The subjs were asked: Would you share these stories online?
The results seemed to defy #logic of modern #politics or #polarization. “There were many…who seemed willing to share any #ConspiracyTheory, regardless of the party…,” Petersen said. These participants didn’t seem like stable partisans of the left or right. They weren’t even negative partisans, who hated 1 side w/o feeling allegiance to the other. Above all, they seemed drawn to stories that undermined #trust in every system of #power.
Weekend reading: Over the past two weeks, I wrote 9,000 words on the problem of #polarization - or rather:
On how the “polarization” narrative obscures more than it illuminates and why that’s exactly what makes it so attractive to elites across the political spectrum. 1/
The richest Americans are emerging from the coronavirus pandemic with their share of wealth and income on the rise again despite some thought that the tight job market and hefty wage gains spawned by the crisis might narrow the gulf between rich and poor.
The Nobles of Iowa moved to blue Minnesota. The Huckinses of Oregon moved to red Missouri. Their separate journeys, five weeks apart, illustrate the fracturing of America.
Fascinating from Jay Van Bavel on Twitter: “New research finds that Twitter’s recommendation algorithm amplifies anger, outgroup hostility, and affective polarization
This is a good reason to ignore the recommended Tweets.”
"When you see the word 'polarizing,' beware. It’s a red flag, these days, for false equivalence. It can be way to avoid identifying what’s really going on with a Republican party that has gone off the rails."
Credit ratings report says that continued disagreement between the government and the coalition ‘could further exacerbate domestic political confrontation and weigh on medium-term economic growth’
"The 'polarization' concept is useful if you want to lament major problems in American politics, but don’t see, simply can’t bring yourself, or deliberately want to obscure the fact that the major threat to American democracy is a radicalizing Right."
This was published early in October, but it is quite remarkable: DG Taurus has a very smooth proto-planetary disk, without any grooves, which means it is in an state prior to planet formation…
However, polarized observations showed some structure in the outer regions, which might be the beginning of planet formation!
1 of my 7th graders shared a video about historic black towns in Oklahoma on her “Wonder Links” webpage she’s made for our class, and that inspired me to start a “Black History” section of the “Heal Our Culture” website which I started recently: https://healourculture.wesfryer.com/
Lots of excellent resources here: books, videos, museums, educational projects, and more.
“I want to be an aspirational culture healer, NOT a culture warrior.”
#SocialMedia#ContentModeration#Polarization#Ideology: "Today, we live with the irony that the intense pitch and total saturation of political conversation in every part of our lives—simply pick up your phone and rejoin the fray—create the illusion that important ideas are right on the verge of being actualized or rejected. But the form of that political discourse—millions of little arguments—is actually what makes it impossible to process and follow what should be an evolving and responsive conversation. We mistake volume for weight; how could there be so many posts about something with no acknowledgment from the people in charge? Don’t they see how many of us are expressing our anger? These questions elicit despair, because the poster believes that no amount of dissent will actually be heard. And when that happens, in any forum, the posters blame the mods.
The mods do have supporters: “normie” liberals and conservatives who still put a degree of faith in the expert and media classes and who want, more than anything, to restore some bright line of truth so that society can continue to function. A central question of our current moment is whether that faith is enough to unite a critical mass of voters, or whether the medium we have chosen for everything, from photos of our children to our most private conversations, will simply not allow for any consensus, especially one that appeals to a population as broadly complacent as the American consumer class. Normies, who are mostly unified in their defense of the status quo, still wield a reasonable amount of political power, and they will continue to exist in some form. But, as even more of our lives take place within the distortions of online life, how much longer will there be a widely agreed-upon status quo to defend?" https://www.newyorker.com/news/fault-lines/arguing-ourselves-to-death
Our paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on current challenges in measuring night sky brightness (with a particular emphasis on polarization measurements) is now published.
The Outrage Industry is talk radio, cable news shows, and political blogs.
The #outrage#industry dictates the behavior of elected officials (particularly conservatives) who are terrified of getting on its wrong side because they know if they do, they will be #primaried.
Outrage discourse, as a rule, ignores complexity and nuance. It is not about conveying accurate information or stimulating meaningful discourse.
♦️Outrage arose because it was #profitable
♦️Outrage created or exacerbated the problem of #polarization, not the other way around.
Because of the fragmenting of media and the clutter of outlets, blogs, and talk shows, there is a lot of noise.
There is also a lot of #money in the outrage business.
🔸Outlets or pundits in search of an audience need to break through.
🔸The easiest way to break through is to be an “agent provocateur."
Both sides use the same tactics but #conservative#outrage is more outrageous, more hyperbolic, and more prone to misrepresenting the facts.
The conservatives are better at all things outrage–including making money.
What's wrong with the lament of many centrists that our political life has become so "polarized" and was not polarized in a mythical golden age in the past?
Thomas Zimmer states,
"Political 'consensus,' to the extent it ever existed, was usually confined to white male elites and based on a cross-partisan accord to leave a discriminatory social order intact and deny marginalized groups equal representation and civil rights."
"people across the political spectrum hold stereotypes about scientists’ political orientation (e.g., “scientists are liberal”) and that these stereotypes decisively affect the link between their own political orientation and their trust in scientists"
«Experiments have revealed that “children as young as two will prefer other children randomly assigned to the same T-shirt color,” Christakis writes.
What’s most striking is that in the process of defining who is in and who is out of a group, enmity and derision can arise independently of any rational reason for it.» https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/01/20/polarization-science-evolution-psychology/
The global risks due to misinformation and disinformation may be more than that posed by climate-related risks such as the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem collapse.
On 10th January 2024, Global Risks Report 2024 was published. While climate-related hazards remain a prevalent topic, the report identifies misinformation and disinformation as the most serious short-term threat.
According to the report
"foreign and domestic actors alike will leverage misinformation and disinformation to widen societal and political divides" during the next two years. This risk is heightened by a huge number of upcoming elections, with more than 3 billion people expected to vote in 2024 and 2025, including in major economies such as the United States, India, and the United Kingdom. The proliferation of mis- and disinformation around the world may cause civil upheaval, but it may also lead to government-led censorship, internal propaganda, and restrictions on the free flow of information.
Though the climate-related risks represent 5 of the top 10 threats during a 10-year period as the world approaches or crosses "climate tipping points", I believe misinformation and disinformation will continue to be ranked among top three risks much beyond the next two years. There is apparently no short term contingency plans and long term mitigation plans apart from effective role of independent fact-checking organizations. I do not know how these fact-checking organizations can deal with the assault of bad actors using Generative AI (including deepfakes) that will dominantly contribute to misinformation and disinformation by flooding the global information systems with false narratives in future. Misinformation and disinformation will also aggravate climate related risks. According to a research done by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, we have "reached the tipping point where humans are unable to meaningfully differentiate between AI-generated versus human-created digital content." I am convinced that Zero Trust Information is the right paradigm in this age of ChatGPT, Google Bard and Bing chatbot for regular end users.
Journalist Harini Calamur's article titled "Analysis: The Unbearable Risk of Misinformation" is worth reading. She expresses her deep concerns regarding misinformation and highlights the following.> The rise of misinformation and disinformation as a primary global risk underscores the danger it poses to individuals, societies, and economies. It needs to be addressed with the seriousness it deserves.
The fact that misinformation and propaganda existed even in the Roman Empire and prior to the battle of Actium during 31 BC between Octavian and Mark Antony, shows that the perils of misinformation and disinformation are here to stay with us for ever. Disinformation is a subset of misinformation that is spread intentionally.
The paper titled "The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction" discusses in great detail regarding why people share misinformation, barriers to belief revision, information to combat misinformation and related practical implications for practitioners, information consumers and policymakers. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer. In addition to regulations without curbing freedom of speech (which does not include amplification of that speech), the authors suggest that the most important approach to slowing the spread of misinformation is substantial investment in education, particularly to build information literacy skills in schools and beyond.
Overall, solutions to misinformation spread must be multi-pronged and target both the supply (for example, more efficient fact-checking and changes to platform algorithms and policies) and the consumption (for example, accuracy nudges and enhanced media literacy) of misinformation. Non-text-based corrections, such as videos or cartoons, also deserve more exploration. Additional transnational research is needed to explore questions about causality, including the causal impacts of misinformation and corrections on beliefs and behaviors.
Crowdfunded news portals, which are based on donation from individuals while maintaining high stands of accountability and transparency, are a relatively new phenomenon in the media landscape. These new generation news portals have several potential advantages like financial independence, public engagement and diverse content and content creation outside of mainstream media scope.
US wealth, income concentration resume upward climb in post-pandemic era (www.reuters.com)
The richest Americans are emerging from the coronavirus pandemic with their share of wealth and income on the rise again despite some thought that the tight job market and hefty wage gains spawned by the crisis might narrow the gulf between rich and poor.
[Analysis] Two Families Got Fed Up With Their States’ Politics. So They Moved Out. (www.nytimes.com)
The Nobles of Iowa moved to blue Minnesota. The Huckinses of Oregon moved to red Missouri. Their separate journeys, five weeks apart, illustrate the fracturing of America.
S&P ratings: Further judicial coup polarization in Israel could hurt economic growth (www.haaretz.com)
Credit ratings report says that continued disagreement between the government and the coalition ‘could further exacerbate domestic political confrontation and weigh on medium-term economic growth’