Read the Damn Article
Biases, Manipulation, and Agency
Welcome to Polymathic Being, a place to explore counterintuitive insights across multiple domains. These essays explore common topics from different perspectives and disciplines to uncover unique insights and solutions.
Today’s topic is dedicated to Jeff, who won’t read this article. Don’t be like Jeff because we’ll break down that troubling behavior where many people rarely move beyond the headlines. Worse, entire manipulation engines rely on that behavior to guide and direct you. It’s part psychological operations, part bias priming, and part emotional hijacking. Let’s read this article!
I won’t deny, I dabble with clickbait-type headlines. Initially, it was a strategy to stand out in the cluttered inboxes of busy subscribers juggling life. It’s an honest attempt to actually get people to read these essays. While that remains the primary goal, an unexpected yet positive outcome emerged: it helps weed out those who don’t read the articles when I post them on social media, typically in response to some Sacred Cow that I’m trying to make into delicious burgers. They’ll comment with what, I assume, they expect to be a critical insight, but instead, highlight their ignorance.
And, if you’ve made it this far into the article, you’ll likely be amazed that a majority of people just don’t read beyond the headlines or first paragraphs before accusing me of saying something I didn’t, creating strawman arguments to knock down, and making foolish assumptions as they try to refute a concept.
Worse, when I point out their mistake, they’ll still refuse to go back and read it, instead doubling down in their obstinacy. To be fair, this sort of behavior comes with the territory of the ‘counterintuitive insights’ that we embrace here. We’re flipping the script on the common, simple, yet often incorrect narratives, and this confuses many people who find comfort in the canned platitudes and talking points.
What’s really funny is when someone, caught out in responding to the headline, says, “Well, you should have written the title differently.” As if “The Sociological Mechanisms of Psychological Operations Relating to Social Contagion: A Meta-analysis of Cognitive Distortions Related to Time-Sensitive Biases” would have helped them more than “PSYOP, Until Proven Otherwise.”
Lest you think I’m over-inflating this challenge, let me direct you to The Drudge Report, which is famous for people getting their ‘news’ from nothing but headlines that Drudge has rewritten. What’s crazy is that the framing is so powerful that even if people click to the article, they start reading with a decidedly Drudge-induced bias… even in articles written by ‘the other side.’ Take a look:
Do you even have to read anything to get the flavor for what’s being promoted? Are you inclined to want to read through those articles or scan the headlines and move on? The problem is that it imposes a significant amount of weighted bias on reality. A reality that can be distorted with half a dozen words in a headline alone.
Taking Action:
So, how do we prepare ourselves to counter this tendency? Well, we’ve covered a few of these topics regarding Fear Porn, Algowhoring, How to Train your algorithms, and PSYOPs in the past, but they’re good to touch on again. However, the first step I’ve found most successful for me is to walk away from the outrage engines. I’m not kidding when I say, Go Touch Grass. The real world is actually quite awesome.
The next step is to slow down and recognize your own biases. As I like to say, “Everyone is biased; the key is knowing what yours are.” There are over 200 named biases operating in our brains, attempting to make sense of the world. That’s fine, it’s how we are coded because we can’t compute everything, and so we apply heuristic shortcuts. These are incredibly valuable… unless you aren’t in control. And here lies the crux of the conversation: You have agency. You get to control you.
So realize that when you respond to just a headline, two things are going on.
You’re being manipulated by someone else. Someone is controlling your perception, especially when you never slow down to realize you were wrong.
You’re often arguing into a mirror.1 You’re reacting to the person as if they were acting like you in that position. It’s amazing how much people admit about themselves in their reactions.
Another thing to consider is the very real tendency that we all face to just Google and find the first article that confirms our bias, and post it. Let’s be honest, that link isn’t to add value, it’s to bludgeon your opponent with ‘facts’ and ‘data.’ The challenge is that it also reveals that you aren’t swayed by counterfactuals and data yourself. Hell, most people won’t even read something that they’ll likely agree with if it’s not perfectly phrased to their ideology in the headline.
Back to Jeff, the fellow to whom I dedicated this article. He won’t read anything I’ve written when I post it on Facebook, and yet he has an obsession with commenting on the headline, as if he were going to lay down a hot take or dunk on an idea. Ironically, his comments typically suggest that he’d agree with the article, but they also highlight that he didn’t read it. It really looks foolish, and he’s not alone.
Two of my favorite essays that highlight the issue are The Climate is Changing and Masks Do Work. It’s incredible how many people will argue against the headlines while missing the actual target of the article. In fact, it’s these headline arguers who end up driving the right traffic because, to be honest, it’s a trap.
It’s a trap because it hijacks our biases and forces a cascade of behaviors. One group argues against the headline, prompting another group to actually read the article, which then sparks another debate in the comments, which in turn spills over into social media. Throughout, everyone is dancing to someone else’s music.
I dabble with the clickbait because it works. However, I’m actually bothered by how well it works, and what that implies for the people I interact with. It also forces me to look hard into my own mirror and acknowledge times I’ve done the same.
That said, we do have agency; it just requires slogging through our own mental processes and understanding ourselves better, which is the singular goal of our Mixed Mental Arts explorations. We aren’t perfect. We are constantly maturing. We all have the opportunity to grow and develop. That’s what I love about you. You’re here for the journey, along for the ride, and willing to challenge yourself. Let’s keep that adventure going, and thanks for reading the damn article!
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Further Reading from Authors I Appreciate
I highly recommend the following Substacks for their great content and complementary explorations of topics that Polymathic Being shares.
Goatfury Writes All-around great daily essays
Never Stop Learning Insightful Life Tips and Tricks
Cyborgs Writing Highly useful insights into using AI for writing
Educating AI Integrating AI into education
Socratic State of Mind Powerful insights into the philosophy of agency
If, by this time, you haven’t realized these are all hyperlinks to other articles we’ve covered before…. Read the Damn Articles! 😎😎
"And, if you’ve made it this far into the article, you’ll likely be amazed that a majority of people just don’t read beyond the headlines or first paragraphs before accusing me of saying something I didn’t, creating strawman arguments to knock down, and making foolish assumptions as they try to refute a concept."
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The problem is that along with that clickbait title, writers bury the answer/thing that the CB title offers somewhere down towards the end of the article. Given I read over 100 articles daily, I generally open an article, scroll down to the end and check if I see the answer in the last paragraph. It's generally there.
Now, when you are talking about more "reputable" writing, such as say, NYT articles, you can almost count on the answer/content to whatever question the title raised will be in the 5th paragraph. I suspect there is some sort of writers style guide that recommends this.
These techniques were designed to build out articles so that more advertising could be shown as the reader scrolled down. Ka-Ching!
But a decent number of people use ad blockers these days, so we don't see the ads anyway and all the supporting verbiage is a waste of precious bits. There are only so many bits in the universe! Don't waste them.
Yep, glad I read this one but then again, I set aside time to read all of yours, which, I think, you're the only one I do that with.