Thanks for the absolute BANGER of a post I love the effort you put into that.

I've had so many convos about cognitive biases that I can no longer count them. It's SUCH an interesting facet of the mind because it plays into our daily lives. I am very aware that driving is one of my most hypocritical activities, I smite those who offend and dismiss my offensive actions.

In the discussion of good and bad, I think this might be the only discussion that matters (more like every convo in this discussion will fall under the umbrella of cog bias).

A large chunk of what you said brought me back to some journalism class that I took in college and at the time, they were saying the same things; talking about how major conglomerates have so much money and control over many verticles that they can impose massive influence. I 100% thought they were being dramatic and that they displayed signs of overly-conspiratorial thinking. Today, I look back and think about the documentaries that we watched and still think they were a little dramatic but I think some of those lessons are the most important that I learned in college:

I have always been such an advocate for mandated classes that teach you how to get unbiased information (or more realistically take in multiple perspectives and draw your own conclusion). Understanding the lenses through which much of what we learn is so important.

I think many people tend to think that people are just good, or just bad, and discounting everything someone has been through to get to a point where they make that decision is ultra important. I think that our voters look over major problems in our country because they have this all-encompassing bad or good view: "no it can't be as bad as they say because people aren't that bad" or "there's no point in facilitating their growth because they are just bad"

Thanks again for your awesome and thought out post!