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> Also, a few days ago I was on a flight, and the person next to me was telling me about his flat earth beliefs Just when I was about to say "don't go to all t

> Also, a few days ago I was on a flight, and the person next to me was telling me about his flat earth beliefs Just when I was about to say "don't go to all those conservative websites, they are full of mental cases" you pull out this real-life encounter of the nth kind. Yikes! This person was the very definition of nut-case. You have to wonder where and how such belief systems develop and take root. It doesn't say much for the human condition other than, perhaps, we are one good power outage away from being cave men (and women). Seriously though, I'd say the online landscape is populated by extremes. This applies to all viewpoints and subject, be it religion, politics or what to feed your dogs. Don't form opinions based on that at all. That's not the real world. The images of both liberals and conservatives being painted online are absolute caricatures of reality. In real life (outside of running into demented cases on a plane) I have found most people agree on, dare I say, most topics at a fundamental level. The key, in my opinion, is to actively engage in real-life conversations with a wide range of people and avoid echo chambers as much as possible. I can't tell you how to do that because it depends on where you live, where you work and your level of comfort. I'm the kind of person who has no problem whatsoever approaching a total stranger at a coffee shop to have a conversation. If you watch TV, do watch news networks with different biases. They all have them. Realize they do what they do for ratings and do your best to filter through the nonsense. Nearly every TV news network has a bunch of clowns and a few serious people. Look for the latter and you'll get useful information. If we are talking Fox News, I'd say Tucker Carlson's show is pretty good. Bret Baier and Chris Wallace are also decent. Most everyone else is a clown putting on a show for ratings. I won't talk about the liberal-leaning stations because I would imagine you know who's serious and who's a ratings clown, for example, I would imagine you might categorize Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) as a member of the latter. I think the key is to be open to information from all sides while being careful to filter out attempts at manipulation and what I call "clowning for ratings". The BBC, Al Jazeera and Deutsche Welle ought to be part of everyone's news source rotations. And don't forget news from the rest of the American continent. Yes, being well informed is a job. Still can't get over your flight experience. I would have politely moved. No, I would have vomited into a bag and then moved.

coldtea 10y ago
>Just when I was about to say "don't go to all those conservative websites, they are full of mental cases" you pull out this real-life encounter of the nth kind. Yikes! This person was the very definition of nut-case. You have to wonder where and how such belief systems develop and take root. They "develop and take root" in a distrust of the established truths, which finds an outlet in some niche pet-theory (flat earth, etc) -- and an existential distress and unhapiness in living with them. Which is not totally unhealthy, as a lot of established truths are either dictums or states of being held by force taken as inevitable/the way things are/gospel, and others are BS spread for profit (and also held as truth). Of course rejecting those instead of the shape-of-the-earth type beliefs would be better. But it would also be more difficult (try rejecting an established "truth" and see how well it goes. In a repressive government it can even end in execution). Whereas believing in flat-earth at best makes other perceive you as cooky.
- rebootthesystem 10y ago
  Given what you said, is it even worth having a conversation with someone who has gone out there to such an extent? If we are talking about science, where one can present evidence from which hypothesis can be re-verified by anyone, how do you deal with someone who just refuses to disconnect from their delusion for even a moment? As an atheist I have had some interesting conversations with what I would characterize as "intense believers". I have friends who are Born Again Christians. I have endured intense verbal poundings of all kinds at their hands. I even had a case where one of them was yelling and screaming at me in the middle of a parking lot at midnight because I was going on a business trip to Amsterdam the next day and he felt I needed to kneel down and accept Jesus that very minute or I would surely go to hell and condemn my whole family just for setting foot on that city. Nice guy and all, but holy crap! BTW, I have never done the opposite and tried to convince a believer to become an atheist. When do you think someone is so far gone that an attempt to engage based on reason is futile?
shawnee_ 10y ago
If we are talking Fox News, I'd say Tucker Carlson's show is pretty good. Bret Baier and Chris Wallace are also decent. Most everyone else is a clown putting on a show for ratings. I won't talk about the liberal-leaning stations because I would imagine you know who's serious and who's a ratings clown, for example, I would imagine you might categorize Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) as a member of the latter. The problem with your assessment here is that "clowning" is not actually a part of journalism. Fact-finding however, is part of journalism. The OP is making the case that people will actively ignore facts they are receiving when they can't parse the information to match up with their world view. They will dismiss facts as things like conspiracy or what you're calling "clowning for ratings" when they don't like what they are hearing. Information dissemination that is based on verifiable facts garnered from multiple independent sources... this is the job of journalists. From what I've seen of Fox News, it does not subscribe to the verifiable facts method of journalism and relies instead upon the echo chamber method of repeating something enough times in attempts to make it seem truthful.

coldtea 10y ago

>Just when I was about to say "don't go to all those conservative websites, they are full of mental cases" you pull out this real-life encounter of the nth kind. Yikes! This person was the very definition of nut-case. You have to wonder where and how such belief systems develop and take root. They "develop and take root" in a distrust of the established truths, which finds an outlet in some niche pet-theory (flat earth, etc) -- and an existential distress and unhapiness in living with them. Which is not totally unhealthy, as a lot of established truths are either dictums or states of being held by force taken as inevitable/the way things are/gospel, and others are BS spread for profit (and also held as truth). Of course rejecting those instead of the shape-of-the-earth type beliefs would be better. But it would also be more difficult (try rejecting an established "truth" and see how well it goes. In a repressive government it can even end in execution). Whereas believing in flat-earth at best makes other perceive you as cooky.

rebootthesystem 10y ago
Given what you said, is it even worth having a conversation with someone who has gone out there to such an extent? If we are talking about science, where one can present evidence from which hypothesis can be re-verified by anyone, how do you deal with someone who just refuses to disconnect from their delusion for even a moment? As an atheist I have had some interesting conversations with what I would characterize as "intense believers". I have friends who are Born Again Christians. I have endured intense verbal poundings of all kinds at their hands. I even had a case where one of them was yelling and screaming at me in the middle of a parking lot at midnight because I was going on a business trip to Amsterdam the next day and he felt I needed to kneel down and accept Jesus that very minute or I would surely go to hell and condemn my whole family just for setting foot on that city. Nice guy and all, but holy crap! BTW, I have never done the opposite and tried to convince a believer to become an atheist. When do you think someone is so far gone that an attempt to engage based on reason is futile?

shawnee_ 10y ago

If we are talking Fox News, I'd say Tucker Carlson's show is pretty good. Bret Baier and Chris Wallace are also decent. Most everyone else is a clown putting on a show for ratings. I won't talk about the liberal-leaning stations because I would imagine you know who's serious and who's a ratings clown, for example, I would imagine you might categorize Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) as a member of the latter. The problem with your assessment here is that "clowning" is not actually a part of journalism. Fact-finding however, is part of journalism. The OP is making the case that people will actively ignore facts they are receiving when they can't parse the information to match up with their world view. They will dismiss facts as things like conspiracy or what you're calling "clowning for ratings" when they don't like what they are hearing. Information dissemination that is based on verifiable facts garnered from multiple independent sources... this is the job of journalists. From what I've seen of Fox News, it does not subscribe to the verifiable facts method of journalism and relies instead upon the echo chamber method of repeating something enough times in attempts to make it seem truthful.