Links With Your Coffee - Wednesday
- The Millions: Pandora Goes Classical
Why didn't anyone tell me about Pandora? I love the site, and you'll love it too. I now have a classical, a jazz, and a rock station set up and they are getting to know me and the music picks are wonderful. - ABC News: Deny All You Want, They'll Still Believe
Iraq and 9/11, sex trafficking, flu vaccines, widespread autism. Cognitive biases color our view of these and other issues and can affect our policy choices.
Because they are well-, but not widely understood, I'd like to briefly mention three of the most common ones and some related new and troubling research about denials.
First the biases. . . - Stephen Fry » Blog Archive » Getting Overheated (tip to my good friend Josh at RichardDawkins.Net
We must begin with a few round truths about myself: when I get into a debate I can get very, very hot under the collar, very impassioned, and I dare say, very maddening, for once the light of battle is in my eye I find it almost impossible to let go and calm down. I like to think I’m never vituperative or too ad hominem but I do know that I fall on ideas as hungry wolves fall on strayed lambs and the result isn’t always pretty. This is especially dangerous in America. I was warned many, many years ago by the great Jonathan Lynn, co-creator of Yes Minister and director of the comic masterpiece My Cousin Vinnie, that Americans are not raised in a tradition of debate and that the adversarial ferocity common around a dinner table in Britain is more or less unheard of in America. When Jonathan first went to live in LA he couldn’t understand the terrible silences that would fall when he trashed an statement he disagreed with and said something like “yes, but that’s just arrant nonsense, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense. It’s self-contradictory.” To a Briton pointing out that something is nonsense, rubbish, tosh or logically impossible in its own terms is not an attack on the person saying it – it’s often no more than a salvo in what one hopes might become an enjoyable intellectual tussle. Jonathan soon found that most Americans responded with offence, hurt or anger to this order of cut and thrust. Yes, one hesitates ever to make generalizations, but let’s be honest the cultures are different, if they weren’t how much poorer the world would be and Americans really don’t seem to be very good at or very used to the idea of a good no-holds barred verbal scrap. I’m not talking about inter-family ‘discussions’ here, I don’t doubt that within American families and amongst close friends, all kinds of liveliness and hoo-hah is possible, I’m talking about what for good or ill one might as well call dinner-party conversation. Disagreement and energetic debate appears to leave a loud smell in the air.
- The Hip-Hop Chess Federation Blog (tip to Frank at Listics
- FOX News Porn Send the children out of room, this is pretty raunchy.
- Secular Fundamentalists: There is no such thing.
Comments
The inability for people to argue casually is something that has for a long time terrified me. I can't help but wonder if its the lack of practice leading to the inability to defend one's own ideas that has lead to a steady downward trend in education in north america.
Some people look upon my friends and I with abject horror with the kind of vigor we can get on even the most tangential of topics. Arguing is part entertainment, part ritual of alphaship, part bonding and part exercise. I consider it an invaluable part of my life and I couldn't fathom being without it -- how can you live and NOT question everything? How can you not question everything VOCALLY? Madness.
If you like Pandora, give last.fm a look.
Pandora is great, but I didn't tell you about it because they have recently blocked non-U.S. people from listening to the radio. I used it for years, and now I cannot figure out how to get it to play while hiding my ip. A shame, and I am incredibly jealous!
sigh, i used to use pandora, but it's been a while. got all excited over the idea. but sadly, U.S. only now. oh well. LastFM perhaps...
"In the U.S. there is a federal statute called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that provides this license for all the music you hear on Pandora. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent license outside the U.S."
actually, from what i understand we're quite fortunate there isn't.....
Damndest coincidence, Norm: I found Pandora yesterday and was going to write you about it. One weird thing, though: first time there, I typed "Bach" into the search engine and it did its DNA thing and delivered some great stuff. But what I noticed over about an hour was that they were really heavy on the harpsichord, to the point where I actually got tired of it.
Maybe I need a review of genetic theory...
It seems I shall have to find a US proxy to test this Pandora thing. I live about a quarter mile too far north to access directly.Who thinks it will be worth it? I am a fan of both jazz and classical and good ole' rock for that matter.
Sorry I didn't tell you about Pandora, Norm. I found it a couple of years ago. It led to some bad music purchases for me though, so I stopped using it. You more music and internet savvy than I so I'm surprised you're new to Pandora.
Stephen Fry's comments are very interesting. I think I agree that Brits know how to argue casually better than Americans do. Maybe because they have their opinions and viewpoints right out there out in public on the front page. We hide them in the op-ed pages, on talk radio, cable news, blogs.
In general, though, in surveys Brits report talking to friends and family about politics quite a bit less than Americans do. Brits vote at a higher rate but talk politics at a lower rate. Perhaps we are all talking to people we agree with. But I agree it's quite bad. People are accustomed to a very rude, sarcastic tone that is practiced among like-minded people, when the object of the argument or the derision, or their defenders, are not present.
Thanks Norm, that Pandora is great and I know I'm gonna like it.
Two regular streaming stations I like regularly are WMNF in Tampa and KPIG in SF. Not classical but eclectic.
Hi; This is a very nice description of how I think of conversing; This seems to me to be a great source of friction with some type of people who see it as aggression. Its not, its style and form. This, I believe, is the reason why I like listening to BBC news, the interviews are aggressive at times; to hear a reporter tell the highest government minister "that's rubbish isn't it?!.." . To me this keeps a man more honest. People must be treated with respect, but their ideas must be wielded at all times, ready to expose and trash the weaker, illogical, unreasoned ideas that told as the truth. People can keep personal beliefs apart, that is personal, but when they engage the public and start transmitting an idea, that idea is now in public space and other ideas in public space can/should/will freely interact; the interaction can, and very probably will be the debate. To discuss, share, and reason with ideas (i.e. to debate) is a skill like any other, and needs to be trained, and practiced. This is why strong discussions are good as they are practicing and strengthening our skills.
Norm - You are always introducing us to stuff - I'm also surprised you didn't know about Pandora before. But - I didn't realize they started doing classical - that's good news.
I sometimes go there when I'm desperate to hear a song. I enter it as my radio station and eventually they play it - meanwhile I hear other interesting stuff along the way......
"I think I agree that Brits know how to argue casually better than Americans do"
Not just the Brits, Canadians as well. I've seen Canadians get into polite political discussions and incredibly heated, chair-throwing ones ... then walk away and come back five minutes later, all friendly.
The main reason Americans can't discuss political issues is because of liberal PC activism. This is why most corporations forbid the discussion of politics on company grounds - because they're terrified somebody will get offended, and everyone has been trained to think that if someone disagrees with them, that person is practicing a form of hate and violating their Constitutionally-protected right to never have their beliefs or actions questioned.
Probably the worst examples of this can be found on our college campuses. They have become a complete lock-down haven of far-left brainwashing.
OOOooooOOOOooooo, a friend at Dawkins.net, huh? Web master?
When I canvassed for Greenpeace back in the early 90s, lots of people would say, "ain't you the folks that blew up that French boat in Australia?" Of course, it was the French who blew up a Greenpeace ship in Australia.
BigDaddyMalcontent
Without taking anything away from the point you make about perception I feel I must draw your attention to the following;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasman_Sea
A 2000km wide body of water between Australia and the location for the events described here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SinkingoftheRainbowWarrior
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