The article is about how people have become better informed thanks to the internet, and how increasing political polarization is due to people making political choices based on more sophisticated ideological alliances and deeper held beliefs, rather than ways they might previously have done so. Part of why people are better informed is that the internet makes it easier to bypass 'elite consensus' in a handful of media outlets, and also, easier to link to sources to cite them in arguments.
PathOfEclipse is demonstrating this in action: he is citing sources for his beliefs, including sources from different partisan factions like the CBS poll he quotes at the end.
In response, you're taking a pre-internet approach. Dismissive and without intellectual merit, your post simply asserts that none of PathOfEclipse's sources should be considered legitimate, not even the (hopefully somewhat objective) opinion poll made by a left wing news outlet, that shows widespread bipartisan agreement by voters on the question of what happened on January 6th.
PathOfEclipse clearly wins this round. He uses the internet in the ways people hoped in the 90s it would be used - to cite evidence for calm, level headed beliefs and arguments that boil down to "cool it folks". There's nothing wrong here.
The kind of conversation you are suggesting is being offered here isn't. It requires a lot of good faith, and a relatively credible and overlapping set of facts.
This is what any honest exchange of ideas requires, and these conditions are almost never met online (social media, forums, etc.)
Id also add that source validation is required (as you point out an 'overlapping set of facts.') If you can't agree that a major news media organization with full time fact checking (no matter their political bent) is objectively better than a shiftless blog or single social media personality with a dodgy history of accuracy, then there is no hope for exchange. It's just a boxing match.
The problem comes down to "you don't trust the sources that I trust." Why people tend to trust sources that clearly aren't worthy of anyone's trust largely depends on their own confirmation bias.
Yes, in fact "single social media personalities" routinely beat major news media organizations in being correct (especially as the latter are perhaps most accurately described as coalitions of the former), and this happens frequently enough that lots of people have noticed. If you can't accept that this happens regularly, then there is indeed no hope for actual exchange because any evidence or argumentation of the form "news org X said Y which is proven false <here>" will be rejected as an inherently illegitimate challenge to power.
The solution is to, when possible, fact check sources yourself. You don't have to do it every time. Patterns will soon become apparent. Once done you can reserve such work for cases where someone disagrees and is citing a source you know to be false.
Yes, it's slow and hard work. The discovery of truth always has been; either toughen up or be quiet and leave the work to other people. Bleating about how terrible it is not everyone automatically regurgitates CNN is just holding society back at this point.
Citation?
> and this happens frequently enough that lots of people have noticed
Now we are getting back into "feelings" about what is true or not, or more plainly "this is what I want to hear" vs. "this is was is factually accurate". I am confident individual social media accounts become better confirmation bias machines than even you most slanted news orgs.
> If you can't accept that this happens regularly, then there is indeed no hope for actual exchange
I admit it has happened, like you can pull 1 or 2 examples using 30 years of history, but it's extremely uncommon. And you haven't sourced anything in making your arguments. If the statistics say individual social media accounts (or any specific account) have greater accuracy than news organizations with full-time fact checking, now is the time to provide those numbers.
> The solution is to, when possible, fact check sources yourself.
I think I know where this is going.
> Patterns will soon become apparent.
Yep. You are describing how people go down internet rabbit holes and become conspiracy theorists. "Doing your own research" is incredibly hard, we rely on trusted sources to do this work. What we need to do individually is make sure the sources we trust deserve our trust. No anonymous blogs, no podcasts with a long history of getting important things wrong with no accountability.
Mike Caulfield's SIFT method is an excellent intro into media (source) literacy: https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/
> Yes, it's slow and hard work
It's literally impossible if you don't use trusted sources. If you attempt to understand vaccine science with no science background, international trade policy with no econ history, etc. You are setting yourself for failure.
> either toughen up or be quiet and leave the work to other people.
Please, you aren't a hero for trusting the wrong people (who are telling you what you want to hear, coincidentally).
> Bleating about how terrible it is not everyone automatically regurgitates CNN
And you end with a fundamental misrepresentation of what I am saying, not surprising. You should not automatically trust most sources, but some get things right far more than others. Living every moment of your life with "I need to research this" means a standard trip to the shop would take 8 hours.
And how exactly do you think the "sources we trust" are held to account? They don't hold themselves to account and I think you'll find they work hard to cancel anyone who reveals their flaws under their own name.
Example: you've proven above that whatever sources you are relying on to educate you about vaccines have misled you. You thought there were no safety issues with the polio vaccine, which is a false claim. Nobody has been held to account for misleading you and you probably won't do it yourself. I knew about this incident, but it wasn't from reading the New York Times or watching CNN. It was from venturing outside these untrustworthy sources and reading far more broadly than journalists are comfortable with anyone doing.
"You should not automatically trust most sources, but some get things right far more than others."
Like which ones? If you don't trust CNN (which I'm using here as a token to mean "all similar media outlets"), then where are you getting these false ideas from? Enquiring minds want to know.
Perhaps this is a reflection of how little people understand the journalism industry. To get something published on NYT.com, there is a process of fact checking and verification that goes through every comma, every claim. Of course mistakes are made, but they are publicly addressed and accounted for. There is no just thing as a purposeful, objective lie that remains unaccounted for.
> I think you'll find they work hard to cancel anyone who reveals their flaws under their own name.
The Joe Rogan / Tucker Carlson opinion stuff can be left out of this convo without losing anything.
> You thought there were no safety issues with the polio vaccine
Nope. I said "no one had any issues with a polio vaccine MMR, etc." not that there weren't an adverse health effects. You project what you think i'm saying so you can argue against that. I don't know if you are aware that you are doing this, but it would make you a perfect cable news guest as that is the tactic of choice.
If you can't even read what I said and accurately respond, there's no point in continuing. This isn't Thanksgiving and i'm not unlucky enough to be at your table.
> Like which ones?
Again, try and educate yourself in the basic differences in journalism, who follows the rules of accountability and accuracy and who blatantly ignores them while still attempting to come across as "news".
If you still want to respond, cite the claim you've made first:
> "single social media personalities" routinely beat major news media organizations in being correct
Citation?
That's usually how debate works, yes. That's the whole point of evidence-based argumentation.
Your post is kind of the worldview Yglesias is arguing against in his article. His argument, summarized, is that certain types of people are railing in frustration at so-called "misinformation" that, when examined carefully, turns out to simply be information that the current ruling classes don't like, often because it exposes them as hypocrites, intellectually dishonest or not actually expert in their claimed field of expertise. Because they can't rebut the data or facts being presented they instead fall back on logical fallacies like appeals to authority ("experts"), false claims of lacking good faith, blanket assertions that any non-left wing source is illegitimate and so on and so forth.
There's the conspiracy language, I had a hunch. Instead of discussing the world in vague platitudes, lets get specific. 20% of the US is avoiding getting a safe and effective vaccine, as a result thousands have died unnecessarily. This is a new problem, no one had any issues with a polio vaccine MMR, etc.
People don't trust experts at a time when that trust can literally save their lives. The information space is a minefield, expecting every person on earth to have the tool to "make up their own mind" is unrealistic, to put it simply.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/
"In April 1955 more than 200 000 children in five Western and mid-Western USA states received a polio vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination programme against polio had to be abandoned. Subsequent investigations revealed that the vaccine, manufactured by the California-based family firm of Cutter Laboratories, had caused 40 000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10."
I thought the Cutter Labs incident was quite well known, but apparently not.
Now, back on topic. See what I did there? You made a false claim and then asserted that anyone who disagrees with you is the victim of misinformation and engaging in "conspiracy language". You believed there were no issues with the polio vaccine when in fact there were such severe safety issues the first mass vaccination programme had to be abandoned. I responded to this with facts and citations, showing conclusively that it's actually you who is a victim of (pro-vaccine) misinformation in this case, not anyone else.
All this is possible due to the internet. You're claiming the "information space" is a "minefield". But that doesn't seem to hold up. The internet is really much, much less dangerous for your mind than reading ordinary newspapers or watching TV news. And that's what Yglesia's is saying - people who doggedly stick to what media/government selected "experts" tell them are constantly being trounced in debate and made to look foolish by facts and data. They react to this with a massive case of projection.
Lol actually getting off of vague platitudes is "changing the subject". Right, enjoy your weekend.
> You made a false claim
No I didn't, you either misunderstood what I said or deliberately lied about it to argue a strawman, because that's easier than actually addressing what i'm saying.
> The internet is really much, much less dangerous for your mind than reading ordinary newspapers or watching TV news.
Lol. Truly, you made me laugh out loud. Funny you didn't say "is more accurate" - because that would be an impossible claim. You said "is less dangerous" which is also patently false. This book is the beginning of most study on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/d...
It's unequivocal and damning.
> no one had any issues with a polio vaccine
Reality:
> 40,000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10
There's no misunderstanding or straw man here. You made a false claim whilst accusing others of misinformation. Which seems to be often the way it goes with "misinformation" - not a vague platitude, of course, but the topic of the entire thread.
"Dr. Offit also explores how, as a consequence of the tragedy, one jury's verdict set in motion events that eventually suppressed the production of vaccines already licensed and deterred the development of new vaccines that hold the promise of preventing other fatal diseases"
A big part of what drives vaccine refusal today is awareness that vaccination campaigns have a history of being so dangerous the producers cannot survive in the open market under the normal rules.
Also, the topic of discussion is actually the original article about misinformation and the internet, in general. It was you who insisted on bringing up vaccines in an unrelated thread.
Not to the point where 20% of the population refused it, which is the point of this discussion. Major news networks didn't run opinion voices lying about the safety and safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Comparing that era to this one is misinformed.
If you think that’s how debates work, we probably have nothing to say to each other that the other would find valuable.
In any case, your ascribation of those feelings and ideas to me and my post are baseless and completely false. You’ve failed to comprehend the point.
The irony here (ha) is while people are more polarized, actual ideology has almost completely gone away, replaced with vague slogans (MAGA) that don't actually mean anything and are designed to weaponize nostalgia in a way that is useful for particularly amoral politicians. Keep in mind, the GOP literally had no formal platform for 2020, just "we're with Trump" (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/party-no-c...)