Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Centrism: Like Strontium-90 In The Milk, Ctd


Cass Sunstein (Harvard law professor and author of “Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide,” was until last month the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) embarrassing himself by rolling in the Centrist midden pile in the New York Times?  


Breaking Up the Echo
By CASS R. SUNSTEIN
Published: September 17, 2012

It is well known that when like-minded people get together, they tend to end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk. The same kind of echo-chamber effect can happen as people get news from various media. Liberals viewing MSNBC or reading left-of-center blogs may well end up embracing liberal talking points even more firmly; conservative fans of Fox News may well react in similar fashion on the right.
The result can be a situation in which beliefs do not merely harden but migrate toward the extreme ends of the political spectrum. As current events in the Middle East demonstrate, discussions among like-minded people can ultimately produce violence...
And so forth.

It goes on like that for quite a ways, citing academic studies of differences created or tweaked under laboratory circumstances and making sweeping statements about human nature lke this one:
This natural human tendency explains why it’s so hard to dislodge false rumors and factual errors. Corrections can even be self-defeating, leading people to stronger commitment to their erroneous beliefs.
The thing is, the only example Mr. Sunstein provides from the real, here-and-now world in which you and I live is this:
A few years ago, for example, both liberals and conservatives were provided with correct and apparently credible information showing that the George W. Bush administration was wrong to think that Iraq had an active unconventional weapons program. After receiving the correct information, conservatives became even more likely to believe that Iraq had such weapons and was seeking to develop more.
Which, if you'll pardon my smutty, low-born, "biased assimilation" Liberal opinion, was entirely predictable. 

7 comments:

Phil said...

The one damn thing that is predictable with those willfully ignorant fucks is that they never let facts get in their way of thinking.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

All of this is simply cover and excuses to screw the Democratic voter in exchange for corporate payola.

That's it...The Bill Clinton and Barack Obama presidencies in a nutshell.
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Anonymous said...

Are you quite done, ifthethunder? Because if you are, then would you kindly shut up about your hate for Clinton and Obama? That's not what this article is fucking about. Go work your issues out on your own fucking site.

Anonymous said...

"water-cooler Cicero"?! Is that similar to a "Short-Bus Socrates"? Or a shithouse philosopher?

Just askin'..

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Proudly stated, nonny.

Too chicken to post your own name?

Bullshit centrism is EXACTLY what has been screwing the Democratic voter in even the elections THAT THEY WIN the last 30 years.
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Anonymous said...

Oooh, big fake-name man wants to have a dicksize contest. Proof you know you've lost, boy. You got schooled and now you're trying to make up for it with chest-thumping.

Keep posting your irrelevant shit. Nobody cares about your whiny pissant hatred for the two presidents who have tried, somewhat successfully, to drag us away from the screaming fucking maw of right-wing disaster, all the while being barraged by the freshly-flung feces of the flying-monkey right, the centrist bullshitters, and their allies on the emoprog hyper-left who can't comprehend how the world works in a reasonable, mature manner.

Maybe one day you'll grow the fuck up and realize that no, you can't just snap your fingers and have everything. When that day comes, I'll be waiting to explain this to you in simple terms to ease the transition. Until then? You can fuck right off and take your self-righteousness with you!

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Until then? You can fuck right off and take your self-righteousness with you!

You project like Limbaugh, nonny.

Clinton didn't drag us away from the maw of a right-wing disaster, he passed NAFTA in his first term, and both the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 and the repeal of Glass-Steagall in his 2nd.

Those would be the things that led to the financial meltdown. You can look it up.

As for Obama, here you go.
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