Most of human history is the history of elites, of kings, queens, princes, prelates, magistrates, potentates, knights, earls, and squires, all of whom subordinated and exploited everyday people.
Much like how most of US history is the history of white colonists who exploited indigenous people and POC.
Du Bois also underscored that to be part of a problem people is to be viewed as part of an undifferentiated blob, a monolithic block.
Once a group is dehumanized, they are stripped of their individual identities. This makes me very upset because I've experienced it myself. It's very true.
what it is to be human under a specific set of circumstances and conditions. It is very difficult to engage in a candid and frank critical discussion about race by assuming it is going to be a rational exchange.
Because we have grown to be humans under different sets of circumstances and conditions, a discussion about race often asks one party to sacrifice their set of experiences in order to understand the other -- this doesn't happen most of the time.
This characteristic of implicit logic—a nod and wink to shared knowledge about an event or person—is what makes memes impactful.
Meme accounts target the humor or opinions of their specific audience, and facebook/instagram algorithms make it so that each user sees only one side of the coin.
A complex web of societal shifts is making people more susceptible to misinformation and conspiracy.
In a lot of developing southeast asian countries, when a customer buys a phone often times Facebook will already be loaded onto the phone for them -- making Facebook their main idea of the internet.
Hate-filled posts aimed at the Muslim community would proliferate, the speculation and outrage boosted by algorithms responding to unprecedented levels of shares, comments and likes.
Widespread propaganda has existed long before the invention of the smart phone though. It's just the rate at which propaganda is able to spread is what is new.
Nisbett’s second-favorite example is that economists, who have absorbed the lessons of the sunk-cost fallacy, routinely walk out of bad movies and leave bad restaurant meals uneaten.
People can outlearn their inherent biases? Smaller biases at least.
“We would all like to have a warning bell that rings loudly whenever we are about to make a serious error, but no such bell is available.”
Humans needed this humbling fact... that we are inherently wrong. It take a conscious effort to think fairly, but not many people want to do that.
The effects of biases do not play out just on an individual level.
It seems that the author has formatted this article by going from less severe to more severe biases.
Then they asked the students what they would do if they unexpectedly came into $1,000. The students who had looked their older self in the eye said they would put an average of $172 into a retirement account. That’s more than double the amount that would have been invested by members of the control group, who were willing to sock away an average of only $80.
Proof that we are estranged from our future selves. Why are we wired like this? I wonder if this has to do with the popular demand of living in the present.
“as we automate the work of our minds, as we cede control over the flow of our thoughts and memories to a powerful electronic system, is ... a slow erosion of our humanness and our humanity.”
I would argue that through social media, the younger generation has become more tolerant of other people. We have more awareness on mental illness, sexuality, gender, and racial inequality.
A thousand years later, critics fear that digital technology has put this gift in peril
Reminds me of the essay, "Reader, Come Back Home" which we read at the beginning of the semester -- and I do agree that as I've become more intertwined with technology, it feels like I've lost more brain cells than I have gained.
rushing on or barely begun, fully deciphered or only half-said
Reading is less about deciphering each letter itself but more about recognizing patterns and shapes -- this is how my friend who has dyslexia tends to read faster because if she tried to actually read then her brain get's slowed down.
appeals to the truth tend to be incendiary
Definition of incendiary: designed to cause fires. Why do appeals to truth cause debate? This has always stumped me, that facts do less to persuade the public than persona or attitude.
élites who feared the ignorance of poor immigrants tried to restrict ballots.
The elitist and racist suppression of votes has long been a part of US history. Now that more and more marginalized POC are getting educated, no longer is education enough to suppress votes but physical access to voting centers is now too. Reminds me of a certain postmaster I know..
A more practical suggestion came from J. S. Mill, in the nineteenth century: give extra votes to citizens with university degrees or intellectually demanding jobs.
Although more "practical", this reminds of Jim Crowe when Louisiana would give convoluted and nearly impossible literacy tests to suppress black votes. Yes, education is important, but it can be marginalizing as well.