>"Calling Bullshit is not dedicated to teaching students that Fox News promotes “fake news” or that National Enquirer headlines are fallacious."
Oh, the irony. An article about college class that teaches people to spot bad information online is itself full of standard techniques journalists use to manipulate people.
I see this one a lot lately. Someone drops a phrase that assumes something the author wants readers to remember and believe. The phrase is usually oddly specific, while the author pretends to convey a general idea or talks about something entirely unrelated.
That quote assumes that when people think about "calling bullshit" in relation to the news that they would immediately think of Fox News or The National Enquirer. Is that wrong? Won't most Guardian readers immediately think of Fox News when they read this headline?
When I clicked on this article, I started from a perspective of "Oh look, it's The Guardian, a lefty publication, talking about how Fox News is bad. How shocking". I was wrong.
So yeah, I don't think the bit you quoted is an attempt to manipulate readers. By referencing Fox News, it's just trying to account for what it assumes its readers already think. And I think it's basically correct in those assumptions.
To the article's credit, that section makes a real effort to differentiate "bullshit" from "fake news" and "fallacious".
I know an awful lot of people who are too educated and internet-savvy to accept most nakedly-false claims, but happily bite on stats that lack per-capita corrections, or compare rates like change and accuracy without accounting for base values, or even make subtle but concrete errors like confusing 'ppm' with 'ppb'. They may not accept anything farcically false, but "less wrong" is not always "more right", and it's still easy to end up believe an entire-untrue claim off respectable looking sources. I think the focus on Snopes-style truth ratings has sometimes hindered our ability to literally call 'bullshit', asserting that a piece undermines knowledge regardless of its technical correctness.
I'm not sure if this article succeeds at that - I think conflating Fox with The National Enquirer and other sources that regularly invent things outright is a mistake that obscures the discussion. (Fox has run content sourced from RealTrueNews, but the distinction still matters; fake news sites and the media titans legitimizing their stories are different parts of the ecosystem.) But it's a worthwhile attempt regardless.
I think the rhetorical term is apophasis. It's the same sort of deniable invocation as declaring "I won't stoop to talking about my opponent's sordid affair". A rhetoric teacher might say that it's just another way to persuasively make a point, but it seems hard to deny some manipulation or dishonesty when the "I won't say" element is intentionally false.
You make an interesting point about the recent/online deployment of it. Most examples of apophasis are about bringing up familiar topics without owning that action, as with invoking rumors or ad hominems in a debate. But I increasingly see the version you're describe, where it's used as a way to present a very specific statement without needing to defend it. A lot of old uses of the technique only work as a full sentence, specifically to avoid being quoted as saying the inappropriate thing directly. But the new ones do the opposite, very specifically accommodating misleading pull quotes. "As a recent Guardian article about critical thinking courses said, 'Fox News promotes "fake news"...'" The phrase comes into existence, soundbite ready, without anyone needing to actually defend it.
Perhaps this isn't the most extreme example, since the author might readily defend the "fake news" claim, but it still serves to associate the college course with rejecting Fox when that's expressly not the point.
Regardless I think it might really arise naturally then to some extent - regardless of "outside" perception. Like say when referring to counterproductive medical practices "Like doctors wearing neckties as germ reservoirs - not antivaxxers trying to avoid autism." Of course that deniability would be part of its appeal.
Border towns are very unsafe right now. I live in central Texas so it's not really bad, but I have family down on the border. There's a lot of home invasions down there right now. Their house has been broken into 3 times in the last 2 months.
I'm sure sitting wherever you are it's easy to dismiss this as mythical, but for people living down there, it's a real problem.
edit: downvoting doesn't make the problem go away.
I was responding to the claim that Fox is pushing an invasion narrative. The invasion is real and dismissing it doesn't help anyone. Unless you live down there or have family that does, you can't comprehend how bad it is down there right now. Maybe we should have livestreams setup so the rest of the country can see it.
According to the FBI it's lower. Unless it's changed dramatically in the last 2 years, at which point I'd suggest that maybe this new "tough on immigration" tactic isn't working.
No, the crime level is lower in all 23 US/Mexico border counties. And it's not "not the worst place in the world"; it's better than the both US average and the average of all non-border counties. The problem you are alluding to does not, in the actual FBI data, exist.
So we shouldn't do anything about mass shootings because they don't affect the overall crime stats?
We should address any crime problem if there is a solution, not ignore it because it didn't make a large overall difference and the city is safer than other cities.
And yet the people most concerned about border security are those who live far away from the border.
Perhaps not coincidentally because they see the real impact for good and ill of both "the problem" and the "solution" and draw their own conclusions.
Or it could simply be because the people who live there would be less scared of that sort of thing and why you don't see people in California freaking out about their minor quakes. Anyone that terrified of seismic activity would have gone to a more tectonically stable place.
I assume that all of those break ins have been due to immigrants, which you know for a fact? And do you think this is because the people who commit the crime are "bad hombres" or desperate?
Are you serious shifting the blame to the homeowner? The only thing attracting problems is that it's near the border. What else do you suggest that the house could be doing to ask for this. Should it put on a more conservative outfit?
Migrants come across seeking food/water/money so they break into homes.
We should secure the border with surveillance and a wall so migrants are forced to use official ports of entry. We then should take as many as possible and coordinate with Mexico to take the rest, if neither can, the two countries should deport them back to their country or origin.
"The first was apprehended by local police while attempting to pawn the stolen TV. The second one was shot and ended up in the ER. I suppose I can't speak for the third, but if you had to take an educated guess..."
Sure I'll concede to that, though I wouldn't call it prejudice, I'd call it bias. Ignoring the last one, those were two crimes that could have prevented if we secured our borders and funneled migrants through official ports of entry.
There are many cases like this, even if the stats say the border counties are safer than other counties in the state. The problem still exists and is preventable.
If they are illegal immigrants, what makes you think they would even cooperate with being funneled through official ports of entry?
We have official ports of entry. Building a wall might make it harder for illegals to cross, but they already face substantial barriers. Some of them die every single year while crossing the desert on foot or taking other risks.
The idea is to not give them a choice whether or not they take the official port of entry, it's to make it the only option.
Currently the border either has a low height fence that can be climbed over, holes that can be crawled under, or no fencing at all. We should install the proposed wall with surveillance.
After crossing the desert there aren't many people that will be able to scale a 30 foot steel fence. The current design can't be dug under or destroyed in a reasonable time.
The sections that have gone up have drastically reduced crossings.
"For example, when we installed a border wall in the Yuma Sector, we have seen border apprehensions decrease by 90 percent."
"On Sunday, when a violent mob of 1,000 people stormed our Southern border, we found the newly constructed portions of the wall to be very effective. In the area of the breach, a group of people tore a hole in the old landing mat fence constructed decades ago and pushed across the border. U.S. Border Patrol agents who responded to the area ultimately dispersed the crowd, which had become assaultive, and apprehended several individuals. All of the individuals were either apprehended or retreated into Mexico. That evening, the fence was repaired. There were no breaches along the newly constructed border wall areas."
Yep, that's what I was thinking of. Didn't realize they actually stopped using it. I haven't watched TV in many years, I am falling behind the times.
A quick Google search suggests they now say "most watched most trusted" instead. That seems more like the garden variety lying-with-an-element-of-truth I expect to see from an entertainment news source.
I suggest that 'calling bullshit' on just about everything pushed by corporate news is a good idea, including the Guardian.
'Question everything' is a good approach to assessing information from all sources. Just because an entity presents itself as a 'news source' doesn't mean that information is accurate or unbiased.
'Who benefits' and finding out the facts are key to navigating our information choked world in my opinion...particularly the facts that aren't 'reported'...
Great. That way you have absolutely no basis to make any decision on.
It’s utterly impossible to verify even a tiny bit of the information you rely on every day from first principle. If you don’t find some way to establish trust, you’re almost literally lost in the wilderness (if you include Google Maps and all map makers in your “trust no one” shtick).
>Great. That way you have absolutely no basis to make any decision on.
No basis is better than a bad basis. At least you're not duped into thinking you have a basis.
>It’s utterly impossible to verify even a tiny bit of the information you rely on every day from first principle.
Doesn't have to be "first principles" (no need to reinvent math for example).
Tons of informations we rely on can be verified quite easily with a little personal effort, and some good foundational reading on undisputed stuff (like mathematics, physics, biology, and so on).
For example, you don't need to become a doctor to not be duped by BS fad diets pushed by the media -- you just need to know enough nutrition basics, easily doable (and useful in itself).
And if something (e.g. fracking) is important for you, you can study the literature (starting with books, including university handbooks -- not internet posts, not articles, and not mere scientific papers of random research on the matter), talk to some experts directly (it's not impossible, I've talked with experts in lots of different matters), talk to people in communities nearby, affected, etc, and draw your own conclusions.
The problem is that few journalists are that, and the majority of media are not just full of uninformed journalists, but also pushers of various interests (political party affiliations, government lobbying, private interests, industry lobbies, the newspaper's owner, advertisers, etc).
The salaried FTP and freelance role of 'journalist' is almost invariably defined by creating material about specific agendas for corporate media mastheads.
The endless debate on nutrition is exactly because effect sizes and latency are too small and too large, respectively, to easily establish causality. Without relying on the corrupt narrative by big corporate media, you’d be happily ingesting lead and blaming evil spirits for the inability of your children to do arithmetic.
> The endless debate on nutrition is exactly because effect sizes and latency are too small and too large, respectively, to easily establish causality.
Small effect size is precisely why you can ignore most nutritional news until it reaches general consensus - because the effect is so small that it's noise in ordinary life (and it's probably noise in the studies too).
> And if something (e.g. fracking) is important for you, you can study the literature (starting with books, including university handbooks -- not internet posts, not articles, and not mere scientific papers of random research on the matter)
Could you link some university handbooks you have found about fracking? And what makes university textbooks more authoritative than a scientific paper? The university handbook could very well have been written by a single author with a particular agenda - that's not removing bias at all.
>And what makes university textbooks more authoritative than a scientific paper?
That the latter is a random research result, which needs years and years of other studies, peer critique, reproducibility tests, etc, to be considered valid. It's like each random BS research paper touted in the news, only to be found either overblown, misleading, non-reproducible, or wrong by another study later on.
>The university handbook could very well have been written by a single author with a particular agenda - that's not removing bias at all.
That's why I don't suggest reading just one. I say "study the literature" and propose talking to experts and affected people as well. All of which are not hard for a common person -- that cares deeply for the matter and wants to have an informed opinion as opposed "x media said that" -- to do. Let's say it can be done in a month or so.
It's impossible for every subject? We don't have to care for "every subject", or adopt somebody else's stance (we haven't figured out ourselves) just to say we have one...
You're advocating for weeks if not months of effort on every subject, and then there's the burden of keeping up with the literature. I'm reading this all as "you'll never know anything, so don't bother".
>You're advocating for weeks if not months of effort on every subject,
I've already said: "It's impossible for every subject? We don't have to care for "every subject", or adopt somebody else's stance (we haven't figured out ourselves) just to say we have one..."
Besides, that's the price of having an informed opinion -- instead of being a dupe or a parrot...
>I'm reading this all as "you'll never know anything, so don't bother".
That's surely one interpretation.
Another is, you don't have to know everything, but if you want to pretend you have an opinion on something, pay your dues...
> And what makes university textbooks more authoritative than a scientific paper?
Handbooks have broader scope, giving you overview of the field. Their job isn't to push agendas or most recent research, but to give you understanding of the basics of a field of study, and an ability to understand other, specialized sources of knowledge.
So you're telling me a broader book can't have bias? At what point do books start to have bias then? Also, how does that help us understand something like fracking on all it's axises? A geology book might tell you the fundamentals behind the hydrology, but it won't mention the possible environmental impact. You're still leaving giant gaps in your knowledge.
>So you're telling me a broader book can't have bias?
No, I'm telling you you're talking isolated stuff out of context, taking them to their extremes, and ask questions never implied in the original.
E.g. "So you're telling me a broader book can't have bias?"
No, he says "Handbooks have broader scope, giving you overview of the field and their job isn't to push agendas or most recent research, but to give you understanding of the basics of a field of study, and an ability to understand other, specialized sources of knowledge".
He's not meaning it as an absolute ("no handbook ever had bias"), and he's not speaking about "broader books" in abstract, but in particular (as already said in our thread) university handbooks.
Can university handbooks (and not just "broader books" in general) have bias?
Perhaps, but they're broader in scope than a single study, there are no grant money depending on good results or "publish or perish", they are not reporting on one study's results but on aggregate conclusions from multiple studies, they need to agree with the established truths of the field in general. They have passed more filters than a mere research paper.
>Also, how does that help us understand something like fracking on all it's axises? A geology book might tell you the fundamentals behind the hydrology, but it won't mention the possible environmental impact.
If only there were handbooks and university 101 level treatments of fracking's environmental impact too, and not just hydrology methods. Oh, wait, ...
No. Every book has bias. But bias is not a binary thing, there are degrees to it, and what matters is reducing bias, not the impossible task of eliminating it.
Maybe I have a bad day for literacy, because I don't know how to explain the self-evident notion that you're better off reading a textbook used to train professionals in a field than reading a single scientific paper, and you're better off reading that paper than reading a news piece.
A mostly correct but somewhat flawed basis is likely better than none. Gravity, relativity, particles, germ theory, etc are flawed descriptions of the nature of reality, but they've still enabled us to develop vaccines, visit the moon, and do all kinds of amazing things in the meantime. Jenner had no idea how the smallpox vaccine worked, but he still saved countless people.
I'd put it to you that ignoring information in the media and living life based on what is going on in your immediate community would be a surprisingly effective strategy.
There is an interesting debate over the morality of that lifestyle. It could easily be a net improvement over the current equilibrium of large, coordinated tribal groups. A thing is not automatically good by virtue of being supported by a large group.
For example, someone ignoring the print media would have missed decades of turned-out-to-be-inaccurate dietary advice.
Ralph Dobelli had a terrific piece in the UK Guardian recommending exactly this. I subsequently read his book which I thought was excellent.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-ro...
Surprising to see this article printed in the corporate media since it cannibalizes their advertising eyeballs...
I've read that Dobelli and Taleb had a major falling out. Not clear who is plagiarizing who and not terribly important for me. I thought Dobelli's book was excellent and not 'drivel' but each to their own
This is a stated goal of Russian anti-Western propaganda. Spread the narrative that all news outlets are equally untrustworthy, and that Western news consumers cannot ever be informed.
NATO and the EU have started anti-fake-news efforts to combat this narrative. It was all over EU facebook ads a while ago.
It's also an equally stated goal of Western propaganda: that everything that doesn't favor mainstream views and new outlets is "Russian propaganda".
I'm not Russian (you don't have to believe me, but surely you can find some non Russians in your vicinity with the same ideas that wasn't instilled by ...trolls in them), and I find all news outlets are equally untrustworthy. In fact, I find outlets like the "national inquirer" even more trustworthy that rags like NYT and the Guardian, because at least they deal with frivolous stuff, and don't drag whole countries to war to promote their elite's enemy du jour (from WMDs to Collusion, and lots of stuff years before -- if you follow the news for decades, it's more like 1984's "We've always been war with Eurasia").
The case with Russians and NATO is like the old adage: "This beast is very mean: it will fight back when it's attacked.". NATO has been surrounding Russia with bases, and satellite states (using countries like Georgia, changing regimes, etc) ever since the "end" of the Cold War, and they're supposed to just sit back and take it. Because for some reason the US, 10.000 miles away should have say and "strategic interests" in the region (and all over the world where it meddles), but Russia shouldn't have strategic interests in its own borders (including places with ethnic Russian population present).
Only populations naive about politics, that can't follow anything in world affairs besides the crude breakdowns of news "pundits" can ever buy this stuff.
>NATO and the EU have started anti-fake-news efforts to combat this narrative. It was all over EU facebook ads a while ago.
That sentence reads like a complete parody. "Bad X have you fooled with propaganda, but NATO and EU will sort you out with the truth -- Facebook said so".
I'm a little disturbed that you trust the national inquirer more than, say, the Associated Press or Reuters. You can still ask why is a particular point of view being presented while absorbing the facts, which many publications still very much take seriously, bias or no.
It's also interesting that you lump collusion in with WMDs even though we don't have the full story on at least one of those topics. I feel like you've drawn a conclusion on it, but if not for the media, where are you informing your world view on the matter?
>I'm a little disturbed that you trust the national inquirer more than, say, the Associated Press or Reuters.
A frivolous way to say I don't care if a story about an alien found or an actor having an illegitimate child are wrong, but I do care about major stories with global implications being distorted in subtle ways, or presented based on the values and interests of this or that country (or political elite in the country).
>It's also interesting that you lump collusion in with WMDs even though we don't have the full story on at least one of those topics. I feel like you've drawn a conclusion on it, but if not for the media, where are you informing your world view on the matter?
30+ years of following world affairs (and not just from mainstream sources), the actual 20th/21st century history of my own country (not a country imposing upon others, but one with actual involvement of others in it, including some dictatorships for us to enjoy), tons of readings on world politics, and 20th and 21st century political and diplomatic plays and ploys, asking "who benefits", judging relative power in the world stage, and so on.
>Bad X have you fooled with propaganda, but NATO and EU will sort you out with the truth
You're overreading intent where there is little. How else could one state the bare fact that NATO and the EU have started these efforts ? Facebook didn't "say" anything beyond showing the EU anti-fake news ads in EU countries. Feels like you're really fishing here.
When I hear that "NATO will fight fake news" -- the same NATO that had been spreading fake news, carrying false flags, and even installing dictatorships and invading countries, for half a century, well, it's funny to me...
Your examples are badly chosen. The NATO Gladio stay behind network is guerilla warfare, not info ops. Allende was a regime change, conducted by the CIA, not NATO. What are you trying to communicate with them ?
> I'm not Russian (you don't have to believe me, but surely you can find some non Russians in your vicinity with the same ideas that wasn't installed by ...trolls in them)
> NATO has been surrounding Russia with bases
There is strong contradiction between these statements. You are either Russian or you have been strongly (perhaps without your own knowledge) influenced by the Russian propaganda.
If you do not believe this then ask yourself, why were the countries near the Russian border so desperate to join NATO?
"Strong states do as they will; weak states do as they must" and "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"?
There's this trend in all tribal politics where the tribes that are geographically nearest to you are the biggest threat, because everybody else would need to go through them to get to you. If you are a weak state bordered by a nearby strong state, your existence as a state is threatened daily. It makes a lot of sense to ally with a stronger but more distant partner to gain leverage over your nearby rivals. The U.S. is a very convenient ally for this because with an ocean on both sides of us, it's difficult for us to directly invade the countries in question without being invited in. At the same time, we have an industrial & military might that's a very useful counterbalance to potential regional aggression.
The same dynamic plays out both in other regions (Taiwan & Japan ally with the U.S. as a check on China; Saudi Arabia allies with the U.S. as a check on Iran; Africa allies with China as a check on the U.S; Cuba allies with Russia as a check on the U.S.); within racial groups in the historical U.S. (black slaves allied with Northern abolitionists against Southern planters); and within social classes in contemporary U.S. politics (minorities ally with urban liberals against the white working class; the white working class allies with old-line business owners against urban liberals; urban liberals ally with technocrats against old-line business owners).
Everything coldtea said was factually correct. I personally don't have a problem with it because I'm American and it's to my benefit to have citizenship in a geopolitically strong nation. But your response is conflating "that which is true" vs. "that which is convenient for me". You can acknowledge geopolitical realism without passing judgment on it.
"NATO has been surrounding Russia with bases, and satellite states (using countries like Georgia, changing regimes, etc) ever since the "end" of the Cold War, and they're supposed to just sit back and take it."
Except this is exactly the Russian narrative coldtea is repeating.
"NATO has been surrounding Russia with bases, and satellite states"
Is this a fact or an opinion?
Joining NATO has been each time initiated by the new member state. Nobody has been called to NATO. Quite contrary, there was clear opposition to this and it was not at all certain if any of the new members would ever be able to join NATO.
This narrative like NATO is circling Russia is repeated every day in the Russian media.
It is not Russian neighbors fault that Russia has constantly demonstrated aggression towards its neighbors and willingness to repeat the invasion. Russian neighbors still remember the genocide that happened after the previous invasion.
"They're supposed to just sit back and take it."
In principle, in a civilized world where Russia has abandoned the expansion idea, yes.
Russia has chosen the isolation. Russia and NATO have been partners for long time but apparently the interests of both do not align anymore.
Edit: I agree with your description of the bigger picture.
>There is strong contradiction between these statements. You are either Russian or you have been strongly (perhaps without your own knowledge) influenced by the Russian propaganda.
Or you know, I could have independently formed my own opinion, and know the facts of that, much more closer to me, corner of the world than somebody in NY or Colorado reading the mainstream news.
It's like somebody following the CNN, the NYT, the Time, the Economist, etc, and their own country's government, experts, and pundit opinions about global affairs
-- without them ever having read people like Chomsky, Zinn, or anybody local on the places they read about (e.g. Eduardo Galeano) that's not an ally chose for interview by said media --
and thinking theirs is the only possible version of history and world affairs, and anything else is X propaganda (or, another term people are conditioned to use, "conspiracy theory").
>If you do not believe this then ask yourself, why were the countries near the Russian border so desperate to join NATO?
The same reason some of those countries liked the Nazis as well in WWII. Because they had beefs with Russia as USSR (which fucked some of them over royally), and now fear it as a powerful player that could do them damage for its interests. That's in many cases the popular sentiment. In other cases, and especially where ethnic Russia populations are concerned is more Russian friendly.
But add some foreign funding to candidates and parties promoting a rift with Russia, constant hammering of "independent" organizations, diplomatic pressure, some lures like loans, investments and aid if they go NATO, and it's a no brainer.
That said, not all of the where that "desperate to join the NATO", and not all at the same degree. Some understandingly, wanted to keep ties with Russia and play both sides, by cheap resources, do business etc. Those players were also undermined (e.g. by "orange revolutions") in favor of more hardcore lackeys (to the detriment of their country's interests too).
> This is a stated goal of Russian anti-Western propaganda. Spread the narrative that all news outlets are equally untrustworthy, and that Western news consumers cannot ever be informed.
This "narrative" spreads itself. It's a conclusion you reach once you beat the Gell-Mann amnesia. And it's not about whether $tabloid is or isn't equal to $large-national-station. It's about realizing that it's all mostly garbage, and it's a waste of time to try and rate the relative merit of one clickbait source over another.
"Question everything" doesn't mean never accept anything. It means not to take it at face value. It means "Check if you can get independent corroboration". And it's not literal. I'm sure he does trust map makers.
People in my life have ended up in the national news for various reasons. The first time it happened was the first time I really read the news heavily. You learn a lot from doing that:
Plenty of clearly wrong reporting. I say "clearly" from a personal perspective - I knew the people involved, and knew details about their lives that the news just plain got wrong. This wasn't malice - it was sloppiness. The interesting thing is that once one major news organization reports it incorrectly, others follow suit. In a few cases, some of the smaller (regional) news outfits actually got the details right.
When you see that happen in front of you, then of course you'll be skeptical of whatever else you see on the news. And it's not trivial to corroborate from multiple sources, as they often copy from one another and invest very little in independent fact checking.
The corollary is:
When a story isn't big enough (e.g. it gets only one news story and isn't stretched out over time), you really should just ignore it, as you have no way to verify the information.
If you examine the news a lot, you'll realize that for most stories, there is little incentive to get the details right - especially if there aren't powerful counterforces. If the NY Times decides to write a sloppy story against Apple, then Apple is big enough to counter. And even if they didn't counter, other news agencies will have an incentive to counter.
Of if you have a story on a polarizing topic, you can expect pushback and fact checking.
But when you have a story about someone who isn't famous getting arrested for some misdeed, and even if it becomes national news, likely no one will call out sloppy reporting - as long as it is not a polarizing issue. And most news stories are one-offs.
There's a short list of things the news media get right, and a few anti-patterns they use which imo intentionally confuse.
The major media outlets are pretty good at providing transcripts or video of events. They are terrible at summarizing. If there's a news headline that someone said/did something that seems outlandish, 9/10 they didn't say/do that, or what they said makes perfect sense in context (Recent example: A major politician is not going to publicly support infanticide). Always read/watch the source material, preferably from multiple sources because the media will tend to edit out context (recent example: Covington kids). If I can't be bothered to read/watch the source material, then the alleged story wasn't important enough for me to be upset. I can behave as if I'd never even heard of such a thing.
Never believe unattributed/anonymous statements. You should assume any quote that does not have a real person's name attributed to it is a lie. Sometimes it will be true, but not often enough to matter. If it is true, and it's a concern of actual importance, real evidence will surface eventually. Wait for this to actually happen.
Always assume statements made by officials in the lying industry is a lie. That's NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, etc. The media tends to report, "X official said Y" in such a way that we're supposed to assume Y is a fact now. But the media is almost never critical of these statements and there is often on supporting evidence provided. If it's not important enough to potentially reveal secret techniques by showing me the evidence, it's not a big enough deal for me to care what you said about it. I'm not anti-CIA/NSA/etc. but I understand their role is sometimes to lie to me in order to further some greater agenda like promoting a war effort.
Unless there's a world changing event going on right now, like 9/11 scale world changing event, avoid 24 hour and even daily news. These outlets are drug dealers, selling you an outrage high. Weekly news sources are much better. If a story isn't important enough to make it into the weekly news, it probably wasn't worth spending time on in the first place. Also, being a weekly publication means more of the story has unfolded, and the corrections are more likely to already be baked in. In the 24 hour news cycle, the outrage hot-take gets spread around, and then nobody ever sees the correction/retraction.
>It’s utterly impossible to verify even a tiny bit of the information you rely on every day from first principle.
Does it matter? If you resolve always to ACT from first principle, and put your trust in God, why worry about who is lying to you and who is not? Would you treat a liar with less compassion? Would you question God's plan?
I think I am safe in opining that even most clergy would describe such a policy as sticking one's head in the sand rather than being true to one's faith.
My comment stems from a desire for something better. I know the power of religion, belief, and a community with a shared worldview. I was raised religiously.
However the major belief systems on offer today are stunted with so much baggage (e.g. wild claims of the supernatural, conflict with science, outdated morals, etc.) that they don't work for a growing number of people.
As long as there are great unknowns in the universe and in life, which I think there will always be, then there will be an important role for some form of spirituality. And ethics will always be important as well.
We need something better than the major religions of today. They are insufficient. They are not what they claim.
In my own life, having been unable to take on the belief system of my parents, the best thing I've found so far is meditation of the breath along with a dash of Buddhist ethics and philosophy. Of course, I have kept many of the moral teachings from my upbringing, which I appreciate. But it's not the same.
There's more to say, but I don't yet have all of the words. I want better, and if I can tactfully push others to help me find a new way, then I'll try to do so.
I realize my initial comment probably didn't do this very well. Perhaps this isn't even the right venue. Much to think about.
Don't think of me as invoking religion- you could simplify it to invoking some universal constants (like "truth prevails" and "good > evil") and take out the mention of God
I'm not a student of philosophy, but I would think that for the two examples you gave, their meanings are still very contingent on one's world view.
I.e., depending on context, there might not be much use on agreeing about those sentences while still leaving the definitions of "truth", "evil", etc. up to individuals' iterpretation.
For sure. I'm suggesting moral absolutism at a very high level, which some may disagree with. Still, I believe the parent commenter was making some leaps to "wild claims" and "outdated morals" that I never had in mind to bring into discussion.
Not much of a contribution, though; it's just a string of rhetorical questions that have no relevance if you're not a believer. The follow-up comment below is from the same POV but has some substance.
If you believe that, in the end, good prevails over evil (which maybe you don't); if you believe that stacks of lies create a house of cards that must come down eventually; if you believe that the truth always comes out; if you believe in karma or just deserts - then, by acting out of solid principle (universal truths like being honest, loving your neighbor, forgiving your enemy, service of others) you will in the end encounter peace, prosperity and salvation - regardless of how others treat you, regardless of the cards you are dealt in life, regardless of whether information from others turns out to be good or bad.
You might worry that a friend (or newspaper) is taking advantage of you. But if you allow that to make you cynical and selfish with your own actions, it won't lead to good things.
I agree in principle, but there has to be a balance. Nobody can be an expert in everything, many things in the real world are hard or impossible to verify for ourselves, etc. so we need some amount of trust in those we get information from.
I would hope this caveat is obvious, but unfortunately such "question everything" narratives are also commonly spewed by antivaxxers, flat earthers, the alt-right, etc. alongside the classic "do some research".
I think this is summed up nicely by "skepticism doesn't mean denial", or the more pithy "don't open your mind so much that your brain falls out".
I read the UK Guardian most days and sometimes comment on the few stories they briefly allow reader input on. Based on those experiences I would say the Guardian has a very strong 'keep the status quo' neo liberal angle politically and hosts large numbers of highly judgmental and biased opinion and analysis pieces. Nothing wrong with that, they have a particular political and agenda driven focuses for a substantial audience demographic.
Additionally there has been a culture of rivalry and personal dislike between the Graun (and now Buzzfeed news) staff towards Wikileaks from staff who previously worked with them, namely Janine Gibson and James Ball - it's worth following them and reading their tweets. It would be very naive to think this doesn't affect their (now very negative) Wikileaks & Assange coverage.
> Question everything' is a good approach to assessing information from all sources
No it's not. Questioning climate science at a time where the consensus is near-universal and the consequences are dire and imminent is itself destructive. You need to question what doesn't make sense or isn't supported by evidence, and believe the rest.
The problem with "objective" journalism is that truth and falsehood are not as important as what the objective of the story is. If a propagandist can use the truth to achieve their objectives that is better than lies because people can detect lies easier. Objective journalism is based on the false premise that reporting facts differentiates you from agenda driven propaganda when it is really just the most effective form of agenda driven propaganda.
Agreed. I would trust a reporter who says they don't have any bias when reporting less than one who does and makes it known.
Example: If you're a liberal viewpoint reporter, be honest about it. Same with conservative. That way I know which other viewpoints to seek out to verify / counterbalance with.
> Sir — A. J. Tatem and colleagues calculate that women may out-sprint men by the middle of the twenty-second century (Nature 431,525; 2004). They omit to mention, however, that (according to their analysis) a far more interesting race should occur in about 2636, when times of less than zero seconds will be recorded.
This analysis fails to account for the prediction that in early 27th century FTL speeds will be achievable and a woman would invent a relativistic shoe that would allow here to wind the 100 meters dash.
As someone who has the "enlightening" experience of getting his high-school education in multiple states and took note of the "inconveniences" in history and science that each state chose not to focus on or downplay I assure you that an education system that at the end of the day answers to government is not going to eagerly teach the population how to detect bullshit.
Convince parents that teaching kids to think critically is more important than indoctrinating said child into whichever religion or political sphere the parent is already a part of. In my experience that’s a broadly impossible task. Parents want their kids to think critically only about the things the parent already rejects.
Kids that think critically are less susceptible to lazy parenting.
Nobody wants to explain to their 5yo why they can't afford a Barbie Jeep but can afford booze or going out to eat. Nobody wants a teenager that is well versed in assessing the goals and motivation of all the parties in any given situation because they'll recognize all the partial truths they get fed in an attempt to make them to take risks in a manner more like an adult. A teenager that understands statistics well would be impossible to scare into not doing "bad things". Likewise thinking critically is not a high priority thing for parents to teach.
When you're dealing with someone who can't think on the same level as you lying is just so damn easy. They are playing checkers. You are playing seven dimensional chess. Teaching kids to think critically requires a constant effort and directly negatively impacts the parents in the short term. It's like quitting smoking for 18yr, no wonder most people don't do it.
Honestly I never considered that angle, but I have to agree. I’ve always focused on grander aspects of it, but of course the small everyday lies and manipulations would be more central.
First, we, as parents, have to learn to think critically ourselves. This is no easy task because, generally, nobody taught us that, and also because one needs some level of education and/or basic understanding of how the world works in general.
Then, start asking questions: can we trust the information we receive? Is it possible we receive a biased/incomplete/wrong information? Are we being manipulated? Who would benefit from supplying us with incorrect information? correct information? How can we verify the information?
Look at the history. What can we learn from historical events? Have we been lied to in the past? How did we learn that we've been lied to? Who benefitted?
That's exactly right. And even if they do, it'll be some small article on page 20 equivalent of the web.
For Guardian (or others) to really regain the trust, they should have a WE WERE WRONG article on their front page for as long as their fake story was there. And it should outline where they went wrong and what steps will be taken to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Their example about the algorithm that predicts if you’re a criminal by looking at your face seems... poorly thought out. Note, it’s not facial recognition. It’s prediction. They make the claim that it’s all about jury perception. Maybe it is, but far more important is that it’s likely just using an estimate of race and wealth. I’m annoyed that they didn’t talk about the bigger red flag: “90% accuracy”.
Maybe they should just teach stats...
Edit: pre-empting a nitpick: when I say “wealth” I mean largely as proxied by hairstyle
As the article was worded, it was not a system to predict whose face it was, but rather to predict, baseline, if a person were a criminal (as a descriptor, not a specific one)
>We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight. The curious lack of solid evidence for Russian collusion is a red flag. But we’ll see how that plays out.
What they miss is that this "mass hysteria" was carefully cultivated (for political benefit and ad money) from newspapers and magazines, including the Guardian and NYT.
To be fair though, the masses are rather silly, and the size of that mass is growing (spreading into demographics of higher intelligence). So much of the news is obviously "fake" (weasel words, implied but not outright stated "facts", etc) but as the propaganda campaigns continue, they seem to be gradually wearing people down. Although, the decreasing frequency of dissenting voices in social media could also be explained by people abandoning all hope of getting people to think critically and just checking out.
By stopping participating in discussions about facts vs "facts". The above publications don't have a particularly stellar record of clearly differentiating between the two in a way that those who lack excellent critical reading skills are able to leave with an accurate perception of what is proven vs alleged. But this is a matter of opinion of course, the level of criticality one applies when reading the news typically varies according to the political topic.
> We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight.
What we know is the actions of the sitting President of the US didn't rise to the legally provable action of actively working with a hostile foreign intel agency.
Everything up to that point has been proven and made public. The Trump Tower meeting, Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, Manafort giving polling data to the FSB, Wikileaks/GRU, etc.
If ALL of that happened and no one reported on it, the news media would have truly failed.
Yeah, but I can't decide if the Russian collusion angle was pushed more by the right or the left.
I mean, there IS a ton of evidence that Russian propaganda interference was real, and that it had an impact on the election. That in itself is a huge deal in my opinion. If there was no coordinated collusion, Trump and friends get to shout "See! No collusion! It was all a witch-hunt!" The idea that no collusion= witch-hunt is completely absurd and preposterous to me.
>Yeah, but I can't decide if the Russian collusion angle was pushed more by the right or the left.
For me there's no "right" and "left" as much, as an ok-with-Trump and "not-ok-with-Trump".
The right Republican establishment also didn't like Trump -- coming from outside the party, with no social grace (which I don't care for, I don't care about optics or what a politician is like as a person, only for their politics), and with some bizarro ideas of his own that break the traditional two-party consensus (e.g. on "more war", or on "limits to globalization" -- which, as a left-inclined person [1], I quite liked. I remember when some parts of the left were against globalization too -- e.g. in Seattle 1999 WTO protests. How time flies...).
>I mean, there IS a ton of evidence that Russian propaganda interference was real, and that it had an impact on the election.
I'd say a ton of noise more than evidence (and not for impact, just for propaganda). At worst they have some "social media" factories, which are par for the course today. In my country both major parties have their own, and publish BS against one another, pose as the other etc. The US surely has it's own (e.g. judging from things like this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/feds-probe-fake-messages-to-f... ).
I also remember (from actually reading world news) that they have all kinds of sponsored ties, with government and opposition parties around the world, with NGOs, with think tanks, etc, which pretend to be "neutral" but are mostly fronts for national interest promotional work. Thousands of those, all over the world. Plus all the mainstream media eating off their official stories. I doubt Russia has 1/10th the budget or reach for those, which is probably why they have to content themselves with twitter posts and fake blogs.
[1] non US one, so not the modern vegan liberal that passes for one there.
> We might soon learn that the Russian Collusion story was mass hysteria in hindsight.
Will families split by stupid arguments over the Russian collusion hoax be reunited?
I think going back we are going to study this as one of the most effective and prolific conspiracy theory pushed by the major news organizations. I just heard that apparently Mueller and Barr were Russian agents and if we'd wait longer we'd discover the truth. At that point I just nod and smile because I realize we might as well be talking about flat earth or chemtrail contrails.
But there's not a hoax. Lots of people have been covicted in connection with it, and the President who is at the center of it all acts extremely suspiciously, trying to destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses, and shut down investigators. You would have to ignore a whole heck of a lot of evidence to call the story a "hoax".
The most charitable thing Contra-Coverup Barr could say in his summary is that the President wasn't personally involved with Russian governmental officials in connection with the Internet Research Agency scheme. That is an absurdly specific denial, not even close to "no collusion".
Nobody forced Don Jr to release his emails to representatives of the Russian government saying he would love their help.
> You would have to ignore a whole heck of a lot of evidence to call the story a "hoax".
What's the evidence?
It started with Russians in the bushes in Wisconsin hacking voting machines and bumping votes for their favorite candidate. Remember the Green Party recount how many donated and believed we'd find evidence of hacking.
Then it was about a pee tape of some sort. What happened to that? There was complete certainty if you listened to mainstream media that it was true. Where is that evidence? Any impeachments from it?
Then Comey's testimony. Remember people took time off work to watch it waiting the Russian collusion to finally be exposed. What happened to that? Any impeachments came out of that?
Then it was a constant stream of "just you wait till next week, the report could be out and it's the end of it, impeachments surely are coming next week" for the last ... what? Year or year and half?
So what should we do? Wait for another Mueller report now?
> That is an absurdly specific denial, not even close to "no collusion".
Right, so the hoax continues, because the conclusion wasn't general enough and we'd just have to wait till next week when ... impeachments will finally be here?
> President who is at the center of it all acts extremely suspiciously
But imagine for a second there was no collusion. (A pure thought experiment). After being called anything from Putin's "cock holster" (https://pjmedia.com/video/stephen-colbert-says-donald-trumps...) to "muppet" to whatever, non-stop, 24/7, by the CNN, MSNBC and the likes, do you think he might be a bit irritated? What would you do if everyone around accused you of something you didn't do. Can't say I wouldn't be taking sarcastic jabs back at them and fighting to stop the farce.
Where is that quote from? (I didn't see it in the OP)
If "Russian Collusion" (which could be defined any number of ways) turns out to be mass hysteria, it was partly turned into a hysteria by the actions of the very parties accused of it.
Members of his immediate family and campaign flirted with people associated with the Russian government. He lied about his Russian financial deals. His National Security Adviser lied about his contacts with Russians and his foreign ties. And finally, Trump talks so oddly fond of Russia (and other despots) without ever condemning their human rights abuses.
Oh, the irony. An article about college class that teaches people to spot bad information online is itself full of standard techniques journalists use to manipulate people.
I see this one a lot lately. Someone drops a phrase that assumes something the author wants readers to remember and believe. The phrase is usually oddly specific, while the author pretends to convey a general idea or talks about something entirely unrelated.