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

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#411

Post by 8note » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #380

UncleOxidant wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? But that’s a straw man. Did the virus come from a lab or not isn’t a “slavery” argument. Should taxes be lower or higher also isn’t a slavery argument. Are there election irregularities also isn’t a slavery argument. These are all issues that, stating opposing facts or even conclusions that differ from the Facebook-Twitter “A…

"are there election irregularities" pretty well is a slavery argument.

Its a thinly veiled "I don't think black people should have been allowed to vote" and you can verify that by the laws states are implementing to ensure they don't vote next election

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#412

Post by tayo42 » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #347

firebaze wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I despise slavery I'd definitely be interested in understanding the way slavery was rationalized (if it was? if not, how did they cope with the suffering etc.?). We have to understand the principles allowing such an emotional and rational detachment from our set of ethics to prevent something like this happening again. This is quite similar to Germany's handling of the 2nd World War. You cannot just preten…

I think we agree. Understanding why something was rationalized is important (slavery, the holocaust, etc). But being able to make an impassioned argument for those things isn't necessary for that kind of understanding.

The inability to make a rational counter point to something like the holocaust is the reason why the "paradox of tolerance" exists.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#413

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

tdfx wrote: post #293

dragonwriter wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

> This agrees with my personal experience, except for news stories in the "woke" category, where CNN seems to skew far left.

You do realize that “woke” as a pejorative originated in left-wing criticism of bourgeois, centrist identity politics?

So, unless you are saying that CNN has joined that leftist critique, I think what you really probably mean is that CNN represents a strongly-held centrist position in that area, not a far-left one.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#414

Post by spamizbad » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

fartcannon wrote: post #36

There's a thing that happened with the Canada subreddit. It used to be kind of an interesting sub where youd get neat Canada-wide local stories (mostly Ontario) that were genrally pleasant. It was a nice place to visit after being inundated with American politics. Then, sometime in the early 10s and it gradually became very partisan and political. Which, to clarify, means it got substantially worse. It, like the comm…

A lot of "local" subreddits started declining around 2015. It's like all the local news website commenters discovered their local subreddits and started posting there.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#415

Post by whimsicalism » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

JAlexoid wrote: post #388

whimsicalism wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist skews conservative in the sense that it is who I wish the conservatives were.

They're not. To the point that they had a whole issue dedicated to the death of modern conservativism and how their editorial policy is classic liberal.

It's a semantic debate, and not a particularly interesting one at that.

"Classical liberal" and "conservative" are not necessarily at odds. "Liberal" in the sense that you are using it is a political philosophy, conservative is just a slot to fill in.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#416

Post by arecurrence » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #139

This article mentions Blindspotter, which is a great way to explore the bubbles around Twitter accounts ( https://ground.news/blindspotter/twitter ) and also Subreddits ( https://ground.news/blindspotter/reddit/ ). For example, try: John Oliver - https://ground.news/blindspotter/twitter/iamjohnoliver Tucker Carlson - https://ground.news/blindspotter/twitter/TuckerCarlson r/politics - https://ground.news/blindspotter/…

Surprised to see you downvoted when so much complaining in this thread is already covered by Ground News. I suppose Hacker News itself is unable to escape its own echo chamber.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#417

Post by buerkle » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

mrkstu wrote: post #134

Impassionata wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascists don't care about truth. It's that simple. And people are that easy to mislead. At least for a while.

Sigh- voted against Trump twice. The fact of the matter is the Ratcliffe Letter [0] shows that President Obama was given an briefing well before the Steele Dossier was leaked to the media that the Russians' had picked up intelligence that exactly that kind of fake evidence would be planted by the Clinton campaign. I really don't believe in a coincidence that big and unless Steele was simultaneously a Russian and Clin…

Ratcliffe was a big Trump supporter, not sure how much anything he said can be trusted. The letteris lacking in detail and hard proof. It even acknowledges "The IC does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication."

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#418

Post by zucked » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

jkubicek wrote: post #27

nickthegreek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive recently started reading the Tangle newsletter. It’s a daily drop that focuses on 1 topic and provides the left, right and their take on an issue. https://www.readtangle.com/

I've been a subscriber to Tangle for a while now and I love his takes on the news. He operates just a little to the right of my own political persuasions, but even when I disagree with him, it's a respectful disagreement. Isaac's positions are nuanced, well-reasonsed and kind. That newsletter is exactly what we all wish political debate in the US was like.

Thanks for this suggestion - Hadn't seen this before but previewed and really liked what I saw. Sub'd.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#419

Post by jl6 » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

losvedir wrote: post #210

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 Yeah, this is a key thing to realize. People seem to think that Fox News, for example, just trots out falsehoods all the time, but if you skim the news, I'd say very little is actually factually incorrect. It's more about the story selection, who they choose to interview to get the quote, how they contextualize (or don't) statistics, etc. But once you realize that,…

> very little is actually factually incorrect

This is why we need more than just fact checkers.

It’s extremely easy to construct a biased, opinion-manipulating political hit site composed entirely of truthful statements.

Proof by politically-neutral analogy: imagine a newspaper that published an article every time a roulette wheel stopped on 6, but never for any other number.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#420

Post by abap_rocky » Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

The problem with aggregators like this is they themselves have their own implicit bias in how they define the boundaries of the left and right.

While sites like The Federalist and Breitbart may offer an accurate sampling of palatable far right viewpoints, this does not extend to the far left. The deficiency is exposed with the inclusion of CNN and MSNBC in the far left category. You need only look at the 2020 Democratic primary and observe how these cable channels reacted to the Sanders campaign[1] to get a sense of how incoherent it is to place them there.

What is lost in defining the left border as such is the erasure of publications on the far left that help describe some of the ideas and thought that drove Bernie's popularity. Of course he eventually lost the primary but can we really call CNN and MSNBC far left when they played a role in the demise of the most viable left-wing candidate in recent US history?

This is an important consideration because a news diet of the CNN, NYT, WSJ and Ben Shapiro may appear to be balanced but there is no left source that is the same magnitude of the right wing Ben Shapiro.

[1]: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1231353446336548867?s...