7 ms·

This is not a "trend of systematically questioning the official explanation". This is blatantly and aggressively pushing out propaganda using conspiracy theorie

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.
        mirimir 10y ago
        It's perhaps worth remembering that Putin is from Leningrad, and that his older brother died in the German siege. Also, he was close to Yeltsin, and watched him die from alcoholism, after relentless humiliation by the US and allies. So it's a fair bet that he has issues.
        MRFREDOD 10y ago
        CHEATING ADULTERY INFIDELITY OF SPOUSE GET PROOFS? HIRE A PROFESSIONAL PI fortressinvestigation@outlook.com OR eliteprohackers@gmail.com
- tajen 10y ago
  > everything the conventional media say is probably false Exactly, and I'll take an example on the gender pay gap situation. Why this one? Because it drives crowds like crazy. If I take this random article [1], and it's a general trend, its title is a lie in the face of the very statistics that its sources are based on (and note that the underlying source isn't even scientifically cross-checked). The title and intro says women are paid $0.76 for a $1. After integrating a few criteria, it says that the measured difference is 2.4% (and that's without even taking into account all considerations). But most people in America only remember the 76% figure, which would depict a disgustingly macho situation... if it were true. When you hear, let's call them, "mainstream media" deforming a story from 2.4% to 76% and spinning off a title depicting a disgusting image of men (and I didn't even start cross-checking the study, I'm just using the article's own source), it's hard to trust that journalists aren't hugely deforming other stories. It's not a tiny problem: When the same journalists try to alert on Trump's behavior with women (which probably are crimes, so it's quite bad to elect such a president), they get brushed off by voters as a probably biased piece by an undercover Democrat who's trying to turn everything into sexism (like the article above). So, yes, credit to conventional media: Not so much. [1] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/men-still-earn-more-than-women-with-the-same-jobs.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/men-still-earn-more-than-wome...
  - mtberatwork 10y ago
    This isn't false news, I just think you are misreading the article. It states that overall (the uncontrolled gap according to the study) the gap is 24% (not 76% fyi) but when controlling for education, experience and title the gap is 2.4%. Point being, a gap still exists, even when controlling for these various factors...which is reflected in the title: "Men still earn more than women with the same jobs"
    - dukeluke 10y ago
      The point isn't the specifics of that one article. The point is that because most news organizations have soiled their reputation by misconstruing statistics to generate outrage, many people don't trust legitimate outrage-worthy articles anymore.
- Udo 10y ago
  (deleted)
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    Sure - but you are talking about those spreading stories, he was talking about those - far more numerous - who are consuming stories, from all sides. You shifted the frame. There's nothing we can do about some people coming up with... "theories", they will always exist unless you have a dictatorship and total control. However, they are harmless just like a virus meeting a well-vaccinated group of people is harmless.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
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 ?

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.
      - mirimir 10y ago
        It's perhaps worth remembering that Putin is from Leningrad, and that his older brother died in the German siege. Also, he was close to Yeltsin, and watched him die from alcoholism, after relentless humiliation by the US and allies. So it's a fair bet that he has issues.
      - MRFREDOD 10y ago
        CHEATING ADULTERY INFIDELITY OF SPOUSE GET PROOFS? HIRE A PROFESSIONAL PI fortressinvestigation@outlook.com OR eliteprohackers@gmail.com
tajen 10y ago
> everything the conventional media say is probably false Exactly, and I'll take an example on the gender pay gap situation. Why this one? Because it drives crowds like crazy. If I take this random article [1], and it's a general trend, its title is a lie in the face of the very statistics that its sources are based on (and note that the underlying source isn't even scientifically cross-checked). The title and intro says women are paid $0.76 for a $1. After integrating a few criteria, it says that the measured difference is 2.4% (and that's without even taking into account all considerations). But most people in America only remember the 76% figure, which would depict a disgustingly macho situation... if it were true. When you hear, let's call them, "mainstream media" deforming a story from 2.4% to 76% and spinning off a title depicting a disgusting image of men (and I didn't even start cross-checking the study, I'm just using the article's own source), it's hard to trust that journalists aren't hugely deforming other stories. It's not a tiny problem: When the same journalists try to alert on Trump's behavior with women (which probably are crimes, so it's quite bad to elect such a president), they get brushed off by voters as a probably biased piece by an undercover Democrat who's trying to turn everything into sexism (like the article above). So, yes, credit to conventional media: Not so much. [1] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/men-still-earn-more-than-women-with-the-same-jobs.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/men-still-earn-more-than-wome...
- mtberatwork 10y ago
  This isn't false news, I just think you are misreading the article. It states that overall (the uncontrolled gap according to the study) the gap is 24% (not 76% fyi) but when controlling for education, experience and title the gap is 2.4%. Point being, a gap still exists, even when controlling for these various factors...which is reflected in the title: "Men still earn more than women with the same jobs"
  - dukeluke 10y ago
    The point isn't the specifics of that one article. The point is that because most news organizations have soiled their reputation by misconstruing statistics to generate outrage, many people don't trust legitimate outrage-worthy articles anymore.
Udo 10y ago
(deleted)
- Noseshine 10y ago
  Sure - but you are talking about those spreading stories, he was talking about those - far more numerous - who are consuming stories, from all sides. You shifted the frame. There's nothing we can do about some people coming up with... "theories", they will always exist unless you have a dictatorship and total control. However, they are harmless just like a virus meeting a well-vaccinated group of people is harmless.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

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 ?