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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

#701

Post by version_five »

anm89 wrote: post #346
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…

Attacking the center is always the craziest narrative to me. It's saying: not only is it not okay to disagree with me and be on the other side, it's also not okay to not passionately agree with my exact side. The only right way to view these complex issues is to sign your name to join my party and then hold the party line, and everything else is unethical. I can't imagine a more obnoxious political viewpoint than tha…

Wow, all the confirmation one needs for the first two paragraphs of your post is to read the replies you got.

I'm reminded a bit of the Futurama where Zapp Brannigan attacks the neutral planet :)

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#702

Post by dlp211 »

axguscbklp wrote: post #343
jfrunyon wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The percentage of the American population which is either Democrat or Republican is consistently[1] well[2] above[3] 90%[4], so I'm not sure where you're getting 54%. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidentia... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidentia... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_Sta…

Those links show that out of all Americans who vote in presidential elections, well above 90% vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. However, that does not mean that well above 90% of Americans are either Democrats or Republicans.

Stated vs. Revealed preferences.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#703

Post by patrickscoleman »

To break free of the sensationalized partisan news, I've switched to reading The New Paper's [0] Monday-Friday daily email + Wikipedia Current Events [1] (delivered daily via email [2]) + HN (I try to check just once a day).

I've found that when the news is less "exciting," I'm a lot less inclined to read it. I still know enough to participate in most conversations, and if something seems really important, I'll read more in other outlets. I still forget most of the news the next day (just like I did before).

Overall I feel equally informed and less stressed out and better able to focus on the things in my life that have an impact.

[0] https://thenewpaper.co/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events [2] https://dev.to/kiwicopple/daily-email-of-wikipedia-s-current...

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#704

Post by ABCLAW »

mlac wrote: post #680
ABCLAW wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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) circumstanc…

>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

The issue is that you've begged the question in your definition: Good policy isn't extreme, therefore all policy that is extreme isn't good, therefore no extreme policy. You've just redefined extreme to mean bad - so we can't really discuss much more.

I'll propose a different definition for use here, one that accords with common use: 'Extreme', in this case, is whether or not the position is unreasonable, unmoderate, or exceedingly unusual.

With this definition we can find examples of positive extreme policy positions: We take take the abolition of slavery as an example of extreme policy. Granting women suffrage is another. Desegregation is another.

This isn't to say that all extreme policy positions are right - many, maybe most, are wrong. But digging into the trade-offs between the two requires a far more nuanced discussion than the one we're having here, because there's a lot of legal history about the relative velocity of legislative change and that's gonna take up more room than we have.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#705

Post by [deleted] »

tomkat0789 wrote: post #510
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.

+1. I sometimes regret subscribing to Financial Times, but their bias is pretty easy to identify and accept/reject once you understand it. I counterbalance it with Jacobian (far-left/communist - choose your adjective - news). There's an adage in math modeling/statistics: all models are wrong, but some are useful. Here, all newspapers are biased, but some are useful.

[deleted]

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#706

Post by throwaway894345 »

iagovar wrote: post #241
dandellion wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-american, it's not getting better, it's just getting weird. Like this parallel fantasy reality that americans have come up with and convinced themselves that it's what the world outside looks like, that actually has nothing to do with anywhere on earth.

It's funny when somewhere in your country is portrayed in an american movie or series.

This is how Americans who aren't from LA or NYC feel as well.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#707

Post by Clubber »

notsureaboutpg wrote: post #402
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.

Am I the only one who feels Tucker Carlson is so popular because he (a lot like Donald Trump) was willing to challenge the false idols of the Republican establishment (e.g. we need to be at war in Afghanistan/Iraq, the free market isn't always the best especially if it leads to outsourcing and offshoring, etc.) Might just be me. I dislike 90% of fox news but I listen to Carlson sometimes and never find him to be horr…

Fear-mongering sells. He's good at it. So is Rachael Maddow and just about everyone they put in front of the camera to "inform" you.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#708

Post by mariodiana »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #651
dragonwriter wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I recommend watching his TED talk. It goes into more detail, and expounds on the abstract underpinnings of both liberal and conservative morals. They're very different. The axes apply even outside America, consistently.

I'm a fan of Haidt and think his moral "tastebuds" (I think he makes that analogy somewhere) is an interesting model. I largely buy into it, but I found a really perceptive take in this short blog post that came out a few years back that's a bit more skeptical. https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2017/05/26/trump-as-...

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#709

Post by chmod600 »

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…

You don't need to give equal credence, but you do need a source of facts that is not cherry-picked. Polarization leads to cherry-picking, so the only way to get facts that might falsify (or complicate) narratives is to seek out adversarial sources with their own (but different) biases.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#710

Post by lumost »

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…

In practice there are three possible outcomes for resolving differences between large groups of people.

1) Some negotiated middle between viewpoints

2) Some converged position based on a winning argument.

3) War

If viewpoints remain diverged for a sufficiently long period, 3 is almost inevitable. Understanding the different sides helps lead to either 1 or 2.

My ask with family members who are on the other side of recent issues has always been to broaden their news/media consumption. Reading the other sides media has given me insight into why they feel the way they feel, even if I don't believe the feeling is valid.

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