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So instead of just shooting every media source that's not backed by a billionaire in the tiny toes as it's presented as sacrificial giving, maybe one of the big brain media explainers in the thread could give us some examples of small, independent media that does meet the nutty professor's standards of worthwhile journalism? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 13, 2021 11:48
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Fritz the Horse posted:I mean, yeah, the conditions and treatment of migrants at the US Southern border were and are uncomfortable to read about at the very least. That's not the wording I'd use, more like "unacceptable," "disgusting," "inhumane," "horrifying" etc take your pick. Yeah, this is a really important point that I really wanna emphasize. We don't need to have a fully formed opinion on something the instant the first report of it hits the airwaves. That's a bad habit that's been encouraged by the rise of 24-hour news and scoop culture, and then driven into overdrive by Twitter. It's okay to see that initial report and decide to wait for more info confirming or denying it. You don't need to rush straight to judgment. You can wait a day or two for the story to develop and for other sources to investigate it further. It will be fine if we wait a couple of days to get mad, I promise. I find it particularly egregious when a mass shooting or some other disaster happens and everyone's hanging off every little unreliable detail they see on Twitter, instead of just logging off and coming back the next day when most of the spurious/hoax reports have been filtered out and things have settled enough to get an overall sense of what actually happened.
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Oct 13, 2021 16:22
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HelloSailorSign posted:By going back to what we've been discussing all along and understanding the why of the mediator and how they're acting, and then thinking of how you discovered it, you can start to unravel how you've been identified by the social media empires. I... hmmm. There's interesting ideas in this response that I've reflected on and changed my mind on for years, which is who has the larger agency, the media provider or the consumer. When I was in college studying journalism, the hypodermic needle theory of journalism always left me unconvinced because it seemed to me that many of the conservatives I was growing up with had right-wing talk radio before they had Fox News, had always been seeking some kind of conservative media, and if it wasn't Bill O'Reilly (at the time) giving it to them, they'd seek it from somewhere else. Basically, media, especially televised media, was an enabler rather than any agent of its own. So I was a big believer in uses and gratification theory in other words. What actually made me change my mind was watching the effect MSNBC and CNN and the like had on people. I watched centrist media in this country change people's minds from their original persuasion more and more, make them placidly accept war more than they had during the latter Bush Jr. era, etc. I did this as a centrist liberal myself transitioning into the leftist I am now, and I was abandoning uses and gratification before I fully changed over, so I don't think this was from my ideological framing. The purest example I can find of this had the media less as a pied piper so much as a politician - the infamous poll where, after Biden said he wouldn't ban fracking, polled Democrats approved fracking at a bigger rate than before Biden's statement. But you can see in a lot of different ways, like all the liberals who laughed at Romney saying Russia was our greatest threat now saying that in earnest. Or, honestly, how a kid who turned rabidly Democrat because of the Iraq War would suddenly hem and haw over Obama's intervention in Libya. What a dumb kid. Wonder what he's up to these days. Your go-to is Alex Jones, and sure, that's niche media that would have to be sought out, but when it comes to being impressed by major media outlets, their exposure is pretty universal and passively consumed, usually without question. For that matter, not all media is sought out for positive consumption, and I'd argue negative consumption also produces a bias. For instance, the average liberal in this thread is probably far more familiar with what Fox News is saying than I, some social democrat, because I just don't care about Fox News. Conservative thought isn't relevant to me. A decision is made by aggressively monitoring, say, Tucker Carlson, which is granting him legitimacy as a direct opponent as opposed to dismissing him as, well, uses and gratification. That could easily go for Jimmy Dore, why is he interested in Carlson enough to "gotta hand it to him?" But consuming Fox News negatively is a pastime of liberals more than leftists. How does that choice effect liberal politics then? I do think it influences, like how in an earlier post you made a point about right-wing media being misleading when that describes American media in general, but not in the way you're acting, which is strict uses and gratifications, that it's sought out only by positive consumers. Does that make sense? HelloSailorSign posted:The DNC leaks, done by Russian Intelligence, could contain any number of edited bits of information. They could also be entirely true. What they were mainly used for was to destabilize the DNC and the election because we have historical context of when they happened. This impacts the ability of the Democrats to appropriately respond in that timeframe, and the Democrats were (arguably correctly) not going to spend the months and thousands of hours of worker (who are we kidding, volunteer) time so they can after the fact say, "these things are true, these are false." The purpose was to get the media frenzy going, "DNC LEAKS?!" rather than, "let's discuss Democratic policies." The purpose was to make public lots of private contact information to make the Democratic Party's efforts more difficult because now they've got to manage the poo poo that comes with that. This type of thinking, though, has a lot more holes. For one, and this is hardly just you, but discussing the leaks and the Democratic Party as if you have an investment in the Democratic Party winning is, by nature, approaching with bias. This has been done by many in this thread, especially by those who like to crow about preconceived conclusions. The question has to become, who cares if it destabilizes the Democrat election, that does not delegitimize it. Do you honestly think the Watergate papers weren't released to destabilize Richard Nixon? The Pentagon papers weren't released to destabilize the American military-industrial complex? Every leak in history is designed to have an effect, and saying all leaks must exist in this space of innocuous and purposeless accident would invalidate the entire field of investigate journalism. This is why I was talking about genre awareness earlier, because genre is a lot about audience. All information is packaged for an audience and designed with a purpose. It's fine to analyze those purposes and those audiences, but saying having a purpose and audience is nefarious... makes no sense. "These leaks were designed to embarrass the Democratic Party." Christine Blasey Ford's admission about her molestation was designed to derail Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination. It wasn't brought up with intentions of giving the Republicans time to respond or with concern about how this would affect Republican solidarity. It was brought up to deny a man a promotion. And that is a perfectly acceptable objective! Because we're not invested in Kavanaugh or the conservative project, right? But wringing our hands about how hard this will be for the Democratic solidarity is showing our own bias, our own investments, and our framing without really acknowledging it and just assuming that as "factual." But also, no, Democrats don't need to give a blow by blow on each claim by Wikileaks. Basic campaigning strategy would just be to look long enough to find one thing wrong, tout that as a trophy, say, "If this is wrong, can you believe the rest?" and move on. Assuming that the Democrats would try to disprove the Wikileaks in good faith and therefore completely evaluate it is to ignore their intentions, which you yourself have identified, which is to win elections. Here's the thing: Even in the expected bad faith that any campaign (especially Hillary "I wouldn't negotiate with our enemies unlike my opponent Barack" Clinton) operates under, they still couldn't produce a trophy case. That's pretty damning, to be honest. Now, I've yet to assert that every Wikileak was true, because that feels like far too ambitious of a claim. I also don't think that's the utmost concern because leaks of any kind that are true even partially are good if it's relevant to the public interest, and the conduct of a campaign and party generally have been treated as such in American media. But I do find it interesting that the Clinton campaign and the media as a whole have yet to point to a single wrong leak. They did, after all, point to information manipulation by that one agency in that Forbes release. So there's no ban on talk of information manipulation as much as you act like there. There's just no provided direct evidence on Wikileaks as of 2021. I find that interesting as opposed to dismissible Lib and let die posted:So instead of just shooting every media source that's not backed by a billionaire in the tiny toes as it's presented as sacrificial giving, maybe one of the big brain media explainers in the thread could give us some examples of small, independent media that does meet the nutty professor's standards of worthwhile journalism? I'll be honest, I'm loathe to try to have any discussion with DV, but at the same time, he yelled at me about generalizing about the American media, as if there's some American media outlet that is 100% trustworthy. When I mentioned something about "mainstream media" to leave aside the possibility of some mystically independent and completely dependable media, he just tried to insinuate that I was somehow Freudian slipping my cryptoconservatism. Again, I'd put money DV is more aware of Fox News discourse than me, and I say that as a defense of me and not an attack on him. But let me then be direct: If he's upset about how I generalize about media, what media does he actually view as trustworthy and escapes my general cynical lens about being affect by our military-industrial complex. I highly doubt he means Jacobin and various leftist anti-military outlets, and nor would I, they're generally editorial and also prone to missteps. What media, then, does he mean, to put the above post more softly.
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Oct 13, 2021 16:28
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Probably Magic posted:I'll be honest, I'm loathe to try to have any discussion with DV, but at the same time, he yelled at me about generalizing about the American media, as if there's some American media outlet that is 100% trustworthy. When I mentioned something about "mainstream media" to leave aside the possibility of some mystically independent and completely dependable media, he just tried to insinuate that I was somehow Freudian slipping my cryptoconservatism. Again, I'd put money DV is more aware of Fox News discourse than me, and I say that as a defense of me and not an attack on him. But let me then be direct: If he's upset about how I generalize about media, what media does he actually view as trustworthy and escapes my general cynical lens about being affect by our military-industrial complex. I highly doubt he means Jacobin and various leftist anti-military outlets, and nor would I, they're generally editorial and also prone to missteps. What media, then, does he mean, to put the above post more softly. DV, or anyone else who shares his views on media literacy, will never be able to answer this without giving up the game. Anything that they could put forth as the true and correct media source would necessarily fail their own criteria for trustworthiness because literally all media is biased. That's the only way it works. The real point of their style of media criticism isn't to filter out the bad sources in order to find the good sources (though they certainly present it that way), but rather it exists to filter out the information they don't want to accept. If a source is saying something I don't want to hear, like say for example they are being critical of the Democratic party, well obviously that source is biased and they've lied in the past and they are violating media rule #3.05 section C please refer to my OP. However if the source is saying something I already agree with, well then that makes sense to me and there's no reason to investigate further. It's not media criticism, it's a mental game to allow yourself to confirm your priors. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 13, 2021 16:50
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My favourite part of the Washington Post Quiz is when they downplay COINTELPRO as "keeping tabs" on Civil Rights leader. Even when they admit to real-life stuff that we know happened, they have to make the FBI sound less villainous than it was.
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Oct 13, 2021 16:50
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HelloSailorSign posted:Assuming the DNC leaks are most likely altered because of the source is not a, "Russia bad, DNC good" it's, "the Russian government has its own interests which would be served by disrupting trust in the American political and societal system." How are u posted:Maybe reflect on this thought a little bit. Imagine if this sentiment were applicable the other way round, and that you were the one with the alien worldview. Main Paineframe posted:Yeah, this is a really important point that I really wanna emphasize. Just to be absolutely clear, if you actually do put in the effort it's definitely the right call, but it will probably help the ongoing discussion (and your posting reputation) if you actively come to a conclusion at some point in the thread - especially if it goes counter to your initial instinct. Otherwise your "Let's wait and see (willing to be convinced)" just gets rolled into "Let's wait and see (not willing to be convinced)", by both people with the "opposite" bias and the same biases as yours but stronger, which further cements those biases.
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Oct 13, 2021 16:54
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MonsieurChoc posted:My favourite part of the Washington Post Quiz is when they downplay COINTELPRO as "keeping tabs" on Civil Rights leader. Describing the Contras as “revolutionaries” was pretty cool too.
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Oct 13, 2021 17:37
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Probably Magic posted:[snip] I picked Alex Jones simply because the person I was responding to did. I could also substitute in the somewhat aggravating discussions I've had with my Bill Maher/MSNBC loving relative.  While I agree that the individual's original biases and decision to seek out a particular media source are quite important to what they consume and why, the continued existence within the general media sphere and ancillary information sources that get demonstrated to that individual in the algorithm era is then the media leading the individual to a conclusion. In the case of much of the big media outlets, in my opinion you have the draw of the generally correct but with some slant pure news sections (there are news and analyses that even Fox News is good at), and then the slant even further of the famous talking heads who get their own "opinion" show which aim to poke at people's psychological need to be right/better/etc. I'm not really seeing though how the bit you quoted is a demonstration of how my own support for the Democratic Party influenced that line of thinking. That's simply an analysis that could be applied to Republican actions as well in a similar situation. The disconnect, as it seems, is that yes all those other things were released in order to further a goal, just about every leak done ever, and likely ever leak going forward, is going to have an overarching goal. But the problem I have with the DNC leaks that I don't have with the Panama Papers is that there is the added benefit of time for the Panama Papers to be evaluated and pursued appropriately (and even before they were dropped to the wider public). The problem with the DNC leaks that I don't have with Dr. Ford's scenario is that the consequences of action for WikiLeaks putting forth potentially falsified information (that was provided by a tainted originator) are far, far less drastic than with Dr. Ford, so her actions are more self-sacrificing, more reasonably made in a moment of quick action. WikiLeaks would suffer little, if anything, from parts of the information it got being identified as false, did not have the time to appropriately evaluate the information released, and released it because it fit the goal they had (making Clinton's life more difficult). This is something that many of the big media groups do have to contend with, their "true news" sections being outed as having used or put forth false information. It's less than it used to be, but in some ways it's because of people labeling things that don't agree with them as false just because it doesn't agree with them. This is in part why WikiLeaks get some extra scrutiny, they don't have to worry as much about having some wrong things pointed out - their purpose is to release information provided to them and they have an easy out of, "this stuff is complicated, we are small, and we must get the information out" that people will nod sagely about. This is then compounded with various Twitter personalities in that deleting previously wrong/false content and/or not having to worry about being wrong (because Twitter is not about following up on things you posted about) means they are encouraged to post things that drive engagement, not things that are correct. Which segues into... A Buttery Pastry posted:While true, I feel like there's something that has to be included here: Actually following up on the story. If your process was waiting and actually following up on the story, and examining how your biases guided you, then it's fine. If what you actually did was forgetting the story and just jumping on the next one, or you never consider how your biases led you astray, then the "Let's wait and see" is effectively a fully formed opinion favoring your biases, masquerading as being sensible about news stories. This is what social media has been encouraging. Also the corrections placed 10 pages in in ye days of yore 2 weeks after the BREAKING NEWS in the morning papers. And on social media, lies (damned lies, and statistics) often do serve purposes better than the truth.
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Oct 13, 2021 17:39
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Nix Panicus posted:Theoretically we're both operating from evidence based reality, which is why it can be frustrating interacting with D&D sometimes. To me, its down to Fritz's sentiment a few posts up. They genuinely seem to believe there was a chance the border camp photos and videos were all fake It's not about fake vs. not fake — that's a false dichotomy and is simplistic. Misinformation comes in many different forms: https://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/c.php?g=849536&p=6077637  Of particular note is the Misleading Content category, which is described thus: quote:Misleading content is the by far the most difficult kind of fake news to uncover. Misleading content can find its way into many, many real news stories and the reason it's so hard to discover is because it requires some kind of expertise or knowledge about a given subject to determine whether the facts and details in any news article are being misrepresented. The reason sources like Project Veritas are notorious is because they excel at creating misleading content, which can be true and genuine on the surface (e.g. a hidden camera recording) but is presented in a grossly deceptive way that often lacks any context. Their aim is simple: they want the audience to fill in the blanks using their preconceived notions, existing beliefs and imagination. This is why questioning the veracity of the claims and wanting to dig deeper and asking for alternative sources that confirm the claim being made are good habits to have regardless of your worldview and political beliefs. They are good habits to have especially if the source you're consuming information from is telling you what you want to hear, because that's a strong indication that you're the target audience and the information has been packaged specifically to reinforce your existing beliefs, to further the goals of the source. This may be the actual reason you find interacting with D&D frustrating: over the past couple of years, many D&D regulars (and mods) have gained the ability to scrutinize sources they come across, thanks in large part to efforts like this thread. This is in contrast to the other politics forum, where attitudes are more lax and posters frequently share tweets and articles and other content day in, day out that the mob agrees with, celebrates and roots for with zero scrutiny. I know this because I read and post in both forums and the contrast is extremely stark. Here's the thing though: no one here is not under any illusion that they can (or should try to) shape that subforum in this one's image, with effortposts and fact-checking and such. People who occasionally try are mocked and ridiculed. So I'm not sure why y'all are trying so hard to shape this one in that one's image, by insisting on things such as not moderating bad source usage, treating WaPo/NYT with the same level of skepticism and scrutiny as Wikileaks/Project Veritas/Examiner, etc.
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Oct 13, 2021 18:31
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fool of sound posted:So hey, here's a little mod challenge: do an effortpost criticizing the quiz in detail. Feel free to take time if you need it; 3 days sound like enough? https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2021/conspiracy-theory-quiz/ On 10/7/21, the Oligarch-owned propaganda outlet 'The Washington Post' chose to publish an opinion piece titled "Will you fall into the conspiracy theory rabbit hole? Take our quiz and find out." The article contains a six multiple choice question quiz in which the reader is asked to identify the true statement out of the options offered. After the answer is selected, the quiz displays a check or an X to indicate a correct or incorrect answer, and a rationale is given, presented as fact. In each question, the "correct" answer is the commonly-accepted option. In this essay I will outline the ways in which this is an example of the use of "conspiracy theory" as a thought-terminating cliche, used not to discern truth from falsehood, but rather to generate feelings of satisfaction in a reader who agrees with the framing of the authors, and to reinforce a worldview that is beneficial to the owner of the newspaper. We'll examine the article line by line, and analyze each "incorrect" answer as well as each "correct" answer. For transparency, I took the quiz and got 6/6 correct. It's an easy quiz to pass by giving the expected response. If I answered according to what I actually believe to be true, I would be unable to complete the quiz because the answers provided are incomplete by design, to achieve the opinion-shaping desired by the authors, editor, and publisher. As an aside, I fundamentally object to the use of the phrase "conspiracy theory". It's most often used by people with a motive to protect an interest and to denigrate anyone who doesn't uncritically accept the explanatory power and/or truth value of the official narrative on a topic, whether put forward by an agent of government, capital, or a mouthpiece thereof. Critical thinking, it would seem, is a virtue, until and unless it is applied on messaging originating from faith. What faith? Usually a form of the national myth of democracy plus meritocracy, sometimes faith in American exceptionalism, sometimes faith in institutions, sometimes faith in the good intentions of the person being questioned, and so on. We'll see throughout the article that the assumptions and biases of the authors are not only on full display, they are not counted as assumptions or biases because of their basis in fact. Unfortunately, by the authors own admission, nearly every "correct" answer in the quiz was once a "conspiracy theory" directly because the proof was being concealed by conspirators with a vested interest (  )Let's begin. Article contents in brackets, my comments outside. [Who believes in conspiracy theories? Statistically speaking: almost everyone. A team of researchers recently showed several thousand Americans a list of 20 common conspiracy theories and asked if they believed them. These included false conspiracy theories about the John F. Kennedy assassination, 5G cellular wireless technology, Barack Obama’s birth certificate, covid-19 and climate change. The result: Nine in 10 Americans believed in at least one conspiracy theory.] Did you notice that there is no definition given of what a "conspiracy theory" actually is? Did you also notice that the third use of the term "conspiracy theory" is qualified, "false conspiracy theories"? As we will see as we progress through the quiz, the difference between "conspiracy theory" and "false conspiracy theory" is never elaborated on, and when true conspiracy theories are presented, there's something missing. See if you can spot it. Lastly, 9 in 10 Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory. Wow! Are you among the blessed 10% of smart people, or among the benighted 90% of fools? [The study — led by Adam Enders of the University of Louisville and Joseph Uscinski of the University of Miami — surveyed a representative sample of 2,023 Americans in March 2020 and 2,015 more in October 2020. This article uses questions from their surveys to test your knowledge — and your credulity. So, can you tell fact from fiction, or will you fall down the rabbit hole? Scroll down to find out.] I don't know who these people are but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're legit researchers from legit universities and that their statistics are sound. I am less interested in nitpicking their methodology and results and more interested in pulling at the way they frame their research, how they present it, and how it benefits the oligarch owner of the publication to reinforce the views it reinforces. "can you tell fact from fiction, or will you fall down the rabbit hole?" is an obvious false dichotomy. Right off the bat we are expected to accept that these are the two possibilities: do you select the correct answer and share the approved beliefs of the oligarch? Or are you a confused, hopelessly lost fool? You may object, the oligarch did not write the quiz. I put it to you that if you believe that there is a small group of editors at the Washington Post who operate in contravention to the wishes of their boss and the owner of their employer despite his status as the 2nd richest and most influential humans alive, this is an unfounded conspiracy theory that you believe without evidence. Now the actual questions of the quiz! For each one I will share the question and answers, the "correct" answer accepted by the quiz, the rationale provided by the authors once you submit your answer, and my personal response to each option provided. [1/6Let’s get started: Which of the statements below is true? A) Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire accused of running an elite sex trafficking ring, was murdered to cover up the activities of his criminal network. B) President John F. Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy rather than by a lone gunman. C) The FBI kept tabs on civil rights leaders such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., attempting to find compromising information and damage his reputation. D) Regardless of who is officially in charge of the government and other organizations, there is a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together.] The 'correct' answer is C, although it's quite limited in its claims compared to the truth, which is that not only did the FBI do this, they succeeded in finding damaging information, directly threatened and blackmailed the good Reverend, and murdered him. No mention of the existence of COINTELPRO whatsoever. Interesting. A is true. B is intentionally worded like poo poo - to me there is no way to answer the question with certainty, but the most likely option is that JFK was killed by a lone gunman who was deliberately used as a patsy by a group of conspirators, who then facilitated the murder of the patsy to avoid further complications. D is true. I'm sure the intended implication is that believing this is automatically antisemitic because the assumption is that you mean something like "the bankers" or "the ZOG", but what I mean is in plain sight: the boards of directors of the companies that comprise the S&P 500, for example, the leaders of Blackrock, etc. "Control events" is intentionally broad, likely to paint the believers in this statement in a certain way. I'm not talking about things like weather. I'm talking about things like wars, laws, and economics. An example: Elon Musk is, on paper, subject to numerous rules and regulations regarding financial and labor practices and automotive safety, in practice, these rules do not apply to him because he is a member of the capitalist cartel and functionally outside of the jurisdiction of these regulations and laws. [Nice job. According to the King Institute at Stanford University, the FBI wiretapped King and attempted to “discredit King’s standing among financial supporters, church leaders, government officials, and the media." The other three statements are unfounded conspiracy theories: JFK was killed by a lone gunman, there’s no secret group running the world, and the available evidence suggests that Epstein killed himself. But roughly half of Americans think Epstein was murdered, 4 in 10 believe in a JFK conspiracy and a third think a small cabal runs the world. Percentage of people who believe the conspiracy theory about... Epstein didn’t kill himself 50% JFK killed by a conspiracy 44% One secret group controls the world 35%] There's no evidence provided for these claims. You're in the smart group if you agree, and you're deluded if you don't. [2/6 Partisanship plays a role in what people believe: Both Republicans and Democrats are prone to believe conspiracy theories that make the other party look bad. Can you pick the true statement — or will you be blinded by party loyalty? A) Republicans cheated their way to win the 2000, 2004 and 2016 presidential elections. B) Hillary Clinton conspired to provide Russia with nuclear materials. C) During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, government officials secretly and illegally sold weapons to Iran, and used the money to fund Nicaraguan revolutionaries. D) Barack Obama faked his citizenship to become president.] Another false dichotomy in the question. The options are "Can you pick the true statement — or will you be blinded by party loyalty?" The correct answer is C, although the authors choice of the word "revolutionaries" is revealing, as the groups funded by the Reagan administration were self-described counter-revolutionaries, or proponents of la contrarevolución. A is partially true to completely true depending on the width of your definition of cheating. 2000 was absolutely cheated by the candidate's brother. B is false. D is false. It's interesting what the authors choose to include, isn't it? The idea that Al Gore won Florida in the 2000 election is equivalent to the idea that Barack Obama forged his birth certificate? [True. In the Iran-contra affair, Reagan administration officials engaged in a real conspiracy. Several were pardoned after George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s vice president, became president. The other three statements are conspiracy theories. Republicans won fairly in 2000, 2004 and 2016, but 4 in 10 Democrats say they didn’t. There’s no evidence Clinton conspired with Russia, and Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen, yet more than 4 in 10 Republicans subscribe to each theory. Percentage of people who believe the conspiracy theory about... Republicans stole elections 27% Clinton gave nuclear material to Russia 28% Obama faked his birth certificate 20%]  At this point, the authors interject: [Conspiracy theories follow a simple formula Powerful people + Use deceitful or shadowy means + Benefit themselves or harm the public Barack Obama faked his citizenship to become president. Donald Trump faked having covid-19 to help his chances at reelection. Hillary Clinton conspired to give Russia access to nuclear materials. Real-world events sometimes follow this formula as well. Example: The Reagan administration acted secretly and illegally in the Iran-contra affair, and the FBI did spy on King. But the key difference is that these real incidents are backed up by evidence, facts and witnesses. Conspiracy theories are different. They’re just theories. Most have no evidence to support them. They often connect unrelated facts to create an impression of plausibility. Yet almost everyone believes at least one. According to Enders, “One thing I notice a lot in talking to colleagues, journalists and students — people don’t realize that a lot of people just believe weird stuff. A lot of this commotion about conspiracy theories, especially in the last four or five years, is fueled by this complete misunderstanding of the basic contours of public opinion.”] With seemingly zero self-awareness, the authors claim that real world events "sometimes" follow the formula of conspiracy theories, that "most" conspiracy theories have no evidence to support them, and that "almost everyone believes at least one." "People believe weird stuff" is presented as something that OTHER people do. Interesting. It reminds me of the OP of this thread, the air of smug self-justification, the tautological fundamental attribution error "other people think incorrect things, but if they just thought correctly, like I do, they'd agree with me". [3/6 Conspiracy theorists commonly seize on subjects that most people have little expertise in, such as health and science, and therefore cannot easily be debunked. Half of Americans believe one of the claims in the list below, but only one is backed by evidence. Which of these is true? A) The dangers of genetically modified foods are being hidden from the public. B) The U.S. government secretly dosed Americans with LSD in an attempt to develop mind control technology. C) The AIDS virus was created and spread around the world on purpose by a secret organization. D) The coronavirus was purposely created and released by powerful people as part of a conspiracy.] The "correct" answer is B, which is funny, because MKULTRA was conducted in secret by a small group of people ... sounds like a conspiracy. A) is true, depending on your definition of danger and your definition of GMO. Selective cross-breeding doesn't present any hidden dangers. But the it would be ridiculous to assert that the Monsanto labs that brought you Terminator seeds and Roundup are only working transparently on projects for the betterment of humanity. B) is true. C) is false, AIDS is caused by HIV which was not created by anyone, but was deliberately allowed to spread by the US Government because the Reagan administration did not consider homosexuals to be human beings worth protecting, and did not consider heterosexuals at-risk for contracting HIV. D) is false but its inclusion here serves the purpose of conflating distrust of Monsanto or distrust of Reagan and Fauci with Qanon-tier xenophobic and racist insanity. [Correct. The operation was called MKUltra, and it ended in the 1970s. The other three statements are conspiracy theories: There’s no evidence that genetically modified foods are unsafe; HIV jumped from animals to people; and scientists think the coronavirus either evolved naturally or accidentally escaped from a lab. Percentage of people who believe the conspiracy theory about... GMOs are secretly dangerous 45% AIDS was created and spread by a secret group 22% Covid-19 is a man-made bioweapon 31%] Oh, well, if they say MKULTRA ended in the 1970s, let's consult wikipedia for some more specific chronology. "The operation was officially sanctioned in 1953, reduced in scope in 1964 and further curtailed in 1967. It was officially halted in 1973. Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the United States Congress and Gerald Ford's United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States." Started in 1953, first brought to public attention in 1975. This means that the official narrative was that the conducting of these experiments was a conspiracy theory for 22 years, at which point, the conspiracy theory became publicly accepted and factual. Interesting. [4/6 Some conspiracy theories are like astrology — entertaining nonsense that ultimately doesn’t hurt anyone. But some are bizarre, sinister or downright offensive. Which of these statements, if any, is correct? A) School shootings, such as those in Newtown, Conn., and Parkland, Fla., are “false flag” attacks perpetrated by the government. B) The number of Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II has been exaggerated on purpose. C) Satanic sex traffickers control the government. D) None of the above] The "correct" answer is D. The cheap shot at astrology accomplishes nothing. There is no more proof for the existence of a graviton particle than there is for the Zodiac, and its inclusion here is another example of the authors true purpose for creating the article: to make the reader feel smart and elevated over the deluded fools who believe "nonsense". A) is false B) doesn't say who it's been exaggerated by or for what purpose. C) is true, depending on your definitions of satanic, sex traffickers, and control. Feels like a gotcha question, as in, "there's no proof that the sex traffickers that control the government are practicing members of the church of satan!" [Correct. These statements are gruesome and obviously false. But in 2020, each one received support from roughly 1 in 6 Americans. Percentage of people who believe the conspiracy theory about... School shootings were faked by the government 17% The Holocaust’s death toll was exaggerated 15% Satanic pedophiles run the government 14% Some of these theories are transparently absurd: The Holocaust was not exaggerated, mass shootings were not faked, and Satan worshippers don’t control the government. But the least believable conspiracy theories can have the biggest consequences. Holocaust deniers and believers in “false flag” theories often support political violence and exhibit sociopathic personality traits. Many of the rioters involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol showed some allegiance to QAnon — a belief system built on conspiracy theories about Satanists. Most Americans aren’t drawn to these dark ideas — instead, they more casually rely on false theories to explain tragedies including terrorist attacks or presidential deaths; or they enjoy nasty rumors about their political opponents. The belief in one false theory does not necessarily mean the belief in an alternate reality. But it sometimes can. As Enders told us: "The political and psychological and social motivations that fuel beliefs in conspiracy theories are shared among all people.”] Can you spot the re-wording of the holocaust question and who it leaves out? And it's telling that now we're no longer just talking about satanic sex traffickers, it's now satanic pedophiles. These little shifts in wording occur throughout the quiz and the statistics presented, as part of the opinion-shaping efforts of the authors and their publisher. [5/6 Let’s try another one: Which of the three statements below is true? A) The U.S. government knew hundreds of Black men in Alabama had syphilis, but told them they had “bad blood” and withheld treatment as part of a medical experiment. B) President Donald Trump faked having covid-19 in order to help his chances at reelection. C) Donald Trump colluded with Russians to steal the presidency in 2016.] A is true and it lasted for 4 decades. This is presented by the authors without a hint of self-awareness around the certainty with which they uncritically promote official, "acceptable" narratives today, as though these types of practices exist only in the past. B is false, he nearly died and could be seen visibly struggling to breathe when returning to the WH from the hospital. C is false, but don't tell anyone itt that they only believe it's true out of american exceptionalist xenophobia! [Correct. The Tuskegee Experiment started in 1932, lasted 40 years and involved hundreds of Black men in Macon County, Ala. The other two options are false: Trump had covid-19, and Robert S. Mueller III’s nonpartisan report found insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Trump and the Russian government. Percentage of people who believe the conspiracy theory about... Trump faked having covid-19 26% Trump colluded with Russians 37%] I lost count of how many times in 2017-2019 I was told to "Just wait for the Mueller Report!". I lost count of how many times in this thread we've been told that Russian interference and the GRU-affiliated Wikileaks organization played a major role in the 2016 election. Is it cause for any concern here that "Robert S. Mueller III’s nonpartisan report found insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Trump and the Russian government." is apparently sufficient grounds to dismiss Russiagate as conspiracy theory on the same level as Qanon or holocaust denialism? Whether the answer to that is yes or no, the implications are...interesting. [6/6 Conspiracy theories often help powerful people — sometimes by putting other powerful people in the crosshairs, or by playing on prejudices. Which of these statements is correct? A) A powerful family, the Rothschilds, through their wealth, controls governments, wars and many countries’ economies. B) There is a “deep state” embedded in the government that operates in secret and without oversight. C) Fossil fuel companies like Exxon knew about climate change for decades, but spread misinformation about the issue to deflect blame and influence environmental policies. A is false. B is true, depending on your definition of "deep state". Who was in control of the united states' nuclear arsenal on January 6th? C is true. I wonder if it's only fossil fuel companies that would do something like this, or if, say, a newspaper owned by the second wealthiest man alive could or would potentially selectively report in order to advance the interests of their owner? [Correct. Exxon and Shell knew about climate change in the 1980s, and some fossil fuel companies have fought to obscure climate science. Their efforts have paid off: Two in 10 Americans think global warming is a hoax. Percentage of people who believe the conspiracy theory about... The Rothschild family controls governments 29% Deep State 43% Final score Congrats, you've aced this quiz! But even if the questions here were obvious to you, about 9 in 10 Americans would likely fail at least once — probably someone you know and love is one of them. Even reasonable people fall for conspiracy theories. During George W. Bush’s presidency, half of Democrats said Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen so he could start wars. Two-thirds of Republicans believe the “big lie” — that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. These theories have consequences. Since the 2020 election, Republicans have pursued election “audits” — recounts aimed at casting doubt on Joe Biden’s win. Other conspiracy theories, such as anti-vaccine narratives, threaten public health. Eventually, you’ll run into a conspiracy theory that appeals to you politically or psychologically. So be careful and double-check your sources — or you could fall down the rabbit hole, too.] There we have it! The Oligarch-owned newspaper's published piece about how you should think and what you should accept as true. Did you appreciate the assertion at the end that Bush starting wars as a benefit to him of the political climate of the post-9/11 era, is on par with literal crackhead Mike Lindell screaming about a stolen election? I know I sure did. Thank you Fool of Sound for this challenge, without which, I might still believe any number of ludicrous conspiracy theories.
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Oct 13, 2021 18:31
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So to summarize, you're saying Wikileaks is overly sensational. I absolutely agree. I remember Assange or wikileaks promised some big info dump that was going to change the course of the 2020 election late last year and I don't think I ever came, and it did not leave me overly impressed. Wikileaks making itself as opposed to its leaks the story is definitely one of my chief complaints with them. I would say, though, I do hold wikileaks to different standards to typical gatekeepers like major publications and networks because I generally view them as aggressive disseminators of the media than actual packagers of it. Discendo Vox earlier made sure to categorize wikileaks as not whistleblowers but platforms of whistleblowers, and I guess my question is, does wikileaks have a responsibility to vet its information or just platform it? This question may arise from my, honestly, unfamiliarity with the format of wikileaks. I was under the impression there were was some framing article to contextualize the leaks (which I never gave a poo poo about) but then there would be a link to the raw data released. The content part to me is the raw data, not editorializing contextualization, and that data should be disseminated. If Wikileaks doesn't have links to that raw data, that would convert them from disseminator to gatekeeper and then very much their editorializing would need to come under scrutiny. Again, I always thought of wikileaks as, well, just the leaks. I could be wrong. To tangent briefly from your response, HelloSailorSign, I do want to talk briefly about algorithms because I agree, that's a huge part of the media landscape, but also one whose full impact I think isn't fully discussed in this thread. Sourcing is framed of paramount importance, and I agree, but I feel not enough talk is devoted to how hard it is to get an "acceptably" sourced article for D&D's tastes using search engines. I find frequently when I looking up known and acknowledged controversies within the Democratic Party like, say, the Biden's campaigns mishandling of the primaries during the pandemic, I am immediately directed to a nest of right-wing blogs instead of anything approaching a news story. One could scornfully laugh that such is just search engines responding to my history which clearly must be devoted to right-wing content, but... I don't read right-wing blogs. The algorithms aren't personal but general. This has become a bigger and bigger problem in recent years, where once search engines have become less and less research friendly in favor of advertising the blogosphere or lower-grade publications in general. That probably has documentation, but this is why I get frustrated when people in D&D yell at someone for posting a NY Post tweet about some generally recognized as true news article: Doing otherwise is exhaustive and sometimes (from my experience) impossible though an article should and likely does exist from someone reputable but Google or what have you just refuses to show me it. That leads to treating things like conspiracy that aren't. In my instance, it's an observable fact that the Bernie Sanders campaign wanted to delay the primaries, primaries before Wisconsin at that, and the Biden campaign balked, admonished the Sanders campaign for "obstructing democracy," and also released safety information that was alarmingly cavalier to primary goers. That was the event that made me deregister from the Democratic Party! Yet it's one hard to source despite it definitely happening. So is it a right-wing or left-wing lie? Lest I seem like I'm martyring myself on my own cross too much here, I also have fallen victim of this. When I had (horrible) agnostic opinions on the I/P conflict, I would generally dismiss a lot of the anti-occupation articles I would see here on this site as dismissible because they were from blogs from electronic intifada and the like. "Well, that's not a genuine news source." This didn't account for the fact that the Western media is slavishly devoted to a Zionist perspective to the point where my entire knowledge base for the conflict was completely fictional. We all know this now because social media and BDS have done such a good job showing what a sham this narrative is, but for years, it was easy to believe I/P was a matter of equivalent force and not a one-sided brutal occupation. Those "blogs" were giving me the real story, the "legitimate news," not so much. There were more "legitimate" sources on stuff like Israel sterilizing Somali Jews that horrified me into changing my opinions, but it still left a keen sense of betrayal, that the media analysis tools I'd learned in school had failed me into taking abhorrent positions. So yes, sourcing is important, obviously, but the all-importance urgency like the fact that this topic in particular is stickied or that this thread is referenced ad infinitum in other D&D threads feels to be missing the mark. Having said all that, to get back to the original topic, I appreciate your response, HelloSailorSign, and I think I understand your position better. Sorry if I misrepresented it in anyway. E: Also, that Washington Post article engages in a phenomenon that I see more and more that I wonder if it has a more academic label than the one I have in my head for it, but I'll get to that in a separate post. Probably Magic fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 18:38
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Thanks for making the effort ram das. I don't have time for an in-depth response right now, but I'm curious as to what reporting on cointelpro or mkultra-style programs looked like during the period they were active.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:10
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fool of sound posted:Thanks for making the effort ram das. I don't have time for an in-depth response right now, but I'm curious as to what reporting on cointelpro or mkultra-style programs looked like during the period they were active. Literally wasn’t any mainstream acknowledgement of it until a crew of anti war types burglarized an FBI office. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens'_Commission_to_Investigate_the_FBI?wprov=sfti1
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Oct 13, 2021 19:15
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I was going to hold off and let someone else comment because I don't really have time to , but then I saw this bit at the end that pretty much sums up a whole heck of a lot. ram dass in hell posted:Did you appreciate the assertion at the end that Bush starting wars as a benefit to him of the political climate of the post-9/11 era, is on par with literal crackhead Mike Lindell screaming about a stolen election? Really? I think I missed that. That seems like a really weird thing for the WaPo to bring up in this context. I'd better go check the actual quote to see what kind of ridiculous nonsense the WaPo is peddling now! the Washington Post posted:During George W. Bush’s presidency, half of Democrats said Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen so he could start wars. Two-thirds of Republicans believe the “big lie” — that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Wow, that's quite a bit different from what you claimed it said! Somehow, "Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen" magically morphed into "Bush starting wars as a benefit to him" when filtered through your mouth! It's a good thing I didn't trust the framing the source gave, and instead went to find the actual quote rather than trusting the paraphrase from a clearly-biased third-party with an interest in pushing a specific portrayal! I'm sure glad I've been working on my media literacy, otherwise I might have been taken for a ride by that bizarre misquote and the resulting leap of logic. And by extension, I'm now quite prepared to distrust the source who's so insistent on claiming that they're so much more trustworthy than the bunch of liars at the Washington Post, and inclined to be far more skeptical of their in-depth "debunking" of the WaPo article if it's full of misrepresentations and lies like this.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:19
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Yes correct, so nefarious was my intent to deceive that I definitely didn't include 100% of the source article text in the post that you admittedly did not read before firing off your grudge-based hot takes about me. Nice catch MPF you're as sharp as ever.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:26
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You've also removed the text that appears when the MLK response is clicked.quote:According to the King Institute at Stanford University, the FBI wiretapped King and attempted to “discredit King’s standing among financial supporters, church leaders, government officials, and the media." While certainly not a complete picture of the FBI's actions, the writer doesn't end the characterization with "keeping tabs", like the post frames it as doing so. There's quite a bit of other abuse of definitions to accuse the author of misleading elsewhere. The major point I think you made well is in the "conspiracy theory revealed to be true" questions, but even then, assuming Selec is correct, that's also not an appropriate framing; the conspiracy theories didn't apparently exist in a widespread way prior to being revealed. A conspiracy was exposed, but that's not the same thing as a conspiracy theory being vindicated.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:35
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That quote was literally part of ram dass' post, I don't know why you're acting as if you found a smoking gun here. I agree that ram dass' phrasing is not literally what WaPo said, but I don't think it's some great leap from quote:Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen so he could start wars to quote:Bush took advantage of the 9/11 attacks to start wars and I think the article is trying to imply that a connection between the two things is tinfoil hattery.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:35
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Main Painframe, I say this as nicely as I can, I don't think that article (which was in the Opinion section, so it's not pretending to be all that substantiated) is the hill you want to die on. It outright claims the contras are revolutionaries. But also, whether Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen is a nebulous area. The Bush administration made attacking Iraq its priority when it took office, blew off warnings about Bin Laden attacking, etc.. A thing that WaPo thing loved to do is talk about a theory that has supporting evidence to it (a lot of weird poo poo is attached to Epstein's death, even if it's difficult to attach a smoking gun) and then handwave it away as "no evidence" because it doesn't have an official press conference attached to it. The weird camera discrepancies, weird moves, and general lack of caution after Epstein's previous "attempt" are all handwaved away though, much like Bush even though we have cases in America's past that are similar that either are semisolid theories (like the weird situation that many of the major aircraft carriers were moved out of Pearl Harbor before it was attacked) to much more solid (the USS Maine, the Lusitania). There's no smoking gun to these, but it's not baseless speculation, which is exactly how WaPo repeatedly frames these things. Probably Magic fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 19:39
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That's all well and good, the analysis and criticism presented was my own and represents my own subjective interpretations; unlike the authors of the article or the OP itt I am not claiming to be the final arbiter of truth, I am simply responding to claims of truth made by the employees of an oligarch. You don't need to agree with me, and I don't think it makes either one of us confused or stupid to have such disagreements, nor do I think that it should be against the rules to disagree with me, and so on.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:39
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fool of sound posted:You've also removed the text that appears when the MLK response is clicked. It was widely known/assumed among organizers and protestors that the feds were spying on them and infiltrating their groups. But that kind of information had far fewer ways to transmit. Paranoia about government surveillance literally predates our country being formed, so in that sense the exposure of COINTELPRO was validation of a much broader conspiracy-minded assumption. Strongly recommend reading The Burglary by Betty Medsger. The FBI was an unrestrained right wing agitprop and terrorism shop for years, and has had a hard time shaking those roots, lol jk they have barely reformed at all.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:39
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Still having a gentle lol at the masthead reading "DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS" and the article casually mentioning that the government was secretly dosing people with LSD for two decades to try to develop mind control. It's fine.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:42
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fool of sound posted:Thanks for making the effort ram das. I don't have time for an in-depth response right now, but I'm curious as to what reporting on cointelpro or mkultra-style programs looked like during the period they were active.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:44
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ram dass in hell posted:Yes correct, so nefarious was my intent to deceive that I definitely didn't include 100% of the source article text in the post that you admittedly did not read before firing off your grudge-based hot takes about me. Nice catch MPF you're as sharp as ever. Yes, I'm well aware that you included the actual source text in the very same post. Is that somehow supposed to change the fact that you straight-up lied about what the source text said? That you completely misrepresented it, totally changing its meaning, all for the sake of turning a totally reasonable claim into ridiculous bullshit that you could then use to falsely accuse the original source of twisting things? Esran posted:That quote was literally part of ram dass' post, I don't know why you're acting as if you found a smoking gun here. Sorry, but no. That is just complete nonsense. The conspiracy theory it's alluding to isn't "Bush started wars", which is a well-known and verifiable fact with twenty years of evidence behind it. The conspiracy theory is "Bush let 9/11 happen on purpose". When you start making leaps to change an article's meaning to what you think it should mean, then it doesn't matter how big you think the leaps are - you're just making poo poo up at that point. Probably Magic posted:Main Painframe, I say this as nicely as I can, I don't think that article (which was in the Opinion section, so it's not pretending to be all that substantiated) is the hill you want to die on. It outright claims the contras are revolutionaries. "Whether Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen" is not a nebulous area, in any loving sense of the word. If you want to assert that Bush purposely allowed 9/11 to happen, or that FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to happen, then you're going to have to bring evidence to the table. "Weird poo poo" isn't evidence, it's just nonsense you're cobbling together to support motivated reasoning and a predefined conclusion you want any excuse to arrive at. I'm always shocked at how many actual conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork here whenever someone suggests that Bush was not, in fact, responsible for 9/11.
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Oct 13, 2021 19:46
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The buck stops there. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 13, 2021 19:56
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I'd rather we focus on media coverage rather than the fundamental truth of 9/11 or whatever. I'm doing some light skimming of media coverage (among other, less in-depth pieces) surrounding revealed conspiracies, and I'm not finding evidence of media outlets denying conspiracy theories that were later vindicated tbh. Actual exposed conspiracies are, at best, tangentially related to fairly generalized conspiracy theories. Can anyone find a case of media outlets denying a conspiracy that turned out to be provably true?
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Oct 13, 2021 19:58
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Probably Magic posted:Main Painframe, I say this as nicely as I can, I don't think that article (which was in the Opinion section, so it's not pretending to be all that substantiated) is the hill you want to die on. It outright claims the contras are revolutionaries. No this is firmly baseless accusation. Far easier to attribute nearly all these things to coincidence and stupidity than well thought out planning. This is the "Connect the Dots!" that conspiracy theories thrive on. The Pearl Harbor carriers one especially, as the carriers were out doing specific missions that were not just "Get them out of here", such as ferrying aircraft to the islands to help pre-empt possible Japanese aggressiveness. Two of them were doing that, while Saratoga was entering San Diego to get its air wing which had been conducting training during its refit. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 20:03
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CommieGIR posted:No this is firmly baseless accusation. Far easier to attribute nearly all these things to coincidence and stupidity than well thought out planning.
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Oct 13, 2021 20:07
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A Buttery Pastry posted:"Let it happen" is not the same as "planned it". Your evidence that they did either, please.
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Oct 13, 2021 20:09
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A Buttery Pastry posted:"Let it happen" is not the same as "planned it". There's no evidence for that either? Also so many factors that were coincidental (like Pearl Harbor's party the night before the attack, the carriers conducting other duties that were normal at the time). That's the problem with conspiracy theories: They take coincidences and inaction as deliberate, and that's rarely if ever true.
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Oct 13, 2021 20:11
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Esran posted:That quote was literally part of ram dass' post, I don't know why you're acting as if you found a smoking gun here. Are you kidding? The leap from: "Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen so he could start wars" to "Bush took advantage of the 9/11 attacks to start wars" is loving enormous. Probably Magic posted:Main Painframe, I say this as nicely as I can, I don't think that article (which was in the Opinion section, so it's not pretending to be all that substantiated) is the hill you want to die on. It outright claims the contras are revolutionaries. Your link goes to US News's K12 website. Unless that's meant to be some sort of joke.
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Oct 13, 2021 20:19
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We're not debating the secret histories of 9/11 here stop.
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Oct 13, 2021 20:32
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I may have phrased this incorrectly. What I mean when I say that the leap is not great is not that the two statements are equivalent or close to. I mean that when the article calls out "Bush let 9/11 happen so he could start wars" as a conspiracy theory (imo accurately), it does so without mentioning why people might believe such a conspiracy theory: Bush was warned about Bin Laden ahead of time, and he did in fact use 9/11 to start wars he wanted to start anyway. By just calling out the original statement without mentioning context, the quiz leads the reader to think of the whole thing as baseless, which I thought was what ram dass was getting at.
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Oct 13, 2021 20:33
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fool of sound posted:I'd rather we focus on media coverage rather than the fundamental truth of 9/11 or whatever. I'm doing some light skimming of media coverage (among other, less in-depth pieces) surrounding revealed conspiracies, and I'm not finding evidence of media outlets denying conspiracy theories that were later vindicated tbh. Actual exposed conspiracies are, at best, tangentially related to fairly generalized conspiracy theories. Can anyone find a case of media outlets denying a conspiracy that turned out to be provably true? Do media outlets usually explicitly deny conspiracies, or do they just not report on them? Like, if someone sent the Post a scoop about how Joe Biden is actually a robot operated by an army of sentient gophers, and the Post decided that there wasn't enough evidence to justify reporting that, they wouldn't publish a piece on him not being Gophertron 9000. They just wouldn't cover the topic at all. And then if, fifty years down the road, the Gopher Files revealed his rodenty truth, you wouldn't find contemporary records of him definitely not being a gopher bot. Or did I misunderstand your question? (Of course, conspiracy theories popular enough to become cultural phenomena in their own right will plausibly receive "negative" coverage, but I think that counts as a special case.) edit: To add a possibly more productive restatement of my thinking: In what ways is media not covering a conspiracy theory materially different from media explicitly denying it? raminasi fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 20:40
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Your evidence that they did either, please. CommieGIR posted:There's no evidence for that either? Also so many factors that were coincidental (like Pearl Harbor's party the night before the attack, the carriers conducting other duties that were normal at the time). That's the problem with conspiracy theories: They take coincidences and inaction as deliberate, and that's rarely if ever true. Esran posted:I may have phrased this incorrectly. What I mean when I say that the leap is not great is not that the two statements are equivalent or close to. raminasi posted:Do media outlets usually explicitly deny conspiracies, or do they just not report on them? Like, if someone sent the Post a scoop about how Joe Biden is actually a robot operated by an army of sentient gophers, and the Post decided that there wasn't enough evidence to justify reporting that, they wouldn't publish a piece on him not being Gophertron 9000. They just wouldn't cover the topic at all. And then if, fifty years down the road, the Gopher Files revealed his rodenty truth, you wouldn't find contemporary records of him definitely not being a gopher bot. Or did I misunderstand your question?
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Oct 13, 2021 20:52
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:Your link goes to US News's K12 website. Unless that's meant to be some sort of joke. Oops! No, I was messaging a friend about something and I must've posted an old link from a clipboard. That should be a link to a Mother Jones article now, thank you for letting me know. fool of sound posted:We're not debating the secret histories of 9/11 here stop. I don't want to fervently discuss that, but I do want to discuss agency on a cumulative scale, if you could bare with me, because by my definition, Jimmy Carter let 9/11 happen with arming the mujahideen, Reagan let 9/11 happen, Bush Sr. let 9/11 happen. Perhaps that's too broad a definition for many, and I can understand that, but it (a) outlines how broad the WaPo's wording is but also (b) also shows a common flaw in historical perception that I myself lived under, namely, Black Swan Theory. I'm not going to claim to be a Nassim Nicholas Taleb expert and I may be butchering the nuances of his theory, but Black Swan Theory from what I understand basically says that judging things through hindsight is a pointless exercise, that things can't be accurately predicted nearly as well as we make them out to be, and we're better off accounting for unknowns than trying to be Cassandras. I subscribed to that for a long time, but one of the things that dissuaded me from that analysis is watching right-wingers bounce around tik-tok vids of their airplane trip to Washington only for the narrative afterwards from the metro police being, "How could we possibly have seen this coming?" The reason this matters to media theory is that if you see history is a point of unpredictable events as opposed to accumulations of events, you will become susceptible to hyperbole. Everyone loves to say Donald Trump is the worst president ever, not even the left is immune, Bernie loves to say it. But it's a recency bias that ends up treating actions as singular that are really systemic. You see this with the border situation, where people are quick to point out the singular depravity of Donald Trump's behavior, but once it transitions to a Democratic president, you have no less than AOC doing vids about it being an accumulated process. I find wisdom in Solomon's phrase, "There's nothing new under the sun." Hyperbole towards politicians actions along the lines of "unprecedent" or the like are usually cruising for a disproving. I still remember laughing at a CNN opinion headline of, "We've never had to question a president's loyalty to the country before," about Trump, as if that wasn't a major concern anti-Catholics had about JFK. Such hyperbole like that should be looked at as immediately emotionally manipulative instead of rooted in any kind of objectivity or historicism. (Maybe that's obvious, I don't know, but again, this is not something I historically have been pure from, so I submit my learning from embarrassment here for anyone's potential education) quote:Pearl Harbor Note I say semisolid. I would say Lusitania which I labeled as solid and is harder to dismiss would be the better example.
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Oct 13, 2021 20:58
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raminasi posted:Do media outlets usually explicitly deny conspiracies, or do they just not report on them? Like, if someone sent the Post a scoop about how Joe Biden is actually a robot operated by an army of sentient gophers, and the Post decided that there wasn't enough evidence to justify reporting that, they wouldn't publish a piece on him not being Gophertron 9000. They just wouldn't cover the topic at all. And then if, fifty years down the road, the Gopher Files revealed his rodenty truth, you wouldn't find contemporary records of him definitely not being a gopher bot. Or did I misunderstand your question? It's not really possible to discuss or analyze stories are that are not written about events that dubiously might have occurred. That way madness lies; the justification can be used as evidence for literally anything. Probably Magic posted:I don't want to fervently discuss that, but I do want to discuss agency on a cumulative scale, if you could bare with me, because by my definition, Jimmy Carter let 9/11 happen with arming the mujahideen, Reagan let 9/11 happen, Bush Sr. let 9/11 happen. Perhaps that's too broad a definition for many, and I can understand that, but it (a) outlines how broad the WaPo's wording is but also (b) also shows a common flaw in historical perception that I myself lived under, namely, Black Swan Theory. I'm not going to claim to be a Nassim Nicholas Taleb expert and I may be butchering the nuances of his theory, but Black Swan Theory from what I understand basically says that judging things through hindsight is a pointless exercise, that things can't be accurately predicted nearly as well as we make them out to be, and we're better off accounting for unknowns than trying to be Cassandras. I subscribed to that for a long time, but one of the things that dissuaded me from that analysis is watching right-wingers bounce around tik-tok vids of their airplane trip to Washington only for the narrative afterwards from the metro police being, "How could we possibly have seen this coming?" This overall point is interesting. Events being portrayed as singular and shocking makes them both more easily digestible and attracts engagement, and that phenomenon is worth keeping in mind and discussing in media critique. As to your first sentence, "9/11 was a product of decades of US foreign policy" is completely reasonable imo, but it's not typically what people mean when they say "Bush did 9/11", and I think associating the two does the former a disservice.
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Oct 13, 2021 21:11
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Why is Pearl Harbor being brought into this? Whether FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to happen has no bearing on whether Bush allowed 9/11 to happen. The existence of unfounded conspiracy theories can't be used to reject other theories that are similar at the surface level, just as proof that a conspiracy theory was correct doesn't suddenly confirm every other similar theory. He brought it up previously among other examples like Epstein and the USS Maine.
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Oct 13, 2021 21:14
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CommieGIR posted:He brought it up previously among other examples like Epstein and the USS Maine.
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Oct 13, 2021 21:20
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The best I can offer for "theories blown off as conspiracies later confirmed to be true," would be the United States and United Kingdom being part of the installation of the Shah. When my stepfather was growing up, people he knew in the Iranian-American community believed that, but it largely went undiscussed and received derision in the Eighties. Now we have Ron and Rand Paul acknowledging it in the Republican debates, but Operation Ajax didn't always have that visibility. Also now my dad, despite having overall good politics, believes in stupid poo poo like the World Trade Center being a controlled demolition that I have to argue with him relentlessly about. And I think he's reached that level of suspicion where he's second-guessing things he really shouldn't because of how he saw society treat the truth decades ago. That's the real cost of things like Washington Post pretending 2000 was a legitimate un-controversial election, is that it degrades the general faith people have in institutions in general. This is why Main Painframe's line about "motivated reasoning" and "predefined conclusion" falls really flat with me, because these suspicions aren't arising from ether or from some deep seated bigoted impulse or the like, it comes from being lied to about stuff like the Iraq War or what have you that wears people down so much that everyone second guesses everything. I honestly believe you do not have the anti-vaxx mania you have now if you didn't have stuff like the Iraq War or the 2000 election or MK Ultra or suppression of Operation Ajax coming before it. This did not just come from out of nowhere or bullshit bias. It's the results of a legitimately abusive and actively deceitful government and media.
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Oct 13, 2021 21:22
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Going back a bit, in response to the "WaPo is owned by an oligarch" thing, interestingly enough Washington Post actually does quite a remarkable job of not giving Bezos preferential treatment. To his credit, he's known to have repeatedly insisted that WaPo cover his other companies the same way they cover everything else, and has not interfered in any way with their news coverage or editorial decisions more generally. Indeed, over the years WaPo has had extensive coverage of Amazon's terrible treatment of their workers and their unionization efforts (example), and just two weeks ago published an embarrassing piece about the toxic and sexist work culture at Blue Origin. Assange, in direct contrast, wields enormous influence on Wikileaks and uses it as a tool to pursue his own personal vendettas. "Radical transparency" is just a meaningless slogan that attracts a particular type of audience, just like Google's "do no evil" is a meaningless slogan used to attract dumb techies. Does this mean one should unquestioningly believe everything they read on WaPo? No, of course not. But it does demonstrate a certain level of integrity and trustworthiness that Wikileaks absolutely lacks, which means anything that comes from it warrants a much higher level of scrutiny, as well as a need for verification/corroboration from other sources. Of course, that's not possible to do with something like a trove of hacked emails — and that is something Wikileaks/GRU probably counted on, because the more uncertainty and doubt there was, the more effectively the leak could be weaponized, due to the previously mentioned absurdly high level of effort needed by the DNC to authenticate the materials and refute the corresponding claim or accusation.
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Oct 13, 2021 21:30
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