confirmation bias | The Direction of Intention

Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 20, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

A “useful idiot” is a derogatory political term for a person who is manipulated into supporting a cause or agenda without fully understanding its true goals or consequences. They inadvertently aid a political group that may actually oppose their own interests. ~ Merriam-Webster

Historians will write of maga as a coalition of useful idiots.

Farmers. Hispanic males. Blue collar workers. Red-hat-wearing-flag-waving-women. People. Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, despite an insurrection, a first go-round that left the world slack-jawed at the incompetence, these people bit the lie hook, line and sinker. They voted a second time – in some cases a third time – for their own demise and the ruination of the very system they believed they were voting to protect.

I’ve ask myself everyday, “How is this possible?” And then…

And then I watch on-the-street-interviews with hardcore maga-mates who are honestly shocked when shown images of January 6th. It is as if they’ve never seen them – because they haven’t. Their news source – their information source – edited the facts to maintain the illusion within their bubble.

I am agog at the legion of Hispanic males who voted for a candidate who promised mass-deportation. What bubble gave them the illusion that masked immigration agents running amok, targeting brown and black people for deportation, would not impact them? What bubble gave them the illusion that they and their families would not be the target of the horror?

The current occupant of the White House destroyed the farm economy in his first term. What info-bubble made is possible for them to once again vote for the man, the party and “policies” so ruinous to their livelihood? “The number of farm bankruptcies in the second quarter of 2025 was double the number of bankruptcies for the entire year of 2024″. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

I shake my head in utter disbelief at the Joe Rogans, the right wing media who are now gobsmacked that inflation is rising, that we are in yet another forever war, that this administration is throwing the full weight of the government behind protecting the Epstein Class, that billionaires are getting wealthier while the American dream is farther and farther out of reach for the rest of the nation. Why are they now surprised? They voted for it. They cheered it into existence.

What bubble prevented them from seeing the obvious? The grift. The lies. The corruption. The incompetence. Project 2025, the blueprint for fascism, was not hidden. What bubble promotes dross as valuable?

It’s possible that we’ve found the Achilles Heel of the 1st Amendment. None of us are impervious to misinformation. What happens when the right of free speech, the protected expression of opinion, is confused with the concept of “news”? What happens when fiction is juicier and more profitable than fact? Confirmation bias for you and for me. A people no longer seeking the truth, but opinions with which we agree. Bubbles, bubbles, here and there. Useful idiots everywhere.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BUBBLES

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, confirmation bias, corruption, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Epstein Class, Evidence, fact, immigration, inflation, info bubbles, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, MAGA, media, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, useful idiots | Leave a comment »

Take The Time [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 5, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

My mind tells me this photo is a study of black and white but if I really look at it – really look – there are purples and blues and greens and browns. It is, in fact, a festival of color. There is very little white. We don’t often see. We think we see or, better, we see what we think.

We see the world through a lens made mostly of confirmation bias: the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. It’s black and white – unless you take the time to really look. It takes time to see what’s there beyond what we think is there.

If your confirmation bias tips toward the maga, it makes you easy to gaslight. Believe what I tell you; do not believe what you see.

Gaslighting: the practice of psychologically manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning.

The antidote to gaslighting is the same as sorting through a dedicated confirmation bias. Take time. See what is there beyond what you think – or are told – is there. Take the time to look. Take the time to check. Take the time to challenge or question. Take the time to see all the colors. A manipulator, an authoritarian, will insist that the entire world is black and white. Their goal is to reduce all things to two choices: Us or Them. Their goal is to hardwire the populace to be reactive rather than thought-full.

But, if we look – really look and question – we’ll see that there is an expansive palette of choices, a rich and colorful world available if we only take the time to see what’s actually there, to see beyond what we think – or are told to think.

read Kerri’s thoughts about THE RAIL

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, belief, choices, confirmation bias, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gaslighting, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, manipulation, questioning, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Prove It [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 19, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I am about to prove that I am guilty of everything I accuse others of being. I am just as capable of surrounding myself with like-minded people as the next person. Let me explain:

I cheered when I read Marc’s response in the conversation chain. It was an appeal, an attempt to puncture a dedicated delusion, an untethered ideology. But, as is always the case when fantasy is met with fact, the holder of the fantasy vehemently defended and further retreated into their illusion. Confirmation bias.

Among my favorite phrases this week comes from a New Yorker article, Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds. The phrase: the illusion of explanatory depth. Here are two quotes from the article:

“People believe that they know more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people.” In other words, we ally with people who hold a similar belief rooted in the same lack-of-knowledge. Apparently, as a species, we’d rather be reinforced in our ignorance than consider the possibility that we don’t know what we are talking about. Purple Kool-Aid is easier to drink than wondering if what we’re being told may or may not be truth. It explains the current GOP, Fox News, OAN, Ron Johnson, and the rest of the dangerous-national-clown-car.

Quote number 2: “As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding.”

Strong feelings. Deep understanding.

In the canon of human self-aggrandizement, we delight in the narrative that we are primarily rational, that our reason, like a good border collie, has driven our emotions into safe containment. The opposite seems to be the case. Or, at best, we are a mass of contradictions.

There is a flip-side, a necessity woven into our contradiction that gives me hope. Strong feelings and deep understanding are not natural enemies and need not be pitted against each other. Think of it this way, no firefighter, in his or her right mind, would run into a burning building to save a life, if we were as rational and reasonable as we like to believe. They do, however, study fires beforehand to know how to run in, how to reach. They study the science. For every exploiter there is a matching story of a giver, someone whose strong feelings combines with their deep understanding in an effort to better the world, save a life, make things easier.

That which makes us crazy also makes us compassionate. How’s that for a statement of contradiction? Families fight each other until the forest fire threatens their house. Common cause and education are a great poppers of confirmation bias.

Some fires are manufactured with the sole purpose of exploiting confirmation bias. This kind of exploitation is dependent upon – and feeds upon – strong feelings with shallow roots in understanding. Ignorance. The big lie. Vaccine misinformation. Divide and conquer is always reliant on strong feelings intended to create blindness.

Some fires are real. And, the test of a real fire: divisions fall, eyes open, and people run toward the flames to help other people. It remains to be seen how hot and close the flames need to come before the confirmation bias burns off and we realize that we’re in real trouble, that science is real, and that the big trough of purple (red) kool-aid being proffered is doing the opposite of what it professes to do.

It may be in our nature to believe that we know more than we do, but, it is also in our nature, without concern or thought for our own safety, to reach for the drowning person. Deep understanding allies with strong feelings when people cared enough to learn how to reach, how not to become the person drowned by the drowning person.

Do you see it? I am an idealist. I want to believe in the goodness of humanity and the necessity of shared truth. Yet, despite powerful evidence to the contrary, I hold fast to my dedicated belief that we are capable of tipping toward love rather than falling toward hate, that, when faced with undeniable data, that we are capable of questioning our strong feelings en route to a deeper, shared understanding. We are capable of recognizing that the science that brought us the cell phone, satellites, allergy medicine, and electric light is the same science that brings us the data of climate change, and the best way to beat this pandemic. Cherry picking belief in science is…absurd and currently dangerous. Cherry picking news is equally as absurd and currently dangerous. From my idealistic mind, it is a necessity to ask questions, check sources, doubt belief.

We are certainly capable of knowing the real fires from the those fanned by the thought-arsonists. We are capable of questioning, of suspending our delusions. At least, I like to believe that we are. I, like you, surround myself with like-minded believers.

We’ve proven it again and again and again. When we recognize that the fire is real, our dedicated illusions burn the filters from our eyes, we transcend our little stories, and reach our hands with no thought of political alliance or other exploitative non-sense, to help dig our neighbors from the rubble.

read Kerri’s blog post about BASIC LOGICAL REASONING