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Having a show become a massive TV event (like MASH) is nice for solidarity but it comes at a price of having a centralized channel(s) of opinions, messages and

Having a show become a massive TV event (like MASH) is nice for solidarity but it comes at a price of having a centralized channel(s) of opinions, messages and agenda. It's a double edged sword but eventually, in my opinion, having a variety of messages available is better than traditional centralized TV. And massive TV events can still happen for something like the next moon landing or sports. The problem isn't with selecting your content, but with the reduced (to none existing) exposure to other content that might challenge your views. We owe it to ourselves to honestly test our beliefs and worldview, see if they hold up, and adjust accordingly. Today it's far too easy to avoid doing this while staying on feeds that reinforce whatever it is you believe in, never challenging you, and becoming radicalized.

mikkergp 4y ago
> but with the reduced (to none existing) exposure to other content that might challenge your views. We owe it to ourselves to honestly test our beliefs and worldview, see if they hold up, and adjust accordingly. This sounds good but I actually don’t buy it anymore. I consider myself to be a pretty empathetic person, but over time I’ve realized empathy doesn’t solve any problems unless you’re forced to put your money where your mouth is. Would I work together with a far right conservative on a project towards a shared mission. Of course! Do I understand why conservatives feel the way they do? For the most part yes. But being exposed to far right beliefs just makes me more and more crazy, even if I understand the underlying emotion. Even if I empathize with the underlying pain, sometimes empathy makes those feelings worse. We don’t just disagree on the substance of opinions( pro choice vs pro life) we disagree on the deeper ways of expression, emotion, thought processes and how we assess truth. I understand why someone is pro life but watching the thought processes behind those rants? Helps no one. Sure I love reading a good relatively moderate economist from either side arguing whatever but /r/conservative comment section and caustic twitter threads?
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  > being exposed to far right beliefs just makes me more and more crazy > watching the thought processes behind those rants I think, perhaps, the problem stems from only paying attention to people who are making emotional arguments based on ideology or repeated talking points that they don't truly understand but simply feel align with whatever group they see themselves as belonging to. This is the partisanship or tribalism that seems to be poisoning a lot of public discourse. I specifically say discourse here because I don't believe it is actually disrupting society at the interpersonal level as much as popular opinion seems to think it is. With either side, if you examine the well reasoned arguments that underly a lot of the talking points you find that they are often quite different and more nuanced than the things firebrands are turning them into. This is troubling because it means even the people who supposedly believe in these ideas actually don't understand them at all. I think this is responsible for the phenomenon of people turning out to be over all much more centrist and agreeing with each other when they make an effort to sit down and discuss these things in a rational manner. My advice is to shun reddit, YouTube and twitter and instead find some old books that discuss the topics in a rational way from a variety of perspectives, read them and then draw your own conclusions.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    Yeah You’re totally not wrong, I just had a reaction to the oft mentioned on the media pop psychology version of “get out of your bubbles” that is too abstract for most people to act on.
  - watwut 4y ago
    I would argue that him not liking far right people is a good outcome rather then bad one. Him becoming far right too would be the worst outcome possible. Because then far right would become bigger and that is catastrophic for their targets. Far right has victims, a lot of them. Becoming friendly with far right by moving closer and closer to them while ignoring victims is wrong strategy.
    - PsySecGroup 4y ago
      [dead]
    - mkd1964 4y ago
      There's really very little difference between far left and far right. They're both radical extremes that allow no diversity of thought and that demand unquestioning allegiance to the tribe. Contrary to popular sentiment (or media narratives) they will both resort to verbal and physical violence in support of their views. The only real difference is their opinion of government. Leftist want a total nanny state, far right-wingers want anarchy -- until one of them actually takes power. Then they both take the form of a dictatorship in some form. Unfortunately, in today's atmosphere (and the sentiment in your comment seems to betray this), people on the left view anyone who's actually a moderate or even slightly right-of-center as "far right".
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >his sounds good but I actually don’t buy it anymore. I consider myself to be a pretty empathetic person, but over time I’ve realized empathy doesn’t solve any problems unless you’re forced to put your money where your mouth is Exactly. Modern society suffers from a dearth of people being forced to practice what they preach because everyone is happy to look the other way when someone in their tribe is a hypocrite.
  - aschearer 4y ago
    I don't think "both sides are the same" is accurate, so allow me to push back. One party ousted a leading politician because he violated their ethical code. [1] The other party stands by its leading politician even as said person violates national security. [2] In the former case it's very unlikely the policitian will ever become a presidential candidate. In the later case it's very likely he will. Both sides are not reacting to violations of their values in the same way. I'm sure there are cases of hypocracy on both sides, but one side at least attempts to condemn gross violations. [1]: https://apnews.com/article/andrew-cuomo-resigns-17161f546bb83c32a337036ecf8d2a34 https://apnews.com/article/andrew-cuomo-resigns-17161f546bb8... [2]: I trust no citation needed.
    - mkd1964 4y ago
      The problem with your example is that 1] actually happened. 2] is a media/political fabrication being proven in a court of law at this very moment. And to the point of this article, and many comments here, the news is much more homogenized than people think, because I'm quite sure you've heard no factual coverage of the latter from ANY pundit who sits in front of a TV camera.
    - ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
      With the advent of the internet, one can pick and choose copious examples to cast either political party as hypocrites. This is because political parties are formed of lots of people, and most of their leaders will not live by their claimed prinicples (because lying and signalling is a much easier path to winning elections than living by principles). I cannot emphasize enough how much both parties are corrupted by this. Both parties are beholden to corporate funding, and to the groupthink of their elite friends whose problems and concerns are not representative of Americans. And the Republican leadership will have secret affairs and secret abortions, while the Democratic leadership will send their children to private schools (or the public schools of exculsive enclaves), while the former preach about the sanctity of life and marriage, and the later preach about the importance of diversity and public education.

mikkergp 4y ago

> but with the reduced (to none existing) exposure to other content that might challenge your views. We owe it to ourselves to honestly test our beliefs and worldview, see if they hold up, and adjust accordingly. This sounds good but I actually don’t buy it anymore. I consider myself to be a pretty empathetic person, but over time I’ve realized empathy doesn’t solve any problems unless you’re forced to put your money where your mouth is. Would I work together with a far right conservative on a project towards a shared mission. Of course! Do I understand why conservatives feel the way they do? For the most part yes. But being exposed to far right beliefs just makes me more and more crazy, even if I understand the underlying emotion. Even if I empathize with the underlying pain, sometimes empathy makes those feelings worse. We don’t just disagree on the substance of opinions( pro choice vs pro life) we disagree on the deeper ways of expression, emotion, thought processes and how we assess truth. I understand why someone is pro life but watching the thought processes behind those rants? Helps no one. Sure I love reading a good relatively moderate economist from either side arguing whatever but /r/conservative comment section and caustic twitter threads?

throwaway4aday 4y ago
> being exposed to far right beliefs just makes me more and more crazy > watching the thought processes behind those rants I think, perhaps, the problem stems from only paying attention to people who are making emotional arguments based on ideology or repeated talking points that they don't truly understand but simply feel align with whatever group they see themselves as belonging to. This is the partisanship or tribalism that seems to be poisoning a lot of public discourse. I specifically say discourse here because I don't believe it is actually disrupting society at the interpersonal level as much as popular opinion seems to think it is. With either side, if you examine the well reasoned arguments that underly a lot of the talking points you find that they are often quite different and more nuanced than the things firebrands are turning them into. This is troubling because it means even the people who supposedly believe in these ideas actually don't understand them at all. I think this is responsible for the phenomenon of people turning out to be over all much more centrist and agreeing with each other when they make an effort to sit down and discuss these things in a rational manner. My advice is to shun reddit, YouTube and twitter and instead find some old books that discuss the topics in a rational way from a variety of perspectives, read them and then draw your own conclusions.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  Yeah You’re totally not wrong, I just had a reaction to the oft mentioned on the media pop psychology version of “get out of your bubbles” that is too abstract for most people to act on.
- watwut 4y ago
  I would argue that him not liking far right people is a good outcome rather then bad one. Him becoming far right too would be the worst outcome possible. Because then far right would become bigger and that is catastrophic for their targets. Far right has victims, a lot of them. Becoming friendly with far right by moving closer and closer to them while ignoring victims is wrong strategy.
  - PsySecGroup 4y ago
    [dead]
  - mkd1964 4y ago
    There's really very little difference between far left and far right. They're both radical extremes that allow no diversity of thought and that demand unquestioning allegiance to the tribe. Contrary to popular sentiment (or media narratives) they will both resort to verbal and physical violence in support of their views. The only real difference is their opinion of government. Leftist want a total nanny state, far right-wingers want anarchy -- until one of them actually takes power. Then they both take the form of a dictatorship in some form. Unfortunately, in today's atmosphere (and the sentiment in your comment seems to betray this), people on the left view anyone who's actually a moderate or even slightly right-of-center as "far right".
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>his sounds good but I actually don’t buy it anymore. I consider myself to be a pretty empathetic person, but over time I’ve realized empathy doesn’t solve any problems unless you’re forced to put your money where your mouth is Exactly. Modern society suffers from a dearth of people being forced to practice what they preach because everyone is happy to look the other way when someone in their tribe is a hypocrite.
- aschearer 4y ago
  I don't think "both sides are the same" is accurate, so allow me to push back. One party ousted a leading politician because he violated their ethical code. [1] The other party stands by its leading politician even as said person violates national security. [2] In the former case it's very unlikely the policitian will ever become a presidential candidate. In the later case it's very likely he will. Both sides are not reacting to violations of their values in the same way. I'm sure there are cases of hypocracy on both sides, but one side at least attempts to condemn gross violations. [1]: https://apnews.com/article/andrew-cuomo-resigns-17161f546bb83c32a337036ecf8d2a34 https://apnews.com/article/andrew-cuomo-resigns-17161f546bb8... [2]: I trust no citation needed.
  - mkd1964 4y ago
    The problem with your example is that 1] actually happened. 2] is a media/political fabrication being proven in a court of law at this very moment. And to the point of this article, and many comments here, the news is much more homogenized than people think, because I'm quite sure you've heard no factual coverage of the latter from ANY pundit who sits in front of a TV camera.
  - ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
    With the advent of the internet, one can pick and choose copious examples to cast either political party as hypocrites. This is because political parties are formed of lots of people, and most of their leaders will not live by their claimed prinicples (because lying and signalling is a much easier path to winning elections than living by principles). I cannot emphasize enough how much both parties are corrupted by this. Both parties are beholden to corporate funding, and to the groupthink of their elite friends whose problems and concerns are not representative of Americans. And the Republican leadership will have secret affairs and secret abortions, while the Democratic leadership will send their children to private schools (or the public schools of exculsive enclaves), while the former preach about the sanctity of life and marriage, and the later preach about the importance of diversity and public education.