"But I also suspect that a disposition to confirmation bias is connected to a tendency to overestimate our own epistemic reliability."
I think that the disposition to confirmation bias stems more from a normative desire to transform the world toward our ideals. The desire for theoretical knowledge seems to be subsumed by the desire for normative knowledge and its application in good living. I come to know what is good to do after I discover what is good to have. People are interested in knowledge that helps them do the good or that will further the pursuit of pleasure. If they can't see how the knowledge will further their well being, they will ignore it.

Most humans don?t like to think. They don?t like dealing with Concepts that are strange or new to them, ?where the floor is fragile.? They like to deal with common ideas that they are comfortable with. Meanwhile they don?t realize that these ideas are chains on their minds. What did Hegel say about knowledge, it is a dialectical process? One idea must come in conflict with it?s opposite to produce another idea. Consciousness is supposed to evolve, not stay static.
No one has answered my question about if they agree with Kant?s idea that education cannot teach Judgment. That education is only a collection of principles. Somehow education and experience need to go hand in hand.
Humans are creatures of habit. You cannot imagine how many thoughts and actions are constantly repeated day after day without question. Repetition is considered intelligence! Marketing Marketing Marketing. Memetics Memetics Memetics. Does anyone know of the interaction between the Internet and Memetics? Marketers are going to mold into your minds their idea with the one that you are most comfortable with and hold dearly too. You should have a guest on Memetics and talk about the power of Memes.
We indeed are undergoing an Extraordinary Revolution in Humanity with the Internet. ?If What is Rational is Actual, and What is Actual is Rational? as Hegel states, we should see extraordinary progress in human production in the next century. That is until we have mind control microchips in our heads
****THE PROGRAM ON GENETIC DETERMINISM IS NOT WORKING*****

Homer:
We're working on the Genetic Determinism show. It should be up and working tomorrow. Sorry about that.

In a magazine once I read about this experiment which is relevant to what you say (if anyone knows who did the experiment I would love to know). Basicallly, someone stood on a street corner and asked X amount of people for a small amount of money for a phonecall - something like 30% gave him the money; the next day, same place same time same clothes, etc. - one difference though, before asking for the money, he asked for the time. This time a significantly larger amount of people gave him the money.
The basic conclusion was that once you have said 'Yes' to giving the time, it's more difficult to say 'No' to the money. For me this explains why people seek to avoid a beggar's eyes: once they acknowledge the presence of another human, it's difficult to ignore them.
In relation to your post above; it can be extrapolated that once one's 'cognitive pathways' (for want of a better phrase; 'cognitive' could be replaced by 'ethical', 'conscious', or whatever) are opened along certain pathways, we find it very difficult to turn around or get off the 'path'.

"The episode will focus on the nature of propaganda..."
I don't see the nature of propaganda discussed above. I hold that the nature of propaganda is magic.
"Propaganda that looks like propaganda is second-rate propaganda."
-Larry Beinhart
Wag The Dog
Based on Beinhart's assertion, the only propaganda that we can discuss is propaganda that we see, which is second-rate propaganda because it appears to us propaganda.
Just like magic, when you can see how the trick is working, it is no longer state-of-the-art magic. The revealers of magic are always two-steps behind the creators.
The nature of propaganda is disguised influence. Simply knowing a trick is being performed is second-rate magic.
“这一集将集中在……(宣传)到底哪里出了问题……”
Looking at propaganda from the perspective that propaganda is inherently wrong is a damned perspective, a perspective that things are inherently good or wrong. This perspective actually reinforces the nature of propaganda. Propaganda was created as a cost-effective tool to spread the empirical rightness of The Church:
"The Catholic Church coined the word 'propaganda' in 1622 within the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, which was commissioned by Pope Gregory XV. One of Pope Gregory?s accountants came to the conclusion that it was more cost effective to teach Catholicism than to invade and force conversion. The accountant had the insight to recognize that a territory could be acquired by converting people?s minds. If you convert the minds, the bodies will follow. And, converting minds is less expensive than physically enforcing new sovereignty."
http://www.gnn.tv/B08094
I suggest that holding propaganda as inherently wrong is like saying that TNT is evil. I'm convinced that the good/bad perspective is what makes propaganda most effective.
As a student I was fascinated by suceptibility to hypnosis. I was amazed that subjects with the highest susceptibility to hypnosis were regularly those that said they were highly susceptible to hypnosis and those who ardantly help they were not at all susceptible to hypnosis.
"The episode will focus on ...on the difference between the production and dissemination of propaganda in democratic and totalitarian societies..."
随后的讨论并没有在民主社会和极权社会之间建立一个相互排斥的区别。我不确定演讲者会把美国放在哪一类。我不是害羞。我不知道。有多少国家以极权主义为荣?据我所知，纳粹德国的新闻剪报和美国的“自由”新闻并没有那么不同。
“这一集将集中在……以及我们能做些什么来对抗它。"
Perhaps a combative mindset is actually the best fuel for the sustainability of propaganda's effectiveness. I beginning to think righteousness is the shadow of propaganda. That when I hear righteousness, I may begin to see propaganda I hadn't noticed before.
有一种可能性是，上面的对话更多地授权了宣传，不管那是什么，而不是“对抗”宣传的影响。
Prof. Douglas Rushkoff suggests that transparency is the route away from covert influence in the September issue of Arthur Magazine. I think there is great merit to his discussion and suggestion:
?Is it okay for those of us with the best of intentions to use the same thought weapons as our foes?? Pg 9
洛西科夫在文章的结尾写道:摆脱这种混乱的捷径不是通过我们的新技术来学会操作——甚至不是教别人如何操作。相反，我们必须弄清楚如何利用所有这些工具，尽可能诚实、透明地告诉和传播真相。Pg 69
I don't see the black and white of propaganda as good or bad. I think appropriateness is more a matter of intent.
I'm glad propaganda was employed to defeat Hitler.
I'm also not sure that dangerous things are always bad.
b.e. hydomako points out:
“小剂量的疾病就像疫苗一样，所以我们的身体?美国的免疫系统可以学会自我防御。大众媒体充斥着我们的感官，迫使我们消费越来越多，因为我们必须知道接下来会发生什么。我们是吗?如果我们不去，会安全吗?我不知道发生了什么事?
Modern media has become increasingly manipulative and assaulting on each and every person who finds him or her Self awash in the endless sea of endorsements, messages, suggestions, enticements, and so on, that it produces repetitively, day in & day out. Seemingly more than ever before, media agencies have discovered methods based on sound principles which tap into the deeper realms of our mind, and are designed to distract the conscious mind while carrying out their intention. This intention appears to carry with it a disease or sickness the effects of which we see indirectly manifest in some of the occurrences & events in our cultures & in our world(s). It is, then, imperative that we begin to understand the effects that modern media have upon us, and an excellent presentation of this in found in Ben Mack?s Poker Without Cards, the book advertised on the back cover of the September Arthur."
谢谢你的考虑。我很抱歉利用这个机会明目张胆地宣传。我希望我对您的询问有所帮助。
我认为探索直接反应营销是一个更有成效的努力。
Perhaps covert influence is an apt definition of propaganda. Which, brings me back to magic.
Crowley said he was studying and discussing effectiveness. Various religious groups label Crowley evil. When I read Crowley, I see a discussion of marketing.
Marketing has emerged as a legitimate face of perception study and the study of effectiveness, a socially acceptable way to understand magic theory. These techniques and discussions would have had us all murdered 200 years ago. The Puritans who founded America didn?t suffer well the presence of alternative perceptions and realities.
谢谢你的考虑。在关注经济时代，你只是用你的时间付钱给我。在我看来，上面读到的对话可以编入乔治·奥威尔的《动物庄园》的现代化。亲爱的读者，我希望你不会仅仅因为我的鲁莽或者我挑战你觉得舒服的观点而拒绝我的想法。我看到上面有很多指责，当我读到政治正义时，我感到不安。日益加剧的政治焦虑造成了人类一些最恶劣的行为。但是，我被困住了，因为延伸这条思路会让我回到好与坏。
你能帮我一下吗?谢谢你的合作。
Warmly,
Ben Mack
aka Howard Campbell

Guided by emotional stimuli, we are led to commit acts that we normally would never dream of perpetrating. The protagonists of propaganda know this well, and, thus, exercise their powers to create conditions that will make their assault on the public mind more successful.