Rumors in the age of unreason

[dubman]

i dunno if you guys have noticed but this year i've been sniping on the side in this forum for just about anything i've cared to comment on. even though i knew the whole thing was going to be embarrassing a week later i figured that i should get it out there instead of becoming john-lite for no reason aside that i hate everyone.

i still cant take most of anything here seriously but it was nice to get it out.

We are making the assumption that all people are terrible and not capable of rational scrutiny, and that's the reason for the polarization

well no. all people are terrible, and thats the reason that no matter what happens, people will find new ways of being terrible, if necessary. it's not going to end with some brilliant third party taking charge, there's just going to be dissatisfaction and gnashing until someone who perverts the original intent takes charge and keeps screwing up.

i go on various news trackers, find articles i want to read, and do the wikipedia-style meandering where that leads to links to other interesting news articles. some days it's 2 hrs, other days it's 20 minutes.

[Strangelet]

so you're saying you're steven beck?

with respect to your views on humanity, you have to love something deeply in order to hate it. At least that's why I'm a misanthrope.

anyway, thanks, this is a new experience for me. I've never felt so condescended towards while finding accord at same time.

[dubman]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

so you're saying you're steven beck?

with respect to your views on humanity, you have to love something deeply in order to hate it. At least that's why I'm a misanthrope.

it's the coulda been

anyway, thanks, this is a new experience for me. I've never felt so condescended towards while finding accord at same time.

whatever works, right?

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Just when you started to provide remarks that I didn't take a being snide, you go and say you were just being snide(in so many more words). Don't try to ditch the conversation just because not everyone here agrees with you.

It's, like, your filtering the conversation now.

[Strangelet]

haha. right. you use your trolling powers for good, not evil.

Originally Posted by dubman

well no. all people are terrible, and thats the reason that no matter what happens, people will find new ways of being terrible, if necessary. it's not going to end with some brilliant third party taking charge, there's just going to be dissatisfaction and gnashing until someone who perverts the original intent takes charge and keeps screwing up.

Yes. As the awesome Heath and Potter in the book Rebel Sell argued, revolutions can and mostly do just exacerbate the problem, its only by incremental agendas based on clearly defined steps of progress does the little guy experience anything different than a switch between dictators.

No. That's not an excuse to wave off nor discredit the efficacy to take on the cause of reform vis a vis new party structure in our current two party two step. Nor is it enough cause to excuse oneself from the process of affecting collective attitudes.

[Deckard]

Very interesting article Chuck.

The phrase intellectual honesty has been banded about so often that it's almost become something of a cliche, but isn't that (or the monumental lack of it) what we're talking about here?

We accept that not everyone will be as informed as everyone else. We accept that not everyone will be as capable in reason as everyone else. But don't we also need to raise greater attention to the fact that meaningful dialogue is what facilitates a healthy democracy, and what facilitates meaningful dialogue is, among other things, the capacity not to become so attached to an idea or an ideology or a tribe that honesty goes out the window.

Of course before a person is able to test their existing beliefs and opinions/self-critique - they first have to be willing to do so. Which requires a certain emotional intelligence. (And is it just me or do we seem to be heading in the wrong direction on that score too?)

Even before any of this, people need to know what intellectual honesty actually is, and appreciate its value. Yes it's very difficult to exercise it 100% of the time. But - to borrow a point from Strangelet - that doesn't mean there's no room for improvement, or that a great deal of improvement isn't badly needed. Is it taught in schools? (I don't mean the scientific method. I mean in teaching how to formulate and develop and assess one's own opinions, and specifically, the virtues in doing so.) I doubt it's something that we can rely on parents to impart. And we can be sure that from the moment people embark as an adult into the world (even way before that) they'll be faced with an onslaught that does its absolute best to discourage intellectual honesty.

So I think what I will fuzzily call "the intellectual climate" needs to change (at least in the English-speaking world I know most about) - but is the internet helping or hindering?

What Sean says about the way technology has transformed the conversation, essentially in terms of voices and ears, is spot on. The egalitarian might welcome the greater egalitarianism, and that's fair enough. But in amplifying all sentiments, it's providing a louder voice to those who previously didn't possess one. And it's an uncomfortable truth that those people who previously lacked a voice are unfortunately, for various reasons, slightly more likely to come from the uninformed than the informed side of the spectrum. Now if we lived in a culture that revered intelligence, that wouldn't be a problem. But what we have instead is a growing anti-intellectual culture that operates at the visceral rather than intellectual level and is celebrated as such. Politicians, particularly on the right, have known and exploited this for years. The end result is that those Joe the Plumbers may gain greater and greater sway over public opinion, and politics will head rightward.

Which begs the question: is it possible, even in theory, to have become too democratic? Or has our intellectual growth failed to keep up with our democratic growth? (By democratic, I don't mean the levers of government; I mean the ability to make noise and be heard and sway opinion.)

I don't think we can afford to ignore the potential for very serious damage here.

[Deckard]

A corollary of this, but more directly related to the original quote: does the internet encourage us to become more tribal than ever?

That would be the greatest irony, wouldn't it, given the opportunities now afforded people to hear and engage with such a multitude of views.

The fact that content from all the main British daily newspapers are currently free to anyone with an internet connection should have been revolutionary and a net gain for the most watertight arguments and positions and beliefs. And yet, it seems to have simply provided people with an easier way to cluster around one of two poles, and to support their team. If anything, the culture wars have amplified, and the teams have been galvanized. I don't sense much cross-pollination happening - I wonder if that means it's not?

I switch between feeling optimistic and pessimistic about the internet's role in improving democracies. Instinctively, the very notion of the internet should be a great thing for believers in democracy. A wonderful thing. But the downsides are impossible to ignore: reduced attention span... impersonalisation... an impoliteness that is accepted as inevitable ("It's the internet - get used to it" being the standard response - which is all well and good but what does that do for meaningful dialogue?) and of course the elevation of opinions and smears that don't warrant elevation.

Never mind. I'm going to take solace from the fact that a self-confessed misanthrope like Strangelet is able to be optimistic.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Never mind. I'm going to take solace from the fact that a self-confessed misanthrope like Strangelet is able to be optimistic.

Ah decks. there you are. was wondering where you've been. Its kind of a brinkmanship optimism but yeah.

America here's your corporate/fascist ahem, excuse me, two party system in action

WASHINGTON — In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.
Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.
E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.

So its not just Max Baucus' bill, as I mentioned in the health care thread that was written by a lobbyist. Its the entire fucking legislative branch. So there's your choice, there's all your difference from which to build all your fist pounding ire at the other side of the aisle.

[Sean]

If nothing else, watching this health care bill be as scrutinized as it has been has illustrated to me just how screwed up the whole legislative process really is. I mean, I knew it was in a more general sense, but the details I'm seeing now are pretty eye opening, not to mention ri-freakin-diculous. How does anything ever get done?

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

That's just it, nothing does get done. Then, when it all falls apart again people who watch too much television blame the "Illuminati", or something. Then, no one knows who the "Illuminati" people are, so really NO ONE is to blame but ourselves and then we all just go out and buy more stuff we'll probably really use just once or twice , but we're happy because, hey, we could buy it and then rent more movies and then we're happy again.

Like that.