Conservatives flock to Parler, claiming censorship on Facebook and Twitter

It's so interesting...there is this well known phenomenon where ~everyone has at least some bias the vast majority of the time, and in a forum thread where this phenomenon is the specific topic of discussion (say, a psychology paper discussing subconscious bias, and the associated psychological/neurological phenomena that enable it), any significant disagreement (including whether each one of us suffers from it) with this general notion is typically very rare.

But then switch over to a different thread where the topic of discussion is not some abstract idea like this, but rather an object level idea, say just for example a news story about conservative leaning people switching to a new social media platform to escape what they consider to be censorship, and something very curious occurs. In such threads, it is rare to encounter much talk about this phenomenon of psychological bias, and if it does come up, it is ~always only about the obvious bias suffered by those who are in the ~"general outgroup" of the forum community. In those cases, it is common to read numerous anecdotal observations of how people in the outgroup(s) are cognitively flawed in that they exhibit signs of "living in a bubble", and "just(!) won't listen to reason or consider ideas that are contrary to their worldview".

But then if one is to initiate a conversation with a person in one of these threads, and make a reference to the formerly non-controversial abstract idea (from the psychology thread) that ~all people suffer from some bias, at ~all times, it seems as if all knowledge of that phenomenon has somehow become cognitively inaccessible, that the individual has no knowledge whatsoever of the phenomenon.

Conversely, if one is to mention (say, in a different subthread in the same overall thread) this exact same phenomenon, except switching the object of reference away from the person (who was making a biased comment about their outgroup), over to members of the outgroup, this formerly inaccessible knowledge then becomes accessible once again.

Just for the sake of discussion (a mental experiment of sorts), let us imagine that there is some significant truth to this theory - let's (temporarily) assume(!) it to be True, at least to a significant degree. In this purely hypothetical scenario, might this phenomenon offer some logical explanation for the amount of extreme polarization of opinion that can be witnessed in the world, this "crisis of epistemology" we talk about where different tribes seem to live in completely different realities from each other, with each reality having significantly different sets of facts? To me, this seems not only reasonable, but quite consistent with objectively observable reality.

Strongly agree.

If you’re seeing Tweets that make you angry, unfollow that person. It’s really as simple as that.

If someone doesn’t have the willpower to avoid anger-inducing follows and tweets, deleting Twitter entirely is a good option. For everyone else, it’s really not difficult to curate your feed to be more reasonable.

Use the unfollow button liberally.

Until censorship.

Reinstitute the draft, or national service where every young kid has to spend a year fighting along side people they didn't know before hand, far from home. Or spend a year traveling the US doing worthwhile projects (fixing up broken jungle gyms in schools) again with people they didn't know.

It is a little bit less likely that you dislike heartland America when you spent a year working with Fred the Farmboy before you headed to Princeton. Fred could probably swap stories with a kid from the ghetto and may be they would come out with the understanding that they were not quite as different after all.

Of course, like any draft it would be a huge violation of the persons personal freedom.

I tried to create a throwaway account and comment on a Reddit thread yesterday. It was denied due to lack of karma.

A few weeks ago I tried to create a throwaway on Reddit to create a new post but the post was immediately removed due to lack of karma.

Twitter now requires I provide a cell phone number to create an account. It throws up on me by suspending my account if a new account is unused for a few days. Requires I prove I’m not a bot to unsuspend it.

Facebook basically requires that I provide a birth certificate to sign up.

If you want to spread misinformation you basically need to be on an alternative platform but it’s also helpful for people like me who don’t want to give up my privacy to a social media company.