Studies Say Ideology Trumps Facts 784
Anti-Globalism writes "We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that's not always the case. Being uninformed is one thing, but having a population that's actively misinformed presents problems when it comes to participating in the national debate, or the democratic process. If the findings of some political scientists are right, attempting to correct misinformation might do nothing more than reinforce the false belief."
Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
And then they are further convinced that "elitists" don't care about them.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
If only it were that simple. Since these people already lack the ability to reason logically and think critically, "prove" means something different to them than it does to you. They will gladly point you to a posting on CoastToCoastAM.com or WhatReallyHappened.org as proof. These postings frequently cite anonymous sources with intimate knowledge of secret programs in the government. That should be all the proof you need right?
Or the Bible (Score:5, Insightful)
They will gladly point you to a posting on CoastToCoastAM.com or WhatReallyHappened.org as proof.
Or point to their holy book of choice. "It's written in the Bible" counts as "proof" to a disturbingly large number of people, particularly in the USA.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
You must be a bitch to be around...
"Nice day"
"Can you prove it?"
"Well, um...no"
"Then come back when you can"
"Fuck you asshole, if it was a nice day you just screwed it all to hell""
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
"Fuck you asshole, if it was a nice day you just screwed it all to hell"
Can you prove it?
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all that can't be proven is wrong, not all that is right can be proven. Of course, your approach is a valuable tool in many, many areas, but is not able to decide all questions.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
My grandfather always used to day, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."
The only way I've found to combat someone who has a false ideology isn't to slap them in the face and tell them how wrong they are--since, at the end of the day they're just going to dislike you on some level, but rather to prove why the position I am arguing for is right and how it better suits their life. (If they're religious, the fact that I know the Bible well often helps bring it into their court too.)
The only time I find it worth while to simply slap someone in the face with the "prove it, if not you're a moron" is in a public forum where my goal is has nothing to do with the person I'm arguing with but rather, the people watching and/or listening. (The other time is when dealing with the "truly converted." Then... I rarely engage. It's not even satisfying.)
Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, my best bet would be on "cognitive dissonance" rather than "conspiracy theory."
The best way to illustrate cognitive dissonance is via the classic experiment: you assign someone (e.g., a student) a Homer Simpson-esque job that's boring him to tears. Then you one day say he can stop doing it, you have something better to do with him. But you ask him if he can find a replacement for that previous crap job. You even offer a dollar if he does. So he'll go try to convince someone else that it's a great job to take. The fun thing is, after a while he'll have convinced himself too that it's a great job.
Apparently, having to reconcile between "I'm a nice and honest guy" and "I just lied to a bunch of people for a lousy dollar", he'll alter the latter to, basically, "yeah, well, it wasn't really a lie." Just to keep his mental model consistent.
It seems to be a function of at least the mammalian brain. When you have two contradictory ideas in your model, one has to give. With humans, though, if one idea is too important to let go, something else has to give.
Even more fun is that the strength of the effect is inversely proportional to how sustainable or justifiable that action is. If you offer him a lot more money, he has the escape of, basically, "yeah, well, I needed the money. So I have my price too. Bite me." If it's a precondition to getting out of that crap job, same thing, he has an excuse. But when there's no excuse he can wrap his mind around, he'll alter the truth so he doesn't need an excuse.
A similar fun effect is with kids. Apparently when they really want something or to do something, as silly deterrent like "mommy will pout" is often actually more effective than a harsh punishment, if applied consistently. When there is no real justification for "why didn't I do that, if I wanted to anyway?" something else has to give, and it becomes, "I didn't really want that in the first place." Fun stuff.
I find that the same applies to politics, religion, fanboys, or, for that matter, everything else. The least justifiable a position is, the more people will warp reality to keep it. And the more rabidly they'll defend that redefinition of reality, lest their whole mental model comes crashing down around their ears.
And, yes, applying more force just creates more resistance.
And for a last bit of fun, there's no defender more stalwart of a piece of bullshit, than someone whose model already broke down once and was patched to that bullshit. If they're going to have to admit "I was wrong and doing wrong" anyway, they'll run with that to the hilt, and make an even more warped model in the other direction. So funnily enough, there is no more rabid, say, XBox fanboy, than one who was a PS2 fanboy and felt betrayed by Sony and had to let their whole "Sony for ever!!!" model crash. And viceversa. There is no bible-thumper for puritan morals more rabid than someone who was a prostitute until last week. And viceversa: nobody does a good christian-baiting trolling like someone who still went to church last month. There is no Republican more rabid about every single aspect of that ideology, than someone who was a Democrat until they felt somehow betrayed. And viceversa.
But now they won't just change about the aspect where they thought they were cheated, they'll go for the whole list, from military spending to abortion stance to gay marriage to everything else. Now Party X is right in everything, and Party Y is wrong about everything, because I don't like Party Y any more. And I must enlighten the masses about how wrong and evil Party Y is!
And the least justifiable that position is (e.g., don't be silly, Sony didn't "betray" anyone and didn't owe you anything in the first place), the more immovable it will be. As I was saying, fun stuff.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Informative)
I suspect what you meant to say is that your money is on self-delusional behaviors, such as religion, groupthink, dogmatism, fanaticism, etc. Cognitive dissonance is what then happens when reality comes knocking at the door of this fantasy world. Unfortunately, all too often the doorbell goes unanswered or ignored. That's pretty much to what these studies refer: people choosing to maintain a self-delusion rather than answer the door and be faced with uncertainties.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Informative)
Cognitive dissonance is just what happens when you have two conflicting ideas, and basically have to choose one. It happens just as well when reality came and rang the door bell, but it's the same mechanism that was at work when that delusion rang the bell and you let it in. You have two options and you can't have both. You choose one. Whether it was the right one or you sank deeper into delusional behaviour, is rather irrelevant for the mechanism at work. Choosing the wrong one is nevertheless just the same mechanism at work.
Basically I don't disagree with you when you call those behaviours names, or anything. I'm just saying that the term "cognitive dissonance" is used to mean a very specific mechanism, and how, yes, such self-delusional behaviours come to be.
The dissonance itself is just the fact that (temporarily) two pieces of your mental model are at odds with each other. You have to solve that somehow, because your brain is wired to need one consistent model and try to solve such conflicts. But, at any rate, that's the dissonance: propositions X and Y can't both be true. How you solve that, is already one step further. You can go with the truth, or manufacture a lie, but the dissonance was just the same.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, 'tis true enough. FWIW I perceive far too many people making these decisions based on emotional or social needs rather than the "facts in evidence". That's where the delusion starts for many people, because then they want to pretend that wasn't what they did. They imagine they're rational and open-minded when they're exactly the opposite. Of course they're doing THAT for emotional reasons - preservation of ego - as well. And they slide further down the slope.
Political parties and their social influences and "platforms" actually harm rational debate rather than help it. People buy into party groupthink and become polarized and dogmatic. Forget having multiple parties and campaign finance reforms... if we really wanna fix what ails our political system, we'd abolish the "party system" and institute electoral lotteries to shut out the the Good Old Boys (and yes, that includes Obama).
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Can everyone please stop saying 'they' and start saying 'we'?
Or are we playing to the self-delusion that everyone except us is broken?
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)
Can everyone please stop saying 'they' and start saying 'we'?
Or are we playing to the self-delusion that everyone except us is broken?
No I'm fine it's just you and to a lesser extent them,
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes WE have all been guilty of not listening. But that's okay! We can use that to our advantage. Oftentimes, when you debate with someone, the goal is not to convince that person. The goal is to convince the other people listening to the debate. For example:
"I think the government should provide a free car to everyone, since it's a necessity to life in America."
"Okay. Would you consider it okay to break-into your neighbors' homes, remove $20,000 from their wallets, and use that money to buy yourself a new car?"
"No of course not. That's stealing."
"Then why do you think it's okay for the government to steal the $20,000 via paycheck taxes?"
"Um... er... because everybody needs a car! It's a basic right!" ----- In this hypothetical debate, I obviously did not change this democratic-socialist's mind. Due to cognitive dissonance he simply chose to not hear what I was saying to him. However I still achieved my goal: I convinced some of the audience that the idea is immoral (because theft is theft, whether it's done directly by a thief, or through the government acting as the thief's agent).
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a problem in your argument... Taking money through taxes is not stealing. You might not like it, and you may not agree with it, but it isn't illegal.
Also, taxes aren't a bad thing. They pay for all sorts of things like roads, emergency services, weather radars and a bunch of other things that you don't think are important - until you don't have them.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flip side you also did not listen to what he had to say and used a false argument to get your point point across. Your basic premise has nothing to do with a car, and has to do with the idea that taxes = stealing using the car as a straw man.
Basically, neither of you made a strong logical argument for a third party, yet you've both convinced yourself that you have - especially given the "truth" of your statement.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, you failed utterly. You put an idiotic strawman into the mouth of your ideological opponent, then portrayed him as a stuttering simpleton who hasn't given any thought to his views and is unable to write a coherent reply - in fact, you describe him as hesitating and playing for time in a written message. And after beating this ridiculous scarecrow, you think that the audience - us - is somehow convinced that your ideology - which I presume is libertarian from your premise that taxation is stealing - is supreme to socialism.
Your post is a truly pathetic attempt at ideological indoctrination at both levels, and yet you think that you've accomplished something besides making yourself look like an idiot or a particularly inept demagogue. That is a clear example of cognitive dissonance, and one that seems quite common within libertarians.
Or have I just been trolled ?
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Male brain, female brain, monkey brain, whatever. In a recent experient, monkeys too were shown to build (at least the symptoms of a) cognitive dissonance.
It makes sense, if you think about it. You can't really do much with a mental model where simultaneously "all grass is green" and "all grass is red" are true. You must discard or fix one of the statements, or maybe go for some compromise like "most grass is green, but some species are red" or maybe admit "I have no bloddy clue what colour grass is, that still needs to be determined."
The only bad dissonances happen when one just can't let go of one of the ideas, so the other one _has_ to be false, all evidence be damned. As someone else correctly noted, most often when one's beliefs and actions are irreconcileable with each other. If you're not able to let go of the beliefs, you redefine the actions.
A broken model is actually a source of stress and discomfort until it's somehow fixed, so virtually everyone will do something to fix it.
We could go into who builds the worst dissonances. (Though I'm not aware of any data saying that women build worse resolutions than the men, or viceversa.) But the basic issue of needing a consistent model isn't gender specific, or as far as we know even species specific. Your cat tries to keep its little mental model just as consistent as you do with yours.
It was metaphorically speaking (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that was metaphorically speaking, and using the term "wiring" rather inexact.
The actual "wiring", as you noted, is largely the data. That's how we learn.
The metaphorical "wiring" I'm talking about is actually in the DNA and proteins encoded by it. It's how the neurons themselves are built to work. They don't rewire the network randomly, they have a bit of code in the DNA that says how they should work. The BIOS and bootstrap code of that neural network, so to speak. That's really what I'm talking about when I say "wired".
I hope it didn't cause too much confusion to anyone.
As for how would you check for consistency, I dunno, by running a proof through it and seeing if you get two contradicting results? There's even a conjecture that that's what dreams are: the night job that runs simulations through that data.
But in truth I doubt that there's anyone who can tell you exactly how the brain works, and which pathway belongs to the consistency checking job. If we knew that, we'd already have a working AI.
We can however look at it from the outside, like at a black box, and notice some things it does. And there is strong evidence that it does that kind of a model consistency check and cleanup. Even if we don't know exactly how it works, we can see what goes in and what comes out, and it looks that way.
Same as I can look at a plane and say it tries to keep its altitude constant, even if I have no fucking clue which control surfaces are used for that, and even less clue what the code running on its computers is.
Re:It was metaphorically speaking (Score:4, Funny)
I don't know who said it, but the quote, "If the brain were simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it," springs to mind. :)
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>To me, it seems rather a learning issue how coping with vagueness is implemented, not a characteristic of the hardware layer
I agree. I recall reading Thomas Jefferson's discovery of sea creature fossils in nearby mountains. He was unable to reconcile the then-dominant view of a perfect God creating a perfect world, with the idea that the mountains used to harbor sea-creatures. He examined a bunch of possibilities (including Noah's flood), and rejected all of them as illogical and non-explanatory. At the end of his paper he simply wrote, "I do not know." The answer to this puzzle was not discovered until ~100 years later (the earth's surface is like a jigsaw with pieces ramming into one another, thereby turning oceans into mountains).
This world would be better-served if we had schools teach students to be like Jefferson and say "I don't know" more often, rather than force them to cough-up any old answer that comes to mind. As somebody once said (forget who): "A foolish consistency is the hobglobin of little minds..."
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately it's been proven that dogmatism is the ONLY non-self-delusional behavior.
You see there is no rational basis for the universe. That means that there will always be axioms, which are non-negotiable, final and eternal truths that we have no explanation for at all. ("we cannot pull ourselves out of the mud")
The sad thing is that therefore anyone who claims to think "rational" is wrong. If he were truly rational he wouldn't be able to reach any conclusion at all, for he'd run stuck on the axioms he uses, and from the question "why does axiom <x> hold ?" there is no rational way out. And since this persion reaches conclusions in a rational way, he'd run stuck on that problem no matter what problem he was trying to resolve.
That's what logic has discovered in the past century : any "rational" theory without an infinite number of eternal, unexplained truths is either incomplete (does not explain a (generally very very large) part of the universe) or it's wrong (logically inconsistent).
One would hope that science is in the former category, and will remain there to be merely incomplete. But one visit to any library will tell you that it's really partially inconsistent, and described to be seriously more "complete" than it really is. (AGW for example, we make models and then "oops" the sun's corona, out of the blue, cools 20%. Trust me, it's going to be a f*cking cold winter).
Any "true" theory therefore will be dogmatic. The problem is that it's entirely unclear WHICH dogmatism is "the one" (probably an entirely new one). One would hope people would read history and use that to decide which ideologies held out longest and most stably. That sort of thing is very thorougly frowned upon on slashdot however, probably because the answer would certainly not be "democracy", but probably a kingdom with a state religion.
Science is just a way to try to avoid it, really (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, in the end, the scientific method is just a way to _avoid_ clinging to some dogma and building cognitive dissonances to support it. There is no immovable "truth", or rather, we don't know it yet. Your pet theory is likely to be not quite the whole "truth" yet. There will eventually be some data which require it to be refined even further. Be honest to yourself and admit that you could have only an incomplete understanding of the universe, and that way we can all continue to learn more.
Anyone who sees science as some immutable dogma, or as some choice between this dogma and that one, isn't doing science in the first place. That's religion. It's the exact opposite of science. And, yes, it's funny to see people rant against religion, while using science as a dogma. That's not science vs religion, that's religion vs religion. One of them uses pseudo-science trappings, but it's used as a religion nevertheless.
I don't see how you can qualify the real thing as, basically, self-delusional, or conversely claim that only sticking to a bullshit fairy-tale as The Truth is the only non-self-delusional behaviour. Science is all about avoiding that kind of absolute truths and abandoning any pretense that you know everything. This is the data we have. This is the theory that explains that data. When we'll have more data, we'll refine the theory some more. If some of those axioms don't fit the data, we'll discard the axioms. It's just about as intellectually honest as it gets.
So, pray tell, in which way is that kind of admission that we don't know everything "self-delusional"?
Re:Science is just a way to try to avoid it, reall (Score:5, Insightful)
Or would we rather establish a Ministry of Truth rather than allow people to believe in wild religions, pink elephants, or political controversy presented as fact?
We need the freedom to be "wrong". That's what it means to be an adult.
Most definitely (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree we should be free to think as we will.
Although I don't believe we have a right to correct information, it'd be real nice if politicians and corporations were held responsible for their misinformation. Our choices (in Truth, wild religions, pink elephants, or political controversy) are only as solid as the information on which they are built, and unfortunately, our Public Representatives (from city council members on up) feed us only the information we require to achieve the goals they desire. There seems to be no regard for the validity of the information.
It's our responsibility as citizens to hold liars responsible for their lies. As we've seen with Clinton and Bush, though, lies are accepted as truth, even in the face of physical evidence.
Oh, well. I guess we (as a population) also have the right to accept any gilded bullshit as gospel, and build our worldview on that.
Re:Science is just a way to try to avoid it, reall (Score:4, Insightful)
I enjoy reality as I can see it, and while it's subjective to the way we see it, it's still there. It's sickeningly egotistical to think that just because you can't understand it perfectly it isn't real.
Re:Science is just a way to try to avoid it, reall (Score:4, Insightful)
Your statement here is dishonest, depending on the sensitivity and nature of an experiment then Newtonian Mechanics is completely and utterly bogus. In order to apply Newton's Laws you MUST have an inertial reference frame. Since inertial reference frames do not exist in reality, Newton's Laws are ALWAYS an approximation. So, depending on how poor that approximation is then your answer using Newton's Laws will be more wrong. This problem is not just in "fringe" cases of physics, every day phenomena do not follow Newton's laws. A simple example of this problem is the Coriolis Effect (the deflection of objects due to a rotating reference frame), which causes projectiles fired from gunships to be deflected and miss their intended target (unless the gunner compensates for this effect).
You are misusing the term "dogma", dogma applies to a belief in the purest sense (without proof). Unfortunately, in English we do not have a separate word for "belief with proof" so instead we normally say that we "know this to be true with a high degree of certainty." If we were German we would use the word "kennen [wiktionary.org]", which has the appropriate meaning but is normally translated to English simply as "to know."
Go take some philosophy classes, especially those that concentrate on ethics. Ethical systems derived from scientific principles are VERY different from ethical systems derived from dogmatic beliefs.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)
> There is no such thing as Truth. We all cling to illusions. You just think your illusion is superior to theirs.
You do realise that your statement invalidates itself? If there is no such thing as truth and everything is an illusion, then so is your statement.
Could it be that you are trying to say that we all have models of the world around us and some of those models model the real world more accurately than others, but not one of them is 100% correct? Because having an inaccurate model of the world isn't really a problem when acknowledge that it isn't perfect (and can make a rough estimate of how imperfect it is) and are willing to correct your model when more data is available.
Damn it seems I invented science.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)
All statements are false, especially this one.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:4, Funny)
Your statement isn't nearly as false as this one.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a very nice summation of a serious problem. This issue is why I always teach (and try to practice) that it is important to admit when you are wrong. The nice thing about doing so, is that you have to do it less often as time goes on. Well, a bit - but it becomes easier to do. One should never allow the value you have invested in believing something to be a factor in whether you believe it or not.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that this doesn't work. It's unfortunate, but it doesn't. The real world demands an answer and demands it now. The formation of ideology begins with learning to physically control the body a mind finds itself in. That means that at every point in time any human mind (including that of the most tolerant, most perfect human ever alive) any conclusion is reached in 0.05 seconds or less. That means yours too.
What anyone's mind really is, in essence is a control loop. Based on what it's seen in the past <x>, it will construct an output <y>, for the present, to send to the muscles.
It does NOT matter :
-> whether <y> is correct. For starters it is nearly always not clear what correct means. Do you open the door with your left hand or right hand ? Who cares ? Ideology only needs to be correct "enough" to prevent catastrophic mistakes. Therefore for example religions that are trivially wrong can be useful, and very correct scientificically based ideologies can be very bad (because they for example lead to indecision in the face of a threat)
-> whether <y> is based on some theory. A child is not capable of reasoning it's way out of a problem using theoretical knowledge for the simple reason that it doesn't have any theoretical knowledge. At first it learns to imitate, then it imitates.
-> <y> is some combination of imitation behavior (this does NOT mean that your behavior is in any serious way limited by what you've seen, but it obviously does mean that violent video games do indeed cause violent responses in players)
-> how complex the model forming <y> is. However one thing's for sure : it has to be able to be calculated in the real world in (VERY) finite time. Therefore it barely contains any loops. It's also necessarily simpler than the truth. That means the model used is TOO simple, and will always remain so.
-> we always use wrong shortcuts. The real world that affects us consists of 6 billion humans, a large planet. A huge nuclear reactor. Trillions upon trillions of animals, bugs, microbes and plants. Obviously whatever it is our mind does, it does NOT simulate all other minds and plants to find the optimal solution. For obvious reasons this is 100% true whether or not the individual in question knows how (or thinks he knows how). If we take into account 1 or 2 "entities" (outside of ourselves) planning our next move, that's atypically high.
So if you're looking for the response "why don't people think before they do ?". The response is simple : our world is not very forgiving of that behavior in many, many cases. Because it's stupid, in that even a little too much of it will get you killed for utter stupidity (e.g. you'd have problems controlling your steps and would fall down any stair you'd ever try to climb, fall over every rock) Therefore we've evolved not to do that. Some greeks (or whoever before them) stumbled on a few bits of logic, and since then people have been imitating them (it does not matter who was earlier it if they haven't got a continuous link to us). But the current practice of logic, is, in our minds, imitation behavior. Note that this is not an argument deciding whether logic is correct or false, merely that "I think it's right" is not sufficient, and perhaps not even a good sign.
Certainly stuff like the concepts of "good" and "evil" are based upon imitation.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
You were modded "interesting", I'd have modded it "insightful" but you got a 5 so what the hell, it's all good...
Anyway, There is no Republican more rabid about every single aspect of that ideology, than someone who was a Democrat until they felt somehow betrayed. And viceversa.
That's my dad, to a T. He was a Republican all his life; his parents were both Republicans, too. Then about the time he retired he started realizing that Social Security, Medicare, and all the other governmnent benefits he and his still-living mother were getting came from the Democrats, and that the Republicans had been for the rich (including his wealthy brother).
He's been a Democrat ever since.
There is no bible-thumper for puritan morals more rabid than someone who was a prostitute until last week.
True, and the funny thing about it is the Bible isn't harsh on prostitutes! It's hard on pimps ("whoremongers") but not the whores themselves. Same with alcohol; in fact it says to give wine to the sad and strong drink to the dying. Jesus turned water into wine, and his deciples all got drunk at the last supper.
And it says nothing at all about drugs, despite the fact that marijuana and opium were known to the ancients, yet your average bible-thumper will be adamantly against drugs.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, not everyone goes for lying to themselves. So I don't doubt that some people will do just like you said. But look around you. Do you really doubt that half of your co-workers would try to sucker someone, even just to be on the boss's good side? :P
That said, not that I'm accusing you or anything, but having very strong and immutable ideas about what you'd do or wouldn't do, is what causes such dissonances to go wrong in the first place. People start with immutable ideas like "_I_ wouldn't ever do X", and when somehow they find themselves doing it, well, if that idea is immutable, the other one has to go. It becomes, "yeah, well, what I did doesn't _really_ qualify as X." That's when and how such lying to oneself happens.
So keeping a more open mind about your options could actually help.
But again, I don't know you enough to make a definitive pronouncement there. Maybe you have the will power to actually stick to your principles, no matter what. Most people have the principles, but not the will to stick to them. So they end up warping reality to be still able to think that they do have those principles.
Re:Not even conspiracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course I doubt it. Half is way too low. Seriously, it's more like 95%. And that was before I had a job working in sales, where I was constantly getting told off for my honesty (I've since left that job; too much of a moral issue among other things).
Most people will do just about anything if they see or can expect some sort of personal gain. I won't go so far to say that someone will be more likely to do something otherwise-immoral if it's at someone else's expense, but I've seen precisely that happen far too often to refute it either.
Science education (Score:5, Insightful)
What if your ideology is based around the careful analysis of facts - like a good science education?
Re:Science education (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, that's not what they're talking about. If anything, just watch the current "debate" that's going on on talk radio and blogs about the upcoming election. You still hear that Obama is a muslim or that Palin wants to ban specific books. Despite these ideas having been debunked multiple times, people keep repeating them. Why? Because that's what they want to believe - ideology trumping facts.
Re:Science education (Score:4, Informative)
That's a good point, and well taken, except that the Palin book-censorship "myth" was never debunked — the (truthful, as far as it goes) claim that she never attempted to ban specific books as mayor of Wassila is a straw man, a cynical diversion from the fact that she embarked on her campaign of attempted book-censorship as a city councilwoman, before being elected mayor.
But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book "Daddy's Roommate" on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. [Laura Chase, the campaign manager during Ms. Palin's first run for mayor in 1996,] and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.
"Sarah said she didn't need to read that stuff," Ms. Chase said. "It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn't even read it."
"I'm still proud of Sarah," she added, "but she scares the bejeebers out of me."
(From this article [nytimes.com] in the New York Times.)
So she disliked a book and never banned it (Score:5, Informative)
But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book "Daddy's Roommate" on the shelves and that it did not belong there
Talk about a straw man.
You handily glossed over the fact she only thought the book did not belong, and never did anything about it.
Further proving the main point. Something within drives you to ignore the very text in front of you, in the rush to demonize the Other.
Re:So she disliked a book and never banned it (Score:5, Interesting)
You handily glossed over the fact she only thought the book did not belong, and never did anything about it.
And you handily glossed over the fact that the GP used a poor quote to support his argument, and you're both missing something important. From the same article (emphasis mine):
The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.
"People would bring books back censored," recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin's predecessor. "Pages would get marked up or torn out."
Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.
Note: One of these contemporary reports [nytimes.com] from a different article/reporter claim that it was a little more than a simple request. Now back to the main point:
This presents one heck of a conflict: believe the witness accounts of her constituents garnered from the investigative reporting of news organizations that are trying desperately to dig up dirt on all fronts (yes, all. Just because someone has more dirt than another does not mean that the reporting is unfair.) or the words of the campaign that's trying desperately to get elected. Is there a truth to this? Of course, but it means one side is deliberately lying, spinning the truth, or honestly believes one way or the other despite being wrong. It really comes down to who you believe, if either.
Re:So she disliked a book and never banned it (Score:5, Funny)
And all of you are missing the most important point.
She's hot.
Well hotter than Obama, Biden or McCain, at least.
She tried to do something about it (Score:5, Informative)
She did try to do something about it. [adn.com]
I am from Alaska. I have family in Wasilla, some who know Palin. The facts: Palin asked the city librarian if she would remove books from the library. The librarian said, essentially, "Not on my watch." So Palin attempted to change the watch.
She did try to do something about it, at the cost of a well-liked city librarian. She did so because of her scary fundamentalist ideology, the same thing that caused her to push through measurements requiring rape victims to pay for their rape test kits.
This "censorship" thing is not a strawman. I'm not sure if two cases make a pattern, but the "Troopergate" (stupid name, I know) affair indicates she likes to fire people she doesn't like, or who stand in the way of her doing things like censor libraries.
get real (Score:5, Informative)
You're letting your prejudices and biases cloud your judgment.
Of course, Palin didn't literally ban books from library shelves: she simply doesn't have the power to do so. But it appears that she opposed the presence of particular books in the library and exerted pressure.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5766173&page=1 [go.com]
The story is credible also because Palin is in trouble for several other abuses of power.
Re:Science education (Score:5, Informative)
She didn't try to ban books outright... rather she asked the librarian "Would you ban a book if I told you too" and then after asking 3 times, she threatened to fire her because she didn't feel she had the librarys support.
Don't get facts crossed, reality is scarier then fiction.
Re:You proved the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Expressing an opinion that a particular book "does not belong there" is not an attempt to ban anything.
No, but attempting to fire the librarian sure is.
On the other side one could make the argument that Obama was raised as a Muslim in a portion of his childhood
So? Does being "raised a Muslim" violate any legal or ethical principles? Even if he had been raised as a practicing Muslim, would that say anything about his character today? The only reason that being "raised a Muslim" is an issue in this campaign at all is because of religious intolerance and prejudice by Republicans.
On the other hand, attempting to fire the city librarian because she was not "politically loyal" and apparently had different views from Pailin is a violation of American values and principles.
Re:Science education (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that true of any religion?
Re:Science education (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a perfect answer--not because it makes any sense, but because it so perfectly illustrates the cognitive dissonance we're talking about. Christians who take the time to read both the Bible and the Koran frequently have no trouble taking the harsher parts of the Koran at face value but find no end of excuses why the Bible's crazier passages (shellfish, anyone?) are not to be read literally.
Thanks for the demonstration.
Re:Science education (Score:5, Insightful)
Read _A History of God_ by Karen Armstrong. Interesting book that covers Judaism, Christianity and Islam from a historical perspective. A history of how ideas developed in those beliefs, really.
The thing about the Bible the trips some people up is that they read it as a continuous narrative when it's more like an anthology. The Old Testament is easily half the book if not more and contains such crowd-pleasers as Leviticus, with the famous dietary laws along with times when it's appropriate to sell your sister to a giraffe. Rules to cover every eventuality. Then you hit the Gospels and Jesus says something along the lines of, "Okay, forget the earlier stuff about not eating monkeys or goats, just be nice to each other and we'll call that good enough." Which of course makes everything prior to that in the Bible totally irrelevant as moral handbooks go. It seems like a lot of the loudest Christians prefer the earlier parts about setting witches on fire and such to the just trying to get along with everybody revision.
Re:Science education (Score:5, Informative)
The Old Testament is easily half the book if not more
Actually, the Old Testament makes up about 85% of the Bible we have today.
and contains such crowd-pleasers as Leviticus, with the famous dietary laws along with times when it's appropriate to sell your sister to a giraffe
Really only the first five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch) are the Law books, and much of those books are just telling about the early history of the Israelites. (Genesis & Exodus). Also, there is nothing about selling your sister to a giraffe in the Old Testament (nor the New). Giraffes would, however, fall into the edible foods category based on their hoofs. Regardless, there are plenty of bizarre or seemingly pointless laws in there.
Then you hit the Gospels and Jesus says something along the lines of, "Okay, forget the earlier stuff about not eating monkeys or goats, just be nice to each other and we'll call that good enough." Which of course makes everything prior to that in the Bible totally irrelevant as moral handbooks go.
Not to be judgmental or argumentative, but honestly, this is a really inaccurate portrayal of the Bible's message. Even a secular humanist professor of religion who has some understanding of its message wouldn't summarize the Bible in that way, because it's just not what it's saying.
Jesus himself says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:17-18 (the fifth chapter in the first book in the New Testament, essentially the first thing you read in the New Testament if you read for more than about 5 minutes): "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." (NIV)
I tend to agree with this, and interpret the entire Old Testament as pointing towards Jesus. The purpose of the Law was to demonstrate the sinfulness of man and how we can never be "good enough." This may sound clichÃ, but the New Testament's whole message is that it's not about us and what we do and how good we are, but about God and what He did for us by his Grace.
It seems like a lot of the loudest Christians prefer the earlier parts about setting witches on fire and such to the just trying to get along with everybody revision.
Again, there is nothing about "setting witches on fire" anywhere in the Old/New Testaments, and the "getting along with everybody part" was not a "revision." I suppose the Old and New Testaments do condemn witchcraft, though. Also, please read the first paragraph in this post again. Thanks a lot.
Re:Science education (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but aside from my grandmother, who had to study the bible in school, I find it hard to believe that even 90% of the "Christians" around me have ever read the bible. They may listen to their priest or pastor read it on Sundays, but they never actually read it themselves.
Ever.
Under any circumstance.
Either they don't like to read or they'd rather read the DaVinci Code (or Harry Potter), which amuses me to no end.
I mean, how can you follow any religion without doing some research first?!
Re:Bible Mentions Shellfish in Leviticus (Score:5, Informative)
Well, if you actually want an answer, it is because the in the book of Acts, Peter was informed that all of those food injunctions were removed. If you don't actually want an answer, then disregard.
Sorry to hijack this thread (Score:3, Informative)
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=955999&cid=24911097#comment_top_24911097 [slashdot.org]
I'll just leave this here
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Science education (Score:4, Insightful)
The have existed until about 1995, when the weapons inspectors were looking for them and having destroyed all they could find. But as someone who has lived in a dictatorship I knew that the WMDs after that were purely fictional. Dictatorships also have those dellusional ideas that "doing as if it was real" will somehow materialize the reality out of nothing. ;)
One of the most important things in this play is to never ever clearly state that something you wish for in fact doesn't exist. That's why no one in the Iraqi junta ever told publically that the WMDs were all gone, even though the U.S. and the U.N. were pressing them to do so. Publicly admitting the non-existance of WMDs would have had a devastating effect on the junta's morale. Every colonel knew about the situation in his own unit. So his only hope was that some other military unit was better than their own. On the other hand he didn't want anyone to know that the own unit was weak, ill-equipped, badly trained, with low morale. So everyone had to boast about their own unit, and they heard from the other troups only the best. And the Super Secred Weapons Of Mass Destructions Not Even The Weapon Inspectors Were Knowing About were the hope everyone was clinging on, that a potential war wouldn't be as devastating as they had to expect from looking at their troups.
And finally it was meant as some kind of deterrent against the neighboring states, a kind of ballooning yourself to look larger than you really were. I guess most people who have lived through a dictatorship knew those tricks, and so they might not have fallen to much for it.
But for some strange reason this self-dellusion was also taking over the minds of the U.S. government. Because they never were exposed to an autocratic regime before, they took for bare coins what they were hearing from Iraq. And because they believed that no one would ever try to look more dangerous than he actually is, but rather play down his abilities to look nice and be not beaten by the big bully U.S., they exageraged the Iraqi boastings further, and were convinced Saddam Hussein had in fact more WMDs than he was hinting on, when in fact he had none.
That's what you get when someone who can play with expectations and with false impressions as well as Karl Rove or Dick Cheney finds a likewise weasely counterpart.
Confirmed by experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly, an experiment was conducted a few years ago in which a completely incompetent ruler was set up as a head of state of one of the worlds larger nations. After four years of bad rule that included a record deficit, starting two illegal wars, and alienating most of their allies, the people of that nation were asked if they would vote for him again. And they did! So yes, I would say that ideology certainly trumps facts.
In fact I probably shouldn't be talking about this, since the experiment is still ongoing...
War, legality thereof. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, you might claim illegality under the so called "international law". But here too, one can find a legal basis in various UN resolutions (e.g. 678, 687).
But, advocating for taking war actions only under the direction of the UN is fairly silly. There are plenty of situations in which the United States should be compelled to act even if various nations disagree with US policy.
Instead of focusing on the legality of the action in question, the more interesting question is if the war itself was in America's best interests. Here, one can most certainly raise all sorts of claims vis-a-vee whether the war itself was a worthwhile action (cost vs. benifeits).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, he obviously isn't trying to be elected a third time. The only way he can remain President is through a constitutional amendment (which I doubt Congress will give him) or a coup d'etat.
Re:Confirmed by experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
Both houses did pass a resolution for the Iraq and Afghani wars so I don't really know what hes trying to say, Bush wasn't the only one who wanted war.
Re:Indeed, the second expiriment fared no better (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Indeed, the second expiriment fared no better (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it takes two to tango. IF the democrats had put up someone even reasonably qualifying for the office, they would have won. And yet again, they may prove to have made the same mistake again, choosing the MOST liberal senator out of the whole bunch. If they had picked like 85 instead of 100 on the list, this election would not even be in doubt...
an excellent example of the dissonance discussed.
you are a republican, a thoroughly indoctrinated one.
Obama isn't even close to "liberal" democrat.
If you want liberal take a look to canada, and that's only what 85 out of 100 scale liberals want.
The truth is it wouldn't matter who the democrats trotted up there.
If you never knew GW, and he ran under the democratic ticket, you would rain the same derision upon him.
Actively misinformed? (Score:5, Funny)
Good thing slashdot is here to set the record straight.
I don't believe it (Score:5, Funny)
I haven't RTF article, but I don't need to-facts don't matter.
Duh (Score:5, Informative)
Dupe? (Score:5, Insightful)
fourth branch of government (Score:5, Insightful)
I speak of the American media because I don't understand enough of the rest of the world's media to comment.
Re:fourth branch of government (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're almost dead on. Having a political position is a means to an end, not an end.
Having a known political position guarantees a certain market with your now established brand recognition. If your political view is all over the place, you'll piss everyone off eventually. Hard to keep a steady viewership / readership that way.
At the end of the day it's all about selling advertisements and subscriptions in American news.
FIRST branch of government (Score:5, Interesting)
The modern media is not the fourth branch, or estate, of government. It is the First Estate. Let me explain.
The estates have classically been, in order:
1) The Church
2) The Aristocracy
3) Everybody Else
Traditionally added to this list has been
4) The Media ("Independent of church and state")
This was the rule up to one should think about 50 years ago in most countries. It's still the case today in many, especially latin american, countries. However, one should realise that the estates we not so much defined by WHO they were so much as WHAT they did. For instance, one can easily replace "aristocracy" with "very rich people", and the second estate model still fits modern society.
However, how does one replace "church" in modern society? Even in america, religious leaders wield only a small fraction of the power they once did. Do we then conclude that the model of the three estates is therefore outdated and does not apply? I would argue that this is not the case, and that the three estates model is in fact a valid model for how almost all societies operate on a basic level.
What did the first estate do? The church was closer to the people that the aristocracy. It wielded great influence over them through its sermons, traditions and omni-presence in society at large. It mostly sided with the aristocracy, to maintain the status quo. Though it would disagree with their policies when it suited its own purposes. The general idea was that the aristocrats ruled, while the church helped keep the people in line. In turn, the aristocrats would confer legal status, benefits and privileges to the church. It was a symbiotic relationship designed to keep power out of the hands of the masses.
Who replaces the church of the Ancien Régime in our 21st century society? No-one? Look beyond outward apearance and to the actual substance of the matter. Who is close to those in power and spreads their message to the masses? Who is close enough to the average citizen to influence their opinion? Who generally agrees with the government, but can disagree when it suits their purposes. Who benefits from their patronage?
The modern media, or at least the majority of it, constitutes the first estate in our modern society. I'd like to stress that I do not believe this to be the result of a conspiracy or plot. Rather, I would hold that the three estates model is a natural state towards which human societies will gravitate, without anyone ever consciously planning or realizing it.
The demise of church power in western society has left a vacuum. The Media has filled that vacuum. When people talk about the Daily Show being the only source of "real news", they are in effect pointing out the inherant difference between the "New Media" of the First estate (Bill O'Reilly), and the "Old Media" of the Fourth estate (Jon Stewart). These two model of media have always existed together, but in recent times, the First estate media has become the dominant type.
In order for idealogical to work, it needs propaganda. It needs a first estate. In order to resist ideology, we need the truth. We need a fourth estate. Right now, we have too much of the former and dangerously little of the latter.
Democracy - "the least worst form of government"? (Score:5, Insightful)
The cynic in me is beginning to believe that Winston Churchill was wrong in saying that "Democracy was the least worst form of government". After being a part of the American political process for the last 8 years I've seen how ideology has, time and again, trumped reason. Still I'm not completely impressed with other systems, the "meritocratic" technocratic bureaucracy espoused by the Chinese communist party seems flawed as well (don't buy Chinese Milk!). That's despite being described as "the Harvard Alumni Association with an Army".
Maybe the fact is that, as humans (and 98% chimp) we're only slightly beyond our animal forebears. Perhaps we just cannot handle a technologic civilization with complex issues like genetic engineering, nuclear weapons, climate change, nano technology. If Fukuyama is right in saying that Liberal Democracies are "the end of history" maybe it means that that's the end of our progress. - Then again maybe the United States (with its 70% of the population being strongly religious) is an aberration and the future lies with other less religious societies.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Humanity as a whole has definitely peaked. We continue to enhance out technology, but the lump of meat at the centre of it has a fundamental flaw, built in by the evolutionary process. Our imaginations that make all the technology possible is a double edged sword that also results in all the useless and often destructive ideology.
If humanity has something approaching a "purpose", it is to create a successor intelligence (machine, biological or hybrid) and at that moment we will have become the gods we conju
Re:Democracy - "the least worst form of government (Score:4, Informative)
Still I'm not completely impressed with other systems, the "meritocratic" technocratic bureaucracy espoused by the Chinese communist party seems flawed as well (don't buy Chinese Milk!). That's despite being described as "the Harvard Alumni Association wit an Army".
That's a very naive characterisation of the Chinese system, or any non democracy. From my experience it's more like organised crime with an army. Fact is absolute power lies with the people with the money and guns, not with the Harvard alumni.
One of my friend's husbands works in China. One of his partners is in the PLA, and the main reason he is a partner is because people are scared of him. Let's just say if her husband's company makes a business offer and you're Chinese, you don't refuse it once you find out he's involved.
Very scary place.
Re:Democracy - "the least worst form of government (Score:5, Funny)
What we need is one lone ruler who tells us what to do who has no ulterior motives and hidden agendas beyond making this world the most livable and efficient for as large a fraction of the population as possible.
A Benevolent Dictatorship? That never works in any organization larger than the Python Development Community.
If you're a closed minded prejudiced moron (Score:4, Insightful)
Ideology Trumps Facts...if you're a closed minded prejudiced moron who can't face reality.
The ability to learn, grow and change your opinion is something we all possess. If we choose to close our eyes and pray instead of looking at the facts, it's our own fault. It may be easier from an emotional perspective to deal with our limited existence and the hardships life throws at us by subscribing to a belief system handed down to us, or that we've found in a "time of need" but if you actively ignore reality you're doomed to end up destroying yourself.
The trouble with studies like this is that they tell us we can justify our own stupidity. Sure, go ahead, but you'll face the consequences.
O RLY? (Score:5, Funny)
Belief (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm entirely not surprised.
In my opinion, broadly speaking, there are two kinds of people in the world; those who prefer an internal moral compass and those who prefer an external moral compass. The former tend to analyse things for themselves, look at all the facts and come up with a decision- is this "right/true/a good idea/etc". The latter tend to look to some higher authority- religion, the government, parents, spouse, boss, etc to make the majority of these decisions for them.
This doesn't mean that the former is automatically better than the latter- the latter have a vast pool of opinions to draw upon, while the former only have themselves and can be often actively disregard the opinions of others in the name of "doing what *they* want". Individualism for the sake of individualism, you might say.
Most people, I think, fall somewhere in the middle and lean one way or the other. I tend to lean towards the former, but I recognise the traps that can befall these kind of people and actively seek to avoid them.
ideology trumps facts and so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
ideology trumps facts. ok. so what?
1. this observation is ideologically neutral. that is, it evens out in every ideological direction, such that no particular ideology is favored
2. this observation applies to everyone. this observation applies most of all to those of you who think you are immune to prejudice. that's you, reading these words. yes, you are guilty of this. how passionately you dispute the notion that you have prejudices is directly proportional to how prejudiced you are, blindly. meanwhile, if you start with the assumption that you prejudiced, you are better able to identify your prejudices in your thought processes, and work around them
3. this observation applies to all societies, in all cultures, in all time periods, including the future. in other words, make peace with the concept that ideology trumps facts. nothing you do will ever change that, it is a simple aspect of human nature. unless you seek to disrespect democracy and free will, and somehow "reeducate" people. which makes the cure worse than the disease
we are all prejudiced. individually, and as societies. so it is better to recognize your weaknesses and work around them than somehow fantasize it is possible to have no prejudices at all. the story summary is nothing more than the sound of someone shockingly realizing a truth about their world, and trying to come to grips with it
Re:ideology trumps facts and so what? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
i'm sorry, but i'm not.
I've adjusted my views when presented with evidence which contradicted those initial views.
I have never held irrationally to a belief when all evidence pointed to the contrary.
It's Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Douglas Adams knew it all along (Score:5, Insightful)
The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
Re:Douglas Adams knew it all along (Score:4, Funny)
Much as I like Douglas Adams, really, he's just paraphrasing Plato.
Actually, in 2159, the trustees of the Adams estate sent a copy of the H2G2 back though a time warp to ancient Greece and successfully sued Plato for copyright breach.
Isn't it terrible when people try and capitalize on the wise and witty sayings of others...?
People don't believe scientists, only celebrities (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this? Because what people believe is based on trust, not facts. They trust faces that are familiar to them and (thanks to the education system) are not capable of working out for themselves which answer is correct.
Ultimately it comes down to emotions
"Lenses" (Score:5, Interesting)
I was a poli sci major, now a law student (yeah, I know, what the hell am I doing on Slashdot...). I think the most useful discussion I ever heard in class was one on the general idea of "lenses" we see the world through.
The professor who taught the course had been in the Intelligence Community for some time, and this is an issue that analysts and other intelligence officers encountered constantly and is, in fact, encountered in essentially every career path. Analysts, who may not have visited the country they work on in years, will see it very differently than the man on the ground. The man on the ground, however, who is constantly tied up with a million small details, will likely see things differently and fail to see the big picture.
In my own life, I can think of a few instances where this has been particularly true. I had the "pleasure" of getting caught in the middle of a slum during the December 2001 riots in Argentina. Not a pleasant experience, needless to say. So now, every time I go back to Latin America, I'm paranoid. Once you've seen people getting stabbed and robbed all around you, you get that way. It's my "lens" - I always see things as less stable than they truly are, and always feel that I need to be ready to either batten down the hatches or bolt at any moment.
A more useful story would come from a recent work-related incident. A legal issue came up when I was an intern at a law office (yes, imagine that). I was in a conference with the other attorneys - all distinguished professionals with lengthy records - discussing the matter, and all of the attorneys handled it exactly like they would a case from a textbook - they played their "role". They took the facts they were given, assumed they were real, and attempted to find a legal answer to the situation. That's what lawyers do. After listening to discussion on this for several minutes, I piped up and questioned the very basis of the facts (the situation seemed a bit far-fetched to me - one not yet entirely corrupted by the practice of law - and I simply applied Occam's razor). I received strange stares for a moment, and then the attorney in charge of the matter said, "wow, I'd never considered that before. Let's look into it." Sure enough, I was right, and we saved a lot of money, headache, and effort on research and other costs.
People simply see things differently and will process information differently. Environment, experience, language, education, spirituality, family background, geographical origin, economic situation, genetics (to an extent), etc. all shape how we see the world - and how we even interpret - or even recognize - fact. It's only human. The best we can hope to do is to acknowledge it and to seek out those who view things differently in the hopes of honing our own vision and seeing things we hadn't seen before.
Truthiness not facts (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on folks we all know that were the Colbert Nation [colbertnation.com] leads the world follows. All this is saying is that politics these days is about Truthiness [wikipedia.org] which is "Truth that comes from the gut, not from books". Back in 2005 Colbert was right [colbertnation.com].
His latest campaign is that we don't even want answers and should not be allowed to ask questions.
Its very sad how the two best political commentary programmes in the US go out on Comedy Central.
The news media..... (Score:4, Interesting)
... is the voice that can be used to correct falsehoods.
It is also the voice used to create falsehoods.
Fox News (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm from the UK and recently took a holiday in San Diego to visit some relatives. Great place, but unfortunately they had a limited Sat TV package that only gave a choice of a few news channels, and Fox News was the one that got turned on most.
Now I've never seen Fox News before, and coming from a country there the TV news has a mandate to be unbiased, Fox News was quite a shock to the system. I've never seen anything like it. It's completely one sided (towards Republicans) crammed with emotional rhetoric deliberately aimed at misinforming the viewer. It so over exaggerates the current level of the "terrorist threat" to America, that an outsider viewing this crap would think you're on the cusp of being invaded.
Watching it reminded me of the kind of news propaganda that the Nazi's used in WW2 to convince their population that their cause was just and righteous, and demoralize their enemies.
I know that sounds a bit strong, but I was just so shocked at the level of dishonest manipulation Fox News are involved in. And horrified that there are people in the USA who actually watch this trash and BELIEVE that it's real news!
Re:Fox News (Score:4, Insightful)
You're kidding, right? Of course, that's the problem with journalism, is the deception that the human mind can be unbiased. Most journalists lean heavily left-of-center, and believe that their core "training" is the definition of objectivity. One thing I find rarely done is the realization that maybe they can never be truly objective...
Re:Fox News (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a'tall. Rather, simply recognizing your own biases enables you to better evaluate the biases of others. The OP addresses Fox News bias as if he had the one true, clear, unbiased view. That's incredibly naive.
For example, the OP and you would probably assert that the lack of a successful terrorist attack on US soil in the past 7 years is proof the terrorist threat is over-stated, and criticize the President for infringing on our liberties unnecessarily.
Fox News would probably take the view that the same events demonstrates that the President's actions were both warranted and successful.
Both assertions are biased by world views. But you needn't lose track of reality at all - REALITY is that we haven't had a successful terrorist attack on US soil in the past 7 years. Whether the President's actions are to credit or beside the point is an exercise eventually left to the electorate and historians.
As an amusing aside, I see that I have finally drawn the wrath of the Obama Death Squads, as evidenced by the crush of Overrated mods drowning out the Interesting and Underrated ones. Although I'm much more Libertarian that Republican, it's always the zealot Democrats with their "Equal Access" and "Hate Speech" laws that most credibly threaten free speech in my experience. Just my $0.02. Mod away.
So in a nutshell... (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at the paper on the Roberts study linked to TFA:
Tell some people bad stuff about a Republican, then tell them it isn't true. The pro-Democrats in the audience believe the bad stuff and ignore the rebuttal. The pro-Republicans... mostly ignored the bad stuff in the first place (or maybe didn't think it was so bad?)
Film at 11. Or, to put it another way, mud sticks.
I can't quickly see any link from the paper to the specific rebuttal of the ad which the participants were shown - but the paper assures us that it was a "a sharp, factual, bipartisan evisceration of its insinuations" - so that's alright then. (I'm reluctant to criticize a paper too deeply after a 2 minute skim, but that line made my red pen itch).
The authors of the paper seem to be taking as axiomatic that the ad was completely untrue and the rebuttal was compelling. After all, the title of the paper says "False political beliefs".
Note that the question in the study was "do you support Roberts for Supreme Court Justice" and not "do you believe that the ad was accurate". Any good propaganda will contain a grain of truth - however disingenuously presented. In this case, it was that one of the "nonviolent" protesters was a convicted violent protester. That shouldn't count for anything in a court of law, but it might reduce your audience's enthusiasm for the right to protest.
This study would be more interesting if it were done using a nice, well-defined reproducible or falsifiable scientific or mathematical fact and a common misconception. Actually, this has been done in science/math education and there is evidence that merely telling someone "your belief is wrong - here is the right answer" is ineffective unless you force them to see the absurd consequences of their belief. (go Google for "cognitive conflict").
When ideology is what you ARE (Score:5, Insightful)
Fostering brand loyalty is a cost effective way to get repeat customers. But you don't <em>have</em> to be a mindless consumer of political ideology.
Same conclusion from a different approach? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Same conclusion from a different approach? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter [cato-unbound.org] points out that when the average beliefs of voters are consistently wrong in the same direction, these biases do not cancel each other out; they compound.
In particular, it has been proven that the average voter is wrong about economics in a consistently biased way.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cue the Dem and Repubs pointing and accusing each other of doing just that.
You know, sometimes, one side really is right, or at least substantially less wrong than the other.
Re:On three. 1.... 2.... 3.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, sometimes, one side really is right, or at least substantially less wrong than the other.
Yes, but not necessarily because their analysis and thinking are more sound... You can be a bloody-minded partisan and still hit on a good idea every now and then, even if it's just because the other side opposes the idea.
Re:The best example (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardly (Score:4, Informative)
I keep hearing how the government "practically forced some companies to make loans." This isn't supported by the facts. The bill in question (passed by Clinton in '93) essentially mandated fairness in lending -- that if banks gave a loan to one person, they couldn't refuse a similar loan to a similar person.
In fact, deregulation allowed standard banks to behave as speculative agencies. It wasn't Fannie and Freddie that gave these sub-prime loans, and nobody was forced to do so. The fact is, they were highly profitable in the short-term (say, 15 years, which is plenty to make a killing and get out). Other banks purchased up blocks of loans. Couple that with increasing privatization of Freddie and Fannie.
There was so much return on these subprime loans, that Fannie and Freddie were financially pressured into purchasing up blocks themselves. As they are the biggest mortgage lenders, they ended up with huge numbers of these loans.
The economy started spiralling down about the same time the ARMs came due, exacerbating the rate of mortgage defaults.
Jeez, doesn't anybody listen to NPR anymore?
Re:The best example (Score:4, Informative)
"Facts" my ass. Here are some real, unbiased facts:
1) The CRA bill had virtually nothing to do [prospect.org] with the current financial crisis. To quote:
The reason bad loans were given out was because it made people a fuckton of money. The real failure was in the Bush administration not working to encourage investment opportunities outside the secondary mortgage market for the vast glut of credit that was around after the 2001 tech crash. Instead, they let the "invisible hand" work, and since real estate looked like a great way to make money, they threw their money in there. Suddenly banks saw a market for MBSs and began loaning like mad so they could resell the investments and make boatloads of cash. This drew new investors, which encouraged more bad loans, lather, rinse repeat. Throw in unregulated ratings agencies that were financially motivated to lie about risk, not to mention general risk obfuscation thanks to the structure of the instruments being sold, and you have a recipe for disaster.
All of this could've been fixed with some sensible regulation, but the government instead chose to sit back and ride the wave.
2) Fannie and Freddie largely largely avoided the subprime market until late 2007 when the market was failing and needed credit to keep it functioning, and they only stepped in when the government more or less told them to. So what the hell would regulating Fannie and Freddie have done to avoid the current problems? Nothing at all.
But I don't expect you to actually believe any of this. After all, cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.