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NEW from me: What if nearly everything you know about government is false?
Many slam Trump voters for believing lies about election fraud. But nearly everything we all "know" about politics & govt we take on faith because someone we trust told us (1/) https://www.city-journal.org/the-facts-we-take-on-faith
Many slam Trump voters for believing lies about election fraud. But nearly everything we all "know" about politics & govt we take on faith because someone we trust told us (1/) https://www.city-journal.org/the-facts-we-take-on-faith
Take economics: Few people read the CBO, OMB, IRS tables. So all your strongest convictions about taxes & spending are based on info told to you by a reporter, columnist, politician, TV host, etc. How do you know they were accurate and not biased? You take it on faith (2/)
And the sad reality is that misinformation is everywhere. Politicians aren't policy experts. Many reporters are not subject-matter experts. Opinion columnists & TV hosts have incentives to exaggerate. Most policy info on social media is false. Math intimidates nearly all. (3/)
We come at our policy views with such conviction, and belittle the "uninformed idiots" who disagree with us. Yet both sides are often just cutting-and-pasting google searches of what we read elsewhere. And we have no idea whose information is correct. (4/)
And its not just a matter of dishonesty. There is enough ambiguity in the data for people on the right & left to present completely opposing narratives from the same reality. If you read only one side, you get only half the story. No side deserves that much deference. (5/)
We're easy to manipulate bc we pick a partisan tribe early in life & then seek confirmation bias. Our brains are wired for tribalism & rejecting contradictory info. Solution is to recognize our biases, be humble, verify info, and challenge our views. (6/6) https://www.city-journal.org/the-facts-we-take-on-faith
