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.
==============================================================
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.
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In a previous comment I brought up trolling. If you really care about an issue, it can be cathartic to go to an opposing echo chamber and drop a few unadressed points on the edge of their snark envelope. Sometimes you have to completely jettison the snark. Even then your points can end up MIA.
Sorry, it was a temporary suspension, with a change of guard. Still operating.
Canman,
does snark ever lead foster an illuminated discussion? If not, what use is it bar letting off steam or winning plaudits from like-minded people?
A Marxist Proff teaching a mandatory critical thinking class ask us to state out loud “some of the things I believe are wrong” We did. He was then ask by a student if he would make the same statement. He refused talking around it instead. He was great if accidental teacher.
I used to teach a class of adults and we’d often go to the pub and discuss things and climate change often came up. I did most of the talking on that subject. After three months of conversation one of the students remarked that he had no idea after so much discussion what position I took on AGW. I was happy to hear that.
Never heard of him, why?
As for the “come here to fight” bit, really I come here to check out the sea ice page, glance through the posts, test my understanding when more interesting discussions show up, and enjoy that though I may not always find others agreeing with me, at least I don’t get the sense that everyone thinks I’m insane for daring to question some holy dogma.
Spent too many thousands of posts on too many boards before I realized that not everyone operates under the assumption that facts trump opinions and critical rational examination of any conclusions drawn from a set of facts is a good thing.
The socialist bit is more easily dismissed, as I’m one of the “if men were angels, this would be heaven” types, idealist BS no doubt, but I’m aware of the difficulties which arise when a capitalist oriented government tries to switch into something that looks enough like socialism at first glance to fool the unwary into believing the state is any more likely to be trustworthy or better at controlling capital/means of production for the benefit of all than private citizens generally are.
Just pointing out that there are at least theoretical socialists who come around because they agree on the general AGW-is-crap front, though quite possibly have vastly differing takes on how a government should operate from what others may think would be a more common position around here.
Nonetheless, our personal ideologies about politics aside, we can both surely agree that trying to turn science into a political field–as the IPCC and various others have been–is a very bad thing.
Gene Selkov says:
December 6, 2013 at 5:01 pm
“DirkH says:
The Xerox machines in Russia
[Were] as closely guarded
As the missile sites.
Almost true. There has always been some sloppiness in everything Russians undertook, however seriously. When the guards went out for a smoke, women used the “Kseroks” machines to copy knitting recipes from German fashion magazines.”
I was thinking more about Samisdat; but the influence of Western fashion was probably equally dangerous.
Zeke says:
December 6, 2013 at 5:30 pm
“DirkH says:
December 6, 2013 at 4:25 pm
This was from Konrad’s comment.”
Oh. Apologies to Konrad.
Konrad says:
December 6, 2013 at 4:12 pm
Hear-hear, and well-said. If facts, logic, actual science, and truth are a “bubble”, then, guilty as charged.
@_Jim
“are you 10 (not “a” 10, but rather, are you 10 years old)?”
No.
More on topic, do you think that expressing “they seem to have the mental faculties of a 10 yr old (Sisi?)” is a good way to burst filter bubbles?
(I understand you didn’t want to call me and would just prefer to talk about me behind my back, but -as you say- since I am here anyway…)
I’m sorry if you’ve experienced this first-hand, but most of the agnostics I know (including me) respect the right to observe religion and even find great beauty and compassion in the gospel.
Churches near me bless the community with their charity and receptiveness. I am not religious, and I do not despise those who are. They are my brothers and sisters, a little different from me, like all people are in various ways. I don’t find them or their practises objectionable. Ritual seems to be a necessary component for a healthy society of phyche, and the process in some churches unites people in grace and even majesty. Some practises in some churches seem strange and even dubious, but ‘tolerating’ those is as easy as breathing.
This is as, Tbraunlic and others have commented, a real problem and I think also a very damaging for the society, because it leads to a lot of angry people with ill-informed views.
A good debate should lead to the opposite. It should be informative and entertaining, where each part can listen and learn something from the opposite side, but the current climate debate is far from good, it is far too much polarized.
It is no easy way to improve the situation, but I think it would be a good step if well informed people on each side from time to time looked to the extreme parts on their own side and criticized them.
I think of something similar to Anthony’s eminent critique of “Slaying the Sky Dragon”
Berry@December 7, 2013 at 1:19 am,
I think there is a distinction between clever snark and ad homenim hate and that a fair-minded debater on the receiving end will see the former as a challenge.
barry says:
“I used to teach a class of adults and we’d often go to the pub and discuss things and climate change often came up. I did most of the talking on that subject.”
I’ll bet.
It never hurts to reiterate a skeptic’s position on AGW:
AGW may well exist. However, there is no measurable evidence linking the rise in CO2 to global warming. None.
Is that clear enough for barry?
Without measurements, everything is simply a conjecture. Therefore, there is no credible rationale for spending $Billions/$Trillions to mitigate something that is too small to measure — and which may also not exist.
All well and good but ask yourself how you came to be a skeptic. I think this bubble theory works mainly for the activist, the sinistral folks who don’t care whether a theory is correct or not but saw the enormous potential of it to push an agenda. Remember the guy who interfered with biologists trying to preserve dwindling frogs and toads because it made such a good global warming story, even though he basically knew it was a fungus killing off these lovely little critters.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/21/contrasting-good-and-bad-science-disease-climate-change-and-the-case-of-the-golden-toad/
I used to buy into the AGW theory, simply because it didn’t occur to me that prestigious institutions might want to BS me. Indeed, I believe they actually started out very sincere but when they got hooked on addictive grants and adulation of the not so good guys who had a very good use for this theory, they daren’t let go. I initially took it like I take a news story that they have new promising therapies for cancer, or that a giant asteroid broke up and punched holes in Jupiter. Why would I not believe this was the straight goods.
No my friends, I was not in any bubble. But when evidence began to mount and the NGOs were running the science and just egregiously bad science was being done, I naturally resisted this ugly violation of science. Yes I gravitated to like-minded folks who also where outraged by the increasingly political agenda being pushed.
Now tell me why it will be a benefit and an expander of my horizons if I were to discuss CAGW over wine with Joe Romm, or the Stoat, or Nuticelli, or……We are not on opposite sides of a scientific question, it is pro science, freedom advocates battling against the new world order of centrally controlled living, “science” and economy. I do agree that these guys are in a tough bubble to break out of – they just keep adjusting to support the agenda – warming, cooling who cares?
“You’d think people who don’t even believe in God would just laugh and say, ‘Whatever.’
They don’t.” (me at 6:46pm yesterday)
(Gary Selkov at 6:48am today)
{Given the above (and the rest of Mr. Selkov’s comment at 6:48am today), my response along religious lines below is, I believe, only fair play. I do not plan to prolong the debate beyond this response to him.}
Dear Mr. Selkov,
You tell me nothing I did not already know. By not pretending that I do not believe (and writing accordingly), I (laugh out loud) am most certainly not looking for “goodwill.” The name of Jeshua (Jesus) is so powerful that it instantly arouses rage in some and, here on WUWT, even when only indirectly alluded to, has, from time to time, made me the target of some amazingly vicious language. Those who are comfortable and secure in their agnosticism or atheism never respond as you do. They either say nothing at all or are gracious, even if in disagreement.
Your anger is telling. You could not sanely be that angry at a God you do not believe exists or at Jeshua who claimed to be God’s Son, who, given your beliefs, you would logically consider to simply be insane, someone to be pitied, not to be cursed at and spit upon. More likely, it is that you are (and your attacking me so personally along the lines of my thinking I’m “cute” indicates this is so) angry at someone who claimed to be a Christian or an observant Jew who was cruel to you. I’m so sorry (no, I’m not trying to be “cute”). As I said to Willis Eschenbach several months ago re: a known Christian who was downright uncivil to him in a comment on a WUWT thread, that person was wrong. But, try to remember this basic truth: the sinful followers of a faith do not logically negate that faith’s tenets.
Keep your eyes on seeking Truth. Jesus loves you. The only thing that really matters in this world is what you do about the destiny of your eternal soul. While you are conscious, you still have a choice. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. Choose life!
L’ chaim!
Shalom and agape,
Janice
Canman,
Maybe so, but I was asking a different question.
Does snark ever foster an illuminated discussion?
In my experience snark prompts a contest rather than a fair-minded exchange of ideas.
db,
Point is, I never preached my opinion.
That long discussion began when I learned one of my students had graduated in maths and economics. I queried him on some points of statistical analysis. He asked why I wanted to know, so I told him I was interested in understanding climate change, and when my students queried me in the pub I described the scientific underpinnings and the different points of view as I understood them. The maths grad was the one who remarked he didn’t know my personal opinion after three months talking about it.
De Bono has some excellent advice for fostering useful discussion. He gets people to swap “sides” and argue the case of their opponents as honestly and as powerfully as they can. A genuine effort is key to making that work. This is what a properly skeptical mind should do as a matter of course, in my opinion.
In fact, arguing honestly and powerfully for the opposing point of view might be a good soluton to the problem of the bubble. This thread could be an example. But, as I said, the effort has to be genuine.
barry,
You’re arguing with everyone, as usual.
You say, “He gets people to swap ‘sides’ and argue the case of their opponents…”
That is a long-held tactic of law schools: they get students to argue both sides of a question.
Seems somewhat unethical in my view. You are asking someone to “honestly” argue a position that is antiethical to their beliefs and understanding.
By the same token you would probably want me to argue “honestly” that runaway global warming and climate catastrophe are approaching. Can’t be done, barry, at least not honestly.
Why not?
Because I am a scientific skeptic. Therefore, I require at least some measurable evidence to argue for something like that — and there is no such measurable evidence. None.
So, sorry, barry. I guess I wouldn’t make a great lawyer. Somehow, that makes me feel like I just stepped out of the shower.
db,
Science and law are about assessment, not personal beliefs. Was it unethical of me to inform my students of the opposing views on AGW? Would I have exhibited intellectual integrity if I had argued for one view and neglected to mention others that I knew of?
F. Scott Fitzgerald
DeBono’s advice goes further and is aimed at any forum, not just law students. It’s a fine way to encourage people out of their filter bubbles whatever the topic.
barry,
The problem is this:
I am open to measurable physical scientific evidence that conclusively links human CO2 emissions to runaway global warming — while you, on the other hand, have a completely closed mind. For you it is climate catastrophe or nothing. Your way, or the highway.
That’s the difference between scientific skeptics and True Believers. You do not need measurable evidence. Your Belief is sufficient. But scientific skeptics need verifiable facts, per the Scientific Method.
Our way leads to technological progress and the betterment of humanity, while yours is the way of the witch doctor.
db,
Take a look again at our conversation. I have described how I informed my students of opposing points of view and recommended that arguing for the other side is a good idea. You have said you are unable to do this and have described such a practise as unethical. I have not once given a point of view on climate change. But you have – in absolute terms – in your first reply to me and twice since. Which of us is traveling only one highway?
This topic is climate neutral (the article that inspired the OP doesn’t even mention climate), but you can’t seem to help yourself.
You have a habit of telling me what my general opinion is, no matter what sub-topic I’m discussing at the time, and you have always been wrong. You’ve never never asked me what I think on the general topic to verify your characterisation. And I’m close-minded?
Can you dissassociate a discussion on filter bubbles from pushing a line on climate change? Because if you can’t do that, and you think it is “unethical” to articulate views different from your own, then you are probably a good example of someone operating inside a self-made filter bubble. Which would explain the utterly bizzarre interpretation of my views in complete opposition to what I’ve actually said. Did you miss where I wrote that I was happy my students didn’t know what view I held?
Pop the bubble, man! Start afresh.
Quite a few of the comments here seem to be defensive of the freedom to choose to live in a bubble of ideas amongst people conforming to their own views–a cyber-ghetto or “social network” if you will–whereas the article is really about being forced or routed into one, bit-by-bit, step, by-step, by insidious algorithms.
Forcing isn’t freedom, war isn’t peace, etc.
Khwarizmi,
Net filter bubbles somewhat mirror real life choices, where people tend to associate with others that share their views or have similar aspirations. But in real life we are not bubbled off from opposing views by algorithms.
But OTOH, if you want to deliberately encounter different views, there is no better way to get them in great number, and even of useful cogency, than by accessing the net. There is another side to this story if one looks beyond ‘passive’ use of search engines.