Ask HN: How do you leave your echo chamber?

This is going to sound like one of those self help books, and I realize that in saying that "no my advice is actually the one true piece of advice everyone should follow" is meaningless, but regardless

This is the one most important piece of advice everyone should follow, and it results in a much better life overall (including not being subject to being in echo chambers.

Make it a core value to follow truth. For everything you do, everything you know, and anything that comes your way, ask yourself "to what certainty do I know that this is true, and why?"

For example, you may think that eating a certain food is good for you. Do you know this is true? Do you have a reliable metric that you can validate whether this is true or not? Reading a research paper, that has a percentage of people that felt better isn't it - how do you know that you are not in the smaller percentage group that didn't feel better?

If you adopt this view of the world, its pretty easy to not get stuck in echo chambers. You naturally start to see all your personal biases, realize stuff you don't know, and adjust your thinking and actions accordingly. Obviously it takes practice to do so, and its hard to break out of those patterns, but generally, once you get started on this path, its a self rewarding loop.

A really good test along the same lines is asking yourself or another person about yours/their viewpoint "what would you have to see to change your mind?". You will find that the more intelligent a person is, the more they can answer this, because it indicative of the above thought process.

Meanwhile, for average people, they will often answer "there is nothing you can say to change my mind on something", which to them seems like a virtuous statement, but ironically you can trace this sentiment as the root cause for a number of problems in their life.

Listen directly to people, and ignore what is said about them by others. Podcasts are great at letting people air out their thoughts and show you who they really are.

Touching grass.

Seriously. Offset your online interactions with in person interactions. You'll notice people are much more able to engage with contradictory viewpoints when they are looking another human in the face, rather than using computers to mediate dialog.

Move to a different area where you feel uncomfortable at first, and try to get to know people there and see their good sides. Assimilate to whatever degree you feel comfortable (i.e. don't give up your core values, but be willing to try new things and hear new perspectives open-mindedly). Do it again a few years later. And again. And again.

The internet is biased towards your interests in a way that the real world isn't. Often the cultural geography of a place is a whole package, you can't just pick your own little bubble like on reddit or HN. Even if you just go grocery shopping or go out to public places and events, you'll run into different kinds of people.

One thing that I don't think people realize is that group beliefs and identification go together. In that if you see yourself as part of a group, or want to be part of a group, generally you will need to adopt many of the same beliefs. Or at least outwardly appear to.

And a lot of this is subconscious.

It's not rational.

If you feel that certain web pages, communities, or apps are not meant for your group or you identify them with another group that you don't want to be associated with, then you will not enter them. You will see a different feed of information and social activity or opinions. That feed will largely subconsciously determine your own framing for the world.

Recognizing that you're in one is half of the battle. After that, make a conscious effort not to be trapped there. Exposure to diverse views does a mind good.

Two things. With news, I make sure that my newsfeed includes sources that that have different slants than my own.

With everything else, I really listen (meaning I'm seeking to understand their view, not trying to formulate a counterargument) to what people outside my social circle say when they're expressing their opinions. I'm not always good at that, but I try my best.

if you are more of a theorist, then drop any of the specific subtopics that keep you in the loop for a while and don't discuss these topics at all. if you are successful, pick up a book or stuff online that has a brutally contrarian opinion based on facts/hard evidence. see how you feel about these facts, do they open you up? do they get you back into the usual loop? are you manic, obsessed about all that stuff? if you are, no amount of information will get you out of there. you will have to leave the people and sources of the echos behind because any conversation ends in those loops and the continued echoes in your mind. but if it's not that big of a deal, you always have the excuse/tools of standard human hypocrisies and compartmentalization.

Be an advocate of the views you criticise. Try hard to argue their point and adopt it. You'll see an upside world where their ideas are superior.

Test your own beliefs and others against first principles.

You’ll quickly realize that you don’t really “know”.