We have a heavy dose of collective thinking coupled with an abundance of confirmation bias and an acceptance of intellectual dishonesty.

You can find cops misbehaving. You can find black people looting. You can find Republicans acting sexist and Democrats acting criminal. You can find exactly what supports what you already know to be true. That’s where the search for truth tends to end.

The fact that there is so much intellectual dishonesty in the media (mainstream and otherwise), means you’re nearly required to go with whichever sounds right to you (which will be bias rather than truth). Since everyone accepts dishonest media, it doesn’t feel so wrong to be a little dishonest yourself. Maybe be part of the solution and put out a video. Make sure to edit it properly.

Of the three problems presented, collective thinking is the worst. “It’s not a problem with this relatively small group of violent college protestors, it’s the Democrats!”. “It’s not a cop who did something wrong, it’s all the cops and the whole damn system!”. “Trumps a bigot who won, so America is bigoted”

Democrats. Republicans. Cops. Black people. White people. Men. Women. Humans are categorizing animals. It’s what we do. It takes a little extra effort to figure out if people in a given category are an actual threat. A step in the right direction would be to at least measure individuals on their individual traits, not merely the traits we ascribe to everyone in their group.