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Thinking about that @DouthatNYT piece on the @slatestarcodex story about “Scissors,” which are viral news stories (like Covington) that are perfectly calibrated to reinforce everyone’s narratives and tear the country apart. How can we defend ourselves against this in the future?
One solution is to promote stories that are the opposite of a scissor. We can call them “rocks.” Rock stories are those that screw up everyone’s narratives. These have always been my favorite. A recent example:
Rock stories fit no common narrative and support none of the dominant sides in debates. We read them, our brains start to hurt, and we move on. We even call them “ironic.” But rock stories are actually more common than scissors, they just don’t go viral. But they should.
