Is Social Media Really Harmful? (newyorker.com) 202
Social media has made us "uniquely stupid," believes Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the New York University's School of Business. Writing in the Atlantic in April, Haidt argued that large social media platforms "unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, belief in institutions, and shared stories that had held a large and diverse secular democracy together."
But is that true? "We're years into this, and we're still having an uninformed conversation about social media," notes Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan (quoted this month in a new article in the New Yorker).
The article describes how Haidt tried to confirm his theories in November with Chris Bail, a sociologist at Duke and author of the book "Breaking the Social Media Prism." The two compiled a Google Doc collecting every scholarly study of social media — but many of the studies seemed to contradict each other: When I told Bail that the upshot seemed to me to be that exactly nothing was unambiguously clear, he suggested that there was at least some firm ground. He sounded a bit less apocalyptic than Haidt.
"A lot of the stories out there are just wrong," he told me. "The political echo chamber has been massively overstated. Maybe it's three to five per cent of people who are properly in an echo chamber." Echo chambers, as hotboxes of confirmation bias, are counterproductive for democracy. But research indicates that most of us are actually exposed to a wider range of views on social media than we are in real life, where our social networks — in the original use of the term — are rarely heterogeneous. (Haidt told me that this was an issue on which the Google Doc changed his mind; he became convinced that echo chambers probably aren't as widespread a problem as he'd once imagined....)
[A]t least so far, very few Americans seem to suffer from consistent exposure to fake news — "probably less than two per cent of Twitter users, maybe fewer now, and for those who were it didn't change their opinions," Bail said. This was probably because the people likeliest to consume such spectacles were the sort of people primed to believe them in the first place. "In fact," he said, "echo chambers might have done something to quarantine that misinformation."
The final story that Bail wanted to discuss was the "proverbial rabbit hole, the path to algorithmic radicalization," by which YouTube might serve a viewer increasingly extreme videos. There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that this does happen, at least on occasion, and such anecdotes are alarming to hear. But a new working paper led by Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth, found that almost all extremist content is either consumed by subscribers to the relevant channels — a sign of actual demand rather than manipulation or preference falsification — or encountered via links from external sites. It's easy to see why we might prefer if this were not the case: algorithmic radicalization is presumably a simpler problem to solve than the fact that there are people who deliberately seek out vile content. "These are the three stories — echo chambers, foreign influence campaigns, and radicalizing recommendation algorithms — but, when you look at the literature, they've all been overstated." He thought that these findings were crucial for us to assimilate, if only to help us understand that our problems may lie beyond technocratic tinkering. He explained, "Part of my interest in getting this research out there is to demonstrate that everybody is waiting for an Elon Musk to ride in and save us with an algorithm" — or, presumably, the reverse — "and it's just not going to happen."
Nyhan also tells the New Yorker that "The most credible research is way out of line with the takes," adding, for example, that while studies may find polarization on social media, "That might just be the society we live in reflected on social media!" He hastened to add, "Not that this is untroubling, and none of this is to let these companies, which are exercising a lot of power with very little scrutiny, off the hook. But a lot of the criticisms of them are very poorly founded. . . . The lack of good data is a huge problem insofar as it lets people project their own fears into this area." He told me, "It's hard to weigh in on the side of 'We don't know, the evidence is weak,' because those points are always going to be drowned out in our discourse. But these arguments are systematically underprovided in the public domain...."
Nyhan argued that, at least in wealthy Western countries, we might be too heavily discounting the degree to which platforms have responded to criticism... He added, "There's some evidence that, with reverse-chronological feeds" — streams of unwashed content, which some critics argue are less manipulative than algorithmic curation — "people get exposed to more low-quality content, so it's another case where a very simple notion of 'algorithms are bad' doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It doesn't mean they're good, it's just that we don't know."
But is that true? "We're years into this, and we're still having an uninformed conversation about social media," notes Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan (quoted this month in a new article in the New Yorker).
The article describes how Haidt tried to confirm his theories in November with Chris Bail, a sociologist at Duke and author of the book "Breaking the Social Media Prism." The two compiled a Google Doc collecting every scholarly study of social media — but many of the studies seemed to contradict each other: When I told Bail that the upshot seemed to me to be that exactly nothing was unambiguously clear, he suggested that there was at least some firm ground. He sounded a bit less apocalyptic than Haidt.
"A lot of the stories out there are just wrong," he told me. "The political echo chamber has been massively overstated. Maybe it's three to five per cent of people who are properly in an echo chamber." Echo chambers, as hotboxes of confirmation bias, are counterproductive for democracy. But research indicates that most of us are actually exposed to a wider range of views on social media than we are in real life, where our social networks — in the original use of the term — are rarely heterogeneous. (Haidt told me that this was an issue on which the Google Doc changed his mind; he became convinced that echo chambers probably aren't as widespread a problem as he'd once imagined....)
[A]t least so far, very few Americans seem to suffer from consistent exposure to fake news — "probably less than two per cent of Twitter users, maybe fewer now, and for those who were it didn't change their opinions," Bail said. This was probably because the people likeliest to consume such spectacles were the sort of people primed to believe them in the first place. "In fact," he said, "echo chambers might have done something to quarantine that misinformation."
The final story that Bail wanted to discuss was the "proverbial rabbit hole, the path to algorithmic radicalization," by which YouTube might serve a viewer increasingly extreme videos. There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that this does happen, at least on occasion, and such anecdotes are alarming to hear. But a new working paper led by Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth, found that almost all extremist content is either consumed by subscribers to the relevant channels — a sign of actual demand rather than manipulation or preference falsification — or encountered via links from external sites. It's easy to see why we might prefer if this were not the case: algorithmic radicalization is presumably a simpler problem to solve than the fact that there are people who deliberately seek out vile content. "These are the three stories — echo chambers, foreign influence campaigns, and radicalizing recommendation algorithms — but, when you look at the literature, they've all been overstated." He thought that these findings were crucial for us to assimilate, if only to help us understand that our problems may lie beyond technocratic tinkering. He explained, "Part of my interest in getting this research out there is to demonstrate that everybody is waiting for an Elon Musk to ride in and save us with an algorithm" — or, presumably, the reverse — "and it's just not going to happen."
Nyhan also tells the New Yorker that "The most credible research is way out of line with the takes," adding, for example, that while studies may find polarization on social media, "That might just be the society we live in reflected on social media!" He hastened to add, "Not that this is untroubling, and none of this is to let these companies, which are exercising a lot of power with very little scrutiny, off the hook. But a lot of the criticisms of them are very poorly founded. . . . The lack of good data is a huge problem insofar as it lets people project their own fears into this area." He told me, "It's hard to weigh in on the side of 'We don't know, the evidence is weak,' because those points are always going to be drowned out in our discourse. But these arguments are systematically underprovided in the public domain...."
Nyhan argued that, at least in wealthy Western countries, we might be too heavily discounting the degree to which platforms have responded to criticism... He added, "There's some evidence that, with reverse-chronological feeds" — streams of unwashed content, which some critics argue are less manipulative than algorithmic curation — "people get exposed to more low-quality content, so it's another case where a very simple notion of 'algorithms are bad' doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It doesn't mean they're good, it's just that we don't know."
Is Social Media Really Harmful? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Social Media Really Harmful?
That depends on whenever you just use it to keep in touch with friends/relative and join harmless groups discussing your hobbies or whether you uncritically believe every piece of shit conspiracy theory that pops up in your feed.
Re: Is Social Media Really Harmful? (Score:5, Informative)
Even among friends and colleagues, it can be harmful. When everyone posts "the perfect life" on their Facebook account, it's easy to become depressed about your own life. Using social media has been linked to depression and anxiety.
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Even among friends and colleagues, it can be harmful. When everyone posts "the perfect life" on their Facebook account, it's easy to become depressed about your own life. Using social media has been linked to depression and anxiety.
That's where critical though comes in.
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In theory, yes. However in practice, critical thought doesn't only take a lot of effort, it always also bears to risk of that effort going into proving your family, friends, and or yourself wrong. And since the vast majority has never learned (not been taught) to handle being wrong, despite of the idea of "errare humanum est" having been around for probably millennia, it creates a situation where people would have to put their free time into doing something that makes them feel depressed.
True stupid and lazy is usually easier than critical thought.
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Though with social media we observe a religious cult like exploitation of the social nature of most humans on a large scale and at speeds Christianity could only have dreamed of in the past.
This of course seems to be self inflicted to some degree, but also actively exploited and fostered with polarizing issues as well as all the anti-science, anti-intellectual, and general anti-education
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Even worse - the social media sites like Facebook sells out your private life.
Re: Is Social Media Really Harmful? (Score:2)
Using social media has been linked to depression and anxiety.
So have drugs, books, TV, movies, sports, religion, video games, sex, and pretty much everything else.
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So have drugs, books, TV, movies, sports, religion, video games, sex
Yep. Funny how all of those are regulated by government in one form or another around the world.
Re: Is Social Media Really Harmful? (Score:2)
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Jonathan Haidt has in interviews and talks mentioned correlations between self harm, loneliness etc among adolescents and social media use (but not other forms of screen time like computer games). I don't see a category for those effects in this summary (but haven't read it all).
Another thing to notice is that this is seems to be a comprehensive summary of anything related and not just social media use. Some studies in the no-results for anger and affective polarization focused on general "internet use" and
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Social media doesnt not make people stupid, it makes stupid people more obvious.
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Even among friends and colleagues, it can be harmful. When everyone posts [their lies about] "the perfect life" on their Facebook account, it's easy to become depressed about your own life. Using social media has been linked to depression and anxiety.
FTFY
(But my comments on "scale of competition", too.)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You might remember me from such self-help videos as "Smoke Yourself Thin" and "Get Confident, Stupid"
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We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich--yes, richer than a king--
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and w
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I only smoke in social situations. I'm not addicted.
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Indeed. To some people any self-directed media consumption is harmful. These are the people unable or unwilling to fact-check. They seem to be the majority though. To others, basically nothing is harmful, because thy are actual adults (or can act on that level if they are not yet formally adult).
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My elderly parents use social media to spread brain worms. Instead of talking about their grandchildren and grandnieces/nephews like normal old people they talk about how Nancy Pelosi wants to turn America socialist and how Biden stole the election by counting votes from illegals.
I hope there is a special place in Hell for Rupert Murdoch, Roger Stone, and even Mark Zuckerberg.
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And the same can be said for liberalism, especially when it expresses itself via ad hominem arguments against total strangers who simply don't agree with your political stance.
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Staring at a computer screen, or a smartphone, or a book rather than interacting with a group of people has the effect of severi
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Yes, I'm talking about a lack of critical thinking skills, low IQ, and no thought to fact-checking anything they've been told.
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So "Yes".
People tend to believe what they want to believe. If you throw enough shite at the walls of the Internet, some of it is going to stick to some of the fools. And we are all fools, when you get right down to it. Greater or lesser fools makes little difference.
So I missed Funny again, but some of my recent thoughts on the topic are at https://wt.social/post/good-bo... [wt.social] (in relation to The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk ). I'm pretty sure I'll get more evidence from We Are Anonymous by
Some examples (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the criminals in the basement of the pizza joint... which didn't have a basement?
Then there was "Biden stole the election."
And of course, "Obama's going to take our guns."
...this kind of stuff is running at a constant drone, and it gathers in the weak-minded and uninformed pretty reliably. It takes hold, hangs on for long periods, and finally succumbs to newer (and often even more outlandish) garbage.
Some of it comes from independent sources; some of it comes from disingenuous media organizations.
It's not like we don't have real problems. But we'd do better at even having a chance to address them if this kind of garbage wasn't consuming so much of the attention of so many people.
Re:Some examples (Score:5, Insightful)
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This one is my favorite, because McCain was actually born in a foreign country and no one complained.
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but Alefantis...
It's the sequel to "Trump stole the election"...
You say that like Democrats..."
In AC's post: DARVO, the pattern of child sexual predators, domestic abusers, and conservatives in general. [uoregon.edu]
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some of the stuff getting passed around in meme-like posts is pretty lazy.
Is nicotine really addictive? (Score:5, Interesting)
Results are inconclusive. Watch "Thank You for Smoking" and see if you can spot the pattern.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It's not really addictive, it's just a little addictive.
Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Most people cannot distinguish between something valid/factual/proven and something which is liked a lot which means they are easily manipulated.
2) Before Instagram/FB/etc your life was exposed only to your group of people, nowadays it can be the entire world: it messes with your understanding of who you are, how valuable you are and what you deserve (this is especially valid for young women).
3) Social networks hugely misrepresent what life really is: social "stars" only show the best facets of their lives, how they achieve anything they want, how they know what they want, how perfect they look, etc. Their followers never question that, most never quite achieve the same, have a ton of issues and as a result become miserable because success doesn't come to everyone, especially in terms of becoming very popular and rich.
4) Before social networks people were taught to be good and kind to each other, nowadays it's kinda lost.
Re:Absolutely (Score:4, Insightful)
Bingo. "In the old days" you had one nutcase in your group that you could easily ignore. Now with social media, those nutcases are the loudest and most prolific voices out there, even though they're still only, relatively speaking, that one person you used to ignore.
Ignoring them now is fairly impossible, however, and it gives an extremely skewed picture of what 'people care about'.
Not overstated (Score:2)
"The political echo chamber has been massively overstated. Maybe it's three to five per cent of people who are properly in an echo chamber."
Five percent is enough to influence an election result. It's great they quantified it, now I have data to tell my 5% friends who are visibly too much into social media, that coincidently 5% of people live in a social media echo chamber.
For some, social media is dangerous (Score:2)
Other have taken social media and became bullies.
The ones in-between are made fun of using social media, because of the bullies.(and some of these bullies are tech dweebs about how your exploited by having your data harvested)
Depends on who you are (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a state actor trying to influence the dimwits of another country, they're the cheapest and best weapon you could ever hope for.
beating Betteridge (Score:3)
Cambridge Analytica (Score:2)
Social media does not make people stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
Before, they were confined to their own locality. With an audience of only those unfortunates who got cornered by them. Now they proclaim their ignorance for all to see and hear. There aren't more of them, they are just louder.
Social media amplifies that 5% (Score:5, Interesting)
And they're always chasing that high on social media, looking to share the next outrage or post the next one-liner copypasta zinger. they're the ones making dozens of social media posts per day, while the rest of us are too busy just... living our lives. So most of my family or friends who use social media may post a couple times a day/week, and never about politics, but are drowned out by the sheer volume of posts from that 5%. And most of the rest of us actively avoid engaging in political conversations online, because we're just not passionate enough about it to take the time or because we don't want to get dragged down into a shouting match with someone who we know is so entrenched in their position that no rational argument is going to change their mind but will only further enrage them.
Because smart people aren't on it? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just the 3.5 billion with an IQ of under 100.
They now have bread enough, so it's just circuses and Kardashians shaving their backs twice a day.
Yes. (Score:2)
so wait... (Score:2)
You're suggesting that both Trump's "fake news" mantra AND the left's assertion that social media is basically a breeding ground for white supremacists...are both politically-motivated overstatement/hysteria?
Huh.
Yes and No (Score:3)
Think of a news group on Facebook, Upworthy, for example, and consider the topics posted and expressed on that group, which ranged from "Here's how not to feel sad", through to "Toxic Masculinity, and why don't men understand NO means NO". Read the comments on those posts and you'll noticed that the vast majority are informed nonsense, that spouts off the media and popular beliefs, but rarely the research backed evidence. If we want to answer "Is Social Medial Dangerous", then change the focus and try to answer "Is Uninformed Opinion, Discarding Research Dangerous", and that answer is YES! This changes the focus from "Social Media" over to "Society and Popular Opinion".
Social Media as a concept is not dangerous, what's dangerous are the opinion nonsense beliefs that lead to the end conclusion of radicalization inside group collectives. We don't need "Social Media" for ISIS or BLM to form, and we don't need "Social Media", to have dangerous feelings and emotions which force hate upon men, and play off the trope "women are weak and victims", that comes from misinformation and incompetence. When society refuses to impose the research backed evidence, then you get large portions of society that don't understand X from Y, and that leads to the dangerous most attributed to "Social Media".
Why do my 12 and 10 year old daughters believe a "wage gap" exists, solely on the basis of gender? - Society.
Why do people believe men have privilege and special status? - Society
Why do stupid modern ideals of feminism flourish? - Society!
You don't need "Social Media" to cause misinformation, because everyone is already misinformed. If we stop accepting incompetence as the gold standard, and start using the research backed evidence, almost all the problem attributed to "Social Media" stop and disappear. Society has failed, and their for the platform used for societal expression fail, but you can't blame a system which is propped up from those whose refuse to accept reality.
Jan 6 (Score:2, Flamebait)
That's my answer to many arguments about social media now.
Q: Is social media really harmful?
A: Jan 6. Is a coup considered a serious enough matter?
Q: Has social media made us stupid?
A: Jan 6. How many of those who participated have been nominated for a Nobel Prize do you think?
Q: Should Mark Zuckerberg be indicted for treason?
A: Jan 6. Duh...
Q: Should social media be heavily regulated?
A: Jan 6.
Etc etc. It's an instant argument winner.
Yes social media is super harmful. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm an old dog, I've been riding the youtube wave since the beginning.
Let me explain to you how I came to this conclusion, you better grab a beverage or something good because it's going to be a long explanation on how we ended up here:
In the beginning of youtube it basically was an upload video service that was largely uncensored and unmonitored, anyone with a video clip, a computer and a pulse could upload just about anything, it was a relatively small platform then in comparison to today.
Videos were often of poor quality basically because of 3 factors, poor video equipment, no stabilization, and the human factor. People uploaded just about anything because they could, and they had no clue about content creation. You'd get everything from silly family video clips, poorly made vblogs, videos with terrible picture and audio quality and just kids yelling into the camera running around with it in their pockets with the video still on and still uploading it anyway, it was pure video anarchy.
Then people started to use youtube as a sort of "cloud" service for all their content, copyrighted material was abundant and it wasn't uncommon to find complete movies on youtube, and at some point youtube got into trouble with the motion picture companies, music companies and even the law because you could easily find lewd content and illegal material on there as well.
Youtube's popularity rose like they never anticipated in their wildest dreams, and it became really difficult to monitor it because we're a big population and people uploaded so much material it was just impossible at the time to monitor and censor illegal content. So youtube hired a massive amount of moderators to sift through the thousands if not millions of uploads per week, eventually it became so bad that they had to remove the function to see the latest uploads (yes it's still there, but it's delayed and heavily monitored before you can see the ones coming through, but that's today - it wasn't like that before).
Content creators became aware that they had to make quality videos in order to stand out from the crowd, and youtube liked this because it increased the quality of their platform so they tried to actively promote those who presented their audience with high quality video and audio - and quality content. In the beginning this was mostly based on just that - the production quality of the video.
But then another issue appeared - the quality of the actual content. Small radical groups with very radical world views were also aware of their audience and also could afford higher quality equipment, and this gave a playground for extremists and radicals to present their relatively small causes to a wide audience, and youtube no longer wanted to be the free platform for everyone they originally set out to be - so they started to censor these in order to reach a wider family friendly audience.
Then the line between what could be called "family friendly" entertainment and radical extremist propaganda became a lot thinner and youtube had to do something about it, especially since the onslaught of criticism from various governments threatened with regulations and new laws and hefty fines if youtube didn't do something about it, and the problem with copyrighted materials available on youtube increased as well and youtube developed algorithms to quickly identify well known music and videos and would remove these rather fast.
But people are thrifty and found ways to fool the algorithms that were in the birth stage at that time, and youtube once again were faced with the onslaught of re-uploads of copyrighted materials on and on again. And youtube started using advertisement in order to finance the increased need for disk space for their servers which now were MASSIVELY underpowered because of the sheer upload of endless amounts of videos - mostly with copyrighted material.
And now censorship began. The minority extremists were also displeased with the censorship and was also trying actively to circumvent the
Well slashdot is technically social media (Score:2)
Yes-- at scale when made available to everyone (Score:2)
Social media in and of itself is just a communication network. Some of the networks focus on short blurbs (Twitter) that live little space for nuance. Some are built to dive deep into nuance (classic forums). Others *can* facilitate nuance, but the society that grows out of them tend to treat it as a blurb maker (Reddit). Others focus on the spreading of non-text media (Instagram, Youtube, TikTok, etc.).
There's nothing innately bad or dangerous about that. What matters is WHO is on those networks, if they h
This is a perennial problem in social sciences (Score:2)
particularly psychology: framing. Which group of people matter, typical people or outliers?
The answer is both. Suggesting that social media is radicalizing *everyone* smacks of moral panic. But if "three to five percent" of social media users were regularly subject to a radicalizing information bubble, that would be a big concern.
Also framing the problem as "changing opinions" doesn't necessarily capture the concern. Arguably the problem is fostering a perception of normalization -- which is not always a
Nyhan is probably a puppet (Score:2)
For the socal socialist media industry. Yeah there are stupid people out there, but we don't need irresponsible social media companies giving those people a megaphone. Facebook has been find time and time again to promote and incite fake news. Twitter has a bot problem. There are many other examples of bad behavior. And that behavior isn't fixed as long as it makes the company money
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'Social media' is a cancer on our civilization (Score:3)
Everything is fatal (Score:3)
In a recent longitudinal study that followed subjects for 200 years, it was found that everything the subjects either did or avoided, nevertheless turned out to be fatal.
It takes less than that to storm a Capitol. (Score:2)
It takes less than that to storm a Capitol. Or do another school shooting.
The problem is not with everyday people. It's the cazy ones at the fringes who now get their crazy views confirmed and reinforced.
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He finds that conservatives are able to predict liberals' answers just fine and seem to have a pretty good understanding of their worldviews, but that liberals have *no idea* how conservatives think or what they value.
One could also say that liberals made the key mistake to assume that conservatives would answer honestly.
Re:Haidt is a real thinker (Score:5, Interesting)
I once had a conversation on social media with a conservative who felt that the government should not solve poverty because that would rob him of the opportunity to give to the poor.
In other words, keeping the poor trapped in the cycle of poverty helped him feel good about himself.
So while that conservative answered honestly to the best of his ability, what he thought he valued and what he actually valued were polar opposites [wikipedia.org].
Re: Haidt is a real thinker (Score:3, Interesting)
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yes, you could be arsed to point that out if you found that load of psychobabble to be anything but demagogic tosh. it's just sad.
to get back on topic, social media is not the problem, it's the symptom (and nowadays just another tool for crowd control). and no one in his sane mind would trusts our "institutions", we just know them to be the lesser evil since the alternative is chaos, and accept them because changing them is extremely difficult.
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So trusting some random asshole on social media that may or may not a hostile foreign actor is more sensible than trusting your government that at least nominally should have your interest in mind?
Re:Haidt is a real thinker (Score:4, Informative)
Let's say I am a selfish bastard who only cares about himself. That's something I'm pretty comfortable with, because I am. Of course, this isn't exactly something that is too well received if told. I noticed that people generally don't like you when you tell them that you're a selfish bastard who couldn't give half a fuck about them. On the other hand, I do occasionally need the cooperation of people to accomplish my goals. I noticed that people are generally unwilling to accommodate me if I first told them I'm a selfish bastard who'd sell them down the river if that was legal.
So what I do is I pretend to actually give a fuck about people. That's by far better when it comes to their general willingness to cooperate with me.
This is how you lie about your values. And also why you do it.
Re:Haidt is a real thinker (Score:5, Insightful)
The objective of the test is not to guess a conservative's values but to guess how they would answer the same questions.
Conservatives accurately predicted how liberals would respond.
Liberals failed to predict how conservatives would respond.
If liberals misjudged the honesty of conservatives (which I doubt), that is still evidence that they misunderstand them.
I grew up in the South and know plenty of conservatives. I now live in the SF Bay Area, which is overwhelmingly liberal. I agree that liberals fail to understand conservatives.
For instance, I have heard many liberals say that conservatives oppose social programs because they don't care about poor people.
Nope. Conservatives oppose social programs because they don't think they work.
This is an important difference. If liberals want to convince conservatives to support their policies, they should stop the moral preaching and instead show some hard evidence that the policies work and are cost-effective.
On the other hand, conservatives believe that liberals don't much care if policies are effective as long as they are intended to do good. From my many discussions with liberals, this is mostly accurate.
Re:Haidt is a real thinker (Score:4, Insightful)
If liberals misjudged the honesty of conservatives (which I doubt), that is still evidence that they misunderstand them.
False premise. If someone is answering the question honestly, there is ONE most-likely answer.
But because conservatives are narcissistic abusers with a penchant for lying, their answer WILL most likely be a lie. The question is, WHICH lie out of a couple dozen options? The conservative doesn't actually care, so they're going to pick one at random.
Understanding the conservatives comes down to (a) understanding that they are going to lie, and (b) knowing that their lie is going to be a lie - a pretext given in bad faith.
This voids the entire basis of Haidt's exercise. The conservative are not participating in good faith so the "research" is garbage.
Re:Haidt is a real thinker (Score:4, Insightful)
And that is your false premise, assuming that your opponents are evil simply because they don't agree with you. I'm not a conservative, but a moderate, slightly to the right of center. I often find it hard to understand how liberals can believe what they do, but I'm willing to believe that they're sincere in their beliefs and that they're not evil simply because they're liberal and I believe the same about the alt-right and the religious right because I'm not willing to consider somebody to be evil just because I don't agree with them. It's clear that you find that easy; maybe you can explain why?
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"But because conservatives are narcissistic abusers with a penchant for lying,"
You and everyone who modded you up are so incredibly stupid it's beyond belief. You clearly don't actually interface with conservatives on any kind of regular basis. This isn't to say there aren't those you fit into your imaginary mold, but you're far from reality if you believe the average conservative is anything like that.
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This is an important difference. If liberals want to convince conservatives to support their policies, they should stop the moral preaching and instead show some hard evidence that the policies work and are cost-effective.
On the other hand, conservatives believe that liberals don't much care if policies are effective as long as they are intended to do good. From my many discussions with liberals, this is mostly accurate
"Let me bend over backwards to frame the side I agree with in the most charitable way possible as simply misundertood but I will now use my own subjective stereotypes to malign the side I don't like"
You make a good point at first but it is completely undercut by a blatanly bad faith, subjective claim.
If "hard evidence" was so important to conservatives we wouldn't still be arguing abot whether climate change *is even real in the first place* but about the solutions or how much we have to worry about it.
If "
Re:Haidt is a real thinker (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance, I have heard many liberals say that conservatives oppose social programs because they don't care about poor people. Nope. Conservatives oppose social programs because they don't think they work.
Bullshittery... typical from you lying repungants. The evidence is overwhelming that social programs work. They reduce crime rates, they reduce poverty levels, they are cost-neutral or better because they reduce drags on the system (costs of incarcerations and lost workforce, costs of emergency room visits by the uninsured, costs to handle vandalism and damage due to vagrancy, etc).
The evidence has been overwhelming for decades. Conservatives claiming to oppose social programs because "they don't think they work" are simply LYING about their motivation. But this is because conservatives are lying narcissistic abusers.
Re: Haidt is a real thinker (Score:2)
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For instance, I have heard many liberals say that conservatives oppose social programs because they don't care about poor people.
Nope. Conservatives oppose social programs because they don't think they work.
This is an important difference. If liberals want to convince conservatives to support their policies, they should stop the moral preaching and instead show some hard evidence that the policies work and are cost-effective.
We see so much of this in the other direction, mostly about conservatives thinking liberals support a thing not for the reasons they say they do, but out of nefarious support for some loony conspiracy theory's goals - Examples would be climate action/averting climate disaster/bringing about authoritarian global communism, just about any social issue/social equality/creating a slippery slope toward a ludicrous shattering of anything resembling current social norms, progressive taxation/reducing inequality an
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Like I said, they thought that conservatives would be honest. A common mistake.
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When that data is aggregated is where you come to the quantitative data that can be used. In other words, there is value in what is being said EVEN IF THEY LIED. The point is not to determine what the views are, but if there is room for common ground. If they lied to be more "Acceptable "then there is room for common ground.
Conservatives are narcissistic abusers. They will cheerfully lie to your face if they think it meets their purposes. And no, they are not INTERESTED in "common ground."
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> Johnathan Haidt is a liberal.
I'm a big fan of Haidt. His books are fantastic. That said, these days I very much get the feeling that Haidt's position is, "both sides are bad, so vote Republican."
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That said, these days I very much get the feeling that Haidt's position is, "both sides are bad, so vote Republican."
That's what happens when someone's an enabler of gaslighting, and unwilling to entertain the baseline issue that invalidates all of Haidt's "research"; his assumption that he can get honest responses and good faith participation from conservatives, despite conservatives being categorically narcissistic abusers who will cheerfully lie to your face if they think it gets them a "win."
Haidt'
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ShouldnÃ(TM)t that be the default outcome between two bad choices - too choose the less shitty one?
And yet, that was the comment you chose to write.
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A very interesting link / pointer indeed, thank you. From your link:
But during that time when conservatives’ mouths are shut, their ears are open. They’re listening and understanding what liberals think—and what liberals think of them.
Sounds like my life, only in reverse (living among "conservatives" all my life).
For me one of the increasing problems is that, as a non-conservative, being "conservative" used to be a also good thing, or it at least had the potential. Trying to keep things a
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Sounds like my life, only in reverse (living among "conservatives" all my life).
PRECISELY. The problem is not that "liberals" don't understand conservatives. The facts are that it's impossible not to be inundated with what conservatives say. "Liberals" have learned that conservatives are narcissistic abusers. They have learned to decode the dog whistles and the pretextual bullcrap and the code phrases that conservatives use for tribalist signaling.
They know that, as narcissistic abusers, conservatives
Re:Haidt is a real thinker (Score:5, Interesting)
I think, speaking as a right-leaning independent, that I no longer know what conservatives in America stand for. They were for sanctity of marriage, and then vehemently supported a guy who had been divorced twice and openly had multiple affairs while married. They were for free trade, and then were suddenly for tariffs and trade barriers everywhere. They were for small government, but now call for government regulation of teachers, books, social media, and a wide range of medical issues. They were fiscally conservative (well, not terribly, but historically at least more so than Democrats), and then gave away trillions frivolously. They were pro-business, and now seem to pick fights with businesses (Disney, MLB) regularly. The reason that democrats can't guess what Republicans believe is that Republicans no longer have strongly held beliefs, but are willing to change them because their leaders tell them to. It's become a case of instead of supporting leaders who believe as they do, they alter their beliefs to please their leaders. It's kind of nuts, frankly.
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Rather than thinking of "left" and "right" as a spectrum, in modern politics it's easier to see them as tribes. The right (and left) is a political clique, and they tend to all have the same opinions. Those opinions are flexible (like support for the senate filibuster), but it's all about keeping together with the tribe.
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I think you're making a good case that they've always been like this. The difference is they went masks-off with Trump.
Nixon, and his crew, were for sure racists but they came up with a way to do fuck with the minorities in a very abstract way through "states' rights", and "war on drugs" and what not. Trump just says Mexicans are rapists and murderers on live TV. The GOP in Texas just straight up said they don't recognize the completely legitimate election, etc.
Anyway, facebook sucks.
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This is a conspiracy theory based on some random words allegedly said by someone in Nixon's orbit,
No. Harry Anslinger was literally so racist [timeline.com] that he shocked racists. The type of man who said out loud things like "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men." [wnycstudios.org]
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And some Democrats are still advocating for segregation to this very day.
And here we are - another Klanservative lying, proving the point that conservatives are narcissistic abusers who cannot be trusted to participate in good faith.
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Speak for yourself, here's plenty of evidence of Democrats pushing segregation again.
Noting that no evidence was posted... proving that conservatives are compulsive liars who will use DARVO and gaslighting whenever possible, and refuse to participate in good faith.
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Go back 50 years and look at the Democrats talking about black people.
Prior to the middle of the 20th century, Democrats were the conservative party. Then came Nixon and the Southern Strategy... now the GOP, aka the Repugnant Klan Party of today, are the "proud conservatives." Gee. I wonder why your "go back 50 years and pretend that party affiliation correlates directly with being conservative/liberal" crap is meaningless?
Re: Haidt is a real thinker (Score:5, Interesting)
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Also understand: conservatives are, by and large, narcissistic abusers. They cannot be trusted to participate in surveys in good faith, or represent their (supposed) values and principles in good faith.
Haidt's surveys and exercises fail on this premise.
The conservatives are able to "predict" the likely liberal response because the liberals are participating honestly. They are playing a game of darts normally.
The liberals, meanwhile, not only have to face the fact that the conservatives will lie at a w
Re:Haidt is a real thinker (Score:5, Insightful)
Conservatives fill their heads with such wild fantasies that it can't even be called coherent thought. Trying to figure out what's in the mind of a conservative is impossible because they will say or do anything to justify a behavior even when they know it's wrong.
Although I said this in a bit of hyperbolic way, that's the reality of what we get from conservatives. They don't seem to be looking for the truth. They seem to be looking for self-serving results. "The election was stolen." Some incoherent conservatives believe this. Others know it's a fabrication but repeat it to promote their own agenda. Which conservatives fall into which group? I don't know. But in neither case will can a reasonable conversation be had with somebody who says such a thing.
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He finds that conservatives are able to predict liberals' answers just fine and seem to have a pretty good understanding of their worldviews, but that liberals have *no idea* how conservatives think or what they value.
I also find it difficult to keep track of someone else's imaginary world. But we both can find common ground in the real world. I get some of the stories in Christianity and Islam mixed up because they are subtly different. But I can talk to Christians and Muslims about science or economics without having to worry about if one group understands a reference to Isaac or not.
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So your sources are an archive of a conservative business think tank article and a broken link?
I think this is the video you meant to link to, which doesn't back up your post or the AEI article (probably why you didn't provide a working link):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Some moral foundations are not "external to, and inaccessible by, liberal cognition" but are instead seen as being unimportant or antithetical to good morality. These foundations/channels are purity, in-group loyalty, and respect for au
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According to people in the upper and lower reaches of the State Dept. and DoD, the former alleged president WAS a Russian asset. Their opinion was that Russia didn't need to care about NATO or NATO expansion as long as that dingbat was in the White House because he was effectively dismantling it from within. It was only when he left office that they decided they better take NATO seriously. That coincided with a particular sawed off runt's view of himself as Peter the Greatly Stupid.
Re:Main stream media is nothing but fake news. (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump's entire 4 years was non stop fake news about him being a Russian asset. Which led to multiple insurrection attempts by Obama's holdovers.
First, Trump is a Russian asset [theguardian.com].
Second, the insurrection attempt was by Trump [cbsnews.com].
1. Mueller investigation. Same guy who helped Saudis escape after 9/11 instead of investigating them
At the instruction of the Bushes [vanityfair.com]. If you're uncovering a conspiracy here, it's a Republican one.
The Mueller investigation uncovered a whole bunch of evidence of collusion [justsecurity.org], and he actually put it in the report. But since he wasn't asked to find evidence of collusion, it's not labeled as such. The Mueller report led to the conviction of Paul Manafort [theguardian.com], pretty limp when it should have led to the conviction of Trump himself but not too bad. Trump later pardoned Manafort [bbc.com], no reason to do that of course except to keep the conspiracy going.
2. FBI investigation kicked off by a concocted Hillary lie.
You mean the lie about Hilary being responsible for Benghazi [fbi.gov]?
3. Spied on Trumps phone call with Zelensky then tried another insurrection (3rd one)
You mean where Trump was extorting Ukraine [politico.com] and eventually withheld aid [cnbc.com], for which he was duly impeached [businessinsider.in]?
When you watch the news, other than a few outlets, you're literally watching the Hillary or Biden campaign
When I read your comment, I'm literally watching a schizoid episode.
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Let's do #2 (Score:3)
Amber Heard (abuser of Johnny Depp) is ranting about "Social Media" as the cause for her lost trial (it doesn't occur to her that her perjury [lies under oath], fabrication of false evidence, defamation and abuse has nothing to do with the result).
Bruh I ain't heard shit about those fucks in days, what do they have to do with anything
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Being a person who is not using "social media" at all (except Slashdot and two other websites) I find your comment quite hilarant.
Also, I saw the whole three weeks of videos unedited, complete from start to finish.
What you might find as "bad knock-on effects" of "social media" is the "classic media" speaking from your mouth as I can easily asume you saw nothing of the trial.
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Isn't that cute, you heard the term "Fake News" and decided to use it in a sentence here.
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Yeah but here in the states, where public education budgets have been gutted, we don't teach philosophy anymore. Well, we do, its just not part of the required curriculum and it absolutely should be.
You'll see I say "You suck at thinking" to a lot of people on Slashdot. I don't know where else to begin to address their ignorance other than that - it starts with coherent thought.