Blog #10: Propaganda

 Propaganda

Ah, Uncle Sam, America’s favorite relative.  Created in the 17th century, his white, red, and blue outfit, top hat, and stern face evokes feelings of patriotism and strength. By pointing his finger at the audience,

he encourages confidence in the American people and unifies them as one. After all, he boosted the morale among Americans and got more troops for the Army to fight in World War I.

Yes, Uncle Sam is a beloved figure in American history who represents this nation’s strength. 

But he is also one of the most famous examples of propaganda in American history. 

Propaganda is dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion. In this instance, it's the government using emotion to inspire Americans to support the war efforts; men fighting in the army and women supporting from home. Propaganda has been used for centuries, with records dating back to 515 BCE. It has been used throughout history in every organization civilization with a democratic hierarchy. In American, typically its either used by the government to create support for its plans or, its been used by opposing politicians to decrease support for the other. 

Uncle Sam is one of the most popular examples of American propaganda and it represents a happy ideal in America, everyone feeling empowered to do their part to support America which is pretty positive.

However, the group brought up an example of how evil and dangerous propaganda got in Hilter’s Germany. Hilter used propaganda to paint negative viewpoints of Jewish people and other minorities across the nation. Hilter intentionally depicted Jewish people as evil and the cause of the world’s problems and after enough propaganda was released, public opinions were influenced. By using propaganda, anti-semitism spread across Germany and led to the Holocaust, which killed six million Jewish people. 

Clearly, propaganda can be extremely dangerous when used by evil people with malicious intentions. Propaganda is influential tool, that can be used to create lovable characters who influence you to give back to your country, or it can encourage others to participate in mass genocide. 

#9: In the Age of AI

Between Us & AI, AI Is Going To Win

Earlier this week, I ordered a new pair of headphones from Best Buy, since I lost my previous pair. The day that it was scheduled for delivery, I waited with excitement until I received an automated text message that my order was being returned due to an “unknown error” in delivery. Besides being disappointed that I wouldn’t be receiving my product, it became quickly apparent that my refund wasn’t coming through. So, I contacted Best Buy. 

Or, Best Buy’s AI tools. 

When I googled “best buy customer service”, a link to a chat window appeared, and having used that type of service before, I started typing out my issue. Besides being awkward and strange, this service was completely unhelpful and the chatbot clearly had no idea what I was talking about and told me to “try again later” which left me frustrated. So, I called the closest store near High Point, which happened to be in Greensboro. 

A robot picked up the call. 

Again, this robot was completely unhelpful, didn’t understand my issue, and didn’t give me the option to talk to a living breathing employee. 

Just “try again later”. 

What happened to talking on the phone? 

Seriously, why do we spend more time either communicating to or through robotic technology than to

each other? AI is developing at an extremely rapid pace and it’s not slowing down anytime soon. And sure, AI can be extremely beneficial in the workplace, driving up productivity and profits for the company. It reduces human error which saves the employee’s time and it reduces mundane tasks, like inputting and converting data points. However, we are quickly coming to a turning point in technology. AI will go from assisting us to taking over. 

Is there anything humans can do that a computer can’t? AI used to just dominate STEM fields, doing the

busy work, but now that it can write and create artwork, is there a point to humans spending hours into a craft to watch a robot do it in minutes and do it better. What happens when we reach that point in society, where humans doing jobs is pretty much meaningless when a robot does it for free and does it perfectly?

Right now, AI is completely taking over cashier’s jobs. Major stores like Wal-Mart, Amazon, CVS, and Target, are starting to

have more self-checkout than cashiers, which is good for the billion dollar corporations to not have to hand-out another paycheck from their profits, but it will destroy the individual lives and families who rely on those paychecks to survive. 

It's absolutely terrifying to think of AI’s potential and the ramifications on individual America; the billionaires will be fine, if not more successful and filthy rich. What happens to man when he has no skills to offer, no skills that a robot can’t do for free. 

We have to start talking on the phone more. 

Post #8: Confirmation Bias

Your Subconscious is Holding You Back

How is it possible to tell if we are correct or not, especially when we are thinking about the topics from our own perspective? Is it possible for humans to think about topics without bias? One phenomenon where humans seek out facts to support their own beliefs and ignore any contradicting evidence is called

confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the idea that one only looks at evidence that supports their preformed beliefs and subconsciously dismisses anything that goes against that belief. 

A study was performed in 1960 by the psychologist Peter Wason to observe the internal and subconscious bias that humans have and if that causes them to ignore conflicting information to their predetermined ideals. The participants were given the number sequence of “2-4-6” and told to form a hypothesis, which was “a sequence of even numbers”. The psychologists then had the participants present their own number sequences. They came up with ones such as “4-8-10”, “6-8-12”, and “20-22-24” until the test subjects felt confident in their hypothesis that the rule to the number sequences could only be “a sequence of even numbers”. However, this was not the rule, instead it was “a sequence of increasing numbers”. 

Further results from this study included that the participants only created hypotheses that confirmed their predetermined thoughts, not any hypothesis that would disprove or contradict their thinking. This was the first time psychologists were able to get concrete evidence to prove the theory of confirmation bias, however, Wason manipulated this evidence to highlight the bad news. 

Yes, Wason only displayed the evidence in his paper that aligned with what he wanted to say on cognitive biases. 

Ironic, isn’t it? 

When psychologists reviewed Wason’s data later on, they saw that he noted that several participants correctly guessed the rule after the first number sequence and other participants created sequences after the first one that didn’t fit into their own created rule. In short, the participants did not exude as much confirmation bias as Wason led readers to believe in his paper. 

Other studies had similar findings as Wason’s original findings, not what he showcased in his paper. For example there was a study performed in 1990 by psychologist Ziva Kunda whose participants stated the same ideals as the participants from thirty years earlier. Many looked outside of their own thought processes to solve whatever puzzle was presented in front of them and did not display a vast amount of bias. 

So why does confirmation bias get such a bad wrap, if the studies provide evidence that people are not as biased as one may think?

There is one major factor in the studies that upon reflection, may explain why the majority of the participants in the studies didn't exude confirmation bias; context.

It's believed that when context is provided, confirmation bias tends to fade away. This could be because

people are forced to think about things more critically and topics become more well-rounded when all sides are being supported with data. In our day-to-day lives, we typically don’t find that much well-rounded context to current events without deep-searching on our part. It’s hard to measure confirmation bias when dealing with political events since there's no psychologist telling us that we are wrong, that there is another solution to the problem. The study conducted by Wason doesn’t accurately replicate the environment people find themselves in when dealing with political, social, or economical issues, especially with the development of social media. When conducting his study in 1960, there is no way that Wason would have been able to predict the world-altering types of technology that we have today and how that technology makes it so much more difficult to get full context on complex world issues.  

Don't get trapped in your echo chamber. 

Post #7: Selling Data and Lives

Selling Data and Our Lives

Finding a balance between technology benefiting our lives and intruding on our lives is a fine line that Americans have had to walk on over the past decade as technology has rapidly developed, for good and for evil. This issue of protecting privacy affects every American as our rights get more and more intruded on everyday. It affects everyone in different ways; some just get ads for websites they just visited and others get their identity stolen because they placed an order online. 

If you are the “lucky”  one in that situation, your privacy is still severely breached and your data is getting sold from first party companies to third party companies. It's everywhere, your phone, computer, tablets are all connected to one account and anything (and everything!) your search, write, text is stored and distributed throughout the main company and whoever they sell your data to. Americans who use the internet are consumers in multiple ways; mainly in a way that we are unaware of and only benefit the billion-dollar corporations that we inadvertently sell our lives to by posting on websites like Facebook. 

I know that I get creeped out when I see an ad on Instagram for a jewelry website I was visiting on my

computer, just a couple minutes prior. It reminds me how closely I’m being tracked and reminds me I’m not only being watched; I’m being encouraged to be a consumer. I closed the website for a reason; I’m a college student who doesn’t need any more packages from the mailroom. Yet, my technology is strongly encouraging me and reminding me to spend money on things I don’t need, and I’m not sure if I even want those things. In a world full of online pictures of “perfection”, people could spend thousands trying to buy that perfection and seemingly falling short every time. I bought the dress; why am I still not perfect like the girl on Instagram, vacationing in the South of France? 

That's a seemingly superficial issue, in comparison to how data breaches can destroy lives and businesses. However, this privacy issue, caused by the major companies and collect and sell data, both directly affects Americans and indirectly affects them. Yes, these companies sell your data and provide targeted ads but what are the effects of the ads? Could the ads telling young girls “buy this”, “look like this”, “be this” the reason behind the increasing depression and suicide rates among teen girls? 

How much of us is being sold? 

Post 6: Politcal Parties

 Listening to the Silenced Voices 

Society in America is infatuated with the idea of a solid, free democracy with the full freedom of thought and expression. However, we don’t really utilize that in practice, at least with the major news networks in America. Major news channels, like CNN or FOX NEWS, and major news publications, like The New York Times or the Washington Post will obviously have their own slants on current events but more than likely, their takes will be in the same realm of ideas. 

We see CNN and Fox pinned as complete opposites, CNN being extremely liberal and Fox being extremely conservative. However, both channels cover the same topics and have, relatively, the same “solutions” to world problems; they represent each side of the two-party democratic system and therefore, are somewhat similar based on the fact that they are both the main democratic parties.

You never really see major news channels represent, or even just show the perspectives, of the other parties, like the Independent party or the Green party, two examples of America’s third political parties. 

It's very rare that major news channels will promote ideas that don’t fall into either Democratic or Republican ideals and instead advocate for any of the third-party’s ideals. To hear voices that differ from the mainstream, one has to actively look for websites that promote those ideas and advance further discussion or viewpoints. 

These two websites, The American Conservative and Anti-War, are examples of voices that are out of America’s norm and therefore, are not promoted by the big news companies. These websites express ideas that promote either extremely conservative values or extreme anti-war values. Both of those ideas don’t fit in America’s political norms and then don’t get promoted by major news outlets because they produce different solutions to American political issues that go against the mainstream. To have solutions that go against the most popular two would create further discussion and if there is further discussion, it could lead to compromise or just communication between individuals of all political perspectives. By only promoting two ideas, it creates a “us vs them” dynamic in politics which is profitable for politicians by pinning Americans against each other. 

Americans should reach out to news outlets or opinion pieces that are not promoted by major media outlets to find out what others are thinking about current events, even if it goes completely against one's values, just to understand what other Americans are thinking. This type of activity would promote civil discourse which would benefit individual Americans, rather than major politicians, who benefit by only promoting the two-party system.