An addiction to easy answers will bury us all

articles of the week

After the Renaissance, the Reformation. The sunny days of progress transformed to stormy years of relentless religious and political conflict. The link between them of course was the printing press, and the sudden explosion and dissemination of thousands of conflicting ideas and nostrums. The development of the Internet has proved to be the same dangerous catalyst for our own times. So it’s worth considering carefully what is going on. This week we showcase two articles from the Conversation which do exactly that.

The first by Rotem Perach, Deborah Husbands and Tom Buchanan, from the prestigious University of Westminster highlights this wave of misinformation. Most chillingly, how people cheerfully spread it even when they know it to be false. The second by Dorje C Brody[2] looks at why. The basic problem is confirmation bias-when people are asked to make a difficult choice between two conflicting stories, and find it hard to sift the evidence they will choose the one that confirms their existing beliefs.

Is all this dangerous? Yes, it can be. We still recall people who declared in 2015 “I think all this country’s problems are caused by membership of the EU” They weren’t of course as we have since discovered. Now one could, some did, make a reasoned case for leaving the EU. But this kind of thought-excluding confirmation bias made all attempts to impose reason and evidence impossible. Bad choices followed; and they have been coming ever since. 

Which in turn raises a deeper thought, which we hesitate to write. Only because this is a site utterly open to all reasonable ideas do we broach it. Can people really be trusted with their own decisions? Or must we now consider return to rule by a governing elite, if only for the sake of social peace and order? It is a subject we will return to in due course.

[1]https://theconversation.com/some-people-who-share-fake-news-on-social-media-actually-think-theyre-helping-the-world-215623?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=

[2]https://theconversation.com/the-maths-of-rightwing-populism-easy-answers-confidence-reassuring-certainty-221355?utm_medium=email&utm_campaig

#populism #confirmation bias #cognitive functions #fake news #internet #memes