Saturday, March 23, 2024
AITA?
Monday, March 18, 2024
Where Are the Eagles?
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Now Comes the Thaw
Thursday, October 05, 2023
No Common Sense
Friday, June 23, 2023
We Have a News Vacuum
1. Trust the source, not the sharer. A recent study found that in deciding what to trust and share on social media, individuals were more attentive to the sharer than to the original source of an article. This is a mistake. Reputable news sources have fact checkers and strong incentives to report facts accurately; they also have editorial practices that allow them to correct their own errors. They are, for the most part, trustworthy. Confused about a current event? See what the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or the Washington Post says.2. Remember that your reaction to an event isn’t the only one. In response to a political or social event, you might find yourself surrounded by a storm of outrage, or a warm glow of approval on social media. Researchers have found that networks of retweets and interaction about moral content on Twitter are highly segregated by political affiliation. These researchers also found that people are generally more likely to share emotional content. For this reason, social media is inadvertently selecting for the content that most drives polarization. Be wary when friends share highly emotional moral content, and remember that elsewhere in the social network, other perspectives are likely being shared and you are not seeing them.3. Fight confirmation bias. People tend to trust evidence that confirms beliefs they already hold and ignore evidence that pushes against these beliefs. If you find yourself only trusting and sharing things that you already believed, you may be falling into the confirmation bias trap. Along these lines, be wary of articles that report on a controversial topic, but where it is entirely unclear why anyone would hold the other position in the controversy. Such articles are designed to get clicks and shares by appealing to confirmation biases.4. Watch out for surprising scientific findings. In general, people have a bias towards novelty. We are fascinated by things that are surprising or new. This translates into likes, click-throughs, and shares on social media. And this means that journalists are incentivized to cover the surprising and novel, including in coverage about science. But in science, surprising findings are also often wrong or misleading. Not every study reflects a true effect, and some studies fail to replicate. Studies that fail to replicate, though, are more likely to be reported on, and more like to be shared on social media, presumably because they are more surprising. This unfortunately means that if you’ve heard about a scientific finding on social media, it is more likely to be false than one you haven’t heard of.5. Read and share science journalism that covers a whole literature, not a single study. One solution is to read, trust, and share scientific articles that report results from an entire literature, rather than focusing on a single study. Because scientific evidence is probabilistic, any individual study can be misleading. But an entire body of evidence, gathered by many scientists, replicated, and critiqued within a scientific community is less likely to mislead. Ignore sensationalizing articles about one study. (And no, wine isn’t better than exercise for your health.)6. Remember, the agents of unfriendly nations are out there. We are unfortunately in a media environment where we are regularly brought into contact with content created and spread by foreign actors trying to manipulate public beliefs. These agents are extremely savvy about what will be shared and liked. One major goal seems to be to polarize and divide the US electorate and to erode trust in the US democracy. For this reason, it is not safe to assume content created by sources you have never heard of is safe or reliable—even (or especially) if it tends to support beliefs or positions you already accept. Cultivate a skeptical attitude towards social media content, and use verified sources to check scientific and political facts before trusting, liking, and sharing.
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
When Fairy Lands Become Dumps
Monday, January 09, 2023
It Takes Just a Little While
Wednesday, January 04, 2023
If You Wake Up
One of the leftovers from last year (and previous years) was the use of the word "woke" as some kind of belligerent belittling of people, particularly people who are "on the left," if one must use such terms to describe a group. It seems we must do that these days.
For the longest time, I did not know what the word "woke" meant. Did it mean I had my eyes open? Did it mean I understood things? Did it mean I had been to college?
Merriam-Webster defines it thusly: "Woke is now defined in this dictionary as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice),” and identified as U.S. slang. It originated in African American English and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. By the end of that same decade, it was also being applied by some as a general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning."
The origin of the word goes back decades, with no one quite sure where it originated with this use.
Given that it means to be aware of facts and issues, the word "woke" could have been used to describe me for my entire life. I've always been aware of social issues, racial injustice, the ineptitudes of capitalism, and the difference in classes, culture, and religion. I may not understand them all in great depth, but I have been aware of them.
I see nothing wrong with being able to acknowledge sexism, racism, misogyny, the dire restraints of the patriarchal system, and the crushing weight of religions of all shapes and sizes upon society. These are things we all live with. Most people, I have found, do not spend time thinking about them. They don't care, for example, if women make 30 cents less than men. They were raised to think that this was normal, and they see it as normal.
For me, it's an injustice that needs to be corrected.
Things become weird when people get stuff mixed up with their emotions - or with their pocketbook. For whatever reason, gender issues trigger many people. I strongly suspect this is because almost everyone is bisexual to some degree, and people are raised via their religions to beat this aspect of themselves into submission. Allowing gender issues to become open and part of society mixes up them up because the things they were taught are being challenged.
If it hits the pocketbook, as in, "my taxes shouldn't pay for the welfare queen's kid," then it triggers a different kind of angry emotion. To this I say, let your taxes pay for the military jets that I abhor; my taxes can pay for the child and mother to have something to eat.
Why being "woke" is an insult is beyond me, but the insult comes from people I tend to perceive as not very smart in the first place, and here is where the trouble comes in.
When we start lumping folks into categories, we begin to have problems. If thinking I'm woke also means I think the "unwoke" are idiots, or vice versa, well, of course dialogue breaks down. Nobody wants to talk to an idiot, whether they're awake or not.
I can't cancel people who don't want to accept my acceptance (which is what being "woke" is - a form of acceptance), simply because they disagree with it. I can, however, object to individuals who may want to argue with me or make my life miserable because they find me disagreeable. I don't have to allow myself to be harmed.
Being "woke" is a non-starter for me. I don't see it as insult. I see it as an acknowledgement that I understand that societal problems are many, and some of them can and should be changed, corrected, fixed, or improved. The world is not stagnant, and neither is society. Change is the one constant we can always count on.
Being "woke" means I know that things are wrong in the world, and they need to be changed.
I don't know what's so bad about that.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Who Has This Job?
Friday, October 07, 2022
Nice Doesn't Pay
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Dystopian Now
Monday, September 12, 2022
The Day After 9/11
Friday, July 22, 2022
Fragile Democracy
Wednesday, July 06, 2022
Regrets - They Have a Few
Friday, May 27, 2022
A Tale of Two Women
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
The Slap
In the news these days, we have the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or Putin's war, as some are calling it. Ukraine has been valiant and held back the tides of Russian soldiers but is slowly giving way. President Biden is working with NATO, we've sent support, imposed sanctions, and performed other political feats aimed at stopping the Russian aggression in its tracks.