Yanis Varoufakis Quotes

If you're always in the company of people who agree with you, you're going to think of people who don't agree with you as venal or stupid. I constantly tell my students that if they're in the company of people who always say "amen" to what you say, find other company. And that is the source of illiberalism, when you are unable to listen to someone who thinks differently. That's when democracies are in trouble.

We listen to those whom we know to be of the same opinion as ourselves, and we call them wise for being of it; but we avoid such as differ from us.

For too many of us, it's become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or on college campuses, or places of worship or especially our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions. And increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it's true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there.

To exist in an echo chamber and only talk to people with whom we agree is fruitless.

We have more information than ever before, and it is harder to avoid actually seeing what the other side is saying. Yes, we in Business insider focus on publications that we feel speak to us, but that is the same way it was 20 or 100 years ago. In the US, two million people have subscribed to the New York Times and many more millions think it is a terrible, liberal paper they would never read. We can choose to put ourselves in a bubble of only people who agree with us, but in the digital world there are many more ways of saying "Hey, here is something you might want to consider".

In any fairly large and talkative community such as a university there is always the danger that those who think alike should gravitate together where they will henceforth encounter opposition only in the emasculated form of rumour that the outsiders say thus and thus. The absent are easily refuted, complacent dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by the group hostility. Each group hears not the best, but the worst, that the other group can say.

The most active people in the country know different things, and because each one tends to hear mostly and deal mostly with people with whom they agree, they are reinforced not simply in the conviction that they are right, which is totally appropriate, but that they are the majority. So you have both sides, the Left and the Right, thinking that the majority of the country is really with them.

People want a reality that tells them they're right all of the time.

It feels great to have your own views reflected back to you, and you feel so right, but actually it's very dangerous. Because to make good decisions, you need to have a clear view of what all the options are.

Anybody who tunes into Rush Limabaugh already knows what he's going to say and is already inclined to agree. So it winds up creating tribes.

I think it's a very firm part of human nature that if you surround yourself with like-minded people, you'll end up thinking more extreme versions of what you thought before.

It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything.

People of a certain political view tend to read material of only that point of view … except to cast contempt on the other points of view.

Ideological amplification happens when like minded people deliberate…they push each other to extreme points of views….The argument pool in a group of liberals will be only liberal. Likewise with conservatives, the other way…. Most of us on most issues do not have a ton of information…we might be steered away from moderation…. Political correctness is a good example of ideological amplification.

Who wants to hear that he is wrong when he can be told that he is right? …. We are losing the ability to change our mind because of our media.

Facts just don’t mean anything anymore. It’s who shouts the loudest and repeats it the most.

If you only talk to people who agree with you, it’s easy to believe that you’re in the majority.

There is a subconscious tendency to substitute the conviction, forcefulness, or decibel level of opinionators as a proxy measure of their comprehension of the issues or veracity of their statements. Such correlations are imaginary and often inverse.

Research shows that if people are talking and listening to like-minded others, they become more dogmatic, more unified, and more extreme. Personalized Facebook experiences are a breeding ground for misunderstanding and miscommunication across political lines and, ultimately, for extremism.

When like-minded people, talking mostly with one another, end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk... If you put a bunch of rebels in a room and ask them to discuss rebellion, they'll get more extreme.

Facebook Algorithms have got us all screwed up, where we only listen and talk to people with the same views as us, and I think it's not helping us as a culture to grow.

When people silo themselves by belief, only affiliating with like-minded media organizations and people, we lose the opportunity for genuine conversation, much less persuasion.

Part of the problem is that if anybody has a gut reaction about an issue, they can go online and have it backed up. That said, they can also find support for their ideas in the mainstream media - because when the mainstream media gives a so-called balanced view, it's often misleading.

Social media has created a digital latticework, but it has also, for some, created abusive commenters, silos, and validation rather than curiosity.

We do our worst when we're surrounded by a lot of people who agree with us.