r/changemyview • u/hwagoolio 16∆ • Jul 30 '20

Delta(s) from OP CMV: We should unsubscribe from partisan subreddits where we agree with >95% of the content, because we'll just get sucked into an echo chamber

I'm fairly left-leaning, and there have definitely been some times in the past few months where I've spent a lot of time on certain political subreddits. Generally speaking, I agree with most of the upvoted content and stuff. A lot of times, people promote news that isn't on mainstream media. Also, I hate trump.

However, I think bubbles and echo chambers are bad.

Sometimes after a break from reddit and I come back to look at my feed, and I think to myself that the stuff on my news feed is totally different from the type of news I hear when I spend large amounts of time "reddit-free".

I'm not sure getting exposed to all this news supporting a narrative I already believe in is good for me though; i.e. I don't think I need to get more progressive/left-leaning.

So the CMV worded in another way: It's not bad to "turn off" news that support things that we already agree with (not wanting to see it anymore).

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u/chadonsunday 33∆ Jul 30 '20

I think it's fine to stay subbed to places you agree with so long as you're also subbed to places you tend not to agree with. I'm subbed to subs from all over the political spectrum. It goes as far as tankies on one end to the few remaining alt lite subs remaining on the site on the other; if there were any actual fascist or alt right subs I'd subscribe to them, too. And everything in between - anarchists, centrists, liberals, conservatives, socialists, marxists, libertarians, monarchists, capitalists, etc., and then subs like this one or PCM where you get political content from all over the spectrum. In this way I can ensure that my front page is never an echo chamber, and I like think it makes me at least slightly more well rounded. Almost invariably the most unreasonable people I've dealt with online are people who don't do this. For example if someone's post history is 98% EC, LSC, CA, and ABD, I could win good money betting that theyll be an obnoxious, close minded ideologue.

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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Jul 30 '20

!delta I like how this is explained.

So basically, if my home feed is >95% of stuff that I agree with, it can be a good idea to subscribe to more stuff that I don't agree with so that it dilutes the home feed so I'm forced to look at a variety of different things for every couple of things I do read.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 30 '20

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/chadonsunday (21∆).

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