Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Tell Me Again How Biased We Are

I've just started reading The Information Diet, which compares how we consume information to how we eat. Just as people are growing more obese while loading up on cheap, calorie-filled snacks, we prefer to consume information that we deem more tasty: the type that conforms with our previously held beliefs. Fox News and MSNBC dominate the ratings by appealing to the respective right and left of the political spectrum, while the more unbiased CNN drags behind.

Of course, the thought occurred to me that I would like this book, given how much I think about how arbitrary decision making is and how terrible humans are at looking at things objectively. I don't often seek out books talking about how rational we are.

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