[Tango-L] Style Wars: Truth and Truthiness

[Stephen.P.Brown@dal.frb.org]

Previously I wrote:
>> Rather than approximating the truth, the forever ongoing style wars on
>>Tango-L are more likely to yield what Stephen Colbert calls 
'truthiness.'

Konstantin responded:
>[T]ruthiness is not an inherent property of the medium or
>method of organization and of information exchange, but
>of the people that participate in it.

Agreed, but I would add "and of the way the relate to each other."

>Consequently, this problem seems to appear more readily and
>is more difficult to quash in places/meeing groups/blogs that
>are mostly populated by right-wing authoritarians.

I don't see what authoritarians (right-wing or otherwise) have to do with 
it.  Truthiness is the result of informal networks of like-minded 
individuals who reinforce each others' perspectives and help maintain 
individual biases.  The key to an unbiased outcome is that there is a 
mechanism for sharing and aggregating the information and that observers 
are independent of each other rather than polarized into identifiable 
groups with self-perpetuating biases.  In a polarized world where 
liked-minded individuals replicate the information that others have 
provided, the independence property necessary to avoid truthiness isn't 
found.

As I see it, when it comes to style wars and many other topics, Tango-L 
participants do seem to separate themselves into smaller networks of 
people who hold substantially similar views and support each other.  In 
such cases, they generate self-perpetuating polarizing views with an 
us-versus-them mentality.  Those are exactly the conditions that develop 
competing truthinesses.

With best regards,
Steve