Has the Left changed that much? During the Obama administration ICE used the exact tactics they are using today. There were no riots or protests. What changed?
Has the Left changed that much? During the Obama administration ICE used the exact tactics they are using today. There were no riots or protests. What changed?
The Cost of Letting main stream media and social media Do Our Thinking. Lately I’ve been thinking about how both the political left and right are pushing narratives through social media, and a lot of what’s being shared is made up of half-truths or no truth at all. It feels like emotions are being intentionally poked and prodded to build followers around ideologies, not facts.
Honestly, you can’t even scroll social media anymore without stopping to ask yourself, “Is this actually true?” And that the norm now.
Before you can even consider the message, you have to research it just to figure out if it’s real. That alone tells me things are out of control.
What worries me most is how much of this stuff gets absorbed emotionally. A lot of people don’t consciously assess what they believe or take the time to verify it. If something aligns with how they feel, it gets accepted and then repeated.
Sometimes something goes viral almost instantly and gets accepted as truth, whether it’s fact or fiction, simply because it hits people emotionally.
And I get it. When something hits you emotionally and connects to a belief you already have, human nature is to accept it as truth, because our own biases want us to believe it.
If this keeps going, I really think it damages our ability to function as a country, because we lose a shared understanding of what’s real and what isn’t. Everything becomes narrative instead of truth.
I think part of the problem is that we’re becoming mentally lazy. We stop thinking critically and let confirmation bias run unchecked, and it just keeps building on itself.
The solution is simple, even if it’s not easy. Slow down. Question what we’re seeing. Separate facts from feelings. Think logically before reacting emotionally. Truth shouldn’t depend on which side it benefits.
Just something I’ve been thinking about.
v/r Russ
www.linkedin.com/in/russellclarkwyAMA with Hannah Aline Taylor. Wednesday 2/4 at 4:00 PM CT
love, boundaries, and mistakes in relating, community, and peopling together (+ thank god love doesn’t look like you expect it to)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNYNL05PRBQLooking for bridges in views about the second Trump administration. I'm currently aware of four views:
Where are the middle grounds? I want to know how to build bridges in my personal connections when politics comes up these days.
The concept of this app sounds promising. Do you think the internet can be a place for deep and meaningful conversations in this day and age?
All over-generalizations are harmful, even this one. How can we achieve brevity in communication without clinging to oversimplified models of the world?
Who am I to decide? California General Election is here and once again I’m asked to decide the fate of a few propositions which I believe I’m in no position to make decisions on.
For example, Prop 2 an 4 are asking for $10B of debt each to fund various important things. Who am I to decide whether that’s a good idea or not? I have barely a clue about the inflationary monetary system we live in and no idea where its limits are. What percentage of state budget does debt interest constitute? Is that too much or on par with the state economy?
Then there’s rent control, minimum wage increase, and a few other, highly debatable props, which I’d guess even the experts would be lost trying to predict the effects of.
Do I assume the government has done their due diligence and my vote is simply a measure of trust?
I feel overwhelmed by the lack of data, expert guidance, anything of real value to me, the voter. I’m only given a few cursory meaningless numbers and a bunch of emotional arguments in the official voter guide.
How do you decide on things like that? Do you do your own research? Do you look at endorsements? Do you use your intuition?
... No belief is true, no matter how popular or plausible
... No belief is true, no matter how popular or plausible
Making sense of "Love Money, Money Loves You". At work the book Love Money, Money Loves You
by Sarah McCrum came up, so I read it. Broadly speaking, I don’t recommend it.
It gestures toward some perspectives I think will be very personally rewarding, on topics including: value, service, exchange, agency, and happiness. Reading it has planted the seeds of some ideas that have real potential. But those grains of pre-insight are surrounded by bullshit, falsity, and inconsistency. I feel like my epistemic immune system got a real workout, fending off a bunch of idea-germs and allowing to digest the information safely.
Has anyone here read it? I’m wondering if you can help me make sense of it faster than I will alone. Assuming that you haven’t taken it literally: how have you interpreted it and what have you changed as a result of reading it? Are there any other books which share the same ideas but with less bullshit?