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3:30am May 26, 2014

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Things Tumblr should learn

Putting a note here that I’d like a transcript for this. I might make it myself when I can concentrate on it.

Transcript as follows (and hell yeah to whoever wrote this, there’s a couple points that I might disagree with a little but overall this is much of what I’ve been seeing wrong with some communities within tumblr and other places online that I’ve been, and some of this is far better worded than I’ve been able to word things):

Cats in Tophats Explain Why Echo Chambers are Harmful

Pretty much all movements have them.

Echo chambers are everywhere.

Most of us have accidentally been in one before.

An echo chamber is when a viewpoint is rehashed over and over in a closed “system”, with all opposing views being drowned out.

There’s nothing wrong with having steadfast views.

But echo chambers can have some unintended consequences and can create toxic environments.

The biggest problem with echo chambers is that they create an “You’re either with us, or against us” environment, which closes the group off from criticism.

Most problems with echo chambers stem from this one.

This leads to misinformation, swell as some crummy behaviors within the group. It can also lead to bullying.

This can make people ignore facts by automatically dismissing anything that may disturb the group’s worldview. By cutting off outside influence, the group can become more and more isolated, which can cause it to lose perspective.

This is often how groups come to hold extreme viewpoints. Far-right, far-left, and religious zealotry can sometimes stem from echo chambers.

Many viewpoints gradually become more and more detached from the rest of the real world. This is also major cause of arguments coming from “Academics In Ivory Towers” lacking perspective.

Too often, echo chambers lead to bullying. Anyone with an opposing view, or even with a question or point perceived to be an opposing view, risks being shunned by the group and also keeps quiet, perpetuating the problem.

Many people then only hold radical views to stay in the group.

This prevents healthy discourse. Opposition allows people to consider their point of view and develop better arguments.

There are a few signs that can help you spot an echo chamber.

Viewpoints gradually become more and more radical and/or detached from the rest of the world.

Anyone with any opposing view isn’t debated on the merits of their argument, but rather attacked using exaggerated language or labels.

Everyone in your group is only focused on one issue without entertaining others or how they may interplay.

Keep in mind that the opinions of an echo chamber may not be wrong.

You never see an opposing view.

If someone says something you don’t agree with, you cut them out of your life or never look at the source again.

You find yourself only agreeing with others out of fear.

Thank you for your time!

If you’re in an echo chamber, it’s probably not a good idea to stay there.

Debates are healthy because they strengthen your arguments, making them more likely to succeed.

Just as echo chambers don’t let the real world influence them, they don’t often influence the real world.

[Pictures throughout are cats in top hats, and bubbles, and blurry colors.]

Parts that I’d love to emphasize:

Many people then only hold radical views to stay in the group.

You find yourself only agreeing with others out of fear.

I see that all the time.

I see people so afraid.

I see people who are holding the views they hold, radical or not, because they’re afraid to say what they really feel. In fact, they forget what they really feel, because their minds become so occupied with keeping up with what is the “right” view to have, and what is the “wrong” view to have.

And some people who, in secret, would be dissenters if they had the courage… instead, they pounce on dissenters to hide their own doubt. To prove that they are an insider in the group, not an outsider. They become more zealous about being the loudest one to shout their views, and the loudest one to shout down dissenters, than even the average person in the group, because underneath they are terrified.

It breaks my heart every time I see someone doing this, every time I can almost smell the fear oozing out from between their every word. That they aren’t saying things because they believe them, they’re saying things because they’re afraid of what would happen if anyone knew they didn’t believe them.

And sometimes these are views they might actually hold, if they came to the conclusions on their own. Sometimes they wouldn’t actually be a dissenter in the end, about whatever the particular issue is. But because doubt is so squashed in these echo chambers, they have no room to explore. They have no room to even figure out what their views are. So even the fear that they might, if they thought about it, come to a dissenting opinion, causes them to become terrified of the social ostracism and bullying that might follow.

So they don’t think about it. They turn away from their own thoughts. Instead of using their minds to explore the issue. They instead use their minds to figure out what the group believes, to stay one step ahead, to always be ‘on point’.

There’s another toxic echo chamber thing that I don’t see mentioned in the post: Attempts to silence any discussion of the existence of the echo chamber. As in, “We aren’t even a community, we aren’t even a group, you can’t give us a name, you can’t talk about us, we’re just individuals who all happen to have come to the exact same conclusions and just happen to think and respond in lockstep most of the time.”

But anyway… the thing I describe above worries me. The thing where people are afraid. And it’s not just people who are inside the echo chamber, it’s people who are exposed to it and around it. A lot of people who would dissent remain silent because they’re afraid of the way dissenters are treated.

I’m someone who tries to dissent, frequently, from two major echo chambers I see operating on tumblr. (They hate each other, but to me they look like mirror images of each other.) And I don’t always have the strength to do it. I do it because I feel like if people hear that there are other opinions possible, then maybe it will break the hold of things like “There is only one basic set of opinions possible for people who care about ending oppression” and things like that. The more people hear the more opinions, the more they will feel free to choose among those opinions. And I feel like diversity of opinions is vital for anyone who wants to create real change in the world. Even opinions I can’t stand, even opinions that I think could result in my death if carried out in the wrong manner, I still have to accept that some people will have those opinions and that I could be wrong.

But it’s exhausting.

It’s draining.

Every single time I stand up to it, every single time I talk about it, it takes a toll. Writing this takes a toll. Reblogging things like this takes a toll. Going against the grain all the time takes a toll.

And I’m not fighting for fighting’s sake.

I’m not even honestly trying to fight?

It’s more like, I want to set out little packages on the ground, packages with words in them, words that say my opinions. And then people can pick up the packages, if they want, and read them. And then they can decide what they believe about them.

And the more of us who set out our little packages on the ground, the more diversity of opinions we have, the more we’ll be able to figure out what we do and don’t believe, what we do and don’t want to do.

But echo chambers make people scared to set out their packages on the ground, if their packages deviate even slightly from the party line.

And echo chambers warp the reading comprehension of people affected by them. So that if they see a little thing that deviates from the party line, they will assume all kinds of ideas are connected to that little thing, even if those ideas are not connected.

But it’s still vital for us to do that.

As many people as can do it.

But it’s exhausting.

And I can’t always do it.

Sometimes I decide there are things I can’t say. Things I may never say.

It makes me sad. Because some of those are things that are entirely personal. They aren’t statements about anyone’s life other than my own. Yet I know, I know, how they would be taken. I know exactly what people would think. So I stay silent.

And sometimes that makes me feel like a coward. But at the same time, resisting social pressure is extremely difficult. Losing a large chunk of your community is a powerful motivator not to do something.

And sometimes… sometimes it feels like I would be walking out into the middle of the street naked with all my vulnerable parts showing, only to be kicked in the genitals. And then I realize that it’s not unreasonable to keep certain things private.

But dissent in any movement is vital. Absolutely vital. Diversity of opinion is vital. Without those things, you don’t even really have a movement, you just have … an echo chamber.

So I would urge anyone who is capable and willing to set out their little packages of ideas in the middle of the street, to do so. The world needs our little packages of ideas. Everyone has ideas that are important. Everyone is right about some things and wrong about others. Echo chambers ensure that everything wrong will be enshrined into law.

So set out your packages of ideas if you can. Do it anonymously if you have to.

But if you can’t, if you’re too afraid, if you can’t afford to lose the community, if you don’t feel like you can walk out into the street naked, if you feel too vulnerable, if you feel like you can’t stand the emotional beating… then don’t beat yourself up about it either.

And I would urge anyone who is afraid of their own doubts, to have those doubts. Have them in secret if you have to. You don’t have to tell anyone. But please, please don’t overcompensate by bullying other people who have doubts, by trying to be the first one to say the right thing, the first one to attack, the first one to be right right right and never wrong. Because that will only take the fear you are feeling, and unload it onto more and more people, and the fear won’t go away, it will only magnify.

Sometimes if you nurture your doubt, and think about an issue, you’ll realize that you do agree with the echo chamber. Or that you mostly agree with them. Other times you’ll find that you disagree. But you’ll never figure that out if you don’t give yourself room to think.

The people I sometimes admire the most online are people who have been part of echo chambers and who have come out of them and tried to forge their own way, separate from the echo chamber. And people who have never been part of echo chambers but are also trying to forge their own way.

And I especially admire people who tirelessly post their little packages of ideas, even knowing the reception they will get for being anything more than the tiniest bit different from the party line.

I try to emulate both groups of people.

I don’t do this because I think I’m always right. I do this because I think that each person has opinions and ideas to contribute, and that I am not an exception to this. I do this because I think that opinions need to be heard before anyone can even figure out whether they’re right or wrong. I do this because I feel like an outsider and sometimes I can find other outsiders this way. My friend once called me a ‘perpetual outsider’, maybe it’s true.

If you feel disheartened by the fact that you may lose a place in the social world because of your ideas, remember this: The world is bigger than that one social world. There are other social worlds. And the world is bigger than just humanity. And the world has a place in it that is tailor-made exactly for you, and nothing can take that place away from you. No amount of bullying, no amount of ostracism, no amount of rejection can remove the fact that you have an exact place in the world, an exact part to play, an exact person to be. That can be important to remember when you do things that will possibly bring you up against social ostracism.

And I try to remember… I’m not in this as a fight. I’m not in this to ‘fight the echo chambers’. I’m in this to lay packages on the ground for people to find, not to lob them across fences with grenades attached. Other people may fight me back, and in defensive moments I might fight them in return… but I’m not trying to start a fight. I’m just trying to be one small piece of the solution. And sometimes that isn’t comfortable. And sometimes I can’t do it. But sometimes I can.

And it can be important to remember: No matter what echo chamber you find yourself in, no matter how many times you accidentally find yourself being drawn back in, there is always a door somewhere, and it is always open. And there is always a huge, enormous world out here outside of every echo chamber. There are hills and mountains and valleys and fields and plains and lakes out here. And there’s lots of people who live out here all the time, and many of us will welcome you if we manage to find each other.

Oh and ‘radical’ doesn’t always mean ‘extreme’ or ‘angry’… that itself is a myth created in the echo chambers.

Long enough yes, but there’s still room on the screen to add to some of it: “Diversity of opinion is vital.” Because oppression and the production of oppression as a culture is always a move towards monoculture. This is rarely acknowledged (by the oppressive culture, whether tyranny or bubble chamber) except in militant circumstances, but I believe it is a crucial characteristic.

Also I like this image of leaving little packages of truthfulness along the road for anyone to find a lot. It is a generous gesture, and it makes me feel supported in my own attempt to learn to write, to articulate, to inquire and express. Somehow the image also feels like it takes the pressure off, the pressure to be right. Instead it feels like an invitation to be kind, and sincere. Those are rare and valuable qualities. And I don’t doubt that anger can be as valuable, at the right moment. Would you want a monoculture though, a monoculture of anger?

(Hah, I can imagine some of the rebuttals if anyone would read this, they’re revving up in my head. Shhhh. I’ll just click reblog. Shhhh.)