Leaving your Echo Chamber

[repoman]

yeah, damn I got had.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Contrary to what is claimed by people far to the right, the media tilts right. It is owned by corporations and ultimately presents the world in a way that satisfies these powerful corporations.

The left does not exist in the mass media. It is fringe.

All opinion we hear on television are center to far right.

Nobody questions capitalism. Nobody supports socialism. Universal health insurance is discussed as if it is some strange idea that can't possibly work, yet is working everywhere except the US.

To go anywhere where ideas from the left are even mentioned is to leave the massive echo chamber created by concentrated wealth.

By American standards socialism is far left. Of course the media is to the right of it!

 

[untermensche]

Contrary to what is claimed by people far to the right, the media tilts right. It is owned by corporations and ultimately presents the world in a way that satisfies these powerful corporations.

The left does not exist in the mass media. It is fringe.

All opinion we hear on television are center to far right.

Nobody questions capitalism. Nobody supports socialism. Universal health insurance is discussed as if it is some strange idea that can't possibly work, yet is working everywhere except the US.

To go anywhere where ideas from the left are even mentioned is to leave the massive echo chamber created by concentrated wealth.

By American standards socialism is far left. Of course the media is to the right of it!

American standards are skewed.

I know.

It is a religious fundamentalist nation. And the ignorance of religion spills into all of life and pollutes it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The best argument I have heard against single payer universal health care (which I strongly endorse) is the pointing out of my fellow Canadians going to the US for medical procedures you simply can't get in Canada here due to the rationing of health care.

We all get covered, but you do not have the option if you have the money to buy the next level up. More of a problem for the rich (or middle class) than for the poor, no doubt.

I, for example, sustained a full muscle tear of my right bicep last February. One of the tendons completely snapped. The other tendon is still connected, so I can still move the arm, but I will forever have a "popeye bump" as the bicep now looks malformed and the strength is down to about 80%.

There exists an operation to re-attach the tendon, if done within a month or two of the injury. This procedure is not available in Canada, because we ration the cost and the arm still functions, so it isn't considered essential. In our single payer system, I did NOT have the option to pay myself to have it done.

In the USA if I had good medical insurance or could afford to pay, I could have had it reconnected and saved it.

Yes, since Canada is so near the USA, I could have just gone to the USA to have it done, and many Canadians do. But that won't be the case if the USA goes single payer. But still, I would gladly give up the right to buy higher level health care if it means everybody gets the basic health care they need.

I see no reason it has to be one or the other. It's just the UHC systems are major believers in pretending substandard care is good enough.

- - - Updated - - -

Cuba which is a poor country has maintained a cost effective universal free healthcare system for years. It's system also focuses on preventative measures rather than retrospective treatment.

Cheap, yes. Effective, no. They've got the doctors, they don't have much of anything else. Sicko was not remotely honest--what they showed is what a visitor can get. The locals can't get the medicines.

 

[untermensche]

Cheap, yes. Effective, no. They've got the doctors, they don't have much of anything else. Sicko was not remotely honest--what they showed is what a visitor can get. The locals can't get the medicines.

Cuba has an equal life expectancy and a better under-5 year old survival rate.

For a fraction of the per-capita cost.

They are very definition of efficiency.

While the US with it's huge wastes,endless paperwork for practitioners, and millions without insurance is the very model of inefficiency.

 

[zorq]

I acknowledge that I feel comfortable in my own echo chamber and rarely stray from it. I DO deliberately stray occasionally though, but I find almost no good ideas and mostly just blind hatred and ignorant vilification of my ilk in opposition media.

I already KNOW what they think and I don't need to tune in to them to get their (almost never original or nuanced) opinions on each and every headline and world event that happens.

For example, when I tuned in to right wing radio after that man with mental health issues shot up the Republican Baseball practice, I expected the dialogue to blame Democrats for the violence and encourage fear in listeners because Democrats (all of them) have now shown their true colors. Unfortunately, I was all too right.

Yes, you should never close yourself into a box. And yes, you should always question your own dearly held perceptions and opinions, but you don't need to be doing that continuously forever. One of the best parts about coming to your own conclusions about things is that you can actually CONCLUDE your search for knowledge on that topic for a time. You can actually use those conclusions as a short hand to inform other ideas and you can leave those original thoughts alone for a while.

 

[whichphilosophy]

I see no reason it has to be one or the other. It's just the UHC systems are major believers in pretending substandard care is good enough.

- - - Updated - - -

Cuba which is a poor country has maintained a cost effective universal free healthcare system for years. It's system also focuses on preventative measures rather than retrospective treatment.

Cheap, yes. Effective, no. They've got the doctors, they don't have much of anything else. Sicko was not remotely honest--what they showed is what a visitor can get. The locals can't get the medicines.

Cuba did feel the effect or loss of subsidies when the Soviet Union collapsed and of course US Embargoes. A few things are paid for.

I suppose Cuba has shortages of medicines which is as bad as medicines being available but the patients cannot afford them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba
Health tourism and pharmaceutics[edit]
Cuba attracts about 20,000[64] paying health tourists, generating revenues of around $40 million a year for the Cuban economy. Cuba has been serving health tourists from around the world for more than 20 years. The country operates a special division of hospitals specifically for the treatment of foreigners and diplomats. Foreign patients travel to Cuba for a wide range of treatments including eye-surgery, neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, cosmetic surgery, addictions treatment, retinitis pigmentosa and orthopaedics. Most patients are from Latin America, Europe and Canada, and a growing number of Americans also are coming. Cuba also successfully exports many medical products, such as vaccines.[65]

Obamacare is a good concept but is extremely expensive. Some cooperation with Cuba on this could be beneficial.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Cheap, yes. Effective, no. They've got the doctors, they don't have much of anything else. Sicko was not remotely honest--what they showed is what a visitor can get. The locals can't get the medicines.

Cuba has an equal life expectancy and a better under-5 year old survival rate.

For a fraction of the per-capita cost.

They are very definition of efficiency.

While the US with it's huge wastes,endless paperwork for practitioners, and millions without insurance is the very model of inefficiency.

Cuba focuses on preventative medicine and also treats people from abroad. I would go as far to suggest if Obamacare went to Cuba there would be a lot of medicare fraud cases about relating to doctors times and drug cocktails though well meaning to curb pain and others for the side effects of pain killers

There are downsides such as lack of choices for patients and a need for modernising many facilities but Cuba is facing embargoes.

http://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/en...althcare+systems+in+the+world-newsid-58527128
How Despite Poverty Cuba Has One Of The Best Healthcare Systems In The World

Life expectancy in Cuba 79.39 years is slightly better than the USA (78.34 years)on average

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=life+expectancy+cuba

 

[bilby]

I take an interest in what the right-wing and neo-fascists are doing in my country; As a result, Facebook keeps offering me the chance to subscribe or donate to One Nation and Liberal Democrat parties and candidates, who I wouldn't donate a stream of urine to if they were suffering spontaneous human combustion.

I assume that this indicates that I am not living in a bubble; But realistically, how could I know? I don't actively seek out news on any subjects - quite the reverse, I try to avoid the news, on the basis that most of it is irrelevant crap, and that the important stuff will get through to me despite my attempts to avoid it. I certainly don't feel that seeing the latest pictures of explosions and weeping parents on Channel 9 will in any way add to my store of useful information.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Ah, Dave Rubin. A lot of people like him, but I can't do it. It's not his guests. He simply doesn't challenge them at all. I do want to hear the other side of issues, but I also want to see those views challenged, whether they're left or right.

My anti-echo chamber is Twitter I think. Not debates on Twitter itself, because those are crap. But if you follow people you never normally would you'll find all kinds of articles and great things posted to challenge and broaden your horizons. I also read some right wing media, at least from the more respectable ones CNBC, WSJ, The Daily Telegraph,The Times and The Spectator(Brit versions). FOX just isn't really journalism to me any more than The Mirror. Also, a lot of my podcasts have a variety of guests from the left and right.

Basically, if a conservative commentator is making sense instead of just spouting inanities a al Ann Coultor I'll listen and consider.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Cheap, yes. Effective, no. They've got the doctors, they don't have much of anything else. Sicko was not remotely honest--what they showed is what a visitor can get. The locals can't get the medicines.

Cuba has an equal life expectancy and a better under-5 year old survival rate.

And zero infant mortality of very premature babies. (They simply do not consider a birth under IIRC 1500g to be a live birth.) Does wonders for their infant mortality stats which carries over into childhood mortality also.

- - - Updated - - -

I suppose Cuba has shortages of medicines which is as bad as medicines being available but the patients cannot afford them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba
Health tourism and pharmaceutics[edit]
Cuba attracts about 20,000[64] paying health tourists, generating revenues of around $40 million a year for the Cuban economy. Cuba has been serving health tourists from around the world for more than 20 years. The country operates a special division of hospitals specifically for the treatment of foreigners and diplomats. Foreign patients travel to Cuba for a wide range of treatments including eye-surgery, neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, cosmetic surgery, addictions treatment, retinitis pigmentosa and orthopaedics. Most patients are from Latin America, Europe and Canada, and a growing number of Americans also are coming. Cuba also successfully exports many medical products, such as vaccines.[65]

Obamacare is a good concept but is extremely expensive. Some cooperation with Cuba on this could be beneficial.

Yeah, the foreign patients get them. They have a substantial medical tourism industry but major shortages of medicine for locals. Sicko looked at that medical tourism industry, not what the people get.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In my opinion, one of the downsides of the internet is that it allows and encourages people to go into echo chambers more than ever before and only listen to those they agree with. I think that this is one of the reasons why we see such stark polarization.

This forum itself is somewhat of a liberal echo chamber, but not nearly as much so as some others I have been to. I've also been to Freeconservatives and other extreme right wing echo chambers.

You've been to Freeconservatives and dare consider this web board an echo chamber?!

 

[Warpoet]

Ah, Dave Rubin. A lot of people like him, but I can't do it. It's not his guests. He simply doesn't challenge them at all. I do want to hear the other side of issues, but I also want to see those views challenged, whether they're left or right.

The fact that Penguin thinks that Tommy Robinson is a source worth listening to makes it clear where the actual problem lies. Faux progressives who quietly side with nutters on their pet issues (moose lambs in Penguin's case) do this all the time: they try to admit shitty, fringe sources that no one ought to listen to, because said sources are making points they themselves agree with but are afraid to make. And when called out on it they cry about echo chambers, and start throwing around bullshit terminology like "regressives."

And yes, fuck Dave Rubin. In addition to being an apologist for Israel he, as you say, gives a platform to whackos and lunatics to disseminate their nonsense unopposed. But even putting that aside, anyone relying on pundits and fucking YouTube channels for their information is already shooting themselves in the foot. Listening to the non-facts from talking heads on both sides doesn't give you the truth, it gives you two sets of non-facts. It's important to listen to what ideologues are saying so you're prepared to deal with them, not because it's informative.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

In my opinion, one of the downsides of the internet is that it allows and encourages people to go into echo chambers more than ever before and only listen to those they agree with. I think that this is one of the reasons why we see such stark polarization.

This forum itself is somewhat of a liberal echo chamber, but not nearly as much so as some others I have been to. I've also been to Freeconservatives and other extreme right wing echo chambers.

You've been to Freeconservatives and dare consider this web board an echo chamber?!

Yes and yes, but as I said, to much lesser degree. I actually got banned from Freeconservatives about 5 years ago. I used to post there as a resident "libtard" that a fellow named "Doctor Doom" would attack on sight. It wasn't a great place to visit I soon learned. It was really fragile and volatile. I find if I lurk without posting at all in such places I can still get an insight into how people think though.

 

[Warpoet]

Yes and yes, but as I said, to much lesser degree. I actually got banned from Freeconservatives about 5 years ago. I used to post there as a resident "libtard" that a fellow named "Doctor Doom" would attack on sight. It wasn't a great place to visit I soon learned. It was really fragile and volatile. I find if I lurk without posting at all in such places I can still get an insight into how people think though.

This is how pretty much all conservative forums are. They're all full of chickenshit motherfuckers like Doom (who I've never dealt with but is notorious within the atheist community) and are generally far more hostile to outside views than liberal forums are. That's an echo chamber; this forum, while repetitive as fuck, is still exponentially more accommodating of unpopular viewpoints. Even DU, which as a policy bans dissenting viewpoints, can't hold a fucking candle to the level of outright hostility and vitriol any liberal who dares to put their head above water on a conservative board is likely to face. There's no comparison.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Ah, Dave Rubin. A lot of people like him, but I can't do it. It's not his guests. He simply doesn't challenge them at all. I do want to hear the other side of issues, but I also want to see those views challenged, whether they're left or right.

Rubin is basically a platform for polite presentation of rightwing, and sometimes leftwing views. I'd rather listen to them there than to them within their own echo chambers where they get rude and hostile.

My anti-echo chamber is Twitter I think. Not debates on Twitter itself, because those are crap. But if you follow people you never normally would you'll find all kinds of articles and great things posted to challenge and broaden your horizons.

I have never gone on twitter. Can't bring myself to read something called a "tweet". Stupid of me, I know, but bleh.

Also, a lot of my podcasts have a variety of guests from the left and right.

Podcasts are my primary source for many ideas and conversations. I mostly listen to science podcasts but I also enjoy social issues ones now and again.

Basically, if a conservative commentator is making sense instead of just spouting inanities a al Ann Coultor I'll listen and consider.

My issue with that is if it makes sense to me, it is probably something I agree with or am somewhere in the neighbourhood of agreeing with. I like to hear what doesn't make sense to me, and try to understand why people genuinely think what they do. That includes belief in religions, and even Trump supporters. I've spoken to a few Trump supporters this way and often they have actually not been what I expected them to be (dumb and racist). I am bisexual and somewhat of a nudist, but I have had long and interesting conversations with Mennonites.

Coulter is a shock artist. She doesn't spout genuine thoughts and opinions. She says what she says to sell books. Milo is the same. Same Alex Jones, etc. But if I happen to spot a clip of them saying something seriously and they are actually making a point, I will consider it. And when people on the fringe actually do believe what they are saying, they become fascinating to me. I want to know how their minds work.

I think there is something to be said for hearing views polar opposite to your own, even "offensive" to your own (you always have the choice to take offence or not) without becoming hostile.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

This is how pretty much all conservative forums are. They're all full of chickenshit motherfuckers like Doom (who I've never dealt with but is notorious within the atheist community) and are generally far more hostile to outside views than liberal forums are. That's an echo chamber; this forum, while repetitive as fuck, is still exponentially more accommodating of unpopular viewpoints. Even DU, which as a policy bans dissenting viewpoints, can't hold a fucking candle to the level of outright hostility and vitriol any liberal who dares to put their head above water on a conservative board is likely to face. There's no comparison.

I also see it more on the right than the left, but I see it frequently on both sides. The partisan echo chambers and tribalism and hostility to the other has reached the point that somebody like Trump can get elected.

Trump gained a lot of support because his supporters saw him as genuine in speaking his mind and standing up to "crooked Hillary and the elitist left". The "basket of deplorables" comments and the constantly calling Trump supporters stupid and racist fed right into that. If you can't see how that thought process went and simply dismiss these people as stupid and racist, right wing politicians will only gain more power.

 

[Warpoet]

I don't think being a Trump supporter makes someone stupid and racist, just naïve and intellectually lazy. There are annoying and overzealous liberals, but trying to blame them for other people allowing themselves to be conned by an objectively horrible person like Trump who has no redeeming qualities or qualifications is a cop-out.

 

[braces_for_impact]

This is how pretty much all conservative forums are. They're all full of chickenshit motherfuckers like Doom (who I've never dealt with but is notorious within the atheist community) and are generally far more hostile to outside views than liberal forums are. That's an echo chamber; this forum, while repetitive as fuck, is still exponentially more accommodating of unpopular viewpoints. Even DU, which as a policy bans dissenting viewpoints, can't hold a fucking candle to the level of outright hostility and vitriol any liberal who dares to put their head above water on a conservative board is likely to face. There's no comparison.

I also see it more on the right than the left, but I see it frequently on both sides. The partisan echo chambers and tribalism and hostility to the other has reached the point that somebody like Trump can get elected.

Trump gained a lot of support because his supporters saw him as genuine in speaking his mind and standing up to "crooked Hillary and the elitist left". The "basket of deplorables" comments and the constantly calling Trump supporters stupid and racist fed right into that. If you can't see how that thought process went and simply dismiss these people as stupid and racist, right wing politicians will only gain more power.

That's because data is pointing to the fact that political polarization and fake news are a bigger phenomenon on the right than the left. Before someone loses their shit, I said a bigger phenomenon, not absent from the left.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

That's because data is pointing to the fact that political polarization and fake news are a bigger phenomenon on the right than the left. Before someone loses their shit, I said a bigger phenomenon, not absent from the left.

I believe that liberals are inherently less groupish, or at least that was the case before so many identity politics liberals came to the forefront. I think it still is. I think we are still the silent majority of liberals who value free independent thought and standing against the crowd.