POLITUSIC has been trolling right-wingers for years by means of the reinforcing-bias Google search. The most common we get on this website are angry republicans searching, “why democrats are destroying America“.
The argument we make to these readers is not that the Internet is full of fake news. It’s not the self-fulfilling prophesy of reinforcing-bias searches. Nor is our argument that nearly all fake news and monetization of politics occurs only on the republican side of the political aisle (which it does). The core argument we make is the biggest mistake humanity has always made: we believe we are smarter than our own brains.
Insight – leaping to a truth that is beyond the information we possess – is so extraordinary that it’s seen maybe once or twice a generation. The rest of us are only as “smart” as the information to which we are exposed.
Every person who breathes is biased. Every person who died has been duped. Not because we’re all idiots (which we are, and that’s OK), but because at any given point we are ignorant of Truth. That’s not an insult, a moral judgement, or an accusation. It’s reality. There’s too much noise and too much money to be made. Many would even argue that Society functions better when Truth sits on the sideline.
The massive amount of money being made by fake news during the 2016 presidential election exacerbated this problem. Millions of people believed they had the truth when their “news source” was nothing more than clickbait designed to make money from hate, fear – and ironically – distrust of media.
Human beings are foolish because we believe we are smarter than the information we access. Newsflash: your brain is gullible. Feed it a falsehood and it doesn’t know the difference. That core part of human nature is why American politics in the Internet age is a total mess, and why we now have advisors to a Twitter-obsessed president using terms like “alternative facts” on Meet The Press.
Republicanland Is Cousin To North Korea
This is where we always lose republicans and they call us liberal wankers full of bull. The claim: there is very little difference between the average North Korean and the Republican Party base.
Fire-eyed republicans have yet make a coherent argument that proves otherwise.
North Koreans believe that every American child goes to school and begins each day swearing they want to destroy North Korea (in truth I bet 99% of American children can’t even find North Korea on a map, but that’s a challenge for another day).
Why do North Koreans believe this? Because every North Korean child goes to school and begins each day being told that every American child goes to school and begins each day swearing they want to destroy North Korea… or at least that’s what I’ve been told. ;)
Americans being defined as “imperialist wolves” is the only thing North Koreans are ever told, and as such, it’s the only thing they know. The brain only stores the information its been given. There’s a shared notion that a “fact” needs to be repeated at least three times for a person to remember it (i.e. it gets stored in the brain)… what happens if that fact is false? The brain doesn’t know any difference. That’s the point.
This is where we get dangerously close to the word “indoctrination”, and one’s mind can wander to all sorts of parallels: evangelicalism and the anti-choice movement, the NRA, climate change denialism, cults, Germany and the USA during WWII. In every instance the “believers” are basically indoctrinated into their respective life-view by means of repetition and information isolation. They built that wall to block anything else from coming inside.
Countless dictatorships and even respectable governments in history have done this to control and/or manipulate the population. Republicaland does it to make money: clickbait, fake news, the NRA, conspiracy theories. Republicanland makes hundreds of millions of dollars peddling everything from flat out lies to “feels-right-facts”. Even the Trump campaign was spreading completely fake news on social media during the election.
Insight: The Most Rare of Events in a Social World
I’m including this section to give everyone a little perspective. True insight is as rare as true love. I cannot think of a world-changing insight since Einstein. I’m certain there’s been great progress in science that those who understand things like quantum physics would call “an insight”. But true insights where a thought appears in a person’s mind outside of the information is possesses are incredibly rare. I don’t believe many people – die-hard republicans included – would argue that point.
Mind you, insight is different than connecting the dots: logical thinking. Logic uses what’s in the brain to make a conclusion. Insight is the act of having an idea “above” or outside that which is stored in the brain.
Given that general truth… how arrogant are we to walk around each day believing we are any smarter than the information our brains take in? Arrogant and foolish, as it turns out.
Some of you may have noted that I qualified this claim by adding “in a Social World”. For many years I’ve been weary of – to the point of personally boycotting – social media because of its ability to amplify the worst parts of social interaction.
The selfie is a poignant American example of ego seeking social recognition, acceptance, and accolades. Call it emotional greed that grows the more you feed it, and my-oh-my how it’s being fed. In true American form, we tend to feel good not just by being built up by those around us, but by tearing others down as well. Unfortunately, as social media has intensified over the last 5-6 years, one is hard pressed to make a clear argument that its negative impacts are not creeping up to – and overtaking – its positive.
Thumbs up culture. Celebrity for the sake of celebrity. Cyber-bulling. A 144 character news cycle. A post-facts generation. Fake news taking over social media… they all lead to one place: enter President Trump, stage right.
The “Fact” Feedback Loop of Social Media
Social media accelerates and intensifies the bias-reinforcing feedback loop. Due to “news feed” sharing and the deep distrust of media by the Republican Party base – once again noting the irony – we probably have 15 million people in this country who are never even presented an idea with which they disagree. (Yes, 15M is a random guess.)
If over 60% of Americans get their “news” from social media, and social media presents only items that math has determined a person will like or show interest… let the feedback loop begin, eh?
Add to the mix the huge uptick in fake news clickbait that propagates throughout social media, and it’s impossible to predict how many people are walking around America with fake truths as part of their personal reality.
It’s a strange, strange, world.
