>Rather than picking a set of biases and viewpoints and presenting that, news orgs and silicon valley have decided that $thing_i_agree_with and $the_opposite_view deserve equal reach/airtime
No, we do that because a marketplace of subjective ideas is a good thing.
The most obvious case would be climate change. Regularly, climate skeptics are given the same amount of airtime as climate scientists, despite the fact that the evidence and opinion is overwhelmingly in support of climate change being a real problem.
A realistic panel would be 98 climate scientists on one side, and two climate skeptics on the other.
By giving someone with far less evidence equal airtime and respect, it lends credence to that point of view despite it being so poorly supported by facts.
I had a wonderful chemistry teacher once. Someone asked him what he thought about climate change, and he gave a fantastic response.
"The atmosphere is a lot like a fish tank full of water. If you put food coloring in that fish tank, it turns slightly red. The more food coloring you put in that tank, the more red it gets. If you take a flashlight and try and shine light through one side of the fishtank and out the other side, the food coloring blocks some of the light. The more food coloring you put in, the more light it blocks... and turns to heat. Try it. You'll make the water warmer.
"That water is like our atmosphere. That food coloring is like CO2. And that flashlight is like our sun."
It's not difficult to convincingly and simply explain the evidence for man-made climate change. Evenly matched debaters would predictably win and lose if they were told to argue for or against climate change. The reason why climate scientists fail to convince TV viewers about climate change is that they are scientists: they spend more time practicing science than practicing persuading laypeople in terms that they will understand. Going up against demagogues, they have zero chance.
The game isn't bad. It works incredibly well most of the time for most of the problems we have encountered. It doesn't work so well when one side is incredibly bad at convincing common people and is not willing to change argument tactics, or when both sides are making completely subjective arguments.
I wish it was a matter of outreach, but I I fear people won’t remember your wonderful analogy unless they identify as a member of your tribe. Instead, putting skeptics on TV who are a member of their tribe, and who assured them it is nothing to worry about, allows them to carry on mining coal and driving their SUVs where they need to go and not updating any of their beliefs. All those things are expensive and painful for adults, but weren’t problems for you as a child.
I heard that story in college. It stuck out because it was pithy and convincing.
If you think people don't listen to new ideas or change their minds, do you think people should only be allowed to hear what you think is true, so that they don't hear wrong ideas to begin with?
Nope, I’m just disillusioned that everyone is as open as college you to new ideas and that we can simply go reach the people who don’t want to be reached.
I suspect that the fact that you were taking chemistry in college means you were already in a very different state to receive new ideas compared with your average TV news viewer who is currently skeptical of climate change, and that difference is really important.
I’m not saying let’s throw up our hands, but people like Gore and Billy Nye are trying outreach, and it isn’t because they are bad at articulating ideas that this is still a problem.
I once saw an interview conducted by I believe Tucker Carlson with Bill Nye regarding climate change. It was obviously conducted entirely in bad faith and was just painful to watch. Every time Bill Nye would begin to answer a question the host would cut him off with random nonsense like “Isn’t it true Mr. Nye that you’re not even a scientist?!” and the process repeated until completion. It was obvious that it was pushing a completely biased tribal narrative and was not concerned with logical analysis and discussion. And yet sadly the video was uploaded with a title along the lines of “Tucker Carlson Destroys Bill Nye” with a majority of the comments disparaging Mr. Nye. So I’d have to agree with you that there are definitely a non-trivial amount of the populous that cannot be swayed by facts or discussion and instead stick blindly to their “team” of choice.
people like Gore and Billy Nye are trying outreach
Which becomes part of the problem. When your role model is a guy who flies private jets from conference to conference and had a $17,000+ per year utility bill for his home (and not so much as one solar panel when in office), it doesn't convey urgency very well.
No one can pass the purity test for skeptics because it isn’t about that. I’m convinced it’s about saving face for their tribe. I can’t think of a spokesperson skeptics would believe. Maybe Donald Trump saying he was wrong and something needs to be done on National TV would work?
> The most obvious case would be climate change. Regularly, climate skeptics are given the same amount of airtime as climate scientists, despite the fact that the evidence and opinion is overwhelmingly in support of climate change being a real problem.
Is this actually a thing? As far as I can tell what actually happens is that outlets like Fox News just pretend climate change doesn't exist. They don't host a panel on it with climate skeptics, they just avoid discussing it at all, or center discussions around ad hominem attacks on the character or financial/political incentives of anyone who proposes doing anything about it.
Granted it's hard for them to discuss anything at all now that cable news airtime is 89% commercials.
if this person with less evidence refutes the evidence of the other, who has more evidence? Who is to decide who's evidence is valid before the debate? if it's already invalidated, why even have the debate in the first place? If you want a debate all participants should have a chance to voice their views, regardless of what the other participants hold as opinions about these views. if something is poorly supprted or not is to be decided after the debate. so basing the voiced opinions on preconceived conclusions is actually not a good thing which is what you seem to be suggesting.
An accurate presentation of the facts very rarely looks like presenting precisely two opposing sides as having equally valid ideas, and then refusing to contextualise the debate that you've artifically created in doing so.
A presentation is subjective. Unless you are literally showing people recorded values and scientific study methodology verbatim, it is subjective and open to interpretation to some degree.
Of course a presentation is subjective. There are, however, significantly better ways of presenting a debate over something than finding the one person who holds the exact opposite of the current mainstream view and bringing them on radio or television or giving them opinion columns in the newspaper, repeatedly, until they manage to whip up a crowd who are angry enough at the state of the world and want someone to blame to believe them.
No, we do that because a marketplace of subjective ideas is a good thing.