New Episode All Things Brooklyn Podcast: Understanding Biases

NEW YORK - July 8, 2019 - PRLog -- Excerpt from "Understanding Biases" episode of "The All Things Brooklyn" Podcast Hosted by Jose Franco: The passion against bias often comes to a head in our thinking about news organizations. In certain circles, there is a particular loathing for what is termed biased news – and a belief in the option of decent news organizations which are going to always and inherently be unbiased. Unfortunately, there is simply no way of providing factual, 'unbiased' answers to the really big issues facing societies. News organizations that vaunt their neutrality forget that neutrality is simply impossible vis a vis the really urgent questions confronting our civilization. The word 'bias' ultimately simply alludes to the business of having a 'take' on existence. One may have a better or worse take, but one needs a take. One needs eventually to tackle the question of what is important, just, worth striving for. News, information and philosophy are held in low regards by the current administration. For philosophy, news and access to information to really matter, they have to be presented to us by organizations that have tried to think through the ends of human life, that have a vision of where we are trying to go as a species, and that have somewhere articulated their answers to their audiences. The issue is not – therefore – the illusory and timid one between bias and fact but between better and worse varieties of bias.

If it were up to me, I'd want a lot more than the formation of "dyads" – one-on-one relationships between two people – who usually don't question authority and have little communication beyond that. Immanuel Kant and Donald Trump's philosophy exemplify this deficiency as many of Kant's writings and Trump's rhetoric promote a revolutionary enthusiasm that encourages a narrow paradigm and isolation. David Hume's "Method Of Moral Philosophy" showed that reason is properly a "slave to the passions unlike the experimental and empirical; which exposes mankind's greatest weakness, our avoidance of self reflection. Unlike Hume, Kant unintentionally blinded himself by seeing the world for what he wanted it to be, instead of Hume's emphasis on reason and empirical data, to perceive the world as it really is. Kant emphasized the superiority of good will over nature. His writings omitted vital events and information that make one question man's behavior or their convictions. We find this behavior in most places where smart, successful people show up. Failure to confront our imperfections forces us to continually look for scapegoats to make up for when the story we're telling ourselves doesn't add up. Scapegoating at a group level is made easier by the fact that some group members (all races) are individuals composed of their own weaknesses and flaws.

Unlike philosopher Yuval Noah Harari, Donald Trump hasn't put in the work of reading literature that encourage self reflection, shutting out new ideas easily accessible to him. We often ignore new ideas despite knowing a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many. Yuval Noah Harari describes this phenomena in his book "21 Lessons For The 21st Century", "When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month, that's fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that's a religion, and we are admonished not to call it "fake news" in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful (or incur their wrath)."

Enabling all of us to experience an epiphany about communication that unites Americans around a core set of values is my goal. These values encourage dyads to become "triads" – groups of three people together with shared projects and common values. "Triads are the building blocks of Information that flows freely through networks and innovation enabling individuals to surrender. Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. We should also enable Americans to form habitual ways to meet certain needs or solve day-to-day problems instead of a steady diet of distracting tweets. Tell yourself, "greatness is the perception that virtue is enough". Unfortunately, the common person often lacks virtue, instead we avoid looking within ourselves to make self-improvements. If this sounds like you........ click here to listen to entire episode all-things-brooklyn-podcast.html (http://stoopjuice.com/all-things-brooklyn-webcast/all-thi...)