Why are echo chambers a bad thing?

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HyperboreanRightsActivist

HyperboreanRightsActivist

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kiwifarms.net
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Jul 7, 2022
It seems like the problem with echo-chambers mostly comes from an inability to tolerate other viewpoints and a tendency to overreact disproportionately.

However, if an echo chamber forms organically and the people inside the chamber are well adjusted and not basement-dwelling consumers of black metal music, why is this a problem? Why should I have to listen to your differing opinion? Why should you try to force yourself into a place where your opinion does nothing but disrupt the natural vibe of the group?

>inb4 "muh critical thinking"
The internet is as centralized and heterogenous as ever and people are still polarized and angry at each other. It's clear zoomers don't know how to behave, and no amount of chamber-busting or ideological integrationism will solve that.
 
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Several reasons.
  1. It cuts several ways. Before the internet, if you said you liked to fuck toasters, you were ostracized until you acted normally. After the internet, you'd join an echo chamber of toaster fuckers and campaign for toaster fucker rights. Anyone can do it and argue that they're "well adjusted and not basement dwellers." This includes people you violently disagree with, which leads to....
  2. Echo chambers inevitably confer the inability to agree to disagree. This will carry over into real life, especially if you've been in an echo chamber since your youth (which is basically brainwashing at that point). Yes, this is a problem for normies, given that they don't live in their mothers' basements like we do.
  3. Inevitably, ideological purity will be demanded. The standards will get stricter and stricter. See the LGBTWTFABCBBQ community for what happens with an unrestrained echo chamber.
  4. Speaking of, echo chamber inhabitants are not receptive of criticism of their ideologies, even when such criticism is warranted. Again, look at the LGBTWhatever community.
  5. Finally, gatekeeping outsiders can and will lead to a criminal element growing, and the echo chamber working to ignore or hide the criminality. See the Catholic Church and the LGBTWhoCares community.
TLDR: Log off, touch grass, and meet new people.
 
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Sexy Senior Citizen said:
Log off, touch grass, and meet new people.
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I spend 90% of my time outdoors. I bump into people from all walks of life. Sometimes trying to reconcile a billion different worldviews gets encumbering and you just need to escape somewhere where you can discuss a topic with likeminded individuals. If I went on a website to talk about indie music, and the site's owner decides, "we need more diversity of opinion", and starts importing reggae spergs who can't behave themselves, is it really a bad thing to bully them off the site?
 
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You should always be aware of the enemy, their views, and test your own against theirs as an exercise. But you only want a couple token libtards around, really, and be sure to treat them with bias.
 
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CowPox said:
If you need to ask you may be retarded.
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to make sure the irony of this is not lost on anyone: OP asked for his opinion to be challenged on whether it is good to be in a space where you could have your opinion challenged

OP, there is a difference between being a contrarian and a cultist. If you are in a group where no one dares to express a different opinion on something that is of some substance, you are locking yourself in a place you cannot easily leave.
You don't have to change your mind, you have to have the option to do so.

If you are saying: "but my friends have different opinions on things"... well, then it's not a echo chamber to begin with!
 
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Because it misleads midwits to think their retarded opinion is actually totally IRL workable and fosters extreme viewpoints because nobody's around to tell them to shut up, nerd.
 
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Because the opinions formed in an echo chamber are reinforced by a desire to conform and not from receiving new information.
 
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HyperboreanRightsActivist said:
If I went on a website to talk about indie music, and the site's owner decides, "we need more diversity of opinion", and starts importing reggae spergs who can't behave themselves, is it really a bad thing to bully them off the site?
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The irony of this statement is lost on you. A website dedicated to indie music isn't an "echo chamber" where reggae is excluded. In fact, if the reggae spergs took over, it would become an echo chamber. You seem more against people taking over the spaces you love than someone intorducing dissent into an echo chamber.
 
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You only truly know how solid your views are by how well they stand up to criticism.
Your hot takes might be completely idiotic but you won't know that when you're surrounded by people who agree with you all the time.
 
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Idiotron said:
You only truly know how solid your views are by how well they stand up to criticism.
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If it's done cordially and not in a way that makes you want to shoot yourself. If you go onto a site with diversity of opinion, but no one knows how to hold a respectful discussion and everyone flings shit and threatens to dox or behead each other for the sake of being contrarian, edgy, or funny, would you call that an echo chamber? I'd call it Baltimore.
 
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