4 ms·
> could actually be rephrased as "Why Don't Everybody Agree with the Left?" Well, let's have a look at the actual examples in the article: what things are peop
by gjm11 8y ago
> could actually be rephrased as "Why Don't Everybody Agree with the Left?"
Well, let's have a look at the actual examples in the article: what things are people apparently failing to change their minds about? (I've also included a few things that aren't examples of that but that seem relevant.)
1. Their ability to distinguish real from fake suicide notes. No obvious political slant.
2. What makes a good firefighter. No obvious political slant.
3. The effectiveness of capital punishment. Highly politicized topic, but reported experiment and reported results both symmetrical.
4. Answers to an unspecified set of reasoning problems. Presumably no political slant.
5. Next study described is one in which people actually did* change their minds, when asked to explain in detail things they thought they understood. Also not political.*
6. Next one also isn't about changing minds. Found that a rough proxy for ignorance about Ukraine is correlated with eagerness for the US to intervene there. Definite opportunity for political slant here.
7. General discussion about mutually reinforcing ignorance. Has kinda-gratuitous anti-Trump comment at end.
8. Next one also isn't about changing minds. Found that trying to explain things in detail leads to more moderate opinions, whichever side one's on. Politically contentious questions; procedure and results seem symmetrical.
9. Alleged dangers of vaccination. Anti-vax sentiment tends to skew left, though I think less drastically than is sometimes thought. Brief, semi-gratuitous, Trump comment here, but it isn't particularly negative.
10. Whether owning a gun makes you safer. Politically contentious question.
So. Most of the stuff here is either entirely unpolitical (1,2,4,5) or concerned with political issues but balanced in both procedure and conclusions (3,8). The last section (9,10) describes a book that discusses demonstrably-false opinions held by some people who skew left (9) and some who skew right (10). That leaves 6 (which looks to me -- your opinion might differ -- like an unbiased attempt to investigate a question with political consequences) and that little swipe at the Trump administration in 7. (And, if you really find it offensive, the comment about Steve Bannon at the end.)
I don't think any reasonable person could summarize this as anything even slightly like "Why don't everybody agree with the left?", even though those little swipes make it clear that the author is no fan of Donald Trump. (A characteristic he shares with plenty of Republicans, so it's not exactly a clear indicator of egregious bias.)
- Nasrudith 8y agoI think antivax is an example of bipartisan stupiity as well even if motivations differ. It seems to be an easy answer to uncomfortable questions and decisions. Whether it is accepting something from an uncomfortable source (science, something "unnatural", government mandate, etc.) or avoiding the pain involved. I am aware of my personal biases but I suspect that if the vaccine form factor was changed to be truly painless we would see antivax numbers decline. Also inspired by sociopathic scam "homeopathic vaccines" which were liquids to be drunk. (Especially ironic when vaccination is the one area where dilluiting something harmful to help with the original cause can actually work for a change.)
- Frondo 8y agoOne quick note on point 10: the question of whether owning a gun makes you safer isn't a politically contentious one -- it is a knowable fact in the realm of empiricism. Whether individuals should be allowed to own guns, without regard to whatever risk there might be, is the politically contentious one. But the mere question of safety isn't political (how things should be), it's observable (how things are).
- gjm11 8y agoThe fact that something is empirically knowable is not, unfortunately, a guarantee that it isn't politically contentious.
- hnbroseph 8y ago> I don't think any reasonable person could summarize this as anything even slightly like "Why don't everybody agree with the left?" it's quite fashionable to trash talk this amorphous and indistinct group called "the left". "conservative" political commentators in particular love using "the left" to as a generic stand in as "those undesirables" or "those fools" or "those leeches" etc.