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Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

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Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#351

Post by _-david-_ »

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…

Excellent job not understanding what the opposite side believes and why.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#352

Post by jfrunyon »

axguscbklp wrote: post #343
jfrunyon wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The percentage of the American population which is either Democrat or Republican is consistently[1] well[2] above[3] 90%[4], so I'm not sure where you're getting 54%. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidentia... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidentia... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_Sta…

Those links show that out of all Americans who vote in presidential elections, well above 90% vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. However, that does not mean that well above 90% of Americans are either Democrats or Republicans.

People lie. I'm not sure why you expect the media to sell to people's lies instead of selling to people's actions.

PS Americans also overwhelmingly vote either Democrat or Republican in non-presidential elections, even down to the city council level.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#353

Post by deanCommie »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #164
ggggtez wrote: 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?

> Imagine saying that it's important to be able to make an impassioned argument for slavery?

We don't need to imagine this. This is actively happening in the American South in their high school history books: https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/1404245820103348227 (tweet and replies)

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#354

Post by wutbrodo »

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…

It's difficult because you're so drastically limiting your sources (to ones that are all low-quality IMO). Every time you read an article and care about the topic, just.... Google it. There are a thousand and one independent sources, Twitter threads, etc etc etc. I don't consider myself to truly understand any binary debate unless I've heard an intelligent argument on both sides; it's just not my experience that any interesting discussion has a side that's literally meaningless (though I'm perhaps begging the question by not finding eg Pizzagate "interesting").

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#355

Post by jrm4 »

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…

Right. Because of these news sources are BUSINESSES. Their job is to manage their own "image" to keep people around for the advertisers. Like it or not (me, not) this is a much easier way to grok what's going on with them. Their priority is viewers -- mostly retaining them. So you keep with the general idea that "you should tell the truth" by choosing which truths to tell, and then perhaps "gambling" by once in a while doing something outrageous that will excite the base.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#356

Post by pydry »

sudosysgen wrote: post #334
crazygringo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend the Economist . Their articles mostly follow a dialectical format -- thesis, antithesis, synthesis, with about a third of the article spent on each one. I don't know of any other publication whose house style is so rigorous in this. It's also highly editorialized, but very open and transparent about the positions it takes -- any bias they have is in the open, but is in the final synthesis after the…

I don't recommend using the Economist as your only source for international news. It's very deeply ideological in a way that is almost invisible if you can't easily compare it to a known truth. It's certainly not only interested in solutions that can be implemented. It's interested in solutions that enforce the free market, and it paints non-market solutions as infeasible, even though they often work and are implemen…

An example of such thinking from last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27392455

It used to be a much better magazine.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#357

Post by JAlexoid »

clairity wrote: post #244
throwaway894345 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

christianity, islam, hinduism, along with the eastern constellation of buddhism/confucianism are the 4 world religions. people of color are roughly 4/5 of the world population. even while christianity and white folks are the majority in the US, it makes sense numerically to have these other aspects of humanity well represented, in addition to white and/or christian. what's puzzling is the outsized representation of j…

The last Transformers movie was literally targeted at audiences in China. So maybe it's just market forces...

If you indicated that you want to see more minorities cast - then you have the option of going to see Moonlight, over La-la-land.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#358

Post by TrispusAttucks »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #13
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 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…

Indeed.

If one goes to the desert, they should not expect to see maple trees.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#359

Post by medicineman »

gexla wrote: post #248
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…

Maybe they don't cover the same things because the "things" are like their flags they are using to signal each other. It's like two different gangs using different symbolism to communicate with their own members. They don't need to talk to the other side, they need to instead rally their own side. Maybe study each side like you're studying a gang. Get to know the symbolism and language.

Please, the closest most of the posters here have been to a gang is a WuTang music video.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#360

Post by medicineman »

brlewis wrote: post #167
dev_by_day wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This site is great for trying to get different takes https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news I used to do what you did(just read a bunch of major publications from differing political orientations) but also found issue with not being able to compare different perspectives easily.

Allsides is prominently featured in the article.

>implying they read the articles
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