Walking Echo Chambers
Therefore, we should not put our faith in people with unwavering opinions and fixed attitudes, because those entrenched in a black-and-white worldview are not humans, but rather walking echo chambers.
By Erna Mist. Translated and reprinted from the Icelandic original.
We live in a world where most people cannot substantiate the statements they make, because they do not know where they come from. This is how echo chambers work; they feed people with certain information and then confirmations of that information, and then confirmations that these confirmations are reliable enough for one not to question them. These algorithms are designed to eliminate critical thinking, and without critical thinking, we are not individuals but rather cogs in a machine, which out of sheer wishful thinking we call a democracy, while in fact we live in a technocracy that will ultimately evolve into digital totalitarianism.
Therefore, we should not put our faith in people with unwavering opinions and fixed attitudes, because those entrenched in a black-and-white worldview are not humans, but rather walking echo chambers. Leftists who believe all conservatives are evil are walking echo chambers. Conservatives who believe all leftists are clueless are walking echo chambers. Older generations who believe younger generations have no values are walking echo chambers. Liberal leftists who think all Christian democrats are racists are walking echo chambers. The well-intentioned people who believe others are bad people are walking echo chambers.
The deeper people move into their own echo chamber, the less likely they are to engage in conversations with anyone other than themselves, and the more convinced they become of their own perspectives, making it easier for them to dismiss views that contradict their own as "wrong opinions" and the people who express them as "bad people." Therefore, when critical thinking is absent, it becomes so incredibly difficult to imagine that the world is more complex and diverse than one believes it to be. That is why we must doubt our own perspectives, doubt our own convictions. Without doubt, we become captives of ideology, molded by a digital blueprint of a predetermined personality.
Erna Mist is an Icelandic painter - ernamist.com
Agreed. Being principled does not mean one must also be close-minded.