"I Did My Own Research"

 One if the infuriating aspects of the Covid debates was those people who claimed they "did their own research," which was really just combing social media for stories that fit their preconceptions. Confirmation bias is a real thing, and we can all fall into it.

I was reminded of this as we deal with Russian denials of the war crimes that they committed in Ukraine. The scenes from Bucha are awful, and highly unlikely to the last of their kind. This is what Russia's military does and has done. Naturally, Russia denied doing the things they did. What's amazing is how the Times has conclusively (in my mind) debunked Russian denials. They've used satellite imagery to show that the locations of the bodies in Bucha have not moved in weeks.

So, objectively, we have a story where what we knew already - the Russian military has routinely targeted civilians in Chechnya and Syria - comports with the evidence that Ukrainians have presented and has been largely verified by a third party.

It won't matter.

If you believe Vladimir Putin is the savior of traditional values - and there are a distressing number of people in the US who believe this, even if they are mostly quiet about it - then the evidence either won't be believed or won't matter. We will get patently ludicrous accusations of "false flag" operations, or caterwauling about "fake news." 

We have degraded the quality of public discourse in this country to the point where self-government is becoming tenuous. Even a "once a century" pandemic or the overwhelming evidence of climate change or the attempt to overturn the election - things that happened right in front of our very faces - can be waived away. 

When the internet came into popularity, there were techno-utopians who talked about the democratization of knowledge. Certainly the ability to find information has never been easier in human existence. Did you know the average rainfall in Cape Town, South Africa is 24.4 inches and predominately falls during the winter months? It took me ten seconds to find that information.

The problem is that access to information isn't enough. There are certain critical thinking skills that must be brought to bear. That means being able to evaluate the source in front of you. For instance, I generally trust the text of The New York Times. I am skeptical of their choice of what to focus on and the predilections of their opinion writers. "But her emails" from 2016 was an editorial choice that was simply indefensible, especially given Trump's rank criminality caught on tape.

The Jeffersonian ideal of an educated populace making rational decisions on their own behalf has come into conflict with the reality that we are subject to a firehose of bullshit thrust in our face every day. The dynamic of confirmation bias is not new, but the ability of bad actors like Rupert Murdoch to find a way to inject this directly into the veins of those inclined to believe it IS new. Then, like junkies in search of a stronger fix, his audience spreads out into the fever swamps of OANN and Newsmax.

Confirmation bias is not unique to the right, but the predilections for hierarchical thinking makes them more vulnerable. Skepticism is useful, but things have gotten so bad that we are sinking into cynicism, which is not. 

As long as Republicans embrace a form of theological authoritarianism, every election in America is a do-or-die election. Electoral choices are supposed to be rational choices, but that idea seems quaint now.