To: Permaculture ibiblio <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [permaculture] The Things People Say: On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:13:14 -0500
In the light of recent, and previous, controversy about who should or
should not be on this listserv, I offer the following excerpts from the
Nov 2 issue of the New Yorker (which are passed along to us by a friend
who subscribes).
The Things People Say by Elizabeth Kolbert (in which she quotes from
several books by Cass R. Sunstein, author of /Republic.com, Infotopia,
Republic.com 2.0/, and /On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe
Them, What Can Be Done/.)
The latter [book] begins with the relatively uncontroversial premise
that a vigorous exchange of information is critical to the democratic
process....the Web makes virtually unlimited amounts of information
available;...at the same time that it makes more news available, it also
makes more news *avoidable*. "The most striking power provided by
emerging technologies," Sunstein writes, "is the growing power of
consumers to 'filter' what they see." Left-leaning readers know...they
will find the stories that support their view of the world.
Right-leaning readers...find stories that fit their preconceptions. What
holds true for the news sites is even more so for the blogosphere, where
it's possible to spend hours surfing without ever entering new water.
Sunstein says, "...any system that allows for freedom of choice will
create some balkanization of opinion".
Two psychologists...performed the following experiment. After
administering a questionnaire on racial attitudes to seniors at some
nearby high schools, they divided the students into groups. Those
students who... exhibited 'high prejudice' were placed with others
equally biased. Those who expressed 'low prejudice' were grouped with
those who were similarly tolerant. The students were then instructed to
discuss issues like school busing and fair housing. Finally they were
asked to fill out another questionnaire. The surveys revealed a striking
pattern: simply by talking to one another, the bigoted students had
become MORE bigoted and the tolerant MORE tolerant. [The tendency to
become more extreme after speaking with like-minded others has become
know as 'group polarization'.]
Says Sunstein, "There is virtually no opinion an individual can hold
that is so outlandish that he will not find other believers on the Web.
Views that would ordinarily dissolve, simply because of an absence of
social support, can be found in large numbers on the Internet, even if
they are understood to be exotic, indefensible, or bizarre in most
communities". Racists used to have to leave home to meet up with other
racists (ditto Dems with Dems, Repubs with Repubs); now they need not
even get dressed in order to 'chat' with their ideological soul mates.
"It seems plain that the Internet is serving, for many, as a breeding
group for extremism, precisely because like-minded people are
deliberating with greater ease and frequency...", says Sunstein, a
process he refers to as "cyberpolarization", which creates the perfect
conditions for spreading misinformation (e.g. "the birther movement").
By his account, the problem is basically structural: certain tendencies
of the human mind interact badly with certain features of modern tech,
much as certain prescription drugs interact badly with alcohol. Young or
old, bigoted or tolerant, liberal or conservative - everyone is equally
implicated here, since everyone is predisposed to the same, or at least
analogous, mental habits and has access to the same tech.
The acquisition of knowledge is a social process: it is shaped by
language, by custom, and by certain widely accepted standards of
evidence and rationality. For a great many Americans, global warming is
a hoax and "death panels" a reality. ...A historian, Richard Hofstadter,
described the far right of Barry Goldwater's era [the 50's & 60's, for
the youngsters on the list] thusly: "I call it the paranoid style simply
because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated
exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in
mind." This could apply equally today.
The Web is certainly a transformative technology, just as TV and radio
and newspapers once were. There's a temptation, as a result, to confuse
the medium with the message, to assume that, because the Internet is
being used to produce a certain political effect, it was somehow
destined to do so....To borrow that old favorite of the right: computers
don't spread rumors; people do.