Warp wrote:
>   It wouldn't be the first time that intelligent, rational, highly educated,
> critically-thinking, unbiased, non-radical people have been convinced of
> bullshit by simply laying out the bullshit properly to them. If you analyze
> how the bullshit has been laid out, you will notice many of the fallacies
> described above, and others. They have simply been very cleverly masked.

Controlling What You Watch and Read.

	This is the one that I often see most really intelligent people suffer
from. "Ordinary" people I've found to fall for lots of logical
fallacies, and it doesn't surprise me. But when someone supremely
intelligent (i.e. as intelligent as I<G>) starts saying incoherent stuff
about some topic, and demonstrating an intelligence that a 3rd grader
would laugh at, it bothers me and I spend (or used to) a lot of time
trying to figure out why he's acting this way. Inevitably the reason is
this - they would get only one viewpoint from whatever sources they look
at, and over years it's repeated continually. That viewpoint never gets
challenged.

	I know it sounds simple the way I wrote it, but this actually
worries/scares me about _myself_. Every time I see one of these people,
I really worry that I may fall/have fallen into the same trap, and
perhaps need to broaden my inputs (reading stuff, watching stuff, etc).
 I now quite believe that _anyone_ will fall for this, no matter how
intelligent (or rather, the only way not to fall for it is by being
impractical and questioning everything continually in life). I'm not
sure the human mind can be as critical continually of something if it
constantly only gets the same kind of input.

	I should clarify. Often it's not others controlling what you watch/read
(although that probably does play a role). It's simply the person
himself. These days (at least in the US), the issue of newspapers going
out of business is often, well, in the news. It worries many -
particularly seasoned journalists - and not because they're worried they
won't have a job. What we're seeing with the Internet based news is that
people tend to read only the stuff that just repeats back to them their
own views. Most online news sources have a serious slant in some
direction, and cater almost purely to that group. With good newspapers
(especially physical ones), you'd get news articles that could challenge
your world view considerably. And while many still don't read them, the
fact that one simply skims the headlines can make a big difference.
You're at least _exposed_ to articles that challenge your views.


-- 
Mary had a little lamb, a little beef, and a little ham.


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