Media Bias

[Joe]

Damn! I hope that boy's had his shots, and I don't mean Covid.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Those who despise Salon may want to skip this. It's a fairly long interview; I'll just quote a few excerpts.

'Fake news and conspiracy theories as an evolutionary strategy'

Political misinformation — whether "fake news," conspiracy theories or outright lying — has often been attributed to widespread ignorance, even though there are numerous examples of 20th-century propaganda aimed at those most attentive to politics. Books like Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" began to challenge that notion, as did the 1991 study of media coverage of the first Gulf War with the memorable bottom line, "the more you watch, the less you know." In the age of social media, scholarly explanations have shifted to discussions of "motivated reasoning," which could be defined by Paul Simon's line from "The Boxer": "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

...

One of our major goals with this research is to try to understand why it is that people believe things that other people believe are completely bizarre. I think it's clear for everyone that that problem has gained more prominence within the last few decades, especially with the advent of social media. It seems that those kind of belief systems — belief in information and content that other people would say is blatantly false — is becoming more widespread. It can have some pretty dire consequences, as we could see for example with the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6.

So what we're trying to understand is, why people believe things that must be false. The traditional narrative is, 'Well if you believe false things, then you must be stupid. It must be because you haven't really made an effort to actually figure out what is going on." But over the last few decades, more and more research has accumulated that suggests that's not the case. In fact the people who are responsible for spreading misinformation are not those who know the least about politics. They actually know quite a lot about politics. In that sense, knowledge doesn't guard against believing things that are false.

...

When you want to mobilize your group, what you need to do is find out that we are facing a problem, and your way of describing that problem needs to be as attention-grabbing as possible before you can get the group to focus on the same thing. In that context, reality is seldom as juicy as fiction. By enhancing the threat — for example, by saying things that are not necessarily true — then you are in a better situation to mobilize and coordinate the attention of your own group. The key thing is that it may actually be to your group's advantage that if everyone is in agreement that we don't like these other guys, then we make sure that everyone is paying attention to this other group. So by exaggerating the actual threat posed by the other group, you can gain more effective mobilization.

The key to understand why this makes sense, why this is functional, is that one needs to distinguish between interests and attention. A group can have a joint set of interests, such as, "Well, we don't like this other group, we think we should deal with this other group in in some way." But on top of that interest or set of interests, there is the whole coordination problem. You need to get everyone to agree that this is the time to deal with that problem. It's now, and we need to deal with it in this way. It's in that sort of negotiation process where it can be in everyone's interest to exaggerate the threat beyond reality, to make sure that everyone gets the message.

...

There is a selection pressure to develop beliefs or develop a psychology that scans for beliefs that are so bizarre and extraordinary that no one would come up with them by themselves. This would signal, "Well, I belong to this group. I know what this group is about. I have been with this group for a long time," because you would not be able to hold this belief without that prehistory.

I believe we can see this in a lot of the conspiracy theories that are going around, like the QAnon conspiracy theory. I think we can see it in religious beliefs too, because a lot of religious beliefs are really bizarre when you look at them.

[Brian Peacock]

Those who despise Salon may want to skip this. It's a fairly long interview; I'll just quote a few excerpts.

'Fake news and conspiracy theories as an evolutionary strategy'
...

Interesting.

Keeping that article in mind, you might enjoy this essay by psychologists Karen Stenner:

Liberal democracy has now exceeded many people’s capacity to tolerate it.

[JimC]

There was a similar argument once used by atheist thinkers to analyse some of the more bizarre religious beliefs and prescripts. The idea was that people showed the real depth of their faith best if they could hold to beliefs that were extreme in nature and counter to normal rationality. A version of virtue signalling, in a way...

[Seabass]

We are then saying that actually, in some situations, with regards to humans and human evolution, these constraints doesn't operate. That's because if we look at nonhuman animals, then the conflict is often between two individuals, but in human conflict it's often between two groups, and the members of one group, are cooperating with each other against the other group. That means there might be certain advantages, within one group, to spread misinformation and spread falsehoods, if that can give them an upper hand in the conflict with the other group. Then we go on to discuss a number of ways in which that might be true.

But there's another aspect that's very important when it comes to group conflict, because another very good signal that you are a loyal member is beliefs that the other group would find offensive. A good way to signal that I'm loyal to this group and not that group is to take on a belief that is the exact opposite of what the other group believes. So that creates pressure not only to develop bizarre beliefs, but also bizarre beliefs that this other group is bad, is evil, or something really opposed to the particular values that they have.

This suggests that there are functional reasons for both spreading falsehoods, and also signaling these falsehoods. I think one of the key insights is that we need to think about beliefs in another way than we often do. Quite often we think about the beliefs that we have as representations of reality, so the reason why we have the belief is to navigate the world. Because of that, there needs to be a pretty good fit or match between the content of our beliefs and the features of reality.

But what we are arguing is that a lot of beliefs don't really exist for navigating the world. They exist for social reasons, because they allow us to accomplish certain socially important phenomena, such as mobilizing our group or signaling that we're loyal members of the group. This means that because the function of the beliefs is not to represent reality, their veracity or truth value is not really an important feature.

Batshit signaling! Those crazy motherfuckers.

You see? If the Dems/libs are for it, the Republicans are against it. Not for valid rational reasons, but because that's what their batshit crazy tribe demands.

[Brian Peacock]

I recall a linguist (can't remember who) once suggesting that the reason our species developed speech was so we could tell lies about others. At the time that I thought this was a rather bleak, self-defeating view of humanity, but now I'm not so sure...

[Scot Dutchy]

False unsupported claims has always been part of social discourse. In a society of greed and envy you would not expect anything else. Honesty is never the best policy which is why we use the internet; the last freedom until the big boys get their way.

[Cunt]

Might be best to see what corporate media supports and promotes, to best decide what is trustworthy. They clearly have everyone's best interests at heart.

More lockdowns. This time for climate change!

I joke, but do you guys think Amazon would support more lockdowns? They did ok on that last one...

[L'Emmerdeur]

Those who despise Salon may want to skip this. It's a fairly long interview; I'll just quote a few excerpts.

'Fake news and conspiracy theories as an evolutionary strategy'
...

Interesting.

Keeping that article in mind, you might enjoy this essay by psychologists Karen Stenner:

Liberal democracy has now exceeded many people’s capacity to tolerate it.

I read it, but did so in the small hours of the morning. Her willingness to equate European authoritarians with Americans of similar ilk, along with her insistence on a sort of clinical bothsidesism seem misplaced to me. I agree that there are authoritarians of both conservative and progressive persuasion though. During the brief existence of Atheism+ the latter put on a show for any who cared to observe them. I'll give it another read.

[Brian Peacock]

Those who despise Salon may want to skip this. It's a fairly long interview; I'll just quote a few excerpts.

'Fake news and conspiracy theories as an evolutionary strategy'
...

Interesting.

Keeping that article in mind, you might enjoy this essay by psychologists Karen Stenner:

Liberal democracy has now exceeded many people’s capacity to tolerate it.

I read it, but did so in the small hours of the morning. Her willingness to equate European authoritarians with Americans of similar ilk, along with her insistence on a sort of clinical bothsidesism seem misplaced to me. I agree that there are authoritarians of both conservative and progressive persuasion though. During the brief existence of Atheism+ the latter put on a show for any who cared to observe them. I'll give it another read.

She takes the view that authoritarianism is a phenomena that is a feature of individual development plus predisposition - a kind of pyscho-social pathology if you like. This places it outside of any particular political perspective. For her, the manifestation of authoritarian inclinations or predispositions are triggered by threats (actual or perceived) to individual and/or group identity. She also believes she has identified about a third of the population as being cognitively challenged by change, difference, and diversity etc, and although this places fans of authoritarian narratives in the same kind of areas as fans of conservatism she believes the authoritarian-minded are distinct from conservatives. She says that authoritarians are primed to react to a threat in space (others) whereas conservatives are primed to respond to a threat in time (ideas). It's an interesting notion, that some people are cognitively ill-equipped to process and/or deal with change, difference and diversity etc. I'm sure we all know someone a bit like that, eh?

Anyway, I thought it made an interest counter-point to the article you posted, which seemed very much to be outlining how essentially manufactured threats to individual and/or group identity can be beneficial to that identity, strengthening or bolstering it to such an extent that the sense of belonging engendered and enhanced through the promulgation of disinformation and lies can ultimately be brought to bear upon the moral justification of their telling.

[Seabass]

Might be best to see what corporate media supports and promotes, to best decide what is trustworthy. They clearly have everyone's best interests at heart.

More lockdowns. This time for climate change!

I joke, but do you guys think Amazon would support more lockdowns? They did ok on that last one...

[Cunt]

Ah, the antifa provocateur...saying nothing.

I misunderstood the antifa folks before. Thought the 'anti' in antifa meant 'against'. It's more like antipesto - means 'before' fascism.

Trust your allies in corporate media and government! They have your (and antifa's) best interests in mind.

[Seabass]

Ah, the antifa provocateur...saying nothing.

I misunderstood the antifa folks before. Thought the 'anti' in antifa meant 'against'. It's more like antipesto - means 'before' fascism.

Trust your allies in corporate media and government! They have your (and antifa's) best interests in mind.

[Seabass]

It's an interesting notion, that some people are cognitively ill-equipped to process and/or deal with change, difference and diversity etc. I'm sure we all know someone a bit like that, eh?

You mean, like someone who calls immigrants "crimmigrants"? Or perhaps someone who doesn't like black civil rights movements? Or someone who has problems with trans people? Someone like that?

[Cunt]

Ah, the antifa provocateur...saying nothing.

I misunderstood the antifa folks before. Thought the 'anti' in antifa meant 'against'. It's more like antipesto - means 'before' fascism.

Trust your allies in corporate media and government! They have your (and antifa's) best interests in mind.

That there meets facebook community standards.