Escaping the Election Cocoon

A good opinion piece on how censoring others who don't subscribe to our own ideologies / thoughts & don't confirm our pre-existing biases adversely affect our own ability to make intelligent decisions.

Lots of people around the world are wondering for the past year or so how such bigoted people like Donald Trump in US elections 2016 or even a self-professed criminal like Rodrigo Duterte, latest President of Philippines & who was nicknamed, "The Donald Trump of Philippines," can win over millions of people.

A major reason for how these kinds of people win over the hearts & minds of millions is because those millions of voters are living in a bubble / cocoon of their own. Anyone who is not a mindless "yes-man" to their ideas / opinions / thoughts are banished from their little worlds. They feel intelligent & safe in knowing that they are surrounded by people who think like them. In the end, there are millions who are mindlessly following anyone, like a herd of sheep, to do anything to appease their human god.

So why are we seeing more mind-numbing stupidity in this gilded age of data & information, which are all around us & easily accessible, too? We are seeing this happening far more frequently in this information age, because the information providers, the social media giants (Facebook, Twitter etc.), are helping the populations become mindless zombies. The social media is actively altering the perception & truth around us by feeding us info which confirm our bias & echo our thoughts, instead of helping us see the other side of the debate.

On a personal level, I've felt this happening all too often. I've been unfriended & unfollowed by friends because of my thoughts & opinions; just because I am not mindlessly saying what they wanted to hear from their "friends". I thought a true friend who is supposed to push back on your ideas which are wrong, but, apparently, in this "modern" day & age, a true friend is one who mindlessly agrees with you with whatever crap you are spewing out of your mouth.

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http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/escaping-the-election-cocoon/

More & more, we are living in our own tailor-made media cocoons, carefully constructed shells that surround us with voices & ideas that support our own beliefs. Conversely, they also shelter us from anything that might challenge our perspective. This distorts our view of the world, makes us less able to understand others, & less likely to embrace new ideas.

My parents & my grandparents before them had 3 sources of news: the local paper, the radio, & the 6 o’clock television news. On a typical day, I get my news from 2 or 3 newspapers, the radio, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, a couple of news sites & maybe LinkedIn. And I’m probably below average. A recent survey by Ipsos Reid examined 16 different types of media commonly used by Canadians for their news. Another poll by the Media Technology Monitor in 2014 found that the number of Canadians who are using the Internet as their main source of news has increased by 20% over the previous 2 years.

The options to filter that news are also increasing. The most common online news aggregators & social media platforms, such as Facebook & Twitter, allow us to customize what we see. Are stories about the global refugee crisis getting you down? Click. 60 million people just disappeared. Is a particular journalist saying something unpleasant about your political party? Click. As far as you’re concerned, her mouth has been forever covered by especially durable duct tape.

When we tune out that journalist because we feel she isn’t being “objective,” what we really mean is that her views do not support our pre-existing beliefs. In fact, truly objective news is impossible. Every adjective & headline shifts the story in one direction or another. Even if you reduced a story to just numbers & facts, much would depend on which figures & in which order.

Unfortunately, our habit of tuning out ideas & voices we don’t like is part of our biological programming. “Confirmation bias,” the tendency to search for information that confirms our beliefs & to remember it longer, is a well-documented & inescapable element of our behaviour. As a result, we instinctively tailor our universe to limit the emotionally upsetting views that contradict us. Until recently, the shortage of media choices made this hard to do. Left or right, we all watched the same suppertime newscast. Now, it’s finally possible to be bound in a nutshell, & count ourselves kings of infinite space, because we can avoid any bad dreams.

This has been very apparent in the refugee debate. A significant number of Canadians are opposed to allowing in more Syrians, due to the possibility that they would include Islamic State supporters, or that they would spread Islam or because we should be helping our own poor first. If you listen to a specific set of radio stations, read certain blogs & interact with people similar to yourself on Facebook, these ideas aren’t only defensible, they are overwhelmingly obvious.

Likewise, another group of Canadians who subscribe to different newspapers, listen to the CBC & read the Huffington Post are equally convinced of the self-evident fact that there is a clear need for Canada to do more, & accepting far more refugees would neither strain our economy nor our social fabric. In reality, both sides are filtering out important pieces of information, making it impossible to see the full picture. Which is why neither group can grasp how anyone could possibly be so asinine as to dispute what is so clearly self-evident.

This is bad, & not just because it prevents us from having civil conversations about Canada’s refugee & immigration policies. It creates a lack of empathy that leads us to denigrate & dismiss the opinions of others. The leaders of all political parties, who are equally unable to acknowledge they do not have a monopoly on the truth, demonstrate this attitude repeatedly.

Our self-made cocoons also impair our ability to make intelligent decisions. In ... elections, most voters will not watch a single debate, read any of the party platforms or attend any campaign events. They don’t need to. They already know for whom they’re going to vote, &, coincidentally, everyone else in his or her cocoon is voting the same way.

And for those we ultimately elect? Their own filters will make their governing decisions less effective. Ruling parties of all stripes tend only to listen to academics who support their agenda, only attend rallies that contain true believers, only read newspapers that endorse their policies & only engage constituents who already voted for them. ...

There are ways to cut through these cocoons, however. Just by being aware that you are constantly self-censoring the information that reaches you helps. You can also consciously resist the urge to mute the outspoken critic on Twitter, or unfollow the Facebook friend who shares articles in support of that politician you loathe. One step further would be to actually read some of those articles, or pick up a newspaper you wouldn’t normally read, no matter how much of a rag you think it is.
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Elephants murdered for tusks by soldiers of African warlord Kony

I'm sharing this article not to share the story of murdered elephants in national parks because human lives are not sacred anymore, so animals are way down the list.
 
What I am actually trying to share with article that if you may recall the social media campaign, from 2012, I believe, when Kony's face was plastered all over the social media, with the message to stop this guy in his tracks. Everybody from Alaska to Timbuktu & Sweden to Australia was feverishly sharing this guy's pics on social media, without sparing couple minutes to think how this campaign is going to help.
 
Problem is that if a sane person say anything against these kinds of moronic social media campaigns, that sane person will be shut out like he/she got the plague.
 
Well, the end result of all that sharing is what ... that Kony guy is not only alive but, apparently, doing very well ... killing elephants for their ivory tusks, which in turn, are financing his army.
 
On a side note, the trade for ivory, & consequently, Kony & his army, cannot be stopped until influential & rich elites of the developed world stop buying these Ivory tusks. Kony & any other poacher is simply a supplier. Simple business sense is that a supplier only exists as long as the customer exists (i.e. supply exists because of demand). If demand stops, supply itself will stop.
 
Be it trying to end the killings of elephants by Kony (or any other poacher) or stopping Kony from murdering humans, influential elite must be involved through political means to bring about any meaningful change, instead of young & naïve millennials trying to do something through social media.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3001494/Shot-helicopters-hacked-death-chainsaws-Soldiers-bloodthirsty-African-warlord-Joseph-Kony-murder-elephants-record-rate-single-tusk-traded-18-000-bullets.html

Warlord Joseph Kony's bloodthirsty Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is slaughtering elephants at an unprecedented rate & trading their valuable tusks for bullets.
 
The poaching of elephants in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo is increasing rapidly, with more than 130 killed in the southern region in less than 12 months.
 
Poaching is not uncommon in African parks, but rangers at Garamba have made a worrying discovery - the ivory is helping fund the LRA's war.
 
Mr. [Sasha] Lezhnev, who returned from the DR Congo last week, has learned that a single elephant tusk can be traded for 18,000 bullets.
 
'They don't need guns, they have plenty of available guns, it's really bullets they need,' he added. 'It takes only one bullet to kill an elephant.'
 
The LRA - a violent rebel group led by Kony - is renowned for being one of the most brutal forces in the world.
 
They have become notorious for murder, mutilation, rape, widespread abductions of children and adults, & sexual slavery.
 
As well as the rebel group, a recent report by the Enough Project revealed renegade elements of the Congolese national army & armed poachers from Sudan are responsible for the recent upsurge in poaching.
 
In the past, poachers have used very basic methods to slaughter the elephants, killing just one or two at a time.
 
Now, heavily armed groups are using professional techniques & are bringing down 3 to 8 of these majestic animals at a time. Their tusks are then cut off with chainsaws.
 
There is also evidence of at least 9 of the 131 elephants killed in Garamba in the past 12 months being shot from helicopters.
 
In May last year, 10 elephants were murdered in one day alone in Garamba, according to African Parks, a conservation group that manages the park with Congolese authorities.
 
At Virunga National Park, also in the DR Congo, the elephant population has decreased by 90% in the last 20 years, according to UNESCO.
 
One of the reasons for the increase in elephant poaching is likely to be the rise in the price of ivory, which is at a record high because of demand in parts of Asia, according to the Enough Project.
 
On the black market, elephants tusks are valued at between £13,300 & £117,000 depending on their size.
 
Since the 1980s, the Garamba elephant population has fallen to about 2,400 from approximately 20,000, largely due to poaching.