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I think part of the problem is the polarisation in and of itself. It leads one to think that there are only two sides to any story when, in fact, there are usua
by ljm 5y ago
I think part of the problem is the polarisation in and of itself. It leads one to think that there are only two sides to any story when, in fact, there are usually several.
I believe that this push for fact checking lately is a symptom of a larger problem. How often is there genuinely a single, correct version of events, and then an incorrect one, at the scale of humanity we're talking about?
And why is it hard to bridge that gap? If you take to social media, it can be really hard to have a conversation between two politically opposed groups of people without it immediately jumping to aggression.
Flat Earth News is an old book now but it's a worthwhile read still.
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoAgreed! The chain: "Fact" checks > Polarization > Poor discussion > People retract to their own bubbles where discussion isn't hostile > Insular communities with groupthink 1> Sharing of content that is agreeable to the group, but factually incorrect 2> Not checking factual accuracy of content because it would be offensive to one's loyalty to the group
- ljm 5y agoI think this is more or less how you get to beliefs like "Communism isn't bad, it just hasn't been done right yet," or "Social media are pushing the narrative with fact checking," or "Vaccines and masks are a deep-state conspiracy." It would be too much of a shock to have your own beliefs challenged in such a fundamental way, so there has to be another way out where you can rationalise it instead. This provides some comfort but the trade-off is you take a step further into the rabbit hole.