Leaving your Echo Chamber

[bilby]

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.

Political polarization and fake news are a bigger phenomenon on the right than the left.



You're right!

 

[another1]

What do you consider the best places to listen to the opposite of a given view you hold?

Do you make twitter accounts? It is very educational to abuse Twitter. You'll get an echo that sounds something like hey I'm white trash and I'm totally self-centered - getting worse because Twitter.

Do you say echo chamber ironically? Is that a real term? They say people refer to themselves 75% more online. Without the internet, they would be asking other people how their day went. They would say hey, nice green beans, can I take a picture of that beautiful plate and put it on my actual wall at home

What is "right and left" btw. People use the term as if it is to be understood. Oh, that explains it, they're a darn righty. What the hell. Are we including a billion aspects of a person's character? Doesn't make any damn sense at all

 

[whichphilosophy]

The Ultra right does not hold a monopoly on bigotry. The Ultra (revolutionary) Left is just as bad on this including political correctness as a good foundation for building an echo chamber.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

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.

Much lesser to the point of why even bring it up? Though I could suppose that Freeconservatives isn't even an echo chamber, because it'd require thinking in the first place. It is nothing more than a high five zone for rabid right-wingers who think posting a photoshop of a guy with his head up his butt is some sort of rebuttal to an argument (and they are too fucking stupid to even see the pun in it).

I actually got banned from Freeconservatives about 5 years ago.

I got banned (I rarely ever get banned) after mocking one of the posters who was bragging about being published (self-published) and noted it'd be like Doctor Doom bragging about sleeping with his mother. Very thin skinned group of people if you ask me. I didn't even know the place was still around. There was only one decent conservative at that board. Not intelligent or capable of thinking outside his bubble, but he wasn't an asshole about it.

Yes, there is liberal feedback at FT, but on the other hand, there are conservatives, "libertarians", and varying degrees of liberal here. There is a dialogue at least. Additionally, since 2001, the political spectrum has warped so much that posters that were/are conservative (Loren Pechtel, Harry Bosch) seem quite liberal these days.

 

[rousseau]

One of the main reasons I predominantly hang out in liberal forums isn't because I'm not open to counter-arguments, but because I'm yet to hear many compelling arguments, or any type of wisdom from the people I know who are on the right. For the brunt of my life most people who I've known on the right are either pretty seriously ignorant, or blindly support anything that helps rich people.

That's not to say that ignorance doesn't exist on the left either, but the people I know who are genuinely brilliant tend to be either left, or centre-left. So where do I want to spend my time? Around wicked smart people, or people who are either blindly consuming propaganda or advocating for tax cuts to the rich? It's not even entirely about politics, but rather how I prefer to spend my time, and the type of ideas I'm interested in being exposed to, including those outside of politics.

All that said I'm more than open to listening to people who lean right here. I don't even consider myself a leftist, I'm more centrist, mostly I'm interested in listening to people who know what they're talking about and don't just type whatever comes to their head at the time.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

The Ultra right does not hold a monopoly on bigotry. The Ultra (revolutionary) Left is just as bad on this including political correctness as a good foundation for building an echo chamber.

Yes. The virtue signaling SJW type of liberals often cocoon into echo chambers, such as on many college campuses. Reading what Jordan Peterson (agree with him or not) went through is a good peek into it.

And yes this board is to some extent one as well, tilting left, which is expected given it is an atheist board. I actually sometimes find myself taking the position of "conservatives" here just for counter balance.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The ultra left has no political power in the US. The far right has representation in the House and Senate.

 

[untermensche]

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.

That's a lie you pulled from your ass.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

That's a lie you pulled from your ass.

Just because you don't like the truth doesn't make it a lie.

I'm having a hard time finding the standards for Cuba but here's an article showing the same problem with some European countries:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/04/13/financial-times-gets-wrong-infant-mortality-rates.html

And a partial indication of the problem from Cuba itself:

http://www.medicc.org/publications/medicc_review/0605/mr-interview.html

Births with problems known to be incompatible with life are not counted as live births.

 

[funinspace]

So I am curious how you folks perceive yourselves and how often you go out of your way to leave your echo chamber and put yourself deep into one of the opposite orientation. Are we in consensus that diversity of views is a good thing? That there should be no "Safe spaces"? That we should listen to those we disagree with, and that we may learn something from them?

What do you consider the best places to listen to the opposite of a given view you hold? If you are liberal, what is the best conservative channel to listen to? If you are conservative, what is the best liberal one?

Beyond reading big corporate sites like CNN, Bloomberg, Marketwatch and some others, I use this site as a jumping board towards some neocon/conservative articles, as the site links to a wide spectrum of opinions:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/?state=nwa

I also like this site for its variety of international POV, though it still has many articles by Americans:
http://www.atimes.com

I read this site more to laugh at what the truly fringed out crazies on the right are doing:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/

Being what I call a moderate green libertarian (as far as 3 words can define a person’s POV), I find this site interesting as it tends to provide opinions (often with links) to all sorts of things from middle of the road mainstream to socialist posts.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Hi funinspace

I missed the above post earlier. Thanks for posting it. I am checking out the links you posted and am finding them useful.