8 ms·

I think it shouldn't be forgotten that all this craze have a much easier time spreading since the western states did spread a lot of lies through the media in t

by bsaul 10y ago

I think it shouldn't be forgotten that all this craze have a much easier time spreading since the western states did spread a lot of lies through the media in the second half of the 20th century. One example i've actually lived, is when tchernobyl exploded, french media showed maps of the radioactive cloud stopping at the borders (due to winds) and never going in. This was of course a huge lie that e everybody now admits. Then, we had the false testimonies at the UN of various sorts ( koweitien poor lady in the first gulf war that was in fact a member of the royal family), and colin powell for the second one. And if i go back in time, JFK is the mother of all conspiracy theory, since no true investigation clearly explained what happened, and so the only explanation we have is the one of a lone crazy guy ( which remains unconvincing to many people). So, all in all, i would say this trend of systematically questionning the official explanation is a very healthy one. It just needs to become more mature, and maybe be one day a new form of investigative journalism.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
veli_joza 10y ago
This is not a "trend of systematically questioning the official explanation". This is blatantly and aggressively pushing out propaganda using conspiracy theories as medium. This shit won't teach people to critical thinking, it only generates more noise to defend against. People will learn to ignore news even more than they do now. Maybe they build a twitter and facebook spam-filter to help with noise. So we isolate ourselves into bubbles that no new idea can penetrate. Basically, the reverse from systematically questioning the information.
- bsaul 10y ago
  I disagree. The premise for someone to believe all this BS, isn't that they're convinced by the new theory, but that everything the conventional media or the government say is probably false, and made to hide some hidden agenda. That's the root upon which all the additional propaganda can prosper. And the embarrassing truth than conventional media and politics refuse to admit is that there are good reasons for people not to believe them anymore.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    There has never been good reason to believe them. Sometimes you can see that clearly. Consider how Germany, Japan and Russia were portrayed in movie newsreels during 1900-1970, and in TV news. It's all propaganda. Edit: For example, why did the US leave so many troops in Germany after WWII? Standard dogma is the Cold War. But, perhaps not surprisingly, some German veterans weren't all that happy about the outcome. About occupation. That came out in disputes about pacification after the US invaded Iraq.
    - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
      >Standard dogma is the Cold War. Yes, it's "standard dogma" to use your pointlessly biased phrase. It's also an incredibly plausible explanation considering that Russian troups were stationed in East Germany and in the rest of Eastern Europe. >But, perhaps not surprisingly, some German veterans weren't all that happy about the outcome. That's right, some of those who had faught in the Nazi war were unhappy about having lost. However, most Germans never voted for Hitler in the first place and once liberated they happily went on to become one of the most prosperous nations on earth. All during "occupation" as you call it.
      - arethuza 10y ago
        Pretty safe to say that those in West Germany were happier to lose to the US or UK forces than those in the East losing to the Soviets.
        fauigerzigerk 10y ago
        Yes, but I fear that the US may have drawn a somewhat flawed conclusion from that success. I think the outcome of toppling a dictator depends hugely on the reason for that dictator's ascent and the cultural context.
        irixusr 10y ago
        They were happy to loose to the West who had less reason (by an order of magnitude or more) to hate them. That Stalin was butcher seems a bit mute compared to the German responsibility of the savagery of the Eastern Front.
- adsfqwop 10y ago
  Alex Jones is often the person to trot out when you want to discredit the alternative news media. What you then get is exactly the reaction you just got, which is aggressive push-back and a desire to never research the topic yourself. Because what just happened in your head? You generalized and lumped all alternative news media into a group that is exactly like Alex Jones; far out and kooky. This is the desired effect. The fact is there are many good alternative news sources, that go out of their way to try and find out the truth behind the corporate bought out main stream media. Just because there is one bad apple, does not mean all other news sources are exactly the same.
  - greenhatman 10y ago
    Which news sources do you think are good?
    - adsfqwop 10y ago
      You could start with something like Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research, Carl Denninger, Bill Still, ZeroHedge, The Corbett Report, Rice Farmer. I use many other ones, but those should be decent entry points to find your own preferred sources.
      - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
        Zero Hedge is garbage. The one use we found for it on the trading floor was as a contrarian signal for predicting stupid retail flows. Bloomberg dove into some of their shenanigans last year [1]. More specifically, their content tends to be (a) reprints of Stratfor, Bloomberg or Reuters articles (just read the original), (b) bad financial market predictions and (c) unsourced, unambiguous and untrue rubbish. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/unmasking-the-men-behind-zero-hedge-wall-street-s-renegade-blog https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/unmasking...
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- bigtimeidiot 10y ago
  >"This shit won't teach people to critical thinking, it only generates more noise to defend against." Feeling the need to "teach" people how to think, and the desire to "defend against" scary speech or thoughts is exactly why the alt-right has risen up and Donald Trump is POTUS.
  - seppin 10y ago
    that's not what he said, and there was no "uprising". the same people voted for an extreme candidate when there was no charismatic opponent (Obama) to vote for.
- wiz21c 10y ago
  >>> People will learn to ignore news even more than they do now. Do you really believe people have learned to actually read the news in the past ?
mirimir 10y ago
Well, now that you mention JFK, I'm reminded of "The Realist".[0] Lol. And maybe the CIA manipulated Oswald into killing him. CIA will reportedly declassify some relevant documents this year.[1] But I doubt that they'll be interesting. 0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Realist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Realist 1) http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/16/us/jfk-assassination-conspiracy-theories-debunked/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/16/us/jfk-assassination-consp...
- ge96 10y ago
  I recently heard something about JFK wanting to disband the CIA so they 'knife to throat him' I am not sure/never really looked into this. Too bad, lots there. Moon rocket, his lobotomized sister or something. Shiiiettt just bags of meat. edit: I want to clarify I'm not a conspiracy promoting person. Also I am not a person who believes the Earth is flat/we didn't go to the moon, I'm also not religious. That is all I'll say.
  - bigtimeidiot 10y ago
    >I recently heard something about JFK wanting to disband the CIA so they 'knife to throat him' This theory goes back a long time, and like most things, there are nuggets of truth in it... ...but also like most things, reality is far more complicated and nuanced.
mattmanser 10y ago
You say lots of lies and the best you can come up with is Chernobyl winds and some hand waving about JFK? That's not lots of lies. Your comment smacks of the very conspiracy this article talks of.
- bsaul 10y ago
  I also pointed at two lies at the UN that were used to trigger wars (the second one being a bigger one than the first, because irak was truely invading koweit). Those are the biggest ones i can remember without thinking too much, but then there's all the state operations during cold wars to change regimes, the hidden financing of one ideology to fight another ( talibans vs communists in afghanistan comes to my mind). All the state dirty little secrets than you learn about decades away, and cast a different light on the news of their time. On top of that you can add regions like the middle east , where there's almost no reliable source of information, but yet news agency keep pretending that they can do their job. I'm not a conspiracionnist at all, because i think that at the moment 99% of those alternate news are boggus. I just think it's a good start that people starts asking themselves questions about what they see and hear, even when it comes from a supposedly professional source. Edit : i checked, and the koweitian girl fake testimony wasn't in the UN, but at some US caucus. Which was broadcasted all over the news channel.
fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago
Thank you! Remember how cosy each administration is with their left/right leaning media publications.

by bsaul 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

veli_joza 10y ago

This is not a "trend of systematically questioning the official explanation". This is blatantly and aggressively pushing out propaganda using conspiracy theories as medium. This shit won't teach people to critical thinking, it only generates more noise to defend against. People will learn to ignore news even more than they do now. Maybe they build a twitter and facebook spam-filter to help with noise. So we isolate ourselves into bubbles that no new idea can penetrate. Basically, the reverse from systematically questioning the information.

bsaul 10y ago
I disagree. The premise for someone to believe all this BS, isn't that they're convinced by the new theory, but that everything the conventional media or the government say is probably false, and made to hide some hidden agenda. That's the root upon which all the additional propaganda can prosper. And the embarrassing truth than conventional media and politics refuse to admit is that there are good reasons for people not to believe them anymore.
- mirimir 10y ago
  There has never been good reason to believe them. Sometimes you can see that clearly. Consider how Germany, Japan and Russia were portrayed in movie newsreels during 1900-1970, and in TV news. It's all propaganda. Edit: For example, why did the US leave so many troops in Germany after WWII? Standard dogma is the Cold War. But, perhaps not surprisingly, some German veterans weren't all that happy about the outcome. About occupation. That came out in disputes about pacification after the US invaded Iraq.
  - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
    >Standard dogma is the Cold War. Yes, it's "standard dogma" to use your pointlessly biased phrase. It's also an incredibly plausible explanation considering that Russian troups were stationed in East Germany and in the rest of Eastern Europe. >But, perhaps not surprisingly, some German veterans weren't all that happy about the outcome. That's right, some of those who had faught in the Nazi war were unhappy about having lost. However, most Germans never voted for Hitler in the first place and once liberated they happily went on to become one of the most prosperous nations on earth. All during "occupation" as you call it.
    - arethuza 10y ago
      Pretty safe to say that those in West Germany were happier to lose to the US or UK forces than those in the East losing to the Soviets.
      - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
        Yes, but I fear that the US may have drawn a somewhat flawed conclusion from that success. I think the outcome of toppling a dictator depends hugely on the reason for that dictator's ascent and the cultural context.
      - irixusr 10y ago
        They were happy to loose to the West who had less reason (by an order of magnitude or more) to hate them. That Stalin was butcher seems a bit mute compared to the German responsibility of the savagery of the Eastern Front.
adsfqwop 10y ago
Alex Jones is often the person to trot out when you want to discredit the alternative news media. What you then get is exactly the reaction you just got, which is aggressive push-back and a desire to never research the topic yourself. Because what just happened in your head? You generalized and lumped all alternative news media into a group that is exactly like Alex Jones; far out and kooky. This is the desired effect. The fact is there are many good alternative news sources, that go out of their way to try and find out the truth behind the corporate bought out main stream media. Just because there is one bad apple, does not mean all other news sources are exactly the same.
- greenhatman 10y ago
  Which news sources do you think are good?
  - adsfqwop 10y ago
    You could start with something like Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research, Carl Denninger, Bill Still, ZeroHedge, The Corbett Report, Rice Farmer. I use many other ones, but those should be decent entry points to find your own preferred sources.
    - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
      Zero Hedge is garbage. The one use we found for it on the trading floor was as a contrarian signal for predicting stupid retail flows. Bloomberg dove into some of their shenanigans last year [1]. More specifically, their content tends to be (a) reprints of Stratfor, Bloomberg or Reuters articles (just read the original), (b) bad financial market predictions and (c) unsourced, unambiguous and untrue rubbish. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/unmasking-the-men-behind-zero-hedge-wall-street-s-renegade-blog https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/unmasking...
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
bigtimeidiot 10y ago
>"This shit won't teach people to critical thinking, it only generates more noise to defend against." Feeling the need to "teach" people how to think, and the desire to "defend against" scary speech or thoughts is exactly why the alt-right has risen up and Donald Trump is POTUS.
- seppin 10y ago
  that's not what he said, and there was no "uprising". the same people voted for an extreme candidate when there was no charismatic opponent (Obama) to vote for.
wiz21c 10y ago
>>> People will learn to ignore news even more than they do now. Do you really believe people have learned to actually read the news in the past ?

mirimir 10y ago

Well, now that you mention JFK, I'm reminded of "The Realist".[0] Lol. And maybe the CIA manipulated Oswald into killing him. CIA will reportedly declassify some relevant documents this year.[1] But I doubt that they'll be interesting. 0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Realist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Realist 1) http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/16/us/jfk-assassination-conspiracy-theories-debunked/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/16/us/jfk-assassination-consp...

ge96 10y ago
I recently heard something about JFK wanting to disband the CIA so they 'knife to throat him' I am not sure/never really looked into this. Too bad, lots there. Moon rocket, his lobotomized sister or something. Shiiiettt just bags of meat. edit: I want to clarify I'm not a conspiracy promoting person. Also I am not a person who believes the Earth is flat/we didn't go to the moon, I'm also not religious. That is all I'll say.
- bigtimeidiot 10y ago
  >I recently heard something about JFK wanting to disband the CIA so they 'knife to throat him' This theory goes back a long time, and like most things, there are nuggets of truth in it... ...but also like most things, reality is far more complicated and nuanced.

mattmanser 10y ago

You say lots of lies and the best you can come up with is Chernobyl winds and some hand waving about JFK? That's not lots of lies. Your comment smacks of the very conspiracy this article talks of.

bsaul 10y ago
I also pointed at two lies at the UN that were used to trigger wars (the second one being a bigger one than the first, because irak was truely invading koweit). Those are the biggest ones i can remember without thinking too much, but then there's all the state operations during cold wars to change regimes, the hidden financing of one ideology to fight another ( talibans vs communists in afghanistan comes to my mind). All the state dirty little secrets than you learn about decades away, and cast a different light on the news of their time. On top of that you can add regions like the middle east , where there's almost no reliable source of information, but yet news agency keep pretending that they can do their job. I'm not a conspiracionnist at all, because i think that at the moment 99% of those alternate news are boggus. I just think it's a good start that people starts asking themselves questions about what they see and hear, even when it comes from a supposedly professional source. Edit : i checked, and the koweitian girl fake testimony wasn't in the UN, but at some US caucus. Which was broadcasted all over the news channel.

fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago

Thank you! Remember how cosy each administration is with their left/right leaning media publications.