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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

#811

Post by akvadrako »

bogota wrote: post #218
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 have been reading the economist for a while now and im curious if you have felt a decline in quality or maybe its just my differing in opinion from recent articles. Mostly i feel more articles coming up that are worded in a way to convince the reader or a certain point without any data. This is something i never really noticed in the past. It might just be me though.

That certainly seems true though I wouldn't say it's specific to the economist. I've noticed the change in every publication, even stuff like the Financial Times.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#812

Post by myko »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #739
myko wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is just projection from the Left that is working so hard to cancel anyone who steps politically out of line. To be clear, the leader of the conservative party of the US recently attempted a coup.

> To be clear, the leader of the conservative party of the US recently attempted a coup. I simply can't imagine the level of bias and filter bubbled amount of media indoctrination it takes to say this with a straight face. The party of "freedom and guns" showed up with 500,000 people, left all their guns at home, but "attempted a coup"? Utterly ridiculous. This is what a coup looks like: https://www.occupy.com/sites/…

The man told the VP to make him POTUS and is now claiming that he will be reinstated in August. I can't imagine what information bubble you live in where this escapes you.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#813

Post by myko »

myfavoritedog wrote: post #774
Impassionata wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you only care about silencing those who would point out fascism, it becomes easy enough. Watchful moderation willing to act is necessary. I'm unsurprised that HN is being exploited this way, but I am pleasantly surprised that there are people seeing them in operation like yourself and the others speaking up. The truth gets buried, ultimately, not by these bad-faith arguments, but by the giant thread above consis…

Once the party has turned fascist Says the supporter of the party that literally used impeachment twice to try to get rid of a President they didn't like. Says the supporter of the party that is big into political correctness in order to control what people say and how they say it. Says the supporter of the party that is canceling people who don't toe the party line. Says the supporter of the party that controls acad…

> Says the supporter of the party that literally used impeachment twice to try to get rid of a President they didn't like.

He deserved to be impeached, claiming otherwise shows your lack of judgement.

> If there is a political party in the USA flirting with fascism, it's the Democratic party.

Says the person defending the guy who tried a coup against the USA

The previous POTUS deserves to be in jail, like his lawyer who went to jail for crimes ordered by him, and multiple members of his team who committed crimes on his behalf (only to be pardoned by him).

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#814

Post by jjj1232 »

fancyfish wrote: post #287

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…

I mostly agree with you but I think it’s interesting that you make an additional assumption that I think is incorrect: You say "You’re beholden to the good judgement of each side to not move themselves further left or right.” Which misses another possibility: that the overton window can shift when one side moves further to the center.

The democrats’ economic stances are a good example of this: they've moved towards neoliberal economic policy since the 80s, to the point where the democrats and republicans have a materially indistinguishable stance on unions, workers rights, public benefits, Wall Street, etc.

This may seem like nit-picking but I think it’s important to clarify that some policies that lie outside the overton window are “extreme” because those in power want them to seem extreme, not because they are actually unpopular or unrealistic.

This may be wrong, but when I think of centrists I think of people who decide where they stand on each policy on a spectrum that extends from what the Dems deem acceptable to what the Republicans deem acceptable. If you’re someone who decides where they stand on an issue regardless of these arbitrary endpoints I think “independent” or “non-partisan” fits better.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#815

Post by myko »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #720
myko wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bullshit. CNN is in the tank for the corporate wing of the Democratic party. Bullshit. CNN repeatedly focused on trump to the detriment of other candidates because he generated clicks and views. > Absolute bullshit. You believe CNN was pro-Trump in 2015/2016? Every single story/show was about how terrible he is. It's hard to report on him without it being obvious how terrible he is. Most of the reporting in 2015/16…

Even NPR admits the coverage was more negative. And no, not more negative because he was worse, more negative in an unfair way: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555092743/study-news-coverage...

As I said, it is impossible to report on trump without being somewhat negative because very little that he did could be spun in a positive manner. This doesn't justify keeping a camera on his empty podium at one of his rallies while other candidates are giving speeches.

Clicks, and views.

Also your post doesn't really match what you claim it does - in no way does NPR admit that the coverage was unfairly negative. It seems to say it was negative because trump had little substance to his policies and there weren't many positive things to say about the job he did.

Which makes sense given the results of his presidency (coup attempt, many convicted associates pardoned, hundreds of thousands dead due to incompetence/lying, economic collapse, destruction of American family farming, etc.)

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#816

Post by sandyarmstrong »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #799
sandyarmstrong wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

We’re not debating whether or not everyone of every faith celebrates secular Christmas, but whether or not celebrating secular Christmas is sufficient to identify a character as Christian. By your own admission (“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”), it is not sufficient. Even if no one of a non-Christian backgr…

> We’re not debating whether or not everyone of every faith celebrates secular Christmas, but whether or not celebrating secular Christmas is sufficient to identify a character as Christian.

Maybe that is what you're debating. It was only one example that I gave in my original post.

It seems to me that a lot of people who grew up in the dominant culture of the US are jumping to defend Christmas as a wholly secular thing. It would be interesting to watch if it weren't so typical.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#817

Post by throwaway894345 »

twalla wrote: post #375
takeda wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

IIRC the pagan origins of Christian holidays and symbols have their roots in making conversion more palatable for conquered Roman subjects. Christmas and Easter replace the solstice celebrations, the Christmas tree came from placing evergreen sprigs in the home during winter and the rabbit is a fertility thing.

I’ve always heard it was to make conversion to Christianity more palatable, full stop. At least in Western Europe most of the conquering was done before Rome was Christianized, and they never conquered the Germanic peoples who are the pagans who give us most or all of the familiar Christian trappings (Yule logs, Christmas in December, the word “Easter”, Christmas trees, elves, etc).

The pre-Christian Romans made conquering easier by bringing Roman luxuries (baths, food, wine, commerce, citizenship, etc) to conquered peoples and by making examples out of those who resisted, but Christianity was not part of the package.

Not sure what the Eastern Roman empire was doing with respect to conquering and Christianizing, but if they converted anyone, I don’t think those pagans contributed imagery back to Christian holidays as we know them in America.

That said, after the Western Roman empire collapsed there were lots of European powers who used conversion as part of their larger subjugation toolbox.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#818

Post by TrispusAttucks »

kthulutude wrote: post #737
TrispusAttucks wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The center is the glue the holds the populace in check. We need these people. Once the center is eroded things will not go well.

Once the center is eroded things will not go well... for centrists. The idea that both 'extremes' are equivalently bad neglects the real differences in worldview that create a sense of political urgency. It's important to remember that this political urgency is a reflection of real social problems--for some people, the consequences are literally life and death.

Wether or not one side is better or worse than the other is besides the point.

"A house divided against itself can not stand." ~ Abraham Lincoln

The centrist who vote with rationality as the primary mechanism of choice are the third leg that holds up the democracy. They are the lifeline connecting the two sides. We can not survive with out them. Once they are gone we are left only with dogmatic ideology.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#819

Post by joshuaheard »

bena wrote: post #306
joshuaheard wrote: post #32

I have been reading daily news for 50 years. When I first started reading the news, it was objective. It portrayed facts with little opinion. Then during the Reagan presidency, I noticed a trend towards liberal bias in the media. This is well documented by MRC.org. To counter this, conservative talk radio was born, and Fox news was created. In the din of infinite media outlets, the major media outlets must stand out…

I would have to say that maybe it's not the news that has changed, but your view of it. The media has always had biases. How can it not, it's run by people. Look at the propaganda during the Spanish-American War. That's the most obvious U.S. example of how biased media can be. And we enjoy the temporal distance to not be invested in the events so we can evaluate it from a third-party perspective. Are you saying the m…

It's certainly possible that my views have changed over time biasing my perspective. I can only speak to the time I have observed the news.

Abd you're point is correct. Yellow Journalism was a phrase coined in past history to described biased news, which obviously has existed in one form or another since the first newspapers. It is not a modern phenomena.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#820

Post by dragonwriter »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #808
jonathankoren wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but also underlines the very point the article was making. In the United States, Christianity is the default. Characters are typically only identified if the stray from the default. Furthermore, given the sheer imbalance of identities in the country, it’s a disingenuous to claim that say Batman is equally likely to be Zoroastrian, because he’s not explicitly stated not to be.

> This is true, but also underlines the very point the article was making. In the United States, Christianity is the default. Characters are typically only identified if the stray from the default But Christianity isn’t the default, secular is the default. When there are identifiably Christian characters, they are often some cringey stereotype (the religious clique in “Easy A”, for example). See also the link about “…

> But Christianity isn’t the default, secular is the default.

Says whom?

Not-strongly-denominational non-to-weakly (note the “a”; not a typo for “weekly”) practicing Christian, or similarly weakly-attached Jewish, seems to be the norm, outside of showed focussing on a distinct and different subculture.

> When there are identifiably Christian characters, they are often some cringey stereotype

I don't think that's really all that much more true than other identities, and it tends to be most true in the same genres and places that there same thing is done with other, including nonreligious identities. I mean, its probably true of most identities in most of TV and film, but that’s Sturgeon’s Law, not a particular problem of Christian characters.

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