http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/08/16/internet.journalism.politics/index.html?hpt=T2 And then of course the most depressing part:
It's a variety of confirmation bias. Humans have a tendency to "see" the things that reinforce their worldview or principles and block out or rationalize away the things that don't. One always has to guard against it.
And that is the trick. I is just about impossible to know what information to trust these days. I think a first step would be to try to bring back accountability for what is said or published... there is so much that is absolutely false... or purposed misleading. You see it all the time even in how people title their posts on this board. When I worked for a college paper we wouldn't print anything unless it was told to one of our reporters... and it we used something printed somewhere else... we had to attribute the source. I don't think they even do that in print anymore.
If one is constantly "guarding against" this, as you say, then one never really forms a world view. Life is simply a process of taking in every fact and giving it equal weight in your mind. That's an impossible way to live, which is why no one does it.
Trying to avoid selectively ignoring things that fly in the face of one's preconceived notions and beliefs is not the same as "giving everything equal weight." It's not impossible to have a worldview that way. It is impossible to have an unchanging worldview that way, though.
This is the entire basis Shooter's internet persona, don't look behind the curtain.. there is nothing to see here.
Read stuff you're bound to disagree with, especially really smart people. If they make you think, if they challenge your beliefs, then they've done their job. For example, I used to be left of center. Eventually, I had enough facts shoved in my face contrary to my world view to reconsider where I stood politically.
And like the funny pages, it's the same old characters saying the same old shit day after day. At least with the funny pages, the characters are *supposed* to be flat and simplistic.
Everyone's opinion takes time to evolve. You come to your point of view after looking at an assortment of facts, over time, and finally coming to some internal understanding of how things are and how they ought to be. I used to be left of center until I attended UC-Berkeley and saw liberalism up close. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and I began swinging to the right of center. I don't have to constantly re-evaluate my point of view because I went through that process a long time ago. I earned my opinion fair and square.
