[PLUG-TALK] Web search engines focus of right-wing conspiracy theorists

[Rich Shepard]

On Wed, 23 Feb 2022, Paul Heinlein wrote:

> Interesting. Thanks for the link. The results chart me as a centrist with
> mildly left-libertarian leanings, which feels close to correct.

Paul,

I'm there, too. Haven't changed too much but that may be because the
statements have changed over the years.

> One thing the test does not examine is a person's views on socio-political
> (as opposed to, say, spiritual or religious) epistemology: how does a
> citizen come to know something? That is something different in our era.
> From "larger inauguration crowd" to sharpied weather maps to torn-up
> official documents, a distinct political culture has sprung up centered on
> troll epistemology. This is the new thing, it seems to me.

It may be that no one's figured out how to quantify socio-political
epistemological beliefs and create statements that would position the
results on a z-axis. Beyond that, I think there's no real understanding what
causes people to adopt, and feverently defend, conspiracies and total
rejection of of truth and acceptance of differences.

I'm glad I'm not younger than I am.

Best regards,

Rich