5 ms·

When did we forfeit our ability to think critically and judge sources on our own?

by nmakow 6y ago

JPKab 6y ago
In the minds of the political elites, when Trump won the 2016 election. I hate the guy as much as anyone. My wife was crying. It was a shock. The DNC could have examined why they lost the key swing states by the thin margins they did in a deep, meaningful way. But that would have required acknowledging mistakes made by their highly paid political consultants and their own power brokers. But who wants to be the person to admit they screwed up and lost to a tangerine/chicken strip/cheetoh? "Nah, let's just blame the Russians. They hacked our emails, they put out ridiculous lies on social media..... yeah, that's it.... the Russians and dumb morons who believed them." At that moment, the party that has always defended civil liberties, always fought censorship by the right wing theocrats, suddenly decided it was just too dangerous to have uncensored speech. They pointed the finger at Twitter and Facebook, and threatened them. They whipped up the tech employees, making them feel responsible for the tangerine, when it was their own horror show of a primary process that doomed them. What's really weird is that if you think about it, the people who they think need curated, safe, censored information are the people who voted for Obama in 2012, but voted for Trump in 2016, or stayed home. They think their own voters in 2012 are too dumb to weed out misinformation themselves.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  The fact that those same people are downvoting you tells you that most people still haven’t clued in. Expect the same mistakes and 4 more years of Trump. Sigh.
  - JPKab 6y ago
    Comments made days ago in other threads were suddenly downvoted by people who clicked on my name and decided to downvote every comment I had made based off of this one note that states the same thing that folks like Matt Taibbi have been saying. And yes, I think it helps Trump. I think the rioting will help him, and the extreme viewpoint of defunding police that BLM is pushing will help him. If I see Biden get above 50%, I will rest easier, but not seeing it.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  Do you currently think COVID-19 is a problem outside NYC?
  - JPKab 6y ago
    It's a problem. One that requires a lockdown? Doubtful. We will find out soon, since these protests were vastly larger than the ones against the lockdown (you remember how the media talked about how dangerous those ones were due to covid19, but immediately ignored that when the protest was something that they personally support). Yeah, the virus doesn't care whether your protest is journalist approved. I know you know that, and I'm wondering if you think the protests are going to cause a large spike in infections?
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      98% of new cases in the US yesterday were outside of the five boroughs of NYC.[1&4] Right now, most of NY is reopening[2]. In the meantime, California and Texas are seeing significantly more daily new cases than NY state; CA more than double[3] Internationally, Brazil[1] has started regularly producing daily new case counts that are ~50% more than the US (Brazil is a smaller country that so far has had fewer cases and deaths). I don't expect anyone will be able to definitively identify the effect of protests in the context of imminent or continuing reopening of much of the country. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ [2] https://forward.ny.gov/ https://forward.ny.gov/ [3] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ [4] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/
      - JPKab 6y ago
        What's the positive cases per test rate? I'm assuming that is going up, which is bad. The one admittedly lagging indicator that I'm watching is hospitalized cases. So far that's ok, and ideally you could possibly have an increase in positive cases throughout a population without more hospitalizations if high risk people isolate themselves. But yeah, hope it doesn't go sideways.

When did we forfeit our ability to think critically and judge sources on our own?

by nmakow 6y ago

When did we forfeit our ability to think critically and judge sources on our own?

In the minds of the political elites, when Trump won the 2016 election. I hate the guy as much as anyone. My wife was crying. It was a shock. The DNC could have examined why they lost the key swing states by the thin margins they did in a deep, meaningful way. But that would have required acknowledging mistakes made by their highly paid political consultants and their own power brokers. But who wants to be the person to admit they screwed up and lost to a tangerine/chicken strip/cheetoh? "Nah, let's just blame the Russians. They hacked our emails, they put out ridiculous lies on social media..... yeah, that's it.... the Russians and dumb morons who believed them." At that moment, the party that has always defended civil liberties, always fought censorship by the right wing theocrats, suddenly decided it was just too dangerous to have uncensored speech. They pointed the finger at Twitter and Facebook, and threatened them. They whipped up the tech employees, making them feel responsible for the tangerine, when it was their own horror show of a primary process that doomed them. What's really weird is that if you think about it, the people who they think need curated, safe, censored information are the people who voted for Obama in 2012, but voted for Trump in 2016, or stayed home. They think their own voters in 2012 are too dumb to weed out misinformation themselves.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
The fact that those same people are downvoting you tells you that most people still haven’t clued in. Expect the same mistakes and 4 more years of Trump. Sigh.
- JPKab 6y ago
  Comments made days ago in other threads were suddenly downvoted by people who clicked on my name and decided to downvote every comment I had made based off of this one note that states the same thing that folks like Matt Taibbi have been saying. And yes, I think it helps Trump. I think the rioting will help him, and the extreme viewpoint of defunding police that BLM is pushing will help him. If I see Biden get above 50%, I will rest easier, but not seeing it.
perl4ever 6y ago
Do you currently think COVID-19 is a problem outside NYC?
- JPKab 6y ago
  It's a problem. One that requires a lockdown? Doubtful. We will find out soon, since these protests were vastly larger than the ones against the lockdown (you remember how the media talked about how dangerous those ones were due to covid19, but immediately ignored that when the protest was something that they personally support). Yeah, the virus doesn't care whether your protest is journalist approved. I know you know that, and I'm wondering if you think the protests are going to cause a large spike in infections?
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    98% of new cases in the US yesterday were outside of the five boroughs of NYC.[1&4] Right now, most of NY is reopening[2]. In the meantime, California and Texas are seeing significantly more daily new cases than NY state; CA more than double[3] Internationally, Brazil[1] has started regularly producing daily new case counts that are ~50% more than the US (Brazil is a smaller country that so far has had fewer cases and deaths). I don't expect anyone will be able to definitively identify the effect of protests in the context of imminent or continuing reopening of much of the country. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ [2] https://forward.ny.gov/ https://forward.ny.gov/ [3] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ [4] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/
    - JPKab 6y ago
      What's the positive cases per test rate? I'm assuming that is going up, which is bad. The one admittedly lagging indicator that I'm watching is hospitalized cases. So far that's ok, and ideally you could possibly have an increase in positive cases throughout a population without more hospitalizations if high risk people isolate themselves. But yeah, hope it doesn't go sideways.