Self-selection

Complaints seem to be working: after I finished my blog on broken mailbox, it got fixed an hour later with all the magazines and letters delivered as well. So I spent almost the entire day reading latest Economist episodes, trying to catch up with what's going on in the world. Since I've missed a few periodicals I decided not to read from cover to cover but to select a few articles that best interested me from each issue.

Hours have passed since I started, and I decided to review what I've read so far. Surprisingly, I found myself read most articles in the sections of US, Asia, China and International, a few from Europe, Africa, Business and Economics, but skipped most debates on America, Middle East and Science. (Actually given what's happening in Libya right now, I shouldn't spend more time on the Middle East part.) I read the Economist to broad my understanding of the world, but it looks like I automatically skip the "less interesting" ones and focus on what I'm already familiar with.

We discussed "self-selection" in the class. We self-select ourselves to the group consisting of people similar to us; and make friends with those sharing similar ideas and interests. Though I understand the importance of hearing different ideas and discussing different topics, but it's so hard to continue a conversation when you find it's impossible to get excited at some chemical solvents or biological evolution. Besides making friends, we also select to read what we agree with and get reaffirmed by reading them. I'm not a leftist, so I always make fun of the Global Times, a radical Chinese newspaper on international relations; I'm sympathetic with Democrats, so I find the Fox News a big liar although it probably doesn't lie all the time. It's true that the same issue can be explained in different ways, but once you take a position, it's really hard to accept counter arguments.

Self-selection can induce biases. People working on randomized control trials will give you a very detailed explanation on this. But to put it simple, self-selection makes these groups different from each other. This is probably why Democrats and Republicans both find their rivalries idiots and liars. Even if you take no position at the beginning, I'm sure you will hate one of them if you stay with members of the other party for too long. Mutual understanding is much easier said than done. When a compromising solution looks unfeasible (e.g. we can't have both Romney and Obama as the next US presidents), things will get even messier. Since there is no common base for both parties to discuss their policies but endless and somehow meaningless attacks and insults, let's just wait and see how much money they can squander and how many media men will become millionaires after November.

I always keep telling myself that I must make my own judgement, and do not follow the mass. But once I feel determined about something, I can't help doubt if I've missed some clues during the decision making. It's funny that once we've developed some ideas through independent thinking, we are about to lose that independent mind by self-selection to people of our own kind.