I was interested to see this
people have a track record of falsely accusing other people of the very violations, people themselves are perpetrating
“Although she provided no evidence of an imminent Russian threat during the meeting, she said: “Russia has a track record of falsely accusing other countries of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating.”
https://www.reuters.com/…/un-says-not-aware-any…/
I see this pattern often but I don’t understand how it happens.
lets not assume malice
I think in general we can assume it isn’t malice, if we are to have a conversation we have to assume that others have positive intent.
In psychological terms it’s simple projection but how does “projection” work across an entire government?
headers that people add to articles directly contradict the article’s content
The other one I was thinking about is that sometimes headers that people add to articles directly contradict the article’s content.
This might be effective as an instrument of propaganda because most of the audience only read the headers and then think they understand the article.
So once again assuming good intent, how does this happen?
I think it could be an iterative process;
Say someone heads an article with a comment and the next person sees that heading as lacking punch and without reading the original source, polishes it, on to the next person and the next and the heading mutates into something just plain wrong.
Chinese whispers but with a bias
people don’t read
The other thing I am beginning to understand is that people with a particular bias, can’t force themselves to read long annoying posts or comments (like this one).
So they will scan as much as they can bear, emote then pump out a response that actually has very little to do with the post or comments actual contents.
maybe they are insane
If we can’t bear to read something another explanation for our inability is that the post or comment or the commenter is insane. Obviously, it’s bad form to say this but think it gives us permission to switch off our minds
maybe we can’t waste time
The same pattern occurs when we think we are much too important or busy to read the babble that our inferiors write – we have seen it all before, why look?
Why do I write
I think one of the functions of a place like this is that we get to reflect in the presence of others, there are such a lot of learning opportunities and even feedback if we can be open to them.