Confirmation Bias: Feels Great but Looks Stupid

You guys, I’m troubled. So much of the voting populace rely entirely on social media “news” and 7th-hand anecdotal accounts to solidify their beloved prejudice. It’s an unbridled confirmation bias orgy, and it’s really not helpful to anyone.

Today I saw someone share a repost of a screenshot of a repost by someone with their name crossed out who allegedly knows someone who knows someone with valid information about how the recent surge in global COVID cases is a political hoax. Then all of her friends commented with aggressive approval and validation.

People used to gossip and talk mindless bullshit amongst themselves, but now they’re publishing it to the internet for the whole world to see. With no shame. Social media is the modern-day sharpie on the bathroom stall and a lot of people really think Becky wants them to call her for a good time. We’re talking about grown-ass adults here. People who have procreated. People who vote.

I tried respectfully inquiring about the validity of her information source and was instantly vilified as the leader of a fundamentalist radical rebel militia set to overthrow the very principles of freedom. She took great offense and told me to leave her alone.

Like… can we talk? Or are people gonna just keep thumping their chests and shaking their fists in the air while they spew completely unfounded hate propaganda and rhetoric at the demonized “other side”? This is the greatest source of division in the world. It only propagates ignorance and doesn’t move us any closer to sustainable solutions to the problems that affect us all.

Please note that wholesale condemnation of entire swaths of the human population just because they have different beliefs than you is the same tribalistic thinking that breeds racism and blind hatred. It is the problem that people cling to like a solution.

Herbert Spencer rightly warned us: “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” I don’t write-off people anywhere on the political spectrum without first seeing if their beliefs stand up to scrutiny with logical arguments and credible information.

I’m sad that people are so unwilling to have peaceful conversations about their differing perspectives in order to learn from each other and get a fuller picture of reality. Why are we hotboxing our own ideas like a smelly, intellectual dutch oven and foaming at the mouth when anyone approaches with an equally valid point of view?

The only way to end the war against “them” (whoever your “other side” is) is to open your mind to the possibility that maybe, just maaaaybe, you’re not right about everything. Is that so hard to concede?

Mark Twain said it best: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Please, let’s start listening to each other. Let’s have civil discourse. Let’s value open-mindedness and humility more than we value dominance and infallibility. I think that would help a lot.

But I’m open to being wrong.

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Previously published on medium

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