tzu
21
Historically, this is hardly close to nadir.
tzu
22
No, not in the least. The Mongols and yersinia pestis erased entire reservoirs of truth.
Right now, itâs just drowned by noise.
1 Like
You might be right. But maybe not.
I donât know.
tzu
24
The new thing is the entrenchment of bull â â â â into all aspects of society, else society fails to function.
That sounds a lot like the old thing.
How timely!
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/23/eabf1234
Solid research on the susceptibility of the conservative to misinformation. Itâs long but thorough.
This study provides the most rigorous evidence to date that U.S. conservatives are uniquely susceptible to political misperceptions in the current sociopolitical environment. Data were collected over 6 months in 2019 and reflect Americansâ beliefs about hundreds of political topics. The topics were selected on the basis of social media engagement, suggesting that these are the very issues that Americans were most likely to encounter online. Analyses suggest that conservatism is associated with a lesser ability to distinguish between true and false claims across a wide range of political issues and with a tendency to believe that all claims are true.
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tzu
27
Here, I think we have to disagree.
Say what you will about roving bands of mercenaries criss-crossing the Italian peninsula, avoiding battle and ransoming aristos, but what kept society working wasnât bull â â â â â but rather grain merchants and midwives.
Well, there is such thing as the truth but it isnât located near the field of political discourse.
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tzu
29
Contamination avoidance is a good way to get infected.
Well, thatâs certainly true - and thatâll certainly come back, if/when we want.
But I have no doubt there was some bull â â â â in there somewhere.
zantax
31
Never was. They just miss the good old days when there were only three networks and they had an effective monopoly on public discourse.
6 Likes
tzu
32
Most societies produce bull â â â â . Ours needs it or it eats itself alive.
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AZslim
33
But itâs not just conservatives. We are heading to a world with NO truth, where we all just believe what we want and SOMEBODY will affirm it. How bizarre is that?
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Needs or wants?
Or is there even a difference?
I donât necessarily disagree. But Iâve only ever lived here and now
tzu
35
AZ,
Thatâs baseline human conduct. Fiction and bad faith are fundamentally human. Facticity is an accident.
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tzu
37
Needs.
How many times have you heard some version of âthanks to our troops fighting there we have freedom hereâ?
Itâs rankest bull â â â â â but it covers and obscures an essential truth: we are a predatory extraction regime and everything we call âlibertyâ is the excess labor of broken bodies commodified as disposable time-saving devices we buy on the cheap.
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When he was on the radio I would listen to Neal Boortz. And he always said the same thing after he told a news story. He would say, âDonât believe me. Do your homeworkâ. So when the term âfake newsâ came out I was upset, because there is no such thing. But people were using it to describe news stories based on hearsay. Which is fine as long as it isnât presented as hard news. It is pretty easy to sort out hard news from hearsay news from op-ed and spin. And over the years I have seen where in most cases the truth will come out eventuality.
Of course. All of that is true.
I think thereâs something to the want vs. need question, though.
tzu
40
I donât place a lot of emphasis on âwantâ. Desire, yes. But, not âwantâ. It stinks of retconning.