Bias

I see and hear that word thrown around at lot lately. Your source is biased. That fact is biased. You’re a biased liberal. You’re a biased neocon...

Can we all agree to at least one thing?

We all have our view of the world built up over years of learning, conditioning and indoctrination. If you think you haven't been manipulated or can't be manipulated you are in denial or are choosing willful blindness for selfish reasons.

Facts can be made up. Facts can be cherry picked. Information of all kinds is disseminated through mainstream media, the defense department, government, print media, and now the net. Photos can be doctored, video can be doctored, voice recordings can be doctored and the victors write History.

Everybody is biased.

Therefore…

Every source is biased...I’m biased... and you’re biased.

So…

What now?

We each choose a label, go to our respective corners and come out swinging?

That’s what’s happening…

Divided they fall….


[edit on 2/21/2005 by Gools]

This post is biased gools J/K

I agree with you. I think we should all respect, even though we don't agree with, each others opinions. State our own and move on.

I think in the nature versus nurture controversy you are biased towards nurture, and in the bias/anti-bias debate you are biased in the direction of bias.

IMO - a little conscious bias builds character.

Unconscious bias isn't very effective, plus it attracts flies.



[Past my bedtime. Getting punchy.]

Wow. Quite a few rants on the board these couple of days. You see?? This is exactly why I stay away from the poo-colored forum. What's it called again? politcs@ATS?

Don't let it get ya down, Gools. I've seen many of your posts in my lurkings and I don't think you're biased... ... ...much.

I didn't want to start a new thread and this is the most recent type of thread like this I could remember.

If you have no friggin proof to support something don't let you biased agenda towards what you're trying to "prove" show. I just went through a plethora of chemtrail threads shattered by Howard Roark and off_the_street. Then I open a 9/11 thread shattered by those same two. Then a moon "hoax" thread. Yet people - quite often people who are either Bush or America critics grasping at junk science and strawmen to "prove" or to use a better phrase, rub our repsective American noses in that "land of the free - haha" type of tone.

Having no credible evidence, no scientific fact, nothing to go on but a dislike for the President or America(ns) in general is NOT by any flipping means a good argument. Because you personally believe everything the USA/Bush does is inherently evil does not make it so.

That's where the "bias" cry comes from. People that treat Jeff Rense as a valid source because he says what they want to hear are the reason for this. If you look at something with an objective eye you find the truth quicker than not. And I hope that's what most ATS'ers are looking for: the truth!

Anyone can find a "link" through google to support or debunk anything. And I'll even add myself to this: some of us do need to get a #ing grip.

And I'll edit to add that you can turn those situations around and add conservative/American/Bush supporter to it - just because I anticipate that kind of response.

[edit on (2/28/0505 by PistolPete]

I wrote the news story about Bill Gates commenting about the US educational system and i felt my headline was generic and not biased but they wouldn't accept it unless i changed it to the current title. The previous title was Bill Gates on US education: A plan for corportate control? I gave both sides of the story in the article but going by the headline they wanted me to change. A controversial headline is what gets the reader to read!

A discussion taking place in the context of this thread: POLITICS: Propaganda Report Finds Bias in Iraq Coverage reminded me of this thread.

My original post was not meant as a rant but more of an observation of what I see happening all around me. People are choosing camps and battling it out.

"Objectivity" is an illusion (think back to Plato's definition of "truth") so the best thing to do is to strive for a consensus viewpoint supported by the facts. In law this is called building a case around evidence. There are always different possible theories that can explain the facts of a case and none of them are absolutely correct because they are all hearsay to someone who was not a direct witness or does not have access to "original" sources. How many times have you been witness to an event and the media coverage (both corporate and indymedia) have twisted the event to their own agenda? I have seen it happen more than once.

In this "information" age we are inundated with "facts" and different interpretations (note: information does not equal knowledge!). With the advent of electronic media and the ease with which it can be manipulated and the fact that disinformation is purposefully disseminated, I sometimes don't know what to believe anymore. I have to rely on personal and necessarily biased experience.

Each camp believes what they want to believe and defend their position to the death because the "other" camp refuses to accept any interpretation that does not fit their worldview. This is where willful blindness comes into the picture (as well as the lack of capacity to analyze and apply deductive reasoning).

So what do we do now that we have access to the biggest library of information ever devised? Fight over the validity of the facts?

What I don't see happening is consensus building on any level.
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Originally posted by Gools

So what do we do now that we have access to the biggest library of information ever devised? Fight over the validity of the facts?

What I don't see happening is consensus building on any level.
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Help me out here Gools. So I reported the facts - and found myself not just defending the validity of the facts, but charges that I'm biased and lacking objectivity.

How does one work towwrds consensus building in that circumstance? How do I turn it around and play mediator?


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Originally posted by soficrow
How does one work towwrds consensus building in that circumstance? How do I turn it around and play mediator?

You can't and that's why it's not happening. It's very easy to point a finger and yell BIAS! and very difficult if not impossible to defend against it. It's a tactic (even if used by the unwitting). Like calling someone who criticizes the US government "anti-American" or the Israeli government "anti-Semitic". You can scream "NO I'M NOT!" until you're blue in the face but it gets you nowhere and it has the added advantage of detracting attention from the original idea.

I don't have the answers (maybe someone else has some suggestions), I'm just really frustrated at the level of "discourse" (or lack thereof) going on in the public realm.

By the way, have you ever seen this? ATS Lessons

Plus ça change...
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It is a peculiarity when the cynic that doesn't want you to believe in anything, still wants you to believe them. By the way don't believe me.