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Studies Say Ideology Trumps Facts
Anti-Globalism writes "We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that's not always the case. Being uninformed is one thing, but having a population that's actively misinformed presents problems when it comes to participating in the national debate, or the democratic process. If the findings of some political scientists are right, attempting to correct misinformation might do nothing more than reinforce the false belief."
What if your ideology is based around the careful analysis of facts - like a good science education?
I think I read a similar article sporting the same statistics quite a while ago. Has ArsTechnia posted a dupe? Besides that, the questions they used to measure 'misinformation' aren't the best: There's quite a bit of different meanings to both of them. Could 'possessing weapons of mass destruction' mean having hundreds of thousands shells loaded and ready to go, or could it mean having no more than a couple of arterially shells with expired nerve-gas that even the Iraqis had forgoten about (I THINK we have found the latter). Does being involved with Al-Quida mean planning and bankrolling every attack and operation together, or does it mean that Saddam tentatively let some Al Quida members into the country? Ars' summery doesn't even agree with the graphic they used: The graphic says the question was "The US has found evidence that Saddam Hussain was working closely with terrorist groups" while the article says that the numbers represent folks who though "there was a credible link between the 9/11 attack and Saddam Hussein". Bit of a difference there.
The American media has a good deal of power, and that power carries a good deal of responsibility. When the media creates false debates, unreasoned arguments, and promotes trivia above important things, they abuse that power. A single newsperson instilling spin into a popular story has done more evil than many purse-snatchers.
I speak of the American media because I don't understand enough of the rest of the world's media to comment.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
That's a very nice summation of a serious problem. This issue is why I always teach (and try to practice) that it is important to admit when you are wrong. The nice thing about doing so, is that you have to do it less often as time goes on. Well, a bit - but it becomes easier to do. One should never allow the value you have invested in believing something to be a factor in whether you believe it or not.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Now, you might claim illegality under the so called "international law". But here too, one can find a legal basis in various UN resolutions (e.g. 678, 687).
But, advocating for taking war actions only under the direction of the UN is fairly silly. There are plenty of situations in which the United States should be compelled to act even if various nations disagree with US policy.
Instead of focusing on the legality of the action in question, the more interesting question is if the war itself was in America's best interests. Here, one can most certainly raise all sorts of claims vis-a-vee whether the war itself was a worthwhile action (cost vs. benifeits).
Yep, 'tis true enough. FWIW I perceive far too many people making these decisions based on emotional or social needs rather than the "facts in evidence". That's where the delusion starts for many people, because then they want to pretend that wasn't what they did. They imagine they're rational and open-minded when they're exactly the opposite. Of course they're doing THAT for emotional reasons - preservation of ego - as well. And they slide further down the slope.
Political parties and their social influences and "platforms" actually harm rational debate rather than help it. People buy into party groupthink and become polarized and dogmatic. Forget having multiple parties and campaign finance reforms... if we really wanna fix what ails our political system, we'd abolish the "party system" and institute electoral lotteries to shut out the the Good Old Boys (and yes, that includes Obama).
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (Pub.L. 93-148) limits the power of the President to wage war without the approval of the Congress. ~From wikipedia.
Both houses did pass a resolution for the Iraq and Afghani wars so I don't really know what hes trying to say, Bush wasn't the only one who wanted war.
It appears to be a generic troll. Completely generic. Notice the complete lack of any context whatsoever. You could cut that text and paste it into any political discussion from 1980 until today -- "the current crisis" could mean anything, the "explanation" of the root cause in fact fails to in any way explain how the supposed cause is in any way causal to "the current crisis" (it can't do that, of course, since that would require actually justifying the assertion with details that would then make the post no longer completely generic). There is, in fact, no actual content to the message itself -- it like a Rorschach test -- if you thought that message actually said anything, look again at what it actually says, vs. what meaning you're actually inserting into it yourself by making assumptions about what the author is referring to. If in fact you think it said anything at all, you're making assumptions about what the author meant that he never actually said. "the current crsis", "the problem" "pretty much every area" -- the message contains many words, but it specifically says nothing at all.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
You know, sometimes, one side really is right, or at least substantially less wrong than the other.
Yes, but not necessarily because their analysis and thinking are more sound... You can be a bloody-minded partisan and still hit on a good idea every now and then, even if it's just because the other side opposes the idea.
Unfortunately, it takes two to tango. IF the democrats had put up someone even reasonably qualifying for the office, they would have won. And yet again, they may prove to have made the same mistake again, choosing the MOST liberal senator out of the whole bunch. If they had picked like 85 instead of 100 on the list, this election would not even be in doubt...
an excellent example of the dissonance discussed.
you are a republican, a thoroughly indoctrinated one.
Obama isn't even close to "liberal" democrat.
If you want liberal take a look to canada, and that's only what 85 out of 100 scale liberals want.
The truth is it wouldn't matter who the democrats trotted up there.
If you never knew GW, and he ran under the democratic ticket, you would rain the same derision upon him.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Male brain, female brain, monkey brain, whatever. In a recent experient, monkeys too were shown to build (at least the symptoms of a) cognitive dissonance.
It makes sense, if you think about it. You can't really do much with a mental model where simultaneously "all grass is green" and "all grass is red" are true. You must discard or fix one of the statements, or maybe go for some compromise like "most grass is green, but some species are red" or maybe admit "I have no bloddy clue what colour grass is, that still needs to be determined."
The only bad dissonances happen when one just can't let go of one of the ideas, so the other one _has_ to be false, all evidence be damned. As someone else correctly noted, most often when one's beliefs and actions are irreconcileable with each other. If you're not able to let go of the beliefs, you redefine the actions.
A broken model is actually a source of stress and discomfort until it's somehow fixed, so virtually everyone will do something to fix it.
We could go into who builds the worst dissonances. (Though I'm not aware of any data saying that women build worse resolutions than the men, or viceversa.) But the basic issue of needing a consistent model isn't gender specific, or as far as we know even species specific. Your cat tries to keep its little mental model just as consistent as you do with yours.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Well, in the end, the scientific method is just a way to _avoid_ clinging to some dogma and building cognitive dissonances to support it. There is no immovable "truth", or rather, we don't know it yet. Your pet theory is likely to be not quite the whole "truth" yet. There will eventually be some data which require it to be refined even further. Be honest to yourself and admit that you could have only an incomplete understanding of the universe, and that way we can all continue to learn more.
Anyone who sees science as some immutable dogma, or as some choice between this dogma and that one, isn't doing science in the first place. That's religion. It's the exact opposite of science. And, yes, it's funny to see people rant against religion, while using science as a dogma. That's not science vs religion, that's religion vs religion. One of them uses pseudo-science trappings, but it's used as a religion nevertheless.
I don't see how you can qualify the real thing as, basically, self-delusional, or conversely claim that only sticking to a bullshit fairy-tale as The Truth is the only non-self-delusional behaviour. Science is all about avoiding that kind of absolute truths and abandoning any pretense that you know everything. This is the data we have. This is the theory that explains that data. When we'll have more data, we'll refine the theory some more. If some of those axioms don't fit the data, we'll discard the axioms. It's just about as intellectually honest as it gets.
So, pray tell, in which way is that kind of admission that we don't know everything "self-delusional"?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
How much does a cow weigh? If you ask ten people to estimate the average weight of a cow, then the average of their estimates will probably be a little off. If you ask 100 people, you'll get a number that's closer. If you ask 1000, you'll get a number that's even closer. Why? Because, 90% of us (hypothetically) don't know what a cow weighs, so our guess is going to be off. But, statistically, 45% will be too high, and 45% will be too low, so they cancel each other out. That leaves the other 10% who grew up on a farm, or are veterinarians, or for whatever other reason know what a cow weighs. As the sample grows, the correct answer rises to the top. Which means that, since 90% of us don't know enough about politics to make an informed vote, then the best candidate will rise to the top because the other 10% will know what they're doing. But that doesn't work, does it? Why not? Because we're not just randomly guessing. We're deliberately choosing the wrong answer - the wrong candidate - based on something other than the facts. Our ignorance is getting in the way.
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
Can everyone please stop saying 'they' and start saying 'we'?
Or are we playing to the self-delusion that everyone except us is broken?
And then they are further convinced that "elitists" don't care about them.
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
If only it were that simple. Since these people already lack the ability to reason logically and think critically, "prove" means something different to them than it does to you. They will gladly point you to a posting on CoastToCoastAM.com or WhatReallyHappened.org as proof. These postings frequently cite anonymous sources with intimate knowledge of secret programs in the government. That should be all the proof you need right?
You have a problem in your argument... Taking money through taxes is not stealing. You might not like it, and you may not agree with it, but it isn't illegal.
Also, taxes aren't a bad thing. They pay for all sorts of things like roads, emergency services, weather radars and a bunch of other things that you don't think are important - until you don't have them.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Actually, you failed utterly. You put an idiotic strawman into the mouth of your ideological opponent, then portrayed him as a stuttering simpleton who hasn't given any thought to his views and is unable to write a coherent reply - in fact, you describe him as hesitating and playing for time in a written message. And after beating this ridiculous scarecrow, you think that the audience - us - is somehow convinced that your ideology - which I presume is libertarian from your premise that taxation is stealing - is supreme to socialism.
Your post is a truly pathetic attempt at ideological indoctrination at both levels, and yet you think that you've accomplished something besides making yourself look like an idiot or a particularly inept demagogue. That is a clear example of cognitive dissonance, and one that seems quite common within libertarians.
Or have I just been trolled ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.