests on several ill-formed assumptions. The first is that, by reading from both sides, they’ll balance and you’ll arrive at an enlightened center. This assumes the Overton Window is balanced, stationary, and not tilted to one side or the other. You’re beholden to the good judgement of each side to not move themselves further l…

https://www.reddit.com/r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM/

For some funny times.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#295
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably 70% of the student body was hindu, muslim, or jewish. But they still participated as an american cultural thing, they just didn't do anything church related with it.

Interesting. Where exactly was this? I grew up in a major Jewish population center in the United States, most jews did not celebrate christmas outside of the ceremonial going out for chinese food. Muslim students also did not celebrate xmas. This is an urban center on the east coast.

Eastern queens NYC. A good 70% of the teens with me were south asian.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#296
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 do the same thing, and I've noticed that this "they don't present the other side" thing is getting worse with time. I recently read [this HuffPo article][0] about how only 1% of American film characters are identifiably Muslim ; however, nowhere in the article does it even mention the share of Americans who are Muslim, nor the share of movie characters that are of other religions. These things are certainly obvious…

Please don't read HuffPo, they're as reliable as The Daily Stormer.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#297
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…

You can't always even get supportive viewpoints of some policies. If some policy is too unpopular with the base, they seem to just get very quiet about it, or discuss it in very general terms.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#298
post #87

The problem of course is that not every issue needs a "both sides" treatment. Sometimes there are questions of objective facts that reading lies from alternative sources do not actually help you in understanding the truth of the world. The person who desperately tries to cite "50/50" liberal and conservative sources in the article is the worst kind of fence sitter. Sometimes, one side or the other is just wrong, or t…

> The problem of course is that not every issue needs a "both sides" treatment. Exactly. Imagine saying that it's important to be able to make an impassioned argument for slavery? To make it contemporary: Should I be trying to get into the mind of a Q Conspiracy theorist? An Antivaxer? How many conspiracies do I need delve into and understand such that I can make a passionate argument for them?

Or imagine having to dedicate equal time in school to the flat earth "theory", which can be disproved by video calling anyone in a different time zone...

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#299

> 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.

Ask people of a non-Christian faith if they agree. All the replies here saying Christmas isn't Christian seem to be from people with a Christian upbringing, even if they are atheist or "secular".
Post reply on HN