[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
I believe the days of truly objective and, more importantly, non-partisan journalship are behind us, and all of us, intentionally or not, now feed our confirmation bias by finding those sources that support and advance our “beliefs”.[/quote]
Allan, I totally agree. I think it’s human nature to find a pack that think/move like they do. Safety in numbers. Even before the Internet, do you often see group of friends that’s completely opposite in their thinking? I would surmise that people seek out friends who think like they do. The Internet only let you seek out those “friends” who are not even in your same geological area. Same goes for people seeking out news and information. Do you think those who watches Fox news would even watch MSNBC? If they do, do they believe a single opinion that the news broadcaster say? Vice versa for those who normally watch MSNBC.
Before the Internet, J6pack can only sit and watch what others are saying. Today, people can participate and voice their opinion. Although, opinion are like a$$hole, it’s not always a bad thing to at least listen to those opinion and use your own judgement to determine to believe such opinion or not. Example would be Piggington itself. In the 1990 RE crash, your only source of information is RE agents. If there’s no Internet and no blogging, I’m sure there will be even more people who loses their a$$ from buying a house at the peak. The bloggers were the first to ring the alarm bell. Even Piggington, a very data-centric, on attract like minded posters (at least in term of RE). Periodically, permabulls would come and post, but they don’t last very long.