Living In An Echo Chamber

So I spend a good deal of time thinking about odd stuff, I have to admit. What kind of odd stuff am I talking about in this video? Well, I'm talking about living in an echo chamber. We all, we all live in a in a kind of an odd world today where we are, we're becoming more and more fractionalized. We're becoming more and more separated from one another. And that tendency to be more and more separated from one another is reinforced oddly enough, by the thing that draws us— that can potentially draw us closest together, and that's the internet. Think about this: the amazing array of choices that exist for us today to gather information, to gain information about things. And it's not just on the internet, it's also in publications and on television. We have this amazing array of information, and yet most of us simply choose to listen to, to read, to watch, to be exposed to material that already— that confirms ideas and beliefs that we already have. And so we don't watch people's videos who are different from us. One of the consequences of subscribers is that you only watch the people that you subscribe to, and you don't discover new people. We only get the news from sources that, uh, confirm our pre-existing beliefs about the world. We only read publications. We only associate with other people, all of whom are echoing our own beliefs and our own thoughts. Now, this is peculiar. I think it's peculiar. That doesn't mean that I don't engage in it. I do engage in it. I try not to. I'm aware of it, and so I try not to. But I have to say, when I listen to someone who is coming from a belief system that's radically different from my own, and that I have already thought through, at least I believe I've already thought through— listen, it's Airplanes. Those of you who've heard my outside videos before know that we get lots of little airplanes at this time of day. I try to do that, but I have to— I don't have to admit, I do admit that I grow impatient when I hear someone articulating an argument that I just simply have already in my own mind considered and rejected. And so my openness to alternative ideas is limited, and I only listen to things that are conforming. Now, there's an old psychological theory about this called cognitive dissonance, developed by a guy named Leon Festinger. Leon Festinger, one of the most, really, I think one of the most profound psychological principles that was developed in the 20th century. And Festinger simply says that when we are confronted with information that disconfirms beliefs that we have, we must deal with what he called the cognitive dissonance that, that conflicting information creates for us psychologically. And so what we do is we figure out all kinds of, of intricate ways to make the information and our beliefs make sense. Now, that, that often extends as far as distorting the information, and We are all very prone to operating according to principles of cognitive dissonance. And now we've even gone beyond cognitive dissonance to the point of cognitive refusal, of kind of information refusal. I refuse to be exposed to information that is disconfirming of my beliefs. And so, for example, If you believe that 9/11 was a government plot, then you refuse to be exposed to information that disconfirms that principle. And vice versa, if you think that 9/11 was a result of the 19 hijackers, not paid for by the Bush administration and not elaborately constructed by them, then, then you refuse to consider information that is presented by people who believe that it was a government plot. Now, it's not completely refuse to consider it, right? Because I believe that I've looked at things that I have already made judgments about, and then I have fully evaluated the information, and therefore I am accurate in my decisions. But we all think that way. That's what cognitive dissonance does. So the— where am I going with this? Where I'm going with this is as follows. It's a question. How can we help one another to be open to possibilities that we have closed off and not become chronic victims of cognitive dissonance, not live completely in the echo chamber so that we no longer listen to one another when we get an inkling that an individual is coming from a perspective that's different from our own. This is the danger of red state, blue state, for example. You know, saying, well, you're a liberal, that's why you believe that, it's kind of a, well, well, wait a minute, what? Or, you know, you, well, you know, you, you're, you live in a red state, why wouldn't you think that? Um, there's something there that's disturbing to me, a disturbing trend. And I guess so what I'm interested in is your thoughts about this and your own experience with it. What's it like for you? Do you experience this in yourself? Uh, I know we all experience it in others. We're great at seeing these things in others, but how about yourself? Um, what are your thoughts? Thanks. See you again. Take it easy.