Adderall. Tons of it. I think you're overplaying this point. As a society that shoulders on overtime hours and takes a premium of what's spent on their time, the tendency towards partisan sources is to streamline information gathering to cut out the boring and wasteful chatter. One can claim that cable's allure is bringing niche content to a targeted audience. This would seem to indicate that Fox News's success is due only to a Conservative audience. Yet a Pew Survey showed that ~30% were self identified Democrats. What this tells me is that information gathering isn't the main motivation to watch these programs. If it were, the quality and standards of all news mediums would be significantly higher. FNN also enjoys a Howard Stern effect, where his audience not only attracts his devoted fans, but also his devoted haters who tune in to hear what he's going to do next. Television's purpose is to entertain. Which is why cable networks broadened beyond their original informative programming and into reality themed content or venues outside what you'd normally see 15 years ago. You're still going to have nutjobs who read right/left wing sites or listen to similar radio. But it's more like they don't know better for the lack of trying. In that study, my reply in that topic was that the study did not confirm this bias, rather it confirmed that ignorance and misinformation do not mix (duh). It's like thinking America is the bestest nation in the world and have the best things (healthcare) over Foreignland. They're relying upon hunches and well targeted areas of misinformation rather than actual facts. The "threatening nature" of true fact played more on their sense of self identity rather than the partisan nature of the topic. What it did not conclude was that giving these rubes books of credible information yet ideologically opposing information would compel them to dismiss the books after reading it. Sure, but the amount of transactions happening right now is more or less maintaining our way of life. Without it, you wouldn't get instant credit, products and luxuries. We've plunged into it for a reason. By claiming the 1929 crash is limited, that's like saying the Lehman bust and its subsequent panic also incurred limited effects. But what they faced then and what we're facing now isn't sustained bleeding from those crashes but rather a stagnant and prolonged recovery. While the speed of information can be a catalyst, it's more of the nature of our interconnected systems (as it was in the 1920s) rather than the technological backbone that makes it possible. Our latest generation doesn't have a problem with this as they knowingly opt in to discard their privacy. Their response would be, so what? In the early 1900s, everyone knew everything about each other in small towns. What was privacy then? I don't liked being tracked into a metric and quantitative statistic. I'm sure there's a market to cater for people like me if I were totally inclined to privacy. But as it was in the past, you still had to work to keep your privacy. We are given an opportunity (an illusion for most) to accomplish something that wasn't as readily available before. Your tone is as if we've lost something. It could be that we've never had the ability to gasp all the ins and all the outs in the first place. But it's sure a lot more fun now. Even apriori facts resonate with different context, nuance, and emotion to different people. No flag lapel pin? Doesn't go to church every Sunday? Dijon mustard on a hotdog? So ****ing what? The success of those partisan sites isn't based on how much they deliberately withhold facts but rather their ability to string as many of them together into a coherent or symbolically resonant and possibly misinformed narrative.
But what you are describing is the old model of information consumption. People get information in three different ways - by opting into a stream that they are comfortable with (bards to newspapers to TV to blogs - it's all the same thing actually when just consuming ideas) or by seeking it out (libraries in the past to search engines in the present), and finally, by interacting with others (friends, mentors, relatives, conferences....to internet newsgroups, bbs's, facebook, twitter, etc). If all your friends were exactly like you, then your point is valid. People only expose themselves to their own ideas. But that's not the case - I am exposed to more ideas I disagree with than I agree with. Not because of some new trend in being overloaded with information - but because I interact with people who are far more different than myself...I mean, the circle of people we interact with on a daily basis has increased logarithmically. Of course there will be more disagreement - there's so much more diversity of thought. I'd argue that all of that was already there - but the communication channel's connecting people of opposite poles were not. Today - they are connecting and when matter touches anti-matter - it explodes. That's what we are seeing. That's the difference today. But that tendency hasn't been demonstrated to be time related. That is, I have yet to see that today people are more rooted in their beliefs than 10 years ago, 100 years ago, or 1000 years ago. Just taking a snap shot in time today doesn't indicate it's a trend. It could be that people are less stubborn but still pretty stubborn none-the-less. If Basso was seeking like-minded believers - why would he come here? Why this forum. I have been here for nearly 10 years - and you longer. Why are we still here in D&D? It's not because we agree my friend. It's not because we are like minded - it's exactly the opposite. Our differences is actually what is bringing us together - not our common passion as Rockets fans. Because if that were the case, we'd all be hanging and chatting in the GARM. Was it? Maybe in a historical context - but in 80 years they may say the same thing about the glitch that dived the markets. Plus, that 700 point panic was an abberation - there was no economic collapse - it was merely a gyration in a market at the end of the day. All I am saying it that information - or the amount of it, is really a matter of perception. Humans have long dealt with phenomenon that was of far greater information than processable by the human mind. Afterall, that is what the purpose of statistics and probability are for. That's why calculus is. That's what any macroscience is - from physics to biology. Medicine is based on dealing with an overload of information and complexity - by trying to summarize the billions of processes that go on in our bodies into things like pulse, temp, and blood pressure. Or look at weather. I don't think disabling GPS or not opting into 4 square is opting out of information age. That's a bit hyperbole don't you think? So what? I filter all the time. I don't fully grasp anything, not since the first day of school and not when I'm out with my friends. And I bet you that was true for cave men too. What's new? Our brains are designed to deal with this - I think we like it. I think most people choose to participate in the distraction of information than choose to run into the mountains for peace and quite. Facebook is totally opt-in. How many people do you know have choose not to create a Facebook profile? That's the limits of language, not the excess of information. Perhaps language isn't keeping up...
