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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

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox news personalities frequently allow Trump and his allies airtime where they lie about losing the election to Biden. I don't know how you get any less truthful than that

They allow the previous president airtime!? Quick, someone call the cops.

When he does nothing but lie about election fraud on their airwaves? Pretty normal for a news company

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#482

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

Do your Muslim friends celebrate Christmas? Do your Jewish friends? Most non-religious americans are something like Christian Atheists. They don't believe in a god, but their worldview, ethics, and cultural norms are still originating in Christianity.

Atheists celebrate Christmas. With family, gifts, Christmas songs and atmosphere. Just no God or Jesus.

Christmas is incredibly popular in Japan, which isn't very Christian at all.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The liberal viewpoint is vastly different from the conservative viewpoint, but only if we find a way to communicate and find common ground will we ever hope to move forward together as a nation. Seeing your political opponent as irredeemable is the first step towards sectarianism, which can easily lead to war. I lean to the right, and yet regularly talk to and see the humanity in liberals on a pretty regular basis. W…

If a major political party prioritizes limiting the rights and freedoms of entire groups, how can we expect to find common ground with them? If you are asking people who are directly impacted by these laws to find the humanity in their oppressors, you are asking for the impossible.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you're using conservative(adjective to mean slow), as not same as Conservative(political philosophy).

Because as political movements they are vey much at odds.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#485

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> WWF was eventually pressured into changing their name to the WWE There was no pressuring over intent. The World Wildlife Fund owned the rights to WWF and sued. https://www.cnet.com/news/wrestling-loses-wwf-to-wildlife

I'm aware of that, but I don't think that changes things much. They chose to call it "entertainment," when they could have called it any number of things. But at the time they had been under increasing criticism of the matches being fixed, etc.

WWF officially broke kayfabe 1989 way before the name change because they didn't want to spend the money necessary for live sporting events. Before that pro wrestling was regulated just like boxing or MMA, with state commissioners and taxes and medical requirements.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#486
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this seems like a great claim, it could be more compelling if I could read the supporting argument behind it.

Fox News is the mouthpiece of the Republican Party. CNN/MSNBC the Democrats. Democracy Now is essentially the American grassroots left. Not generally fans of either party.

This seems much more accurate to my experience as a leftist. The insistence from centrist liberals that CNN/MSNBC is unbiased seems baffling and delusional.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#487
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've done something similar. If you look at what, say, the National Review thinks is important on a given day, and compare that to what the NYTimes is reporting on, it's pretty clear that we're not merely disagreeing about a particular set of facts, we're living on different planets.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They allow the previous president airtime!? Quick, someone call the cops.

When he does nothing but lie about election fraud on their airwaves? Pretty normal for a news company

We should refund the police, and then call them!

What are you arguing about?

1. Someone mentions Fox being bad for bias in story selection.

2. I ask: why are we singling out Fox specifically? Others do it too?

3. You say: "They give Trump airtime!"

Ok? That is a difference I guess? Not got much to do with what we're talking about though?

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no end to conspiracy theories. Why should I be obligated to delve into other people's psychosis? I'm not a psychiatrist. There are many more constructive things to spend time on.

When such ideas become mainstream enough to start influencing politics, it would be a good idea to try to understand why those ideas have taken root and grown to that level of influence. Even when such ideas are batshit insane, they are almost always indicative of some severe underlying issue. If that issue isn't addressed, then such ideas keep growing and growing and could eventually lead to disaster. That Q Anon an…

Q Anon isn’t taken seriously by very many people. It’s a blown-out-of-proportion phenomenon. The left seems to be the one that continues to promote it as if millions of people are paying attention to it. I spend a lot of time on conservative news and opinion sites and Q Anon stuff is never mentioned. Nor are any of the wacky conspiracies taken seriously. But the left loves to use that to discredit opposing viewpoints much in the same way they quickly use the “Nazi” tag when it suits their purposes.

As far as “how we got here,” the answer is pretty simple: social media shutting down debate and “fact checkers” who are really “conforming verifiers” who have been given outsized credibility.

Did Covid come from a lab, a year ago was “fact checked” by those with conflicts of interest. Yet there wasn’t any actual fact check — it used the opinions of certain officials rather than actual verifiable fact. If Fauci said it didn’t come from a lab, that’s his opinion. But was any data actually presented to dispute the assertion? None. The Appeal To Authority isn’t a valid fact-check.

The media literally ignores facts if those facts don’t fit the narrative. And, they use all sorts of rhetorical strategies to discredit the other side.

The hatred of all things Trump resulted in media organizations losing all credibility.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure, but why are we talking about Fox specifically? CNN, MSNBC, etc. are just as bad. I find this ironic since this thread is about how bias isn't necessarily about outright falsehoods, but story selection and what is not said :)

Jonathan Haidt (who is mentioned in the article) did a study years ago. He separated a group of people into conservatives and liberals and then gave them a questionnaire on politics. Then he got a second group, separated them, and gave them the same questionnaire. Only he asked the second group of liberals and conservatives to answer the questionnaire the way they imagined the other side would. What he found was that…

Do you have a link? You may be right, but such a study seems very easy to bias, even unintentionally.
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