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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

#901

Post by cpach »

tptacek wrote: post #316
boredprograming wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox New's actual news coverage is mostly truthful. But a huge amount of their airtime is opinion pieces and media personalities who spout BS all day. Tucker Carlson is probably the most notorious. Plus they have Republican politicians calling in and showing up constantly, and they're allowed to say whatever they want.

We don't even have to litigate whether Fox News airtime is distinctively malignant if we just acknowledge that all 24/7 cable news channels are bad. They kind of have to be, just by the nature of how they compete and what they have to work with in both audiences and source material. Just don't get your news from the TV.

In Sweden we have public service TV channels, but even in that context I think your advice holds up – not a good source for news. Too stressed, too shallow reporting.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#902

Post by atq2119 »

KittenInABox wrote: post #610
atq2119 wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, one could make arguments based on genetics for the "middle" position. Something like: allowing abortion following rape puts a damper on the spread of genes that tend to lead towards rape. That's probably not a good argument. I'm just playing devil's advocate for why that position isn't necessarily self-contradictory.

Allowing abortion for purposes of eugenics is self-contradictory with the notion that life should be inviolate.

That's not self-contradictory though -- it's just good old contradiction with a different position. So a person who only holds one of those beliefs would potentially be fine, as far as self-contradiction is concerned.

Besides, beliefs can be prioritized and in shades of gray. Somebody could value the life of an embryo very highly (going so far as to call it "inviolate" at times when they aren't carefully weighing their beliefs -- few people do that all the time, so we should allow for some lapses in precision), but still believe that certain other concerns trump it. After all, most pro-choice folks do value the life of an embryo highly, they just believe that the mother's rights over her body are even more important.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#903

Post by pgsimp »

I think it is misguided to think all that is needed is to understand each other. Maybe that was the case for a while when everybody was well off, and all that was left to discuss was philosophical issues.

The real issue is that people actually want each other's stuff. It's like quarreling over a source of water - both parties need it to water their plants. It doesn't help to understand that the other side also wants to water their plants, because you still have to water YOUR plants.

At most you can sit together and work out a compromise. Simply understanding the other person's view point won't be sufficient.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#904

Post by antiterra »

prepend wrote: post #755
antiterra wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine people not being impressed with arguments like “I don’t agree with his attempted oppression of a vulnerable group of citizens, but I sure do like his position on immigration/tariffs/capital gains tax.”

I’m not sure your point as that’s exactly what people do. I have a neighbor who is gay and voted for Trump because of gun rights. People are really diverse and it takes lots of particulars to find out why people do stuff. It’s not a good idea to “cancel” people based on a single characteristic.

If that characteristic were bad enough (a genocidaire as an extreme example) and your potential survival and wellbeing hinged upon it, I think you'd change your mind about how good of an idea it was.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#905

Post by sharpneli »

sandyarmstrong wrote: post #299
throwaway894345 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christmas and church settings don't indicate Christianity. Most secular Americans celebrate Christmas or attend weddings and funerals in Christian churches or officiated by Christian clergy. Indeed, for a very long time it was the norm to have one's own funeral or wedding at a church, officiated by Christian clergy, even if one was atheist or agnostic and even today it's quite common.

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".

It depends on what part. In Finnish we call it Joulu (deriving from Yule). There are tons of pagan traditions related to it still, even if it has been christianized.

Maybe in US it’s more strongly christian. But not necessarily everywhere.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#906

Post by onethought »

esyir wrote: post #888
onethought wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As your example you use a weird right wing wedge issue. How about science based climate change where people think you can literally compromise on physics/math and make 2+2=5 because 4 is just too inconvenient. Edit: (I’ll clarify: Abortion is used as a kind of hack into the religious/cultural background of Americans. It is purposefully used to divide political debate in a non rational way).

It's a weird left wing wedge issue too. The point of a wedge is that it cleanly divides. They're thus bipartisan, almost by definition.

No, because it requires religious conservatism. Which is very much in the right sphere of the political spectrum.

Take a peak outside of the US and make note of how abortion is not a wedge issue, which if you were correct should not be possible.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#907

Post by tremon »

takeda wrote: post #849
tremon wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

December 6th: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas > Santa Claus evolved from Dutch traditions regarding Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas). When the Dutch established the colony of New Amsterdam, they brought the legend and traditions of Sinterklaas with them

That's right, thanks for correcting. The mobile app I used did not allow me to edit message and when I got back home HN no longer allows to edit the message.

It wasn't really meant as a correction, more as a clarification: you said 6th or 7th, I confirmed it was the 6th.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#908

Post by jfrunyon »

axguscbklp wrote: post #791
jfrunyon wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you mean by "people's actions"? If you mean voting, well, Democrats and Republicans get about the same number of votes in presidential elections, which does not seem to justify your view that "left" media bias just reflects the political leaning of the average American.

Except Democrats have been consistently beating Republicans in presidential elections. Click the links. Go back further if you want to. The Republican candidate has won the popular vote exactly once (in 2004) since 1990.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#909

Post by bovermyer »

munificent wrote: post #286
bovermyer wrote: post #225

Something else to keep in mind is that liberal/conservative is a false dichotomy. We have at least four major cultures in the USA - some scholars put it as high as eleven - and they each have differing core values. This accounts for much of the infighting we see in political parties and the various factions that arise. I'm not so much a progressive Democrat as I am a member of "Yankeedom," as Colin Woodard dubs it.

Related, I really really enjoyed George Packer's "The Four Americas" article from a few days ago: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-...

That was an interesting read, thank you. I'll have to go through again more thoroughly and jot down things to research further.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#910

Post by ookdatnog »

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…

That's a very interesting study, but I think it's quite spurious to connect this result to media quality/partisanship the way you do. Certainly the study doesn't make this connection. After all, surveys tend to find that Fox News viewers are less informed about domestic and international events than consumers of other news media (one study found them less informed than people who did not watch the news at all). So I don't think this effect is caused by media.

Haidt's study uses his five moral foundations model, where one's moral foundations are characterized by five dimensions: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. The first two are called "individualizing foundations" and the last three are called "binding foundations".

Haidt's findings in other studies (which generalize beyond just the US or the West) are that people across the political spectrum care about the individualizing foundations, but progressives care more about these foundations than conservatives. But progressives care much less about the binding foundations.

With this in mind, I don't think it's too surprising that conservatives have an easier time estimating the viewpoint of progressives, since the moral foundations of progressives are not alien to conservatives, they are just weighted differently. Whereas for progressives, the moral foundations of conservatives can feel utterly alien and inexplicable, especially if they tend to have their social interactions in a progressive bubble.

(Also, be mindful that the population sample of the study is nowhere close to a random sample of the population. The sample is over 60% female, overwhelmingly young (median age is 28), and liberal participants outnumbered moderates and conservatives combined. Since it's an online survey, there's a reasonable chance that you're mostly reaching urban people, which tend to live in progressive bubbles. Conservatives who live in areas that are mostly progressive may understand progressives better than those who live in conservative bubbles. The study acknowledges this in the discussion section. The result might still hold up, but the effect might be exaggerated by the sample.)

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