4 ms·

It is plain from the stories of fox news orphans that information diet can ruin good people, but I refuse to believe that people aren't different. I rebut your

by psd1 3y ago

It is plain from the stories of fox news orphans that information diet can ruin good people, but I refuse to believe that people aren't different. I rebut your thesis thus: Oskar Schindler.

godelski 3y ago
What do you think the main difference in people is? Biological? Because I'm saying environmental. I'm not sure why you reference Schindler. Certainly there is a distribution and I'm not claiming people are clones (I don't think you are either). So outliers aren't proof of anything, to either argument.
- psd1 3y ago
  I think Dawkins' model of memes is helpful. I'm going to use freighted language and examples for brevity. Readers, please be generous; I'm doing conservatism because it's the topic on hand, but this applies equally to progressivism. A meme is the fundamental unit of transmissible culture - a catchy tune, laying napkins on the lunch table, the concept of punishment for wrongdoers. Memes are hosted in sentient minds. A baby's first memes come from its parents. Subsequently, from family, babysitters, toys, telly, other children, books. Memes are virulent to different degrees. An earworm is very infectious, but greeting people with "howdie doodie" is not particularly so. A meme may fade away from a host in time, or be displaced by another meme, or last a long time in the host's mind. Individuals are more or less susceptible to any given meme. This is influenced by the memes they have already. Some memes reinforce each other, and are often found together and transmitted together - for example, the meme for belief in god tends to cohabit with the meme for prayer, and we observe them being transmitted together. The belief in a holy text tends to confer resistance to displacement on proximate memes such as the belief in a personal deity, and also tends to cause the host to expend effort on transmitting the meme complex. These meme complexes are self-sustaining. We might expect meme complexes that include dogma to confer great tenacity on accompanying memes. Good luck convincing a fundie that the earth is old; their memes inoculate them against arguments. So we have the fox news complex: initial infection is through mild right-wing memes, affect the host's behaviour, and increase susceptibility to secondary infections such as "election was stolen" or "9/11 was an inside job". Someone with a very strong base set of memes, such as critical thinking or compassion, is much less susceptible to all the constituent memes of the fox complex. But someone with a weak base meme type - say, consumerism and apathy to books - is more easily infected. I'm not aware of any research in this field. Do please improve my understanding!
  - godelski 3y ago
    While I think at the broader level you are correct in mechanism I'm unconvinced that this is how it works in reality. There are too many examples of ideas spreading like wildfire far faster than people die out. Ideas that people hold with high passion. An example might be same-sex marriage where we see a larger rate of increase in support post legalization[0]. While younger generations have higher initial support, all generations increase in their support. 30% in the 00's and 60% today for the 55+ age group. That can't be due to the transfer of 35-55's because their baseline was only 40% in the 00's. Remember that Dawkins use the analogy of a virus, not of an inheritable disease. Certainly you are correct in part as there are analogies to inheritable diseases with thought but it's also important to remember how quickly these mutate and that the mutation does not occur at inheritance like this is a game of telephone (in some way it is, but I hope that was clear). Moreso, things are mutating faster than ever. Religion is a great example of this, as it is a highly inheritable belief, yet the rate at which interpretations of a religious text has changed has changed much quicker than before. That's because, unsurprisingly, the interpretations are a reflection of ourselves and our times are changing faster than ever. I don't know how old you are, but I do remember a time before Fox news and before the 24hr news cycle. They first took off around 9/11 and then gained many more during the financial crisis. I grew up in a Fox family and unlike my many liberal friends (which I am undoubtedly left), I will occasionally watch such shows like Bill O'Riley, Hanity, or Tucker. Why? Because they are well scripted programs that exploit the aforementioned principles. It helps me prepare for the nonsense my dad says during holidays. There's two points here which I'll rely on inference for as I'm already writing a lot. The first is about how they can rapidly change long held beliefs (e.g. Russians are the bad guys) and the second is about how this exercise let's me interrupt my dad (and uncle and BIL) and tell them exactly what they are about to say. Everyone can be manipulated, including you and me. We're being constantly manipulated and not always by intentional forces (more often unintentionally). Dawkin's viral theory is a great place to start but like viruses you have to understand that there's a much more complex and intricate system involved that creates a large array of effects and you're not wrong that there are both genetic and environmental predisposition that makes a virus worse for some than others. But the same goes for the reproduction rate as well as mutation rate. The truth is that you can convince fundies that the Earth is old. I know this because I am an example. I know this because the rate of people like me is not just increasing, but accelerating. Apples fall a lot further from the tree than they used to, not because the laws of physics changed, but because the geography did. So either you believe that I'm (and others) are an exception to the rule or that there is an underlying mechanism that allows this to happen. The former does not have explanatory power for the increase, let alone the acceleration. [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same-sex-marriage.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same...
- psd1 3y ago
  Didn't want to pollute my effortpost, but: thanks for clarifying, and I agree that the Schindler outlier isn't a point.

by psd1 3y ago

It is plain from the stories of fox news orphans that information diet can ruin good people, but I refuse to believe that people aren't different. I rebut your thesis thus: Oskar Schindler.

godelski 3y ago

What do you think the main difference in people is? Biological? Because I'm saying environmental. I'm not sure why you reference Schindler. Certainly there is a distribution and I'm not claiming people are clones (I don't think you are either). So outliers aren't proof of anything, to either argument.

psd1 3y ago
I think Dawkins' model of memes is helpful. I'm going to use freighted language and examples for brevity. Readers, please be generous; I'm doing conservatism because it's the topic on hand, but this applies equally to progressivism. A meme is the fundamental unit of transmissible culture - a catchy tune, laying napkins on the lunch table, the concept of punishment for wrongdoers. Memes are hosted in sentient minds. A baby's first memes come from its parents. Subsequently, from family, babysitters, toys, telly, other children, books. Memes are virulent to different degrees. An earworm is very infectious, but greeting people with "howdie doodie" is not particularly so. A meme may fade away from a host in time, or be displaced by another meme, or last a long time in the host's mind. Individuals are more or less susceptible to any given meme. This is influenced by the memes they have already. Some memes reinforce each other, and are often found together and transmitted together - for example, the meme for belief in god tends to cohabit with the meme for prayer, and we observe them being transmitted together. The belief in a holy text tends to confer resistance to displacement on proximate memes such as the belief in a personal deity, and also tends to cause the host to expend effort on transmitting the meme complex. These meme complexes are self-sustaining. We might expect meme complexes that include dogma to confer great tenacity on accompanying memes. Good luck convincing a fundie that the earth is old; their memes inoculate them against arguments. So we have the fox news complex: initial infection is through mild right-wing memes, affect the host's behaviour, and increase susceptibility to secondary infections such as "election was stolen" or "9/11 was an inside job". Someone with a very strong base set of memes, such as critical thinking or compassion, is much less susceptible to all the constituent memes of the fox complex. But someone with a weak base meme type - say, consumerism and apathy to books - is more easily infected. I'm not aware of any research in this field. Do please improve my understanding!
- godelski 3y ago
  While I think at the broader level you are correct in mechanism I'm unconvinced that this is how it works in reality. There are too many examples of ideas spreading like wildfire far faster than people die out. Ideas that people hold with high passion. An example might be same-sex marriage where we see a larger rate of increase in support post legalization[0]. While younger generations have higher initial support, all generations increase in their support. 30% in the 00's and 60% today for the 55+ age group. That can't be due to the transfer of 35-55's because their baseline was only 40% in the 00's. Remember that Dawkins use the analogy of a virus, not of an inheritable disease. Certainly you are correct in part as there are analogies to inheritable diseases with thought but it's also important to remember how quickly these mutate and that the mutation does not occur at inheritance like this is a game of telephone (in some way it is, but I hope that was clear). Moreso, things are mutating faster than ever. Religion is a great example of this, as it is a highly inheritable belief, yet the rate at which interpretations of a religious text has changed has changed much quicker than before. That's because, unsurprisingly, the interpretations are a reflection of ourselves and our times are changing faster than ever. I don't know how old you are, but I do remember a time before Fox news and before the 24hr news cycle. They first took off around 9/11 and then gained many more during the financial crisis. I grew up in a Fox family and unlike my many liberal friends (which I am undoubtedly left), I will occasionally watch such shows like Bill O'Riley, Hanity, or Tucker. Why? Because they are well scripted programs that exploit the aforementioned principles. It helps me prepare for the nonsense my dad says during holidays. There's two points here which I'll rely on inference for as I'm already writing a lot. The first is about how they can rapidly change long held beliefs (e.g. Russians are the bad guys) and the second is about how this exercise let's me interrupt my dad (and uncle and BIL) and tell them exactly what they are about to say. Everyone can be manipulated, including you and me. We're being constantly manipulated and not always by intentional forces (more often unintentionally). Dawkin's viral theory is a great place to start but like viruses you have to understand that there's a much more complex and intricate system involved that creates a large array of effects and you're not wrong that there are both genetic and environmental predisposition that makes a virus worse for some than others. But the same goes for the reproduction rate as well as mutation rate. The truth is that you can convince fundies that the Earth is old. I know this because I am an example. I know this because the rate of people like me is not just increasing, but accelerating. Apples fall a lot further from the tree than they used to, not because the laws of physics changed, but because the geography did. So either you believe that I'm (and others) are an exception to the rule or that there is an underlying mechanism that allows this to happen. The former does not have explanatory power for the increase, let alone the acceleration. [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same-sex-marriage.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same...
psd1 3y ago
Didn't want to pollute my effortpost, but: thanks for clarifying, and I agree that the Schindler outlier isn't a point.