Sunday, December 11, 2022

News bits: Republican doublespeak, etc.

Republican doublespeak in Florida:
Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps
Florida lawmakers released a massive property insurance bill that would create a $1 billion reinsurance fund, seek to reduce insurance lawsuits and force more people out of the state-created insurer of last resort even if it means property owners end up paying more.

The 123-page bill was filed Friday night, less than three days before lawmakers begin a special session on insurance, property tax relief for Hurricane Ian victims and reducing tolls for frequent commuters.

“The goal we all share is for Florida to have a robust property insurance market that offers homeowners the opportunity to shop for insurance that meets their needs and budget. We also want to make certain that when damage occurs, claims are paid promptly and fairly,” Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo said in a news release.
What?? Republicans claim to want a property insurance market that offers affordable insurance choices by forcing people out the the state-created, lower-cost insurer of last resort? If people in Florida get screwed, and they will, they voted for it. They deserve it. This is how Republicans treat average people: →  Pull yourself up by your bootstraps you lazy bums.


Thoughts about the limits of radical right
Christian bigotry
A WaPo opinion by E.J. Dionne articulates the issue nicely:
.... there is no obvious limiting principle for when religious convictions should allow exemption from anti-discrimination laws. If this exemption applies to same-sex couples, why not, for example, to interracial couples? Or to couples from different religions? Or for couples who opt for civil rather than religious marriages? Why not to other forms of discrimination that have nothing to do with marriage?

But such questions also invite us to examine the case from a different perspective: Why do conservative Christians want this exemption in the first place?

That question is neither naive nor rhetorical. Many traditionalist Christians view homosexual relationships as sinful. I think they are wrong, but I acknowledge that this is a long-held view. Yet many of the same Christians also view adultery as a sin. Jesus was tough on divorce. “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder,” he says in Matthew’s Gospel.

But unless I am missing something, we do not see court cases from website designers or florists or bakers about refusing to do business with people in their second or third marriages. We do not see the same ferocious response to adultery as we do to same-sex relationships. Heck, conservative Christians in large numbers were happy to put aside their moral qualms and vote twice for a serial adulterer. Why the selective forgiveness? Why the call to boycott only this one perceived sin?

What we are seeing in the opposition to same-sex marriage is less about religious faith than cultural predispositions.
Given the vast, uncheckable power the radical right Christian nationalist Supreme Court has, we are probably going to start to see the limits of hate and bigotry-inspired discrimination. It will take a few years, but some clarity will probably come. Maybe the day will come when Christians are willing and empowered to shun people in their second or third marriages and serial adulterers, but with the option to not discriminate against the bad ones they choose to forgive and/or ignore. 

For context, IMO intentional discrimination like what Christian nationalists employ against the LGBQT community is bigotry.

Bigotry: Unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction, in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group


Brain science: Misinformation tends to be more
powerful than information: The illusory truth effect
Blame the brain.

Many of the decisions we make as individuals and as a society depend on accurate information; however, our psychological biases and predispositions make us vulnerable to falsehoods.

As a result, misinformation is more likely to be believed, remembered and later recalled — even after we learn that it was false.

“On every level, I think that misinformation has the upper hand,” said Nathan Walter, a professor of communication studies at Northwestern University who studies the correction of misinformation.

No one is completely immune to falsehoods, in part because of how our cognition is built and how misinformation exploits it.

We use mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make many of our judgments, which benefit us. But our cognitive tendencies can make us susceptible to misinformation if we are not careful.

“By default, people will believe anything they see or hear,” said Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Bristol who specializes in understanding how people respond to corrections of misinformation. In our day-to-day lives, “that makes a lot of sense because most things that we’re exposed to are true,” he said.

At the same time, the more we see something repeated, the more likely we are to believe it to be true. This “illusory truth effect” arises because we use familiarity and ease of understanding as a shorthand for truth; the more something is repeated, the more familiar and fluent it feels whether it is misinformation or fact.

“There is only typically one true version of a claim and an infinite number of ways you could falsify it, right?” said Nadia Brashier, a psychology professor at Purdue University who studies why people fall for fake news and misinformation. “So, if you hear something over and over again, probabilistically, it’s going to be the true thing.”

But these shortcuts do not work so well in our current political environment and social media, which can repeat and amplify falsehoods. One study found that even a single exposure to a fake headline made it seem truer. Politicians often repeat lies and seem to be aware of the power of the illusory truth effect, Brashier said.
Of course marketers, ideologues, politicians, propagandists, liars, grifters, demagogues, tyrants and kleptocrats all know about the power of the illusory truth effect. They do not just seem to be aware. They are practiced experts. 

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