Here is a FB post by Drewbie that I think is worth sharing. Though it took me awhile to get to it...
"Every couple of years I find myself advocating for fact checking before hitting that share button on social media. Admittedly, sharing of pretty much anything at all is the main reason I, and so many others I know, have gone away from facebook altogether. I only ever joined so I could share pictures of my kids with far flung family and friends and see their families grow and go on adventures as well.
Now when I scroll through the "news" feed from time to time, I see more than half of the posts are reposts and shares from other sources. Now, a recipe or craft idea can be fun, but really, I'd rather see a picture of you making the recipe or you doing a craft. I don't really care what social media influencers have to say about anything.
The main driver of this particular post is to rail on the other kind of share / repost; the political stuff. It is exceedingly rare to see a post with a political tilt that presents facts that are true. A 10 second search will show the bias in the information presented and tell you the real story of the often twisted origin of the information being presented. If you feel compelled to hit that share button, please take those 10 seconds to verify the integrity of the information you're about to post. Don't perpetuate the "fake news" from either side of the political divide.
Continuing to push these false narratives does nothing but drive a deeper wedge between people. It creates a stronger "Us vs Them" mentality which won't help anyone except those that stand to gain from that division. Be better than that. Please.
If you have an opinion, please feel free to post that. Engage in conversation. Ask questions of each other about why you feel the way you do. Get better informed from both sides of the aisle and maybe find common ground with those that seem so diametrically opposed to your thoughts.
In the meantime, I'm done doing the fact checking for people. If I see something that's not true, I'm just going to flag it as "false news" because facebook has given me the tools to do so. I encourage you all to do the same, or better yet, just stop sharing other people's nonsense and start posting the personal excitement that we all first signed up to this site to see.Here was my response...
Oh come now... You should think of all those Far Left and Far Right posts as an opportunity to spread truth and annoy difficult people... :-)
Of course, this is coming from a guy who made a hobby of doing so regularly with his own blog... The fun of doing it on Facebook is not only do you get to help the poster learn how foolish they have been... You get to share that knowledge with all their likely similarly challenged FB friends. And they can not complain about you "going political" on them since they started the string.
By the way, I am likely to steal your post for an up coming blog post...The good news is that he said he likes G2A and agreed to letting me post his wise tirade.
24 comments:
As a matter of corporate policy, Facebook is where we go to read things that are false. But just as one should never take a tv political commercial seriously, one should never believe anything one reads on facebook. For truth, go to twitter.
--Hiram
My question was how does anyone do a fact-check on anything? And then you post a cartoon that gives me the answer. It doesn't matter what any other "fact-checker" site may say, if it doesn't smell right according to your knowledge and experience-- if it sounds too good OR bad to be true, it probably isn't.
Yes.
Unfortunately many people are easily lulled into the serenity of confirmation bias.
What you see as a good thing, I see as a weakness.
Once we have formed a view, we embrace information that confirms that view while ignoring, or rejecting, information that casts doubt on it. Confirmation bias suggests that we don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices.
Thus, we may become prisoners of our assumptions. For example, some people will have a very strong inclination to dismiss any claims that marijuana may cause harm as nothing more than old-fashioned reefer madness. Some social conservatives will downplay any evidence that marijuana does not cause harm.
"Confirmation bias can also be found in anxious individuals, who view the world as dangerous. For example, a person with low self-esteem is highly sensitive to being ignored by other people, and they constantly monitor for signs that people might not like them. Thus, if you are worried that someone is annoyed with you, you are biased toward all the negative information about how that person acts toward you. You interpret neutral behavior as indicative of something negative.
Wishful thinking is a form of self-deception, such as false optimism. For example, we often deceive ourselves, such as stating: just this one; it’s not that fattening; I’ll stop smoking tomorrow. Or when someone is “under the influence” he feels confident that he can drive safely even after three or more drinks.
Self-deception can be like a drug, numbing you from harsh reality or turning a blind eye to the tough matter of gathering evidence and thinking. As Voltaire commented long ago, “Illusion is the first of all pleasure.” In some cases, self-deception is good for us. For example, when dealing with certain illnesses, positive thinking may actually be beneficial for diseases such as cancer, but not diabetes or ulcers. There is limited evidence that believing that you will recover helps reduce your level of stress hormones, giving the immune system and modern medicine a better chance to do their work."
That was an excellent article!!!
There are plenty places where you can get unbiased information. And of course, the assumption that biased people give you incorrect information is questionable. Unbiased people tend to lack bias because they are lazy and/or ill informed.
--Hiram
Hiram,
I think you are wrong about "unbiased" or maybe I should say "less biased" people.
I think many of them work very hard to fight their natural biases, to study all sides of a topic, etc.
If they have any flaw it is that they likely are not emotionally vested in the topics. They are just passionate about learning / understanding.
If It’s Trump vs. Warren, Then What?
I think you are wrong about "unbiased" or maybe I should say "less biased" people.
People fight their biases just fine. It's the unbiased people who are genuinely weird, going through their lives fighting the notion of having an opinion, other then the notion that Obama's brown suit is objectionable. Terrified as they are of making a choice, I would say they are as affected by emotion as anyone else.
--Hiram
It's now accepted that everyone is biased. Does it follow from that (for you logic fans) that no one can be seriously, that no one can check facts. I find that logical conclusion unacceptable because it would effectively make everything unworkable. Simply to get along, we have to depend on other people, on what they say and what they do. The alternative would result in a society that swings from anarchy to paralysis and back, which come to think of it, may be where we are headed.
For many, bias as broadly defined, is a way of dismissing truth, because truth has contradicted them way too much.
--Hiram
Meyers Briggs says there are two types of people-- Judgers and Perceivers. Perceivers always perceive both sides of the issue and recognize no truth on either side, or lies on both sides. Judgers pick a side, based on their knowledge and experience and convinced that one or the other MUST have the truth of it. And I say the truth is where you find it. If multiple sources, each however biased, tell you the same actual fact, you may disregard what conclusions they may or may not draw from it, and draw your own.
Sounds good guys.
Keep being like the guy in the cartoon.😁
there are two kinds of people. People who think there are two kinds of people and people who don't.
I think our country is an advanced state of decline. That we even took Donald Trump seriously, is evidence of that. I only take comfort in the fact that the American people did choose someone else, and that Mr. Trump was in the fact the choice of electors of the electoral college and nobody even knows who they are.
I mean this is a guy who turned over management of foreign policy to his personal attorney, a guy who wasn't paid by him, wasn't paid by the federal government, but was in fact paid by the people Trump and our government were dealing with, people who were arrested while trying to leave the country. Conflict of interest? Rudy Giiuliani sees conflicts of interest as an aspirational goal. And vast numbers of Americans see absolutely nothing wrong with this.
--Hiram
''
I think people are deep into self deception and confirmation bias.
Trust me. If Obama had done it they would be screaming.
As I said, the guy in the cartoon is right-- he calls 'em like he sees 'em. That used to be a GOOD Thing. Your mocking tells me you deny objective truth AND the right for anyone to hold an opinion other than your own.
Jerry,
This sounds like some liberal love fest where no one loses.
What you are saying is that everyone is correct even when they disagree....
Very strange...
I guess it is good for everyone’s self esteem.
Well, it was a liberal, I forget which, who said that "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts." Thus they claimed that only their "facts" were factual and therefore only their opinion was valid, and of course they were dead wrong on both counts. Actually, most political "debates" start with opinion stated as fact and never reach the point where there are real facts to support both sides of the question. In the first case the real truth goes undiscovered, and in the second it is undiscoverable. In between is that vast gulf where the truth CAN be discovered, but is not. And in most cases, truth doesn't matter anyway. “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” ― Jonathan Swift
But you are saying that you have the “truth” simply by believing you have the “truth”.
And apparently the same goes for me...
Even if I believe something very different...
It is hard to get to actual factual truth when you assure yourself and others that all their truths are real and valid.
"Recent news reports have described this as a “debunked” theory, but nowadays “debunked” often just means "denied by a Democrat."
If I believe I have the facts, and offer them, and you dismiss them as mere opinion, which of us needs our facts "checked" and how can that be done?
One can have the "facts on your side," and they can be objectively true, but that does not mean you are correctly informing your /opinion/. Just recently, the question of whether Americans actually landed on the moon resurfaced. Did we IN FACT do so, and is the opposite opinion valid?
"But you are saying that you have the “truth” simply by believing you have the “truth”."
What an odd statement. If I did not believe I had the truth, would I say I have the truth? Unlike much of the argumentation I see here and elsewhere, I tend to have actual REASONS for my opinion, backed up by facts as I find them, and that reason and experience tell me are objectively true. Presented with sufficient, relevant and credible facts to the contrary, I change my opinion. "What do you do, sir?"--John Maynard Keynes
Jerry,
What you usually offer is a lot of opinions and cherry picked facts that support your opinions.
This is kind of the definition of Confirmation Bias.
"backed up by facts as I find them,"
Like when you try to use NASA, NOAA, etc data while totally ignoring the interpretation of their expert scientists. Saying that you are more qualified to interpret the data.
Or our recent argument regarding Social Security where you threw out some generic assumptions, I disagreed with your opinion, provided a simplified analysis and you stuck with your questionable opinions instead of providing a proof, a source or even answering my questions.
As for this statement.
"believe I had the truth"
Now that is very correct in the case of confirmation bias and self deception.
The individual truly believes they have the "truth"...
I have no doubt that you believe your opinions are true.
However that does not mean they are correct.
As the comic said.
"How do you know if a news story is true?
"If I agree with it"
Over the last 10+ years we have had dozens of disagreements about various issues / stories.
When you have one interpretation, and Sean, Moose and Laurie have very different one...
Are you correct are are you correct?
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