On 2016-11-24 I began an effort to learn to enjoy news reports. I'll be updating this post throughout the remainder of November with whatever stories I judge to be something other than ... gosh, I don't know a word that's hateful enough to describe most news reports. Epistemic poison? I probably won't be linking the original articles, because the original articles are seriously not worth sharing beyond the summaries that I'm providing here. Have I mentioned that I do not yet like news reports?
The Economist: Syrian government bombs rebels.
CNN: Japan and South Korea are now sharing military intelligence.
Bloomberg: The Philippine economy is doing poorly.
Bloomberg: In an effort to account for untaxed black market money, the Indian Government demonitizes its largest bank notes and issues a new series of bank notes which can be exchanged for the old ones.
The Guardian: Hurricanes continue to exist in the tropics.
The Guardian: There's a big fire in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city.
The Guardian: Peace negotiations between the Colombian government and FARC, a revolutionary socialist guerilla force, which have been in progress since 2012 are still in progress.
The Guardian: Thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing oppressive social conditions in Myanmar since 2015 continue to exist.
NY Times: People continue to kill and die in the Iraqi civil war.
That's it so far. Maybe I should make a list of all the sites that I looked at in order to show how very many fail to host a single story of greater merit than "A person said that they wouldn't like it if a thing happened that wasn't in their interest".
Questions, declarations, demands
Questions are approximately statements of ignorance, but they're better at getting people to respond. Why? Consider:
S1. Declaration of ignorance
Alani: Oh no, here come's Hukov. He's such a prick.
Hukov: Hi, Alani. I don't know how the world would look if participatory consent were a socially overvalued moral construct. Idk if you know either.
Alani: Hukov, I don't care about you or what you know. Go away.
S2. Inquiry
Alani: Oh no, here comes Hukov. He's such a prick.
Hukov: Hi, Alani. What if Jesus were a raisin?
Alani: I ....hm....what if Jesus were a raisin? Let's talk this out.
...
So maybe one reason that questions are more effective than declarations of ignorance in getting an informative response is that questions, by skipping the mention of the speaker and their mental state, give the audience fewer opportunities to decide they're not interested.
Another reason is that questions are kind of like demands for answers, and people have a quick mental reaction that promotes compliance with demands.
If a demand is roughly a statement of the speaker's desire for the audience to perform a behavior, then maybe a question also encodes a little bit of a preference for the audience to respond, and a little bit of an assumption by the speaker that they have social authority to voice their preference with a reasonable expectation that the audience will comply.
Neat.
S1. Declaration of ignorance
Alani: Oh no, here come's Hukov. He's such a prick.
Hukov: Hi, Alani. I don't know how the world would look if participatory consent were a socially overvalued moral construct. Idk if you know either.
Alani: Hukov, I don't care about you or what you know. Go away.
S2. Inquiry
Alani: Oh no, here comes Hukov. He's such a prick.
Hukov: Hi, Alani. What if Jesus were a raisin?
Alani: I ....hm....what if Jesus were a raisin? Let's talk this out.
...
So maybe one reason that questions are more effective than declarations of ignorance in getting an informative response is that questions, by skipping the mention of the speaker and their mental state, give the audience fewer opportunities to decide they're not interested.
Another reason is that questions are kind of like demands for answers, and people have a quick mental reaction that promotes compliance with demands.
If a demand is roughly a statement of the speaker's desire for the audience to perform a behavior, then maybe a question also encodes a little bit of a preference for the audience to respond, and a little bit of an assumption by the speaker that they have social authority to voice their preference with a reasonable expectation that the audience will comply.
Neat.
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