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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

#671

Post by anonfornoreason »

mariodiana wrote: post #446
Moodles wrote: post #342

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…

Not sure why you are getting downvotes. For anyone curious, Haidt is a liberal professor who is dedicated to figuring out how to get people talking across political ideologies. The book that covers this topic is called The Righteous Mind and is an excellent read or listen.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#672

Post by jccalhoun »

robmccoll wrote: post #97
jccalhoun wrote: post #26

I am starting to think that it isn't really the "news" but the commentary. Most sites will cover many of the same events. There will be different focuses but a large percentage of the information is the same. But I recently visited my senior citizen parents and got some exposure to Fox News. During their commentary shows they just throw outrage after outrage at the wall and see what sticks. One example was trying to…

I live in one of the (upper?) middle class parts of Atlanta and I really hope they don't do that. Crime rates are up in a bad way, and the city can be pretty mismanaged, but taking your ball and going home isn't a real option. It's just going to hurt the city that will still be right next door, and that has your sports (some of it, Braves are gone), museums and culture, restaurants, a lot of work spaces and shopping,…

From searching it looks like the community in question is Buckhead. All I know about Atlanta is the airport though

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#673

Post by crazygringo »

sudosysgen wrote: post #439
JAlexoid wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist is one of the least biased sources of news, that routinely publishes letters, opeds and articles contradicting the sated editorial agenda. Very few other news sources actually do that. They're not perfect, but it sure beats NYT. If you want the optimal news coverage without needing to read a million sources - The Economist, Financial Times, WSJ and The Guardian.

As I said, they show both sides, but they choose which two. They are not as forthcoming with their biases as it seems. They mainly set up their ideological oppositions as conservatives, but they in fact have a lot in common with them. This is especially true for foreign relations. I'd be happy to see examples of articles that go against the Economists' editorial agenda in profound ways and that pertain to foreign pol…

If you only read the English language then you're kind of mostly limited to "anglophone", no?

And how can 4 "centrist" sources be "very biased"? Isn't it literally the opposite?

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#674

Post by Impassionata »

myko wrote: post #543
myfavoritedog wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. There are tons of video compilations showing Democrat leaders using the exact same turns of phrase that Trump did, talking about "fighting" for their political beliefs. Further, the Democrats were urging violence throughout Trump's presidency, but the default US media never claimed that they were "attempting a coup". Democrats were attacking federal buildings with fireworks, arson, shooting high-powered las…

He literally psyched a crowd up into a fervor after months of lying and then they marched on the Capitol. His own people were sickened by his giddiness during the event. He was telling his VP to install him as POTUS and tweeted as much. The same guy has been telling folks he plans to be reinstated in August. You can lie to yourself about it but you're not going to get far lying to others.

Might get far enough: this entire thread is flagged.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#675

Post by [deleted] »

beprogrammed wrote: post #565
mariodiana wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Then he turned to his conservative flock and said 'See? We ARE smarter than them!'

[deleted]

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#676

Post by dragonwriter »

crazygringo wrote: post #673
sudosysgen wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, they show both sides, but they choose which two. They are not as forthcoming with their biases as it seems. They mainly set up their ideological oppositions as conservatives, but they in fact have a lot in common with them. This is especially true for foreign relations. I'd be happy to see examples of articles that go against the Economists' editorial agenda in profound ways and that pertain to foreign pol…

If you only read the English language then you're kind of mostly limited to "anglophone", no? And how can 4 "centrist" sources be "very biased"? Isn't it literally the opposite?

> And how can 4 "centrist" sources be "very biased"? Isn't it literally the opposite?

No, centrism isn’t the opposite of bias.

Centrism is a position toward which there can bias of any strength. Position of bias on a left/right (or any other ideological) axis and strength of bias or two orthogonal, continuous dimensions.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#677

Post by hn_one_off »

slumdev wrote: post #513
laputan_machine wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of the second type? I see this kind of strawman argument against centrism all the time, yet I rarely see "worst of both worlds" outcomes in a political sense

Most Americans support an abortion ban, but they also support exceptions for rape or incest. If the fetus is a human person with rights, there should be no exception. If the fetus is not a human person with rights, then restrictions of any kind are unjust. The provenance of the fetus has no effect on the moral liceity of killing it. It's a lazy opinion formed by appeals to emotion.

Actually, this seems like a coherent position: they believe that fetuses are somewhat like a human person, but not entirely. They should generally be protected, but in exceptional cases might not be.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#678

Post by krapp »

takeda wrote: post #339
munificent wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I like latkes and challah, but that doesn't make me Jewish. All groups influence culture and culture influences all individuals. But simply having adopted a piece of culture that came from some group does not make one a member of that…

To add to it, even the Christmas tree doesn't originate from Christianity. It was just adapted from a pagan tradition. The Santa Claus image was created by commercialism. The original saint Claus is celebrating on December 6 (or 7, don't remeber exactly) and that was a priest that anonymously was donating toys to children in orphanages and later was discovered. Easter Bunny is another commercialisation of a Christian…

The rabbits (and probably the name Easter), I believe (someone will correct me if I'm wrong) come from the pagan festival of Eostre, a goddess symbolized by a rabbit. Although I've also heard that Easter comes from Ishtar, so who knows?

Easter definitely didn't originate with Christians, though. One of the things that made Christianity's spread so successful (apart from having the force of the great colonial empires of the Western world behind it) was the strategy of syncretizing and recontextualizing local pagan rituals, holidays, deities and (for better or worse) entire mytho-histories around Christianity.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#679

Post by JAlexoid »

sudosysgen wrote: post #656
JAlexoid wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They routinely repeat that their editorial policy is liberal. Straight up in the articles they publish, they note that. I listen to their articles and they often repeat this. Literally typing this into Google would have provided you with the link to their website. https://www.economist.com/news/2020/06/19/frequently-asked-q...

From that webpage, they say that their bias is between classical liberalism and centrism. Now, what is a classically liberal bias, concretely, as far as international affairs are concerned?

Free trade and non-interventionism.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#680

Post by mlac »

ABCLAW wrote: post #657
mlac wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but I'll counter: >You aren't being neutral. Your position is a very strong affirmative for the current status quo. You don't want anyone to be able to enact change. It's not that I don't want ANYONE to enact change, I just don't want people with extreme views enacting change. And it's this all-or-nothing discussion that drives the country apart and makes for little or no common ground on major issues. Th…

>It's not that I don't want ANYONE to enact change, I just don't want people with extreme views enacting change. This position sounds fine until you realize all it has done is shift discussion away from the effectiveness and correctness of a given policy, to a pre-discussion of the reasonableness of that policy. The heuristic replaces the thing itself. "Is this an extreme position?" replaces "Is this good policy?" Th…

If a policy is effective and correct, I would not call it extreme.

I guess it depends on the definition of extreme, but I would not think "good" policy would be extreme in the sense that it has (whether real or perceived) negative externalities on a large portion of the population. Two years ago, I (and perhaps the country) would have said the PPP for paychecks would have been extreme. Given the (extreme) circumstances that occurred, it became a reasonable approach.

I would argue people that shut down dialogue are advocating for an extreme position (e.g. doing nothing and maintaining status quo can be an extreme approach in some cases).

I don't know if single-payer health care is too extreme, but any and all options should be discussed, and a reasonable course of action should be taken. I think most people agree that the current situation we have is a broken mess of half-measures. I don't think we're stuck with an either-or situation. [This feels like the most Yogi Berra thing I've ever written]

There is merit to discussing chopping off the finger or doing nothing. Both solutions are worth understanding - one avoids gangrene and the other saves the finger at the potential for the infection. Given no other choices or options available, the decision maker will have to choose one option or the other. But when other alternatives exist (e.g. modern medicine), creating a false dichotomy between the two camps yelling the loudest is not an optimal approach.

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