How to be a liberal in a Trump world

[Sherrerd]

@k9bfriender

…Even asashi, when called on his belief in the fake news article, changed his tune, mostly, to reflect reality, but I doubt you will see any sort of retraction or clarification from his source.

And as you pointed out, asahi could have been unconsciously ‘splitting the difference’–a phenomenon that might be identified as the "continued influence effect: –

In a dynamic world, information in memory is frequently outdated, corrected, or replaced. People often make use of this misinformation in memory during later reasoning. The example demonstrates several important features of this phenomenon. First, the information and its correction are clearly presented and connected together in memory. Second, the information and its correction are believable, and accepted as valid in the absence of any conflicting information. Third, following correction, the value of the initial information is clearly identified. And further, the misinformation and its correction are both accurately recalled later, at the time of reasoning. The power of misinformation appears to arise from its legitimacy as initially presented. Direct negation of the misinformation, no matter how stated, does not address the initial value of the information as true and relevant, nor explain how the negation may have arisen.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079742102800093

(That article is behind a paywall, but there are some good search words in the quoted bit.)

This is a bit of a sidetrack, without doubt. But I still think–despite my math error–that finding ways to cope with a political culture in which lying has no apparent consequences, is an important project. (Which probably needs its own thread.)

[HurricaneDitka]

@Sherrerd

I think you’re right about the “3000+” even if you do express yourself in your habitual manner. (Do you realize that you overlooked the chance to earn a few points for class, with at least a few readers?)

You want class? Try writing posts that aren’t dripping with invective towards Trump and “his staunch defenders”. I try to reflect a rough approximation of the tone of the poster I’m responding to and the thread I’m responding in. If it’s a serious thread, and a polite poster who seems to genuinely be seeking truth or explaining something, I do my best to be polite. If it’s a train wreck of a thread and I’m responding to a poster that’s being rude, I make less of an effort.

To be totally honest, some of it may not have been your fault. I read your post right after I read Steve MB’s post and chose not to respond to it, so I might have had some pent-up emotion that I poured into my next response. But I’ve reread the post several times, and the only thing I could find that might have hurt your feels was my “wax poetic” line. It was really mild.

[asahi]

I was away from the SDMB for a while but wanted to pick up this thread again.

@k9bfriender

Just out of curiosity, if you had not made that claim here, and been called on it, how long do you think you would have continued believing that?

How many of your peers do you think believe that? How long do you think they will hold to that belief? Do you think that belief will be shaken as easily as yours was, simply upon exposure to the facts, or do you think it may require more work?

I honestly don’t know – perhaps for a while. But I guess I’m willing to investigate a counter-claim or whenever someone presents evidence that challenges a fact. I know some peers who would do the same; I know others who would double down and dismiss attempts to dissuade them.

@k9bfriender

Even though you are now aware, you still equivocate your error, by rounding close to 500 down to 200-300, was that because you were splitting the difference between what you used to believe, and the new information that has come to light, or is there another reason you chose to use those numbers?

It’s an obvious error, but it doesn’t fundamentally change the analysis. To use a hypothetical example, suppose someone cites a source suggesting that 19 out of the last 20 summers in the Northern Hemisphere were the hottest on record, only to find out that it was 15 of the last 20. The original stat would be wrong and the ethical thing to do would be to own up to that mistake, but it wouldn’t change the basic truth about the phenomenon we’ve observed.

So that erroneous fact, while a wee bit embarrassing, doesn’t really change the fact that Clinton performed pretty badly in rural and suburban America, as the county-by-county statistical data suggests. And that was really my original point, despite originally citing erroneous data. The House, the Senate, and the Presidency are all under Republican control. There are also 25 states that are completely under Republican control. There are another 7 states with Republican legislative majorities. The are 7 other states governed by Democratic legislative majorities (presumably with varying degress of strength) for a total of 32 Republican governors. The Democratic party has a rural and suburban America problem, and until Democrats accept that sobering truth, they are going to continue to be impotent and ineffectual.

Pick the nits if you wish.