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Social Media: Making Us Dumber?

nytimes.com

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Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?

#81

Post by asabjorn »

thriftwy wrote: post #78
asabjorn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Groups like alt-right or social justice warriors seem aware that what they advocate are sometimes based upon factually incorrect statements. I believe these groups are aware that they are fighting for an action through rhetoric that use factual statements that can easily be shown to be incorrect. Further, it seems like they believe better facts supporting their view could be found if their actions were implemented be…

I think most of them are aware that some of their statements are incorrect when interpreted in strict logical sense. But thing is, absolute majority of statements in natural language are either strictly incorrect or internally inconsistent. Both groups are pretty sure that the core of their beliefs is valid. Maybe fact A is false and fact B is overblown but sum(A, B, C) is still a vector in the direction of their fai…

I agree, but I think there is a solution that can help us all ask for and fight for proper discourse.

Alt-right and social-justice warriors both have a hard time rejecting objections from people with the right identities. If we created tools that helped crowdsource finding issues in their action and then identifying persons in the crowd with the right identities to highlight those we would be on the right path.

If the crowd in addition to this approach advertisers on the platforms they use to further their message, then we would also reduce their capability to scream loudly.

No leaders, no celebrities, no talking heads.

Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?

#82

Post by Consultant32452 »

avenius wrote: post #5
asabjorn wrote: post #3

As a liberal that subscribe to The NY Times I wonder why they always have to make these issues so politicized, even when they are making a good observation. The problem they describe, violent reaction to opposing views, seem present amongst all sides of the political spectrum and it does not seem limited to extreme opinions. The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostrac…

You make a good point - they appear to make themselves part of the problem, which in my view is the increasing polarization of topics. There no longer seems to be any middle ground in the public discourse, instead everyone is entrenched on their respective poles. It's immensely frustrating.

I hit this hard the other day. There's a TV show I really like called the Runaways. On Hulu, where I watch that show, they seem to constantly run this one commercial cheerleading how great it is that the show is so diverse. I commented on social media that the commercial felt like it was trying to lecture me and has ultimately detracted from my viewing experience. It didn't matter that in the context of this conversation I was talking about how this particular show, which happens to be very diverse, is one of my favorites, the fact that I rebuffed the SJW cheerleading instantly turned me into a Nazi.

Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?

#83

Post by asabjorn »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #79
asabjorn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a case study like this I was hoping for an understanding of how we on the left contribute to a climate where it is ok to be non-factual, as it is much easier to change yourself than others and NY Times audience is clearly the left. Especially since it concludes that everyone "rushes for the safety of their ideological battlements". What are those embattlements? What are the factual nature on each side? My question…

My experience is that the left is less guilty of being counter-factual than they are of censorship. But that's really two sides of the same coin. The contents of the James Damore memo comes to mind. Twitter verified status has become a political weapon to punish people who don't toe the party line. Youtube de-listing, demonetization, and banning.

I think this is less about left and right, and more about extreme elements on both sides arguing for actions supported by rhetoric use of factual statements that are easily questioned and where studies are available that would put their view into doubt.

Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?

#84

Post by gallerdude »

prepend wrote: post #72
gallerdude wrote: post #64

Does anyone have a twitter timeline archiving tool? I get some major FoMO when it comes to not checking twitter.

There are a bunch of twitter to RSS tools. Here’s one I played around with a while ago, https://twitrss.me/ I actually prefer reading twitter via rss. There’s no missing out, and you can organize by topics, user groups, stuff like that.

Thanks for the help!

Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?

#85

Post by asabjorn »

indubitable wrote: post #9
asabjorn wrote: post #3

As a liberal that subscribe to The NY Times I wonder why they always have to make these issues so politicized, even when they are making a good observation. The problem they describe, violent reaction to opposing views, seem present amongst all sides of the political spectrum and it does not seem limited to extreme opinions. The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostrac…

There's a phenomenally interesting article that goes into details on this very question: "The Bad News About the News" [1] by Robert Kaiser. Kaiser is a 50 year veteran of the Washington Post having worked as a reporter and editor over the decades. He chose to retire shortly after the newspaper was purchased by Bezos. There's enough nuance and detail that I think cliff notes would likely just mangle the points made.…

Thank you for the link! This one looks interesting.

Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?

#86

Post by baud147258 »

smcl wrote: post #80
baud147258 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is more how the question is poorly asked. I think one could find economical, political or logistical reasons for the existence of slavery, but that does not change how evil slavery is. It might be interesting to have an idea of how people could have rationalized slavery as something good and see if the same rationalisation do not persist in our society. But to do so, you have to be able do discuss…

OK but "Why was the Confederacy pro-slavery?" or "How did the Nazis justify their actions?" are different questions than "give 3 ‘good’ reasons for slavery and 3 bad reasons" which was the example given. I'm not sure the answers to these questions are as stimulating as people think though. I suspect the real reason behind the question given in the example was that the teacher was oversimplifying the language of the q…

> OK but "Why was the Confederacy pro-slavery?" or "How did the Nazis justify their actions?" are different questions than "give 3 ‘good’ reasons for slavery and 3 bad reasons" which was the example given.

You are right, that's why I said that the question was poorly asked.

> the teacher was oversimplifying the language of the question for his/her students to the point where all nuance was lost ... which suggests they're maybe not ready for it.

Again you're right, since I'm not from the US, I forgot that the fourth grade is for 10 years-old.

Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?

#87

Post by smcl »

prepend wrote: post #68
smcl wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know where you're trying to go with this and your heart is in the right place, but the example is awful and does not help in the slightest. I have a feeling that I'm gonna get "ugh, replies like yours are exactly the problem, smcl!" but to me asking children to come up with some good side of slavery is up there with trying to find the good side of the holocaust. Whether "good" or "bad" is in quotes doesn't really c…

I think depending on the exercise trying to explore the “good” side of the holocaust would be useful too. The purpose is not to try to list why the holocaust is good, it isn’t obviously, but I can think of at least two exercises where this is useful for a fourth grade class. 1) to use an extreme example, likely the worst in the world’s history, to make it hard or impossible to find positives is harder to think. 2) to…

OK enough people are replying this way that I'm wondering if this is maybe an American-English vs British-English thing. When you say "find a good reason for " ... do you mean "Why does justify doing "? If so then we're all talking at cross purposes and misunderstanding each other - but I'd really suggest phrasing because BOY that original version sounds so bad.

We are in agreement re the media angle. This is clearly "Teacher asks dumb question" not "Teacher brainwashing kids with racist propaganda" and is in no way (inter)national news.

Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?

#90

Post by smcl »

baud147258 wrote: post #86
smcl wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK but "Why was the Confederacy pro-slavery?" or "How did the Nazis justify their actions?" are different questions than "give 3 ‘good’ reasons for slavery and 3 bad reasons" which was the example given. I'm not sure the answers to these questions are as stimulating as people think though. I suspect the real reason behind the question given in the example was that the teacher was oversimplifying the language of the q…

> OK but "Why was the Confederacy pro-slavery?" or "How did the Nazis justify their actions?" are different questions than "give 3 ‘good’ reasons for slavery and 3 bad reasons" which was the example given. You are right, that's why I said that the question was poorly asked. > the teacher was oversimplifying the language of the question for his/her students to the point where all nuance was lost ... which suggests the…

> You are right, that's why I said that the question was poorly asked.

Yikes - not sure how I misread or misunderstood that

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