Epistemic Bubbles v. Echo Chambers

Some links for your consideration

I recently had my fourth baby. As any parent who has had a little baby probably knows, this creates lots of time to read things on the couch. (Sadly, it does not - for me - translate into writing more things, because I’m also sleeping in 2-3 hour increments for the duration).

The most recent Greco baby

While I’m reading some mystery novels, I’m also reading a lot of essays, on the theory that to write well, you have to read well. I’d like to share some of the great ones with all of you, so I will try to send out a weekly set of links of the best things I’ve read while I’m in the “little baby” phase. No promises that I’ll be able to stick to the schedule, alas, since I’m still homeschooling and caring for the older kids — plus all the other “Mom Stuff.”¹ I’ll do my best.

The best things I read are usually outside my “epistemic bubble.” This kind of bubble is formed when you read, listen to, or understand a particular kind of view - but not others. We all naturally live in epistemic bubbles of one kind or another; by virtue of where we live, the friends we have, etc. To avoid it, I have to actively seek out information outside my “bubble,” and I find it very valuable to do so.

An “epistemic bubble” can be distinguished from an “echo chamber,” in which the members of the echo chamber “systemically distrust all outside sources.” This great paper by philosopher C. Thi Nguyen discusses the difference² between the two, making the important distinction that an epistemic bubble is easy to “break.” Usually, you simply have to introduce new information to pop the bubble. By contrast, an “echo chamber” is quite hard to escape, because it works by discrediting information from outside the echo chamber. Thus, introducing contrary information into an echo chamber can famously make the problem worse, as “[m]embers can be brought to hold a set of beliefs such that the existence and expression of contrary beliefs reinforces the original set of beliefs and the discrediting story.” For example, one study on how social media promotes echo chambers found that Republicans who were exposed to a “liberal Twitter bot” became more conservative. (The same was true for Democrats, who became more liberal after following a conservative Twitter bot.)

With that in mind, you may wish to consider for yourself what societal problems are caused by epistemic bubbles and which are caused by echo chambers. To that end: two essays that relayed information previously outside my epistemic bubble, and one displaying the problem of echo chambers.

• Amber Lapp, a dear friend, mom of six, and Research Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, has a new essay, With Abortion on the Ballot in 10 States, the Pro-Life Community Must Regain Women’s Trust. In it, she presents some excerpts from interviews she did with two working-class women from Ohio. I was struck by the fact that both women described themselves as both pro-life and pro-choice. Political commentators often present abortion questions as a binary issue: either someone is pro-life, or they are in favor of greater abortion rights. Lapp’s interviews make clear, however, that the issue is much more complex for many women. For the women she interviewed, their respect for life in utero is mixed with concern about pregnant women in difficult situations. One of the women described how she agonized over the decision on how to vote on Ohio’s 2023 referendum on abortion:

  I’m just remembering it so vividly right now. You know, where I was at my precinct, and I’m at the booth, and I stood there probably longer than anybody else,” she shared. “Because I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, how can I make one decision or vote on a subject like this when I can’t make that decision for somebody?”

  She said she remembers pausing and saying a prayer, feeling nervous. “I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders just to fill in one of those bubbles,” she admitted. “Honestly, I felt wrong about it in so many ways…like I was playing God.”

  The essay’s emphasis on the complex, nuanced view many women have on abortion was a welcome change from the standard viewpoint that women are either solely on the pro-life or pro-choice side, and I thought it was very valuable.

• I also really enjoyed this essay by Gord Magill, Stuck in Reverse, published with American Compass about the decline of the trucking industry. Magill makes the point that after the deregulation of the trucking industry in the 1980s, employers began churning through employees, rather than cultivating their workers as the foundations of their business. He notes:

  [T]he deregulation of the 1980s set off a vicious cycle in which trucking companies competing on price, rather than service, continually sought to squeeze more work out of drivers while slashing their pay, leading to extraordinarily high levels of churn in the workforce. In a proper market, the need to retain good employees would have halted this decline. Instead, the companies “solved” their problem by lobbying the government to provide a constant stream of freshly trained drivers and by developing exploitive models like the lease-operator and various forms of indentured servitude for immigrant drivers. Any trucking company that tries to do right by its drivers gets quickly undercut.

  I’m not familiar with the trucking industry, but these trends are similar to those in many other industries, where employers view workers, especially low-wage workers, as interchangeable widgets than can easily be replaced. I think this is a mistake for many [business and other] reasons, but that’s another essay. Suffice to say, as Magill points out, ‘twas not always thus. To be sure, bad working conditions have existed forever. But here’s an anecdote: my great-great grandfather died in his 30s working for a railroad company. The company gave my great-great grandmother a stable job (at a time when few mothers worked), so that she would be able to feed her children. She worked for the company until she retired, and then used her lifetime railroad pass to visit her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, living to be over 100 years old. Does that kind of company loyalty exist today?

• The above two essays had information outside my epistemic bubble, but here’s an example of an echo chamber: this past week Whoopi Goldberg told watchers of “The View” that a Staten Island bakery had refused to make her favorite birthday dessert for political reasons, announcing on national T.V.:

  They said that their ovens had gone down, but folks went and got them anyway, which is why I’m not telling you who made them. It’s not… because I’m a woman, but perhaps they did not like my politics.

  The bakery was identified by news media and then (of course) received angry phone calls and emails.

  It’s a small family business that has been serving Staten Island customers for 146 years. Jill and Billy Holtermann, the siblings who currently run the business, eventually gave a press conference explaining that the boiler in their building wasn’t working well recently, and so when Goldberg’s staff called in advance to order desserts for her birthday, the bakery said it couldn’t commit to that. The Holtermanns even produced a statement by their plumber, who said that he’d just replaced their faulty boiler and that the bakery needed the steam from the boiler for baking. The Holtermanns said their inability to take Goldberg’s order in advance had nothing to do with politics—they just were struggling with their old heating system.

  Goldberg’s echo chamber seems fairly strong, however, because the only further public comment she’s made indicates she thinks she did nothing wrong by making this accusation:

  whoopigoldberg

  

  A post shared by @whoopigoldberg

  Goldberg didn’t apologize, even though she (who reportedly makes many millions annually) was responsible for directing a torrent of angry phone calls and emails to a small, family-run business. Happily, other news reports indicate Staten Island doesn’t seem to care about Goldberg’s comments; the Borough’s president, Vito Fossella, even showed up at the bakery to announce: “You don’t mess with Staten Island.”

1. This is an official term, of course.

2. You can read the penultimate draft, which is not paywalled, here.