Echo-Chambers - (and drinking the cool-aid)

There's a lot of things floating around in my head about this topic, but I'll see if I can keep it focused. What finally crystalized my thinking enough to attempt a post was this article, in particular, this quote from the article:

I think it's a very firm part of human nature that if you surround yourself with like-minded people, you'll end up thinking more extreme versions of what you thought before.

I think this is particularly evident in the blogsphere where you have blogs that actively moderate out anyone who disagrees with dominant paradigm. It probably does not even take active moderation, but simply having a group of 'enforcers' who rabidly attack anyone who deviates from the central tenets of whatever group there is there. And from what I've seen, it doesn't even take much deviation - just a hint of deviation will oftentimes result in all manner of nasty opinions being thrust upon a poster, ventrilosquist-like, to then be denounced. This has happened to me, as was evident here and here.

One could dismiss these incidents as nothing more than the shortcomings of the people involved, or the misandry evident at IBTP, or other such negative points. And I'm sure that is a factor. But as the article on salon noted, you can get extremes like that just from nothing more than limiting a conversation to people who are all on one side of the spectrum, even when those are fairly "average reasonable" people. As the article notes:

The way our Colorado experiment worked is, we got people from Boulder, a liberal place, together in small groups to talk about climate change, same-sex civil unions and affirmative action. On the same day, we got people in Colorado Springs, a conservative place, to talk about the same three issues. We asked them to record their views anonymously first, then to deliberate on them in small groups, then to record their views anonymously afterward. What we found was that on these issues, the Boulder people, before they started to talk, were pretty liberal, but there was a distribution of views, a degree of diversity. After they talked, they were significantly more liberal and less diverse. So, deliberation among our liberal citizens of Boulder produced more extremism and less diversity. In Colorado Springs, after they talked to one another, they went far to the right. They started out somewhat open-minded on these issues, somewhat diverse, and after discussion the diversity was squelched and the extremism was increased.

I think this is a clue to what is happening in the political domain all over the United States: People through their own voluntary behavior are replicating our Colorado experiment. Or, savvy political entrepreneurs are creating the conditions of our experiment because they want to decrease internal diversity. Karl Rove could be described as a "polarization entrepreneur." The left isn't quite so good at this, but they're learning.

I've seen this happen to myself, like where I wrote what I thought was a pretty darn good legal paper when I was in law school, one that garnered me the award for the best paper in the class, but that, when shown to others, was not seen to be as good as I thought it was. It turns out, the professor probably shared some viewpoints of mine and so that may have made it seem better than it actually was (though I am still proud of the paper and how I did with it). It may also be that the politics of the issue are mostly against me. In any case, I had a false view of the paper from my only having discussed it with someone who probably agreed with the basic premises in a way that many would not.

After seeing this phenomenon in action, I've come to the conclusion that one must take steps to counter this or else you will just get an echo chamber, with the attendant piling on and stagnation of ideas. (And a descent into radical extremism that will probably eventually be a pretty severe break with reality - when I've read the IBTP comments, at times I think I'm listening in on inmates in an insane asylum, or just people in another world, one where this vast conspiracy is afoot that apparently is visible only to a select few (i.e. the posters)).

I think one of the first, best ways to avoid it is to avoid even the hint of moderation of certain viewpoints - like having a 'feminist only space' like they have on Amp (to use the most recent example). Even without such active moderation, you can have the same effect by piling on. This is not to say that moderation of a neutral nature is not a good thing - but you have to be careful about that. Moderating to keep people from just insulting each other is good, but not if you cut more slack to some posters over others based on viewpoint - then you are back to square one. For instance, in Amp's thread, despite a rather nasty ad hominem attack on myself, putting words into my mouth that I never said, the attacker, even after I asked for an apology, was never asked to apologize to me and Amp gave no acknowledgement that the attack even happened. Instead, I was attacked, again, based on viewpoint. Which probably explains why I sometimes get the sense that the views held by the regulars at Amp are pretty extreme, though not as bad as elsewhere. I'm not trying to pick on Amp, btw, just using the site as a convenient example.

Ultimately, I've come to the conclusion that most sites online are not interested in discussing anything, or discovering anything, they are instead mostly looking to reinforce already held beliefs, sometimes using rather nasty, ruthless enforcement mechanisms to do so.

It is part of why I would never have such a moderation scheme in place here. I try to encourage open discussion. I am always up for a good discussion or argument. I don't insult those who post here, even after heated disagreement. I try to discourage others from doing so, mostly by example, and I welcome all voices. Even when I'm arguing a particular point one way, just seeing the other side always gets me thinking. I have changed my mind (sometimes several times) based on things others have said to me, or what I've seen said elsewhere, even if that is not immediately apparent.

Oh, and just to respond to any who would come to defend spaces that do have viewpoint-based moderation - while I'm sure there are all sorts of wondeful-sounding reasons for them, in the end, what they will inevitably lead to is extremism - and those on the 'inside' probably won't even realize that it has happened. I think it has already led to that in many places. For those of you at Amps, think of all of the regular posters, say, to Bill O'Rielly's or Michelle Malkin's or Rush Limbaugh's place. Do you really want to go down that path in the other direction? People at MM's place don't think they are extremists, they think they are just 'normal Americans' and that those who don't share their views are the extremists. They can't see otherwise.

I try to keep an open mind on things. I try to explain why it is I have the views I have. I think that is important, in part because, if it turns out my 'whys' don't make sense, that allows someone else to challenge them. I don't send someone off to a '101' blog when they ask me why I think the things I do - I try to answer as best I can. I would think that if I could not, this is evidence that my views aren't based on anything more than ideology, rather than reason.

Ok, this is another one of my long, rambling posts. Hopefully there is a kernal of something that makes sense in here. Perhaps that kernal is just what I've quoted from the article.

Oh, one more thing that comes to mind. I have worked on cases where the law is somewhere in a grey area. I know what my own biases are when it comes to certain legal issues. One way I counteract them is by going to someone who I know holds contrary views and asking for his legal opinion and reasoning on the issue. I also offer him my take and get his reaction. I find that is much more useful than talking to someone whose take on the issue is close to my own. If I just talked to someone similar to me, I'd go away thinking I had it all 'solved' with the reinforcement of another voice when in reality, I could be way off in left field.

That's part of the problem I see with movenents online, such as feminism. The best feminists are those that engage in active, even heated, discussion and arguments with people that some might derisively call MRAs (though they themselves would not call them that). That's how you keep yourself honest. Convincing someone already in your camp doesn't test an idea. You can only test an idea by putting it into the cauldron of discussion with someone who does not just reflexively share your ideology or viewpoint or assumptions to begin with.

People who think that they are going to solve anything or make major societal change by only talking in small groups with people with the same views (views which will then get more and more extreme as time goes by from the isolation and from the elimination of alternate views) are suffering from a delusion. It might be a pleasant delusion, but it is a delusion nonetheless.

The great orators are those who can get those who do NOT agree with them to come to some agreement, or at least to some compromise. The alternate to that is 'preaching to the choir' - something that is not the way to win converts to an idea.

I don't claim to be right about everything. Hell, I can have trouble even making it through a blog posting without partially changing my mind or at least changing tacks as I write it. Sometimes I shoot from the hip when I make a comment or a post. But in the end, I figure that is ok. I can always write more later to clarify, to answer questions or just as things become clearer in my own mind after I've thought about something for a while.

You can usually tell the difference between someone who wants to have a conversation and someone who just wants to slam you or score points. Someone looking to score points will nit-pick at tiny things that were said and that were probably not all that important. Someone looking to slam will just look to say harsh words about the 'easy' points and will avoid talking or answering the hard ones. Someone interested in a conversation will answer all points, conceding where there needs to be adjustment. I want to have a conversation.

It can be frustrating when there are many who are just interested in slamming or points, usually found in drive-by comments, which are another symptom of someone not interested in really addressing points or having a conversation. I have had plenty of those. I'm still disappointed that Amp (and others) never responded to me in this post, that TG never responded to this one, and that many never responded in this one. Oh well. Maybe someday...