3 ms·

Which political agenda is that?

jerf 8y ago
How do you feel reading this article? Who benefits from that feeling? Is there anyone you're more likely to give money or votes to? Are there any actions with economic impact you feel like you should take? And most cynically, isn't there a part of you that feels like you're morally superior or have secret knowledge that the other people below you on your social scale don't share, and you now despise that other group for not "seeing the truth" that much more, solidifying an "us vs. them" mentality with another brick in the wall? Yes, there's politics here. Being "political" doesn't mean it's wrong, though we have that default reaction for a fairly solid reason, but, still, being "political" doesn't mean it's wrong. There's definitely politics, though.
- mturmon 8y ago
  > ...part of you that feels like you're morally superior or have secret knowledge that the other people below you on your social scale don't share... I see where you’re going, but can’t this criticism be applied to any factual journalism? And isn’t it therefore vacuous?
  - jerf 8y ago
    "I see where you’re going, but can’t this criticism be applied to any factual journalism?" Selection of what facts to present is intrinsically political. (Related, I can't find it in myself to get too upset about "filter bubbles", because you can't simply absorb "all data", and consequently, you are always going to be in a filter bubble merely due to that fact. You can question the nature of your current bubble, but you can't "escape" the way some people seem to think they can.) The specific case of prompting you to feel an in-group reaction is not always a primary goal, though anyone would be excused for thinking otherwise if they consume too much mass media or explicitly political media. Of course if you try hard enough you can always pattern match to a given story somehow, but it's certainly sometimes a more explicit goal than other times. As an example, a straight-up insult targeted at a group may prompt in-group feelings, but not necessarily any "secret knowledge" feelings. "And isn’t it therefore vacuous?" In the strictly logical Aristotelian sense of "statement is true or false and nothing in between", yes, all statements are political, and the statement is vacuous since it fails to distinguish between cases. In a logical system with degrees of truth, some statements are definitely more political than others ("Vote $PARTY" vs. "Wheat is a staple crop of humanity" vs. "Vote $PARTY or you are despicable human being unworthy of life"), even if you never really reach true zero. In the human sense of "things that are vacuously true but you still need to keep in mind even so", it's something to keep in mind. There's a surprising number of statements that are obviously or vacuously true, yet we still need near-constant reminding of or we just somehow forget them.
    - shutupall 8y ago
      God, you’re stupid. Can’t wait to see you on Webshit Weekly.

jerf 8y ago

How do you feel reading this article? Who benefits from that feeling? Is there anyone you're more likely to give money or votes to? Are there any actions with economic impact you feel like you should take? And most cynically, isn't there a part of you that feels like you're morally superior or have secret knowledge that the other people below you on your social scale don't share, and you now despise that other group for not "seeing the truth" that much more, solidifying an "us vs. them" mentality with another brick in the wall? Yes, there's politics here. Being "political" doesn't mean it's wrong, though we have that default reaction for a fairly solid reason, but, still, being "political" doesn't mean it's wrong. There's definitely politics, though.

mturmon 8y ago
> ...part of you that feels like you're morally superior or have secret knowledge that the other people below you on your social scale don't share... I see where you’re going, but can’t this criticism be applied to any factual journalism? And isn’t it therefore vacuous?
- jerf 8y ago
  "I see where you’re going, but can’t this criticism be applied to any factual journalism?" Selection of what facts to present is intrinsically political. (Related, I can't find it in myself to get too upset about "filter bubbles", because you can't simply absorb "all data", and consequently, you are always going to be in a filter bubble merely due to that fact. You can question the nature of your current bubble, but you can't "escape" the way some people seem to think they can.) The specific case of prompting you to feel an in-group reaction is not always a primary goal, though anyone would be excused for thinking otherwise if they consume too much mass media or explicitly political media. Of course if you try hard enough you can always pattern match to a given story somehow, but it's certainly sometimes a more explicit goal than other times. As an example, a straight-up insult targeted at a group may prompt in-group feelings, but not necessarily any "secret knowledge" feelings. "And isn’t it therefore vacuous?" In the strictly logical Aristotelian sense of "statement is true or false and nothing in between", yes, all statements are political, and the statement is vacuous since it fails to distinguish between cases. In a logical system with degrees of truth, some statements are definitely more political than others ("Vote $PARTY" vs. "Wheat is a staple crop of humanity" vs. "Vote $PARTY or you are despicable human being unworthy of life"), even if you never really reach true zero. In the human sense of "things that are vacuously true but you still need to keep in mind even so", it's something to keep in mind. There's a surprising number of statements that are obviously or vacuously true, yet we still need near-constant reminding of or we just somehow forget them.
  - shutupall 8y ago
    God, you’re stupid. Can’t wait to see you on Webshit Weekly.