Confirmation Bias, Cherry-Picking, and Echo Chambers by Ed Latimore

This post by Ed Latimore offers a good description of common errors people make when forming their opinions and how to combat them.

Gell-Mann Amnesia: What is it?

I recently learned about a term created by Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, Jaws and Andromeda Strain. He identified something he labeled the Gell-Mann Amnesia. (Crichton named it after a friend, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann who discovered and named the quark.)

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.”

I have seen amnesia in action with people I know. As an example, I know a married couple who are devout Catholics. They distrust the reporting of The Boston Globe because they believe the Globe harbors an anti-Catholic bias. Yet they believe everything else the Globe says! I guess the Globe is biased only on one subject. Right?

I think there is another version of Gell-Mann Amnesia. Here is an example. During the Trump administration the media harped endlessly on his alleged collusion with Russia. When the Mueller report showed that there were no such ties, the people I know who bought into the Russia-gate story conveniently forgot how they were misled for years then move on to the next story. Their faith in their trusted news sources remains intact.

Tucker Carlson: Should We Care That He Is Off The Air?

A friend posted his reaction on Facebook to Fox pulling Tucker Carlson’s show off the air by saying that he will shed no tears over Carlson’s departure. Why? Because Carlson didn’t advocate individualism, free markets or limited government but instead represents “right-wing tribalism” and a push for big government conservativism. Several other people expressed their agreement for my friend’s position.

My opinion of Carlson isn’t quite as negative. I won’t shed tears for Tucker either but for a different reason. He probably will land on a platform where his audience will be even larger (like Joe Rogan who has an audience at least three times larger than Carlson’s) and will make much more money. (However, will he have as much influence?) 

What bothers me is how Democrats such as Chuck Schumer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) openly called for taking Tucker off the air and, for whatever reason, Fox complied. (I’ve heard various theories what lead to his sudden silencing. My guess is that it was a combination of factors.) 

I find it interesting too that Schumer or AOC aren’t demanding Fox to remove Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham or Jesse Watters. As I said, I don’t feel bad for Carlson; I’m more concerned about the concerted effort to silence people who question the dominant narratives.

Despite his flaws, Tucker played an important role in challenging and questioning many of the narratives pushed by the Left and their media cheerleaders. He revealed how DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) undermines meritocracy in the fields of airline piloting, medicine and corporate America, the incestuous relationship between pharma, government and media in pushing the vaccines and lockdowns while silencing and de-platforming prominent, respected doctors who disagreed, and the shady collusion between the various Federal agencies and Twitter (plus other social media platforms) to suppress mostly conservative voices. (Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, who Elon Musk recruited to produce the “Twitter files,” call this relationship the Censorship Industrial Complex. Shellenberger and Taibbi have been guests on Tucker’s show. Both are self-described liberals.) None of the other mainstream media outlets said a peep about the Twitter files.

Thanks to previously unreleased videos of the January 6th protest/riot to which House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave Carlson access, you see a different version of what happened than what we were shown by other media. One of these videos show that Jacob Chansley [“QAnon Shaman”] was accompanied by Capitol police almost as if they were giving him a tour. This ultimately led to Chansley’s release from prison. Chansley’s lawyer didn’t have access to this video before Carlson’s show.

Yes, Carlson questioned whether our involvement in the Ukraine war serves our interests and is worth threatening World War III, shared claims of corruption in the Ukraine government and expressed concern about the lack of accounting for how our funds and military hardware are being used. Even if we endorse supporting the Ukraine militarily, these concerns shouldn’t be minimized or ignored.

I'm not saying Carlson is an individualist or a libertarian. I'd say he is a conservative populist. He regularly has liberal guests such as Tulsi Gabbard, Glenn Greenwald, Alex Berenson and Michael Shellenberger. I know from watching Carlson he believes we have a uni-party government consisting of an elite that imposes laws and regulations that affect us but not them. I also know he has taken pot shots at libertarians and free market economics. So be it.

According to Megyn Kelly, Carlson wasn't fired. His show was taken off the air while Carlson is still under contract which was renewed in 2021 and expires in 2024. There is speculation that this was done to muzzle Carlson so that he won't be able to influence the 2024 election.

In evaluating Tucker Carlson, we should weigh his positives and negatives. Others have covered the negatives, so I won’t repeat them here. I’d narrow Carlson’s positives to two themes. One, his concern over the breakdown of civilization. Two, his concern over the constant and increasing attacks on free speech. (Free speech and civilization are interconnected.)

Whatever his flaws, you can tell Tucker was effective in asking uncomfortable and unpopular questions when you see the paroxysms of glee his departure has spawned on the left … and even on the right.

 

Scott Adams on Censorship and Voting

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert and host of daily video blog Coffee With Scott Adams on YouTube and Locals) posted this tweet with a provocative thesis.

Censorship determines the narrative. The narrative determines public opinion. Public opinion determines the vote. The vote determines who runs the country.

We have replaced voting with battles over who gets censored.

In response I posted this:

Behind the censorship is the postmodern idea that those who have the most power can decide and determine what is true.

Although I agree with Adams, I think he doesn’t go back far enough to the source of the censorship. The censorship Adams talks about doesn’t spring out of nothing like the Big Bang. We need to identify the beliefs that people use to justify imposing censorship that prevents certain ideas from being expressed or facts from being uncovered.

I believe postmodernism plays a role in many issues. I summarize postmodernism as the belief that there is no objective truth. Therefore, “truth” is determined by those who have the most power over the tools of communication such as social media, news media and over our language which includes the meanings of words and what is considered acceptable uses of these words. (There are some who claim that even silence can be oppressive because if you don’t vocally repudiate something that means you secretly support the “offensive” idea.)

Therefore, I now use the term “partial news” when referring to the news media. (I know, it's not as catchy as Trump's "fake news." I’m also thinking of using “skewed news.”) Here the word “partial” has two meanings. The first meaning refers only part of the story being told so that leads us to the conclusion they want us to reach. The second meaning refers to our news outlets as being partial rather than being impartial (i.e., objective). Postmodernism lies behind this because postmodernists believe there is no objective truth. When the truth and facts no longer serve as a yardstick, your political agenda takes over. News stories can then be crafted to steer us to a predetermined conclusion rather than presenting other sides of the story. 

Dr Bhattacharya Twitter Post on the Department of Misinformation + My Reply

Jay Bhattacharya

@DrJBhattacharya

There is no one disinterested enough, omniscient enough, honest enough, good enough, wise enough, and trustworthy enough to populate a Ministry of Truth. Wanting to lead or serve in one is self-disqualifying.

My reply:

Henry Scuoteguazza

@scuoteguazza

Replying to

@DrJBhattacharya

I often say that the desire to run for elected office is self-disqualifying, especially with a government that has much more power now. With the influence of postmodernism, which denies objective truth, the "truth" is then decided by those with the most power or influence.

Labeling versus Discussing or Debating

A New Radical Centrism

@a_centrism

Lefties call people they disagree with fascists and racists even though 99% of the time they are neither. Righties call people they disagree with communists and pedophiles even though 99% of the time they are neither. Once these insults lose their sting, what will replace them?

My reply: Good point. For both sides it’s way more fun (and easier) just to label people than to debate them.

What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known? Russell Conjugation - Eric Weinstein

What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?

I came across a reference to something called the Russell Conjugation, an idea created by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. (It’s also called an emotive conjugation.) It consists of three statements that describe the same behavior from different perspectives. Here is an example from an article by Eric Weinstein.

I am firm. [Positive empathy]

You are obstinate. [Neutral to mildly negative empathy]

He/She/It is pigheaded. [Very negative empathy]

As Weinstein explains:

In order to understand the concept properly you have to appreciate that most words and phrases are actually defined not by a single dictionary description, but rather two distinct attributes:

I) The factual content of the word or phrase.

II) The emotional content of the construction.

How would this apply to political disagreements? Would it be the following? “I am right (because I have the correct principles). You are mistaken (because your principles are wrong). They are evil (because they have no principles, or their principles are evil).” In this case, “I” refers to yourself. “You” refers to a friend who disagrees with you. “They” refers to a politician or pundit who is on the other side.

I pose it this way because I think we are not likely to label a friend as evil. If we believe a friend is evil, why are we friends? But it is much easier for us to call someone we don’t know evil precisely because we don’t have a personal connection. As philosophers like Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind) remind us, our psychology has deep tribal roots. Many experiments run by researchers show that they can get participants form us vs. them groups based on superficial qualities such as eye color or sports team affiliation. (See more at this You Are Not So Smart episode.)

I know that my observation on how we label friends versus people we don’t know doesn’t hold up all the time. I know friends who have disowned family members or have terminated friendships over political disagreements such as which presidential candidate to for. But I also know people who haven’t done this.