How Informed Are You?

As I mentioned in a previous post, confirmation bias is a serious problem. It is the effect of paying attention to information and evidence that reinforces your beliefs, and dismissing ones that don't. This has been exacerbated recently with the internet where we can easily search for stories that help reinforce our viewpoint. It is accelerating as our searches are custom-tailored to our tastes, allowing us to start to live in a bubble of information that we find pleasing.

So, perhaps as a rational smart person you'd rather be "right" instead of being lead by the nose down a path by your own delusions. Great! Time to look at both sides, right? Walk a mile in someone else's shoes! Well, then you should start gathering information that is in opposition to your views. If you're a liberal, start reading conservative blogs and articles. If you're a Christian, get some atheist literature, or Muslim literature, or something else besides the feel-good Christian stuff.

Minor problem. There is a high chance that being exposed to contrary information will just make you dig in your heels even more. Oops.

So, let's assume you want to be well informed on both sides of the arguments and be able to make a correct decision based on all the facts. As a result you start gathering information from both sides, and are now surrounded by the different sides. But, you now also know you will probably sabotage yourself by dismissing the opposition. How do we get around this?

Well, there are two steps. The first is to seriously empathize with the opposition. Try to understand that as crazy as they may sound to you, it is highly likely they sound completely sane to themselves. It is a rare event that people will intentionally lie to you. No, there isn't a liberal conspiracy in the media nor a conservative conspiracy to make all businesses crush humanity. No those soundbites of tactics you heard from that one person isn't about brainwashing people. The majority of people are honest individuals. Except politicians. They're all liars.

This means that you actually read the articles and listen carefully and try to understand the underlying reasons behind the piece. Don't look for flaws in their logic. Don't Google for your side's response. Carefully step into their shoes and try to understand why they would say the things they say. And do not do this for the purpose of undermining their reasoning. Assuming someone said these things because they're crazy or deluded is a horrible system. They may be self-deluded, but there must be a reason for the delusion and a method to the madness. Be careful that you do not assume people are just misinformed or stupid. You end up just feeding your own confirmation bias. Instead, give a concerted effort to understand them, to get inside their head, and assume they arrived at their position by rational means. Thinking "they must have been tricked and deluded themselves, how sad and I pity them" only puts their argument at a lower standing than yours, and that is not the point of this exercise. The point is to realize when your own bias can be blinding you to the answer.

The second step is to keep bombarding yourself until you are uncomfortable. If you truly are considering the opposition's stance, you should feel very uneasy. Our minds do not like trying to hold two opposing views in tension, so if you start to feel discomfort hold on to that feeling, it means you are taking both sides seriously. If you are not in a constant state of pain and discomfort about your views and the views of those around you, you might be sliding into a confirmation bias fueled complacency or have built yourself a nice bubble.

Gosh, this all sounds really hard! You expect me to not only take the time to research both sides, but to then analyze the thinking behind them, try to become those people, and be in a constant state of discomfort about my own views? This is super lame! And exactly why people are building bubbles for themselves.

For my own part, taking this route has yielded me some very interesting changes. I used to think I was a slightly conservative person, but still very moderate. Now, I know just how insulated I had become. I have reversed my views on several issues, and can now defend either side of several debates. It is a funny thing when I enter into a debate and end up fighting against both sides. Frankly I take it as a sign that I must be doing something right. Now, I won't say I am completely "right". That kind of claim is foolish. And I'm sure several of my friends see me as either too conservative or too liberal or just too plain stupid. But I have actually come to enjoy standing somewhere close to the middle. It is an unfortunately shrinking region these days, but I hope others will join me.