I've been experimenting with a mindmap to discover what I have been focusing on, it kind of works. What have others done?
Regardless of your news watching habits, I think you mainly have to watch out for 2 things.
1) You clearly understand the biases of your own news sources. If you are entertained by watching a lot of Alex Jones for instance, that's fine as long as you understand that he has his own way of looking at the world and you might get incomplete information on some topic by not looking at other sources of information and opinion. Similarly, if you like watching a lot of Rachel Maddow, great, but she's also got her own set of viewpoints and ways of looking at the world and you might not always get the full picture on a topic by hearing her. This rule applies to anybody and every news organization. Everybody and everything has their biases, some more or less so than others. You should be especially vigilant for bullshit when you don't know somebody's bias, and/or they claim to be unbiased. To me, somebody like Alex Jones whose bias you know is a lot less potentially damaging to society than some news source that claims to be unbiased, but actually are biased just as any human is.
2) You are familiar with the arguments and viewpoints of the opposite side. Coming from a libertarian perspective, I'd work hard to try and understand others' viewpoints and arguments against my positions. But in my experience, sometimes the people screaming loudest against many of my views were the ones who were wholly ignorant on the other side's arguments. Because they didn't understand anything outside of their very limited bubble, they tended to only comprehend many of my positions only through lenses like "hating the poor" or "racism".
What I have done is to collect all my writings together and all the things I have read and read, built a mindmap and joined the dots. That is, which articles have influenced the things I have written. Which ideas did I incorporate into my texts and from which source these ideas come from.
From that, I now know I spend a lot of time collecting my ideas from HN and Aeon magazine (for example). That tells me that a) both sources seem to be feeding my bubble b) both seem good at giving me content that fits into my bubble.
I also know that I should perhaps spend more time finding other sources for other views. Whether those views gel with what I believe is another question, but at least I know that I have to confront my beliefs with other content and sources.
Finally having done this little exercise, I wonder whether others also do this? Or how does one sort and manage ones ideas and thoughts? Before I did this, I kept all my ideas and thoughts in one long electronic document but I had no appreciation for how and what influenced those ideas.
Because having two opposing views on something doesn’t automatically mean both are equally biased in their own ways. If you have e.g. a reviewed scientific report on an issue, you will not be better informed if you augment that information with a rant from a bumbling fool.
1) The scientific method is a great thing. But given how many peer-reviewed scientific papers are not reproducible, having a healthy skepticism of all forms of knowledge you see might be wise.
2) It's sometimes a challenge to look past our own biases, but wisdom can come from many sources. A deranged looking country bumpkin can give a raging rant that's 80% illogical nonsense, but he might come up with 1 connecting idea that nobody else thinks of due to a unique vantage point and life experience.
The thing he's been mocked about hardest (his claim that "they're turning the friggin' frogs gay") was one of the all time best calls. Not 100% scientifically accurate, but close enough to convey the general meaning.
1) His memed rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tVrntKgdN0
2) The science: https://calag.ucanr.edu/Archive/?article=ca.v056n04p116a
> Exposure to atrazine demasculinizes tadpoles and can turn them into hermaphrodites with both male and female sexual characteristics, UC Berkeley scientists have found.
You're probably missing important things about the world just because you don't like the messenger. Go drink the river water in Ohio if you trust officialdom about the safety you're told. These guys certainly are willing to fake drinking the water right on camera. https://www.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/1195704/...
I'd just like to say the following in conclusion. Within the context of filter bubbles, Alex Jones presents no threat to the world because you are completely certain about what his biases are. It's the news sources that act professional and claim to be unbiased that present the biggest threat because any claim by anybody to be unbiased is bullshit, leading to misplaced trust where nobody wants to really verify what they're told.
It's basically a nice mechanism to paint the other side as a bunch of nutjobs instead of considering their arguments.
For things like politics, methodologies, predictions, and anything that doesn't have a clear method of deciding who's right - the numbers might give a clue. For example, if roughly 50% of voters voted for Trump, you should not assume that those presenting his views are guilty of falling for the both-sides fallacy. The numbers show you that there really are two sides.
What I am looking for is more how to identify ones inbuilt filter bubble, a way to map ones reading/listening/watching/.../input habits and the resulting bubble that one builds oneself.