I try to read opposing views often, as that pretty much fits my job description for running WUWT, but not everyone does this. Some people are so steeped in tribalism that they won’t even venture outside of their comfort zone to see what the other side is saying, and when offered information by “outsiders”, flatly refuse to even consider it or even become combative towards anyone that suggests it. They tend to prefer being surrounded only by people they like and content that they agree with, and consider giving attention to any other views as “false balance”. Joe Romm and his Climate Progress blog is a good example of this, which is why he has such few comments these days. WUWT often posts press releases generated by the opposite side of the debate verbatim, so that we can consider the merit, I also post articles where I disagree with some of the content, but we also have our own problems like any collection of like minded people. On the plus side, love it or hate it, WUWT is read almost equally by both sides of the climate debate, if it weren’t, it would not have so many blog spawn.
From MIT technology Review, h/t to Steven Mosher
How to Burst the “Filter Bubble” that Protects Us from Opposing Views
Computer scientists have discovered a way to number-crunch an individual’s own preferences to recommend content from others with opposing views. The goal? To burst the “filter bubble” that surrounds us with people we like and content that we agree with.
The term “filter bubble” entered the public domain back in 2011 when the internet activist Eli Pariser coined it to refer to the way recommendation engines shield people from certain aspects of the real world.Pariser used the example of two people who googled the term “BP”. One received links to investment news about BP while the other received links to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, presumably as a result of some recommendation algorithm.This is an insidious problem. Much social research shows that people prefer to receive information that they agree with instead of information that challenges their beliefs. This problem is compounded when social networks recommend content based on what users already like and on what people similar to them also like.
This is the filter bubble—being surrounded only by people you like and content that you agree with.
And the danger is that it can polarise populations creating potentially harmful divisions in society.
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Read the entire article here: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/522111/how-to-burst-the-filter-bubble-that-protects-us-from-opposing-views/
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1311.4658 : Data Portraits: Connecting People of Opposing Views
Social networks allow people to connect with each other and have conversations on a wide variety of topics. However, users tend to connect with like-minded people and read agreeable information, a behavior that leads to group polarization. Motivated by this scenario, we study how to take advantage of partial homophily to suggest agreeable content to users authored by people with opposite views on sensitive issues. We introduce a paradigm to present a data portrait of users, in which their characterizing topics are visualized and their corresponding tweets are displayed using an organic design. Among their tweets we inject recommended tweets from other people considering their views on sensitive issues in addition to topical relevance, indirectly motivating connections between dissimilar people. To evaluate our approach, we present a case study on Twitter about a sensitive topic in Chile, where we estimate user stances for regular people and find intermediary topics. We then evaluated our design in a user study. We found that recommending topically relevant content from authors with opposite views in a baseline interface had a negative emotional effect. We saw that our organic visualization design reverts that effect. We also observed significant individual differences linked to evaluation of recommendations. Our results suggest that organic visualization may revert the negative effects of providing potentially sensitive content.
Michael Craig says:
December 6, 2013 at 9:38 am
Okay, how many of you Googled BP?
+++++++++++
I got about 75% financial hits, with the remainder hits related to how bad BP is. Am I fairly balanced? Pray tell!
You are probably right, Anthony. But hysterical warmists still piss me off and so I come to your website for a dose of sanity.
“A handful of bloggers challenged the massively superior numbers of the environmental NGOs, the lame stream media and governments from one side of the globe to the other. Against an army of millions funded with billions, the bloggers still won. All Soros’ money and all Fenton’s men cannot put AGW back together again.” (Konrad at 4:12pm today)
Quote of the Day! Hear, hear.
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Dear Mac the Knight in Shining Armor,
Your co-workers are blessed to have you working with them. Just think WHERE they would be if you weren’t around… .
Engineer X: Uh…. I think we should report these results to management just like this.
Mac: Whoa, wait a minute! That just says we saw something interesting. It doesn’t say why it happened. You’re saying it will make the Widget faster. We don’t know that. That’s just a good guess.
Engineer X: Well, last time I guessed…. . Guess what? I was right! So there.
Mac: Just give it to me. I’ll run some tests… .
Mac: Sigh. {close door to office…. get out lunch…. go to WUWT….. muttering} There’s that “Janice Moore” again. She is so weird. She’s saying WHAT!!!??? Oooo, {typetty, typetty, type, type, type!!!!}
I understand completely. How gallant of you to respond and let me know we just had a bit of a communication circuit break. All is well. I could have also been more clear at expressing myself, too, you know. Your co-workers have some kind of anti-modern-medicine phobia, I think; the incubation period factor would seem to easily have dispelled their silly notions. But, fear is a funny thing (or NOT so funny… that man going on about Ha-ar-p above is an example — wow; he really believes that stuff!).
Hang in there, O Conscientious Engineer. Sure glad we (as a society) have fine people like you out there solving the problems that make life SO much better than it would otherwise be. THANK YOU!
Your WUWT pal (I hope),
Janice
[Now, when Janet writes something in an elegant font, she must first compose it typrettying carefully on the keyboard.
If so, is a typettty font only used for unimportant things? Mod]
Good point (another one!), Konrad (at 6:19pm): “In a country where the state controls all media including printing, photocopiers can be very dangerous. People could begin distributing {Bibles, the most dangerous threat of all.}”
Truly, it is AMAZING to what lengths the Soviet Union has gone to prevent Jews and Christians from openly practicing their faith. You’d think people who don’t even believe in God would just laugh and say, “Whatever.” They don’t.
Ah, as I write, I just thought of the crux of the matter: when an individual matters more than anything, more than a collective, more than a state, when one is taught that while a state lasts as much hundreds of years but a soul will last forever, and that there is One to whom one owes the highest allegiance, the controllers get nervous.
Janice Moore says:
@ur momisugly Mario Lento (6:30pm) — You, sir, are no mealy-mouthed, namby-pamby, “fair-and-balanced” (barf — truth is NOT “balanced” truth is: X or Y not xxxish-yyyyish), Miss Melly.
You are all-out, pedal-to-the-metal, gung-ho, for TRUTH AND LIBERTY!
#(:))
Canman says:
December 6, 2013 at 12:50 pm
The solution to filter bubbles in echo chambers: trolls with needles.
===============
Even better, call it what it is.
A piss-poor attempt to quell dissension.
Ha.
Nope, John. In your own words or not at all.
You, um, didn’t actually invest in a crock of this nature, did you?
You didn’t answer my question of tropospheric airmass influence via shortwave (3 thru 10 MHz) RF energy, did you?
.
Wait, what does being a socialist have to do with thinking the AGW argument is bunk?
Do I have to turn in my anarchist/socialist/hippie-BS card because I don’t buy the doom and gloom? I mean, I don’t think there is much that suits socialist ideologies about trying to make breathing a taxable act (demonize CO2, set up a mechanism for monetizing it by offering ridiculous offset credits to major emitters, get the whole idea comfortably embedded in the public mind as “the right thing to do“, quietly slide towards a fascist nightmare of breathing licenses and the sort of bureaucratic mechanism necessary to enforce such a system) but hey.
…
Aaaaanyways, I feel the need to point out that there is a group with a less “traditional” opposing view which is kinda filtered here: Slayers.
The flooding in Queensland, especially of Wivenhoe dam, was entirely the result of bad water management, which was the result of scary AGW water models which had projected drought. The story includes an extremely expensive desalinisation plant; the dam was being run above capacity because of the expense of the water. It all was chronicled on Andrew Bolt’s blog and show. Please look it up. John Morpuss is talking nonsense. Mods, I am going to ban myself for the rest of the night.
Can it moisten up otherwise dry airmasses (IOW ‘add water’ to dry air)?
Can it move cold fronts in conjunction or in concert with a divergent upper-level air flow (at the say, 200 mb level) thereby putting the necessary meteorological ingredients necessary to effect a precipitation (convective) event? (a squall line or a series of ‘training’ thunderstorms?)
John, this really sounds like puuuuuuuure magic, if it can, to this laymen who as at least read more than a few meteo texts (meteorological textbooks e.g. those used in courses teaching meteorology).
.
“When we do get ‘one’ here (purported; most come here to troll), they seem to have the mental faculties of a 10 yr old (Sisi?) … I even try to engage the few socialists we have show up in an even-handed non-derogatory manner, JUST to get one under a microscope to see what makes them tick, but, they slink away, choosing not to engage even on a polite level …”
Oh the irony! 🙂
I never derogate, nor slink away, but the derogatory scorn exhibited in this post is regularly visited on people who try to chat with the other side (and I mean it happens all the time at every climate blog, whatever stripe).
Barring a few exceptions I can count on three fingers, no climate forum is holier than the others, whether it’s WUWT, SkS or the any of the semi-popular climate blogs.
Most participants have staked out their position and do not approach the discourse with any inquisitiveness – ie, few contributors are genuinely skeptical. I’d love to see this change, if only so that conversations get more rational and progress more quickly. Ideologically-morivated discourse is next to useless, and for most of those afflicted with it, unnoticed in themselves. It is very hard for an eye to see itself – people need to check the mirror more often, take their own opinions outside and beat them with sharp sticks. Skepticism starts at home.
I’m off going out on the proch to thrash the opinion I just gave.
No, the opposite.
Huh?
Oh the hypocrisy! Oh the presumed assumptions! (Or is it assumed presumptions?)
Which is the greater sin, I wonder?
(Perhaps little “b” barry suffers from ‘stimulus generalization’ condition from his time in ____ when he was ____ yrs old. You will have to tell us, barry, b/c I can’t imagine …)
Little “b” barry I would still discuss your (potential and probable) socialist politics, without castigating in any manner, way, shape or form. I am curious why ppl believe what they believe, esp in light of all we ‘know’ today. (It’s not like we’re living in 14th century England, you see.)
.
barry says:
December 6, 2013 at 7:46 pm
“Most participants have staked out their position and do not approach the discourse with any inquisitiveness ”
===========
I beg to disagree, it was my inquisitiveness that led me into this quagmire.
Every turn leads me deeper into it, but I’m sure learning a lot.
Janice Moore says:
December 6, 2013 at 6:49 pm
++++++
Janice: You really know how to stroke a person’s ego. I like that. And that’s the honest, genuine, unapologetic truth.
You tell me, since you’re the one assuming some connection. If you’re “seeing’ something, spit it out rather than my making a ‘guess’ as to what you’re seeing …
(Seeing things in the low-light of evening again, Max?)
Jumping to confusions; since you asked, I think you do. (I have just given ‘returned’ in the same spirit as was given.)
On a different note, do you know who David Horowitz is? (Or do you just come here often to fight? Either way, I don’t care. So answer the question.)
.
Janice Moore says:
December 6, 2013 at 12:53 pm
###
Found one that is all torn up. The other two are gone. On the other hand, I am getting the materials together to put together some more experimental aquariums. I was actually surprised that a lot of my equipment including two 300 liter and a 200 liter tank were not stolen.
I’m surprised the mods allow your ad hom and slights, but I do appreciate the doubled down irony in your comments.
I find that those who mix politics with science are inevitably encased in the bubble. I’m not interested in mixing politics with science, and I’m not a socialist, so perhaps you’ll get more satisfaction snarking at a target more fitting for your interests. Maybe at a website where politics is the main theme?
Cheers,
barry
_Jim says:
December 6, 2013 at 8:12 pm
===============
You took the bait, you gonna take the discussion to a more appropriate site, or what ?
“I beg to disagree, it was my inquisitiveness that led me into this quagmire.”
That’s why I said “most”, not “all” – and a staked out position (close-minded) after initial inquisitiveness doesn’t automatically mean that the opinion is well-reasoned or uninfluenced by ideology.
I held no opinion and became interested because of the vigour of disputation.
Oh, Desert Yote, that is too bad. I’m sorry. GOOD FOR YOU to “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.” What a guy. Glad they were too lazy to take all your stuff, though.
You are an inspiration to us all to do the same.
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Oh, Mario, you say that to ALL the girls (heh, heh). #(:))
Anyway, thank you for your kind words. Glad to know that!
You need to realize how special you are. I compliment people (meaningfully and sincerely) ALL the time and their response: cold stare. It’s really disheartening. Just today, there were at least two (and I could name many, many, names of those I’ve tried to encourage here who just stare back coldly). You are so good about acknowledging. AND you are one of the engineers (not someone whose gifts make him or her more likely to have good communication skills such as a sales rep.). God blessed you richly.
Do you know what the opposite of love is? No, it is not hate. In the snarls of hatred, there is, at least, an acknowledgement of the person as a person. No, the opposite of love is: indifference.
So, to have someone speak kindly in the face of all the indifference I encounter on WUWT is so healing to my (temporarily) bruised heart (yeah, I should protect it more, I know).
You SHINE, Mario Lento!
(and I’ll try not to embarrass you anymore……. today, lol)
AND (eye roll… left out the most important part)
you (Mario) do a super job of encouraging EVERYONE on WUWT (not just me, oh, brother…) — even the “difficult children.” Way to be.
See you did it again, Janice. Thank you 🙂
You’re welcome. My pleasure.