6 ms·

To some degree, the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions. The more they

by yters 7y ago

To some degree, the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions. The more they try to handhold everyone, it will produce two effects: reduce audience ability to make informed decisions, and reduce audience trust in the media. Someone showed me the Icke lecture, and so we discussed what are easy ways we could falsify his claims. E.g. countries with high incidence of covid19 and no 5g. Especially when the conspiracy theory is so easily debunked the media should handle such cases more liberally. Think of it as inoculating the population against misinformation. I do tentatively agree there are some kinds of misinformation that should be suppressed, but any such thing should be very exceptional, and very well explained. Otherwise, the media will end up being the modern Catholic church and go the way of the reformation. The church has spent centuries undoing the mistakes it made handling Luther's and other's criticisms.

ceejayoz 7y ago
> the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions Sure, right after we feed them some unicorn tears for breakfast.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  The fact that it's not true is largely irrelevant. When the media pursues a strategy of manipulating the masses rather than reporting the truth, the masses notice and stop believing what the media has to say. In the modern age, the media only has power to the extent that people believe what it's saying.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The problem extends far beyond "the media". Substantial numbers of people don't trust their own pediatricians on vaccinations. 40% of Americans think God created humans in their current form instead of evolution. Society has become hostile to facts, and sites like YouTube are all too often happy to serve up bullshit if it gets engagement.
    - yters 7y ago
      The important question to ask is 'why?' Are these people just stupid ignorants requiring being spoon fed information, or is there something more going on?
- the8472 7y ago
  If we assume most people do not act rationally should we rescind their rights to vote? And their legal autonomy in general? After all how can they give informed consent to contracts if they're not thinking for themselves?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    As the saying goes, "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". Should we? Probably. Can we do it in a way that isn't worse? Probably not.
Spooky23 7y ago
We've been conducting this experiment for many years, and it should be painfully obvious by now that the public at large is incapable of rationality and reasonableness. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook has brought the long tail of politics and stupidity to the mass audience.
- yters 7y ago
  or, we could look at it as the greatest opportunity to teach critical thinking that has ever existed.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    Educate 5 billion people to not be idiots, or stop a few dozen media companies from spraying shit at them. The level of effort is very different.
    - yters 7y ago
      Perhaps, but the ability for the population at large to think critically also has great value. If you dumb down the populace even more by spoonfeeding them acceptable information, then they become even more susceptible to bad reasoning. It is like having a child grow up in a completely disease free environment. They'll remain healthy, but in a very fragile way. Plus, there's always the problem of who watches the watchers.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        > Perhaps, but the ability for the population at large to think critically also has great value. Yes, but what's your actual plan for getting them that ability? This is a South Park "step one: collect underpants; step two: ???; step three: profit!" scenario.
        yters 7y ago
        Step 1 is to stop all this platform censorship, especially of clearly crackpot theories. Only censor people who are clearly proposing people harm others. Such as Spike Lee posting a couple's address on Twitter during the Zimmerman trial. Or the social media mobs trying to ruin the lives of those they disagree with.
dguaraglia 7y ago
> To some degree, the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions Except a significant (and growing) number of people aren't. There's a huge 'anti-science' (or 'anti-elite' if you move in those circles) movement in this country. Without getting into politics, the proof is in the pudding: just the other day, we had the governor of one of our biggest states saying he 'didn't know the coronavirus could be transmitted before people showed symptoms' even though that fact has been readily available to everyone for weeks if not months. When would rather believe politicians than experts, giving those politicians an unchecked way to propagate their message will only kill people.
- yters 7y ago
  Do you think this sort of censorships helps diminish or build the anti perspectives?
  - dguaraglia 7y ago
    It's a mixed bag. Initially there was fear that 'deplatforming' would make these ideas stronger, and the people promoting them 'martyrs' and their 'martyrdom' a 'cause célèbre' that would promote them even further. In other words, that the Streissand effect of deplatforming someone would make them more powerful. Reality seems to contradict that. People who used to enjoy quite a bit of notoriety a couple years ago have essentially disappeared since being deplatformed. Idiots like Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Alex Jones and a whole bunch of other alt-righter 'personalities' who promoted white supremacy, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. have lost their audiences and are only recognizable by a handful of people who were aware of their positions before they got deplatformed. On the other hand, the people that put the effort to continue following such personalities and ideologies in whatever platforms they managed to stay on, belong to the extreme fringe of the original audience. Because the platforms that still host these people tend to host all kinds of terrible stuff, it's possible that some are being exposed to bad views they didn't espouse before. But let's face it: anyone digging through white supremacist sites to get the latest from Gavin McInnes was a lost cause anyway. In conclusion: deplatforming seems to limit exposure of new people to such perspectives, without requiring government-enforced violations of the First Amendment. There's nothing we can do against people actively looking for such anti-perspectives, because they are already biased against the 'normal' perspective. Conspiracy theorists have existed forever, but only recently they've become mainstream and affect public policy.
lonelappde 7y ago
What are the consequences of people who believe in every insane conspiracy "losing trust"? What trust did they already have?
threr234234 7y ago
> thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions. If they did, no one would buy the BS that the mainstream sells (cf. Iraq War, Vietnam War, ... nearly every war, the 'Russian collusion' of current era). Power is obtained not when people are taught to think - it is when you keep them stupid and limit their brain feed to one gutter.

by yters 7y ago

ceejayoz 7y ago

> the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions Sure, right after we feed them some unicorn tears for breakfast.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
The fact that it's not true is largely irrelevant. When the media pursues a strategy of manipulating the masses rather than reporting the truth, the masses notice and stop believing what the media has to say. In the modern age, the media only has power to the extent that people believe what it's saying.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  The problem extends far beyond "the media". Substantial numbers of people don't trust their own pediatricians on vaccinations. 40% of Americans think God created humans in their current form instead of evolution. Society has become hostile to facts, and sites like YouTube are all too often happy to serve up bullshit if it gets engagement.
  - yters 7y ago
    The important question to ask is 'why?' Are these people just stupid ignorants requiring being spoon fed information, or is there something more going on?
the8472 7y ago
If we assume most people do not act rationally should we rescind their rights to vote? And their legal autonomy in general? After all how can they give informed consent to contracts if they're not thinking for themselves?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  As the saying goes, "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". Should we? Probably. Can we do it in a way that isn't worse? Probably not.

Spooky23 7y ago

We've been conducting this experiment for many years, and it should be painfully obvious by now that the public at large is incapable of rationality and reasonableness. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook has brought the long tail of politics and stupidity to the mass audience.

yters 7y ago
or, we could look at it as the greatest opportunity to teach critical thinking that has ever existed.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Educate 5 billion people to not be idiots, or stop a few dozen media companies from spraying shit at them. The level of effort is very different.
  - yters 7y ago
    Perhaps, but the ability for the population at large to think critically also has great value. If you dumb down the populace even more by spoonfeeding them acceptable information, then they become even more susceptible to bad reasoning. It is like having a child grow up in a completely disease free environment. They'll remain healthy, but in a very fragile way. Plus, there's always the problem of who watches the watchers.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      > Perhaps, but the ability for the population at large to think critically also has great value. Yes, but what's your actual plan for getting them that ability? This is a South Park "step one: collect underpants; step two: ???; step three: profit!" scenario.
      - yters 7y ago
        Step 1 is to stop all this platform censorship, especially of clearly crackpot theories. Only censor people who are clearly proposing people harm others. Such as Spike Lee posting a couple's address on Twitter during the Zimmerman trial. Or the social media mobs trying to ruin the lives of those they disagree with.

dguaraglia 7y ago

> To some degree, the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions Except a significant (and growing) number of people aren't. There's a huge 'anti-science' (or 'anti-elite' if you move in those circles) movement in this country. Without getting into politics, the proof is in the pudding: just the other day, we had the governor of one of our biggest states saying he 'didn't know the coronavirus could be transmitted before people showed symptoms' even though that fact has been readily available to everyone for weeks if not months. When would rather believe politicians than experts, giving those politicians an unchecked way to propagate their message will only kill people.

yters 7y ago
Do you think this sort of censorships helps diminish or build the anti perspectives?
- dguaraglia 7y ago
  It's a mixed bag. Initially there was fear that 'deplatforming' would make these ideas stronger, and the people promoting them 'martyrs' and their 'martyrdom' a 'cause célèbre' that would promote them even further. In other words, that the Streissand effect of deplatforming someone would make them more powerful. Reality seems to contradict that. People who used to enjoy quite a bit of notoriety a couple years ago have essentially disappeared since being deplatformed. Idiots like Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Alex Jones and a whole bunch of other alt-righter 'personalities' who promoted white supremacy, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. have lost their audiences and are only recognizable by a handful of people who were aware of their positions before they got deplatformed. On the other hand, the people that put the effort to continue following such personalities and ideologies in whatever platforms they managed to stay on, belong to the extreme fringe of the original audience. Because the platforms that still host these people tend to host all kinds of terrible stuff, it's possible that some are being exposed to bad views they didn't espouse before. But let's face it: anyone digging through white supremacist sites to get the latest from Gavin McInnes was a lost cause anyway. In conclusion: deplatforming seems to limit exposure of new people to such perspectives, without requiring government-enforced violations of the First Amendment. There's nothing we can do against people actively looking for such anti-perspectives, because they are already biased against the 'normal' perspective. Conspiracy theorists have existed forever, but only recently they've become mainstream and affect public policy.

lonelappde 7y ago

What are the consequences of people who believe in every insane conspiracy "losing trust"? What trust did they already have?

threr234234 7y ago

> thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions. If they did, no one would buy the BS that the mainstream sells (cf. Iraq War, Vietnam War, ... nearly every war, the 'Russian collusion' of current era). Power is obtained not when people are taught to think - it is when you keep them stupid and limit their brain feed to one gutter.