The Corruption of Data

The biggest loss in the past 30 years is the loss of trust in the perception of the press in its role as unbiased informer.  Now, lets be honest with ourselves, they were never particularly good at the "unbiased" thing, but lately the slant and bias of the different news outlets has become extreme.  One can structure a full day of reading or viewing without ever reading something off-script of the narrative of one of the factions.

This really limits the ability to have a decent discussion.  People develop a world view and then go out and find a news source that doesn't conflict with their already developed preconceptions.

All I can do is ask questions when I talk to people.  I try to be polite, and I even try to be subtle (this is usually an epic fail), but when the folks I am talking to answer my questions honestly I can sometimes figure out where the hell they get their information and what the hell I should do about it, if anything.  I usually try to back off when questions make the folks I am talking too uncomfortable, of course then, being of churlish character, sometimes I don't.

I long ago gave up on the idea of trying to convince anybody about anything using facts or logic. Facts are a waste on stupid people.  Anything worthy of arguing over has sufficient complexity that stupid people can't follow the logic anyway.  (as an aside here, please, please don't try and tell me the sad mantra of the earth muffins that "there are not stupid people".  There are plenty of stupid people out there and they do vote.)

People who are intelligent enough to be interesting already knows their facts, and if they don't agree with you, either they have more accurate information than you do or their already set beliefs prevent them from accepting what you know to be true. Either way, doubling down on emphasizing your version of "truth" will only convince them that their beliefs are correct and their sources are true and that you are an idiot.

The news media with it's bipolarity and factions feeds into these problems in the most pernicious way.  By the ruthless simplifying and market testing of their content, they are stripping away the necessary triad of the subtle, ambiguous, and contradictory nature of the world.  Stupid people are incapable of perceiving this triad anyway, and anyone worth discussing issues with is too painfully aware of the situation.
 

No matter what, I always question myself.  A long life has shown me that more often than not, my own desires and preconceptions make me see what I think that I am seeing.