So Let’s Hear It For The Echo Chamber Unless We Disagree…

Definition of echo chamber

: a room with sound-reflecting walls used for producing hollow or echoing sound effects – often used figuratively

Now, I could be nasty here… However, I’m used to putting up with teenagers who are sometimes rather nasty to teachers and I’ve learned that fighting fire with fire just leads to a bigger fire. It’s usually best to fight fire with something else such as water or some form of chemical retardant… And no, not drugs…

Anyway, there was a comment about something I’d written where I was accused of being a “Covid zealot” in an “echo chamber”. Like I said, I could have been nasty and gone down the literal path and asked him what he means by echo chamber and then pointed out that he was using it in the sense that most people use it… probably because that’s how all the people he normally reads use it and he has no idea of the etymology which I’ve added at the start of all this and…

But – like I said – I’m used to teenagers and I have a firm belief that everyone can learn… even me but I’m old and just like the saying says, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks…”

Oh wait, I’m not a dog.

Anyway…

I reflected on his comment and thought about the whole echo chamber thing. It’s interesting that it’s usually only applied to people perceived to be left of centre by people  who are so far away from the centre that they argue Hitler was a socialist. Or so out of touch with the mainstream media that they don’t realise that Labor are so far left that The Greens find it difficult to work with them because The Greens are so extreme that they…

Anyway… I didn’t mean to start the whole Green/Labor war here because this is an echo chamber and how could anyone vote for the one that someone will tell me they’d rather vote for Clive The Palmer than the other one….

I mean, when was the last time you heard someone refer to the Catholic Church as an echo chamber? Or any other Christian church that hasn’t been defined as a cult?

Every morning, I read “The Financial Review”. This, of course, is not an echo chamber because we have a variety of different opinions of the best way to make money… some of it involves letting the poor die, while others argue that the poor can still be put to work in some meaningful way once robots have taken their jobs….

I could go on…

Actually, I will.

If you looked at any of the front pages of the Murdoch Mead-jar on Monday you’ll notice that they all had something in common… No, I don’t mean the day and date… Geez…

It was all about the chance of turning this whole global warming green thing into gold… I may have misread it because I only ever read the headline unless I can get to the paper first while I sip my soy latte…

(That’s meant to be irony. I never drink soy because I support our dairy farmers in spite of being a lefty who reads the Finn and sips lattes and votes for a different party every time just to keep them guessing. I actually considered voting for the Liberals when Abbott was challenging Gillard then Rudd, just so I could say, “Well, I voted for Tony Abbott and I’m disappointed and I won’t be voting for him again!” …Yes, I know that we don’t ACTUALLY vote for our Prime Minister. Do you think I’m in some stupid echo chamber?)

 

Now, I’m pretty sure I could snatch the paper from the cold, dead hands of the idiots reading it in my local coffee shop but I’d like to go back because I’m not Tony Abbott who can come and go as he pleases… (Not libellous, so don’t even suggest it, REMOVED FOR LEGAL REASONS!)

In the end, I don’t mind echo chambers as long as they don’t hurt the ears. I’m confident the someone will disagree and tell me I’m wrong and explain why and that’s the way it should be. And I have the freedom to decide whether I take that on board and reassess things in the light of new information… Or whether I can just say, you idiot, you’re living in an echo chamber… which is an oxymoron, if you think about it…

Or even if you don’t, an oxymoron is an oxymoron whether you think about it or not…

In the end, I encourage everyone to disagree with me but there’s two things I think are very important:

1. I don’t like stupidity
2. There’s no reason to be mean unless you’re in an echo chamber that argues the best way to change the world is by mocking others….

Oh fuck, I’m guilty on both counts.

Thank god, you’re not really guilty until a court decides so I can be presumed innocent.