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http://beansbulletsbandagesandyou.com/bullets/2019/09/11/echo-chamber-danger-danger-danger/
http://beansbulletsbandagesandyou.com/bullets/2019/09/11/echo-chamber-danger-danger-danger/
Echo Chamber: Danger Danger Danger
Posted on September 11, 2019 by Spice
Proposed: Echo chambers are dangerous to fairness, rational thinking, and a civil but diverse society. It’s very easy, and very tempting, in this internet age to hear mostly from sources who agree with you and shut out all other voices. Then what you’re hearing only strengthens your belief that you Must be right. Understanding of other positions doesn’t happen and people who think otherwise are either disregarded entirely or treated as the enemy. Civil conversation promotes good society; propaganda undermines it.
What’s an echo chamber?
When all or most of your news sources come from people who think like you, you’re in an echo chamber. When you only talk about topics of substance with people who agree with you, they’re always echoing your own opinions…again, an echo chamber.
What’s wrong with echo chambers if you’re right?
Hey, maybe you’re smarter than me, and most of the rest of humanity, and are completely in the right on your judgments and opinions. Certainly hearing things that agree with you is pleasant, so what’s the harm since you’re right?
The harm is that there are still lots of people out there with alternative interpretations and judgments. Even if all of their supposed facts are wrong and conclusions illogical, those are still the conclusions that will motivate those people.
Is it an important prep to know when a nasty chunk of weather might slam you with hurricane-force winds or inches of solid ice? Absolutely. Is it an important prep to have a clue when some subset of the population is so ticked off about something that they’re about to go into open rebellion? Heck yes! Does it matter if those people are wrong or ‘it’s not storm season’? Not even a little bit.
But my news sources will tell me what I need to know!
Not if you’re in an echo chamber, they won’t. Why not? Most of the people who write for those news sources live in the same echo chamber you do. They see the Others through the filter of their own biases; and they attend to, remember, and report on the parts that most agree with their preconceptions. Why? Because they’re human, and that’s what humans naturally do.
How do I know this? I go out of my way to read material from opposing echo chambers. They’re reporting completely different things. Even when both sides are doing their best to keep facts accurate, presentations and emphases are so different they don’t end up telling the same story at all. If the guy writing the news doesn’t understand what those <insert foolish other group name here> really think, he can’t help you understand it either.
No one echo chamber has it all right
I’ve read a fair bit of history (blame Salty; he taught me it’s not boring despite school experiences). Never have I come across any historical group that had everything *completely* right. No group had perfect information. No group made perfect judgments every time. And predicting the future? Hoo boy, soooooo much inaccuracy there.
Could your group be the first ever? Theoretically, yah. But don’t hold your breath. Your group may be waaayyy on the high end of rightness, m’kay, I’m not dissing your beliefs. The odds are just very far against perfection.
Which means, if you actually do listen to voices from outside your echo chamber, you could learn something. You might get an idea that wouldn’t occur if you just heard your usual party line. The hard part of course is you have to Really listen; just let other people talk while you plan your rebuttal.
But I’m not in an echo chamber!
Maybe not. But how do you get your news? Most people use one of two tactics: Refer to trusted sources, or follow interesting leads from some sort of internet filter.
Your favorite sources may be trustworthy, but they’re definitely in your echo chamber already. Those lousy other sites that annoy you with their inaccuracies? Well, lying outright will usually get their hind parts sued off, so their facts are more likely to be accurate — just maybe poorly choosen and wrongly interpreted and spun. You can sort through that, right?
Internet filters Love to create echo chambers. Why? Their advertisers love it. It provides a nice targeted audience. Does a gun seller want to waste its money advertising to a bunch of gun-haters? Of course not. So the service provider tracks your movements, figures out what you like, and offers you more of that. And just like that, the giant diversity of the Web is converted to an echo chamber.
How to escape an echo chamber
For news sources, it’s easy…maybe not attractive or fun, but easy. Intentionally read sources you normally disdain because of their obvious bias (towards the wrong-headed folks).
For personal interactions, it’s harder. We tend to hang out with people who have similar jobs, live in similar neighborhoods, are similar in age, share our religious beliefs, and otherwise are likely to inhabit our own chambers. And why not; we like lots of those people!
Well, nothing wrong with that. But you know what? There are other people who are fun to meet and talk to even if they’re wrong about a lot of stuff. The best way I know to meet them is to take up a hobby they might share. Then you’ve got something low-drama to talk about that you both like; it’s not just a series of disagreements. I met an eye-openingly diverse group of people when I joined my sport. I still don’t agree with a lot of them, but I’ve learned a lot and am richer for knowing them.
