As a counterpoint, I've seen lots of people become more accepting because of the way the internet connects people. If you lived in a rural place before, you likely had very little interaction with minority groups outside of how they were portrayed in media. Now it's possible to interact with all kinds of people and recognize them as people instead of stereotypes.
I don't deny that there are echo chambers and major communication breakdowns, but I think on the whole it's a positive development.
Well on more anonymous platforms like HN or Reddit it probably doesn't happen that much, but on youtube, instagram, twitter, etc usually identity is no secret.
This is just more of my opinion, but generally the people I know that get caught up in bad echo chambers would have done so without the internet. The Alex Jones fans are just a new iteration of Rush Limbaugh fans, albeit more extreme. I think it's possible for otherwise reasonable people to get caught up in something like that, but they can also get out with time and more life experience.
One consumes information online, that information causes introspection and a better perspective of one's identity.
Usually it's not one specific event but a bombardment of information that over time, hopefully gives someone more perspective and their place in the world.
On the other hand, it closes some people off and causes the echo chamber. Cuts both ways.
I don't know. I can see it going both ways, but I think that modern technology has reduced introspection for many people. In the news today, it's all about sound bites and hyperbolic headlines. I thing the intellectual attributes of news sources has declined. I thought I saw a study or thread on HN supporting the claim, but now I can't find it.
News is very polarizing by design. Just like with social media, news profits more off of driving polarization. So they frame everything to drive traffic and viewers.
Can you share some articles or studies that demonstrate the increasing openness? (I hope it’s true that it cuts both ways, but would like to see more data/research).
This reads like a technocrat's hopeful vision of the Internet in the early 1990s. Sure, in theory it's true, but we all know in reality that that's not how the majority of humanity is using the Internet.
I can't get people I am close with to even consider engaging in conversations about firmly held beliefs they have if I even remotely present myself as possibly holding a different opinion.
Understand that this is the norm. And understand that when you present differing opinions without being asked, you’re acting selfishly — you’re not doing it because you care about them, you’re doing it for yourself.
Ultimately it depends what you want out of your personal relationships. I’ve found people who are willing to talk. But I haven’t found people who genuinely change their mind about deeply held beliefs without a lot of patient — emphasis on patient — conversations over a long period of time. And sometimes I’m the one who changes their mind.
So I don’t think you’re going to be satisfied if you feel you must be able to change your group’s minds about social issues. A group is its own form of entity. If you don’t identify with your group, find another one. They exist. But if you don’t identify with your associates, that’s a hard problem which won’t go away.
It helps to accept that you care about them more than what they believe, and leave it at that.
That's not what I am saying at all. I mean for the sake of conversation and discussion, asking to even explain a belief, for understanding. Sometimes even the question is seemed as a threat. I didn't say I want to change anyone's mind. Wanting to have a discussion about important topics with loved ones isn't an instant trip down selfishness lane. I see what you are saying, but you jumped the gun a little bit.
Most people you'd disagree with generally have a point, if you get past the quick-release talking points. If one tries to have a genuine conversation, it might be surprising to many how much common ground can be found.
I think I get your question now. Honestly, there is an art to it, and you can't always just come out and ask. It exposes that you care more about the information than you do about the person. Maybe bring it up gently the next time it comes up in context. Or, when it's just the two of you, ask if you can bring up a potentially sensitive question with no judgement involved, just to learn.
It's not really anything new: Most people generally don't want to entertain ideas highly contrary to their own. Enshrined in the the old adage that you should never discuss religion or politics in some circumstances. Thanksgiving dinners have been getting ruined for decades by it. The rate of that happening has very likely increased though.
Wanting to have a discussion about important topics with loved ones isn't an instant trip down selfishness lane.
Are you sure?
I don’t know. It helped me to view it as “yes, this is selfish. They’re more important to me than the topic.”
The reason they’re talking is to feel good with themselves (as we all are). But asking someone to explain a tricky subject throws that off, doesn’t it?
Another way to phrase it: why care so much what they think? If they don’t explain themselves, then they probably don’t care whether you agree.
To reframe the question a bit, what do you feel you would get out of it if they explained their belief structure to you? (Explain your belief about this, ha.)
Why does it mean one is selfish, when _a topic_ (not oneself) is more important to oneself than that other person?
> The reason they’re talking is to feel good with themselves (as we all are). But asking someone to explain a tricky subject throws that off, doesn’t it?
Perhaps. But the interpretation is still not immediately "selfishness" for me. You are not there to please them and make them feel good. But how does that immediately become "selfish"?
> To reframe the question a bit, what do you feel you would get out of it if they explained their belief structure to you? (Explain your belief about this, ha.)
Yes, that is a good introspective question, that one maybe should ask oneself.
However, if anything that could somehow be interpreted as "wanting something for oneself" is considered selfish, then we can shut down all our media right now and stop talking to everyone else. You can always claim "You did this or that conversation only to feel good about yourself! So Selfish!"
So I am asking: What is your definition of selfishness?
> Why does it mean one is selfish, when _a topic_ (not oneself) is more important to oneself than that other person?
You care about the topic, they don't want to talk about it for whatever reason. You are trying to get them to do something they don't like, because _you_ like it.
But that is an assumption right there. Perhaps it is simply an important topic in the context of the moment. It doesn't have to mean one personally likes the topic. There can be a necessity, that one has to discuss this topic.
Same. I want to start a club of people like us. At a library with a coffee shop and bar included. Bunch of us philosophical peeps chillin and talking shit but nobody gets mad. I would love such a paradise.
I don't get how 4chan related to the conversation. My main desire is to find people that are truth seekers. Question what we know and investigate. I don't find that curiousity in most people. How that is related to 4chan is lost on me.
I think the poster means the anonymous, no upvote aspect. Seriously, I’ve been on quite a few different styles of message board and discussion quality is noticeably better when you can’t get any other queues about how “right” an post is except for its content. Depending on the subject, some of the not-pol/b boards can actually be quite nice.
I'm reminded of the stereotypical personality alignment matrix common to role playing games, with lawful and chatic matched to good and evil. Each of to need to strive to sit in the middle, true neutral. In this position one can recognize echo chambers are all around us and one must hop from to the another to gain understanding and sympathy. This would be easy if we mandated the teaching of cognitive and logical fallacies. However, I fear that the powers that be (wealthy, political leaders, and attention grabbing algorithms) intentionally use these against us. Sophistry has long been a weapon of politicians against the plebs and each other. I am at loss on how all of us can transition to a more enlightened state, a state where we don't build walls between us, but recognise the selfishishness and primal fears that lead us against each other. We all suffer from cognitive limitations and fallacies and none of us really know what is the 'correct' opinion on anything. I think if we can agree we all share the same limited stupidity that's the right step go forward.
We have to make choices, often complicated ones, so just the concept of recognizing our limitations doesn't really help. Or rather it does not change the basic fact that we have to live artfully and figure things out with very little information to guide us even in the best of cases. True neutral is not far from evil in a highly contrasted world where work has to be done.
I don't agree that this is the fault of tech at all. Facebook et al are still largely echo chambers, where we see what we have cultivated ourselves to see. Sure, recommendation algorithms show us external things once in a while, but by and large you can cultivate what you see on social media.
The real culprit I believe, has been the incredible hysteria of the legacy media as it joined the social media spaces, and started their race to the bottom for clickbait and outrage porn. Covering inane tweets, and blowing them up to pretend that crackpot points-of-view have more weight and are more common than they truly are. Gotcha gonzo-journalism, that prides "getting them" (whichever group that may be) over informing, and in the process dehumanising large swathes of people for clicks. How you "can't avoid politics, because everything is political". Ravelry, which is a crocheting website, went mad with us-vs-them discussions. Why?
The fault is mainly with legacy media, because they had the credibility and prestige of their history, plus the consistency of their output (daily, weekly, whatever), which they used to spoonfeed poison to large parts of society. How others are "unlike us", and that "they're evil", and oh by the way, "vote for our candidate" who is the some storybook hero we need.
The "two-minutes-of-hate" has come largely from legacy media, and they are responsible for the schisms present right now.
>I don't agree that this is the fault of tech at all.
>The real culprit I believe, has been the incredible hysteria of the legacy media as it joined the social media spaces, and started their race to the bottom for clickbait and outrage porn. Covering inane tweets, and blowing them up to pretend that crackpot points-of-view have more weight and are more common than they truly are. Gotcha gonzo-journalism, that prides "getting them" (whichever group that may be) over informing, and in the process dehumanising large swathes of people for clicks.
Everything you've outlined above is entirely the result of technology and the incentive structures that have been pursued in its "advancement".
Instead of blaming technology, why can't we blame capitalism? Capitalism obviously incentives both parties (big tech and the media) to compete for eyeballs and drive content to the bottom to make money. I don't think anybody is so nieve enough to believe that these companies have society's interests at heart. Their very existence is to make money.
Tech didn't force anyone or any org to act maliciously. Either one chooses to uphold their own values every day, or they sway with the wind regardless of consequence, but either way the choice was theirs. If it was so easy to convince the so-called fourth estate to drop truth-seeking and fair coverage for clickbait, then it wasn't a core value to them in the first place.
Now, people are more separated than ever, in their echo chambers, hating each other and firmly believing they are better and righter than the other.