Quote:
Originally Posted by kyp275
@ solace
I know, I was referring more to the "I can't wrap my head around not being interested and curious about human history" part of it, not everyone is going to be interested in studying history etc.
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Eh, sorry. I got caught up in a rant anyway.
My point was that people have fewer and fewer incentives to leave their comfort zones. The world is increasingly designed to affirm and cater to what people already (think) they know. For example, a conservative watches conservative tv, reads conservative literature and articles, listens to conservative radio.....and then doesn't get why anyone could have a different point of view. More than that, the urge to win over that "different" view kicks in. And then you have the other side, the liberal, who goes through the same thing, and suddenly you have a problem. Two sides, both with polarizing opinions, who have little to no interest in leaving their comfort zones to find common ground.
I do blame media to some extent. Aggregates for example are big offenders. They auto feed you information, then suggest something related. The idea is sound and reasonable. If you like something, have some more, right? The problem is your experience becomes nothing but that, and the opportunities to explore and see something new and different grow smaller. While people claim they want new and original things, the evidence is the exact opposite: given a choice between the familiar and unfamiliar, the familiar wins almost every time. Media realizes this, and feeds the flames.
The biggest risk familiar faces is overexposure, but when your media offers no way to change, you are faced with a similar choice: do I break away and risk the unfamiliar, or stick with the familiar and hope for the best? The end result is that now information has become "background noise", because it's too uncomfortable for people to break away from overexposure. They've become desensitized, and without realizing it, have become part of the perpetuation of the problem.