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Great beginning, because this captures perfectly the feelings of so many, especially older, Americans. Even dissent feels like it was easier back then, when it

Great beginning, because this captures perfectly the feelings of so many, especially older, Americans. Even dissent feels like it was easier back then, when it was hippies vs. squares, a simple yes or no on Vietnam, yes or no on the Civil Rights Act. There are two glaring omissions from this article. First is any mention of Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent [1], which the author spends a lot of time loosely recapitulating. The other is a lack of sensitivity to the Boomers and the (non-geek) Gen Xers that were simply not exposed to online anything and so do not have immunity, and they generally don't have a good feel for dealing with modern information systems. The upshot is that I think this is a transient, but because of better health outcomes for the elderly, it's gonna be a long and painful one, because easily manipulated Boomers are going to be voting for a long, long time. The problem is largely Fox News. Fox has a strangle-hold on the older minds and gives cover and support to the online insanity, specifically because it's format isn't the news, it's a news walk-through (like a game walk-through), which makes you feel like you're good at consuming the news, feel like you have the right opinions, all while saving you the trouble of actually having to think. The solution, I'm sorry to say, is not teaching critical thinking, or appealing to better emotions, but rather an equal-and-opposite channel: a news walk-through with the same emotional profile, but with opposite opinions to Fox. With luck, such a channel would become equally popular and cancel out the Fox effect, and leave the actual political decision-making to the critical thinkers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

watwut 5y ago
> a news walk-through with the same emotional profile, but with opposite opinions to Fox. You wont find truth in the middle of two lies. Issue with Fox is not merely that they have different opinions. It is staggering amount of lies. Opposite of it are lies in another direction. And in addition, you can actually find lies in different direction then Fox. It is just that, more lies dont solve these issues.
- javajosh 5y ago
  It's not about finding truth, it's about solving the practical problem that Fox controls older minds and their votes. If the key to older minds is naive emotional manipulation, then it makes sense to use the same techniques for the opposite positions. If you use different techniques, more rational ones, less manipulative ones, more honest ones, then it will fail because people just won't watch. There is clearly a demand for what Fox provides; my idea is to keep giving it to people, but neuter it's real political influence. FWIW, this is not a happy thought. I want people to be better, to want to know and understand, to recognize when they're being manipulated, lied to - when they WANT to be lied to. But I think that's asking too much, and it's tried again and again and always fails. It's the emotions, and it always has been. They want a bad guy, they want simple explanations, they want to feel like they have special, non-obvious insight, and they don't want to earn any of it. So give it to them.
1-6 5y ago
> Fox has a strangle-hold on the older minds When most people think of Fox News, they think boomers. You might be right considering that the commercials they repeat target that demographic. As a non-boomer, however, it is refreshing to escape away from the blame Trump on everything narrative. I have a profound respect for older Americans and enjoy asking about history from their perspective. It's always engaging and fun when things are discussed in hindsight. > The solution, I'm sorry to say, is not teaching critical thinking, or appealing to better emotions, but rather an equal-and-opposite channel: a news walk-through with the same emotional profile, but with opposite opinions to Fox. Isn't that the point of CNN (or the point of Fox whichever way you look at it)? Cable news is exactly that, a commentary of today's news. Unfortunately all the news broadcasts have gone to cable especially during a time when there are cord-cutters everywhere. News isn't free over-the-air anymore. You have to belong to a certain segment to enjoy (or be susceptible to) that news.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Some of the nicest, most generous, good-hearted people I know are Fox-addicted boomers. THE biggest assholes I know are liberals. My objection to Fox and it's audience is not personal. Fox is exactly like heroin: it's dangerous to the users, but it doesn't mean the users are bad people. In fact the users are in a lot of pain and are doing their best to manage it with the drug. Fox represents an extraordinary disconnect from reality - and increasingly, just watching it, and buying into it, represents an act of proud American defiance, even if it's wrong. And yet the underlying goals are sound: they want a safe, healthy, wealthy country. Yes, they also prefer white people, and Christians, and resent being forced into accepting crazy diversity shit like new pronouns (one I agree with, actually - only transfolk should get to switch pronouns!). They see the way the left attacks men, and masculinity, the way #MeToo equates allegation with guilt, and object to it by going too far in the other direction. But the resistance to liberal excess is real and comes from a good place - and liberals themselves can't do it lest they be lumped in with rapists and abusers and ostracized. But goddamn, those Fox lies, big and small, come fast and furious from Fox, 24/7, and it's terrible. Their agenda is clear for anyone to see, and there is nothing Fox won't say, no tortured argument or shameless innuendo they won't make, to forward that agenda. It's actually painful for me to watch, even if I think there are plenty of valid things to criticize modern American liberalism about.
exo-pla-net 5y ago
I'm with you. CNN is trying to straddle the fence between being a legitimate news source, and being a Fox-equivalent for the not-very-smart masses. Only Fox is fully cynical about it, knowing precisely how credulous their audience is and spoon-feeding them fabricated infotainment in harmony with Murdoch's worldview. I think we, as the intellectual "elites", need to accept the following ugly reality: 1) A huge portion of the human population is highly susceptible to propaganda. 2) Exposing them to nuanced reality doesn't help them. In fact, anything complicated turns them off. They want simple truths. 3) This subpopulation is never going to change, and they're always going to be with us. Given this reality, the only realistic option to protect our interests, aside from totalitarianism, is to feed this subpopulation counter-propaganda. To provide an alternative, easy-to-digest narrative that's aligned with humanism / Enlightenment values, but that is extremely dumbed down: The Voltaire Factor for the Hopelessly Credulous. The irony here isn't lost on me, but I see no gentle alternative.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  > we, as the intellectual "elites", > the only realistic option to protect our interests, If I'm on the same side of whatever line you're drawing; those words make me nervous. If I'm on the other side... then I want to prepare for when you decide totalitarianism is the more efficient course, after all. I'm never on anybody's side. That's why I advocate for the personal ownership of any and all weaponry known to mankind: I expect anyone else to want whatever protection we can get from folks that insist they know how we must think.
  - exo-pla-net 5y ago
    I'm suggesting words to pacify the credulous away from extremism. Meanwhile, you're suggesting amassing weapons to counter the insidious agenda I apparently have behind my words. And yet I'm making you nervous? Anyway, if it's true that you're tribeless, then you're on my side of the line. You're a humanist. Maybe a humanist with some bizarre ideas about weapons and human nature, and maybe a humanist who's flirting with favoring abstractions over actual human lives, but a humanist nevertheless. On the other side of the line is nativism and xenophobia and fundamentalism and Grand Solutions -- the things that lead to genocide. Those are the ideologies I suggest we squash. If you wouldn't, then you're consistent, but you're unwise. When a wave of extremism rises, you either join in, you flee, or you get summarily executed. Your guns won't save you. You have to stop the wave from rising in the first place.

watwut 5y ago

> a news walk-through with the same emotional profile, but with opposite opinions to Fox. You wont find truth in the middle of two lies. Issue with Fox is not merely that they have different opinions. It is staggering amount of lies. Opposite of it are lies in another direction. And in addition, you can actually find lies in different direction then Fox. It is just that, more lies dont solve these issues.

javajosh 5y ago
It's not about finding truth, it's about solving the practical problem that Fox controls older minds and their votes. If the key to older minds is naive emotional manipulation, then it makes sense to use the same techniques for the opposite positions. If you use different techniques, more rational ones, less manipulative ones, more honest ones, then it will fail because people just won't watch. There is clearly a demand for what Fox provides; my idea is to keep giving it to people, but neuter it's real political influence. FWIW, this is not a happy thought. I want people to be better, to want to know and understand, to recognize when they're being manipulated, lied to - when they WANT to be lied to. But I think that's asking too much, and it's tried again and again and always fails. It's the emotions, and it always has been. They want a bad guy, they want simple explanations, they want to feel like they have special, non-obvious insight, and they don't want to earn any of it. So give it to them.

1-6 5y ago

> Fox has a strangle-hold on the older minds When most people think of Fox News, they think boomers. You might be right considering that the commercials they repeat target that demographic. As a non-boomer, however, it is refreshing to escape away from the blame Trump on everything narrative. I have a profound respect for older Americans and enjoy asking about history from their perspective. It's always engaging and fun when things are discussed in hindsight. > The solution, I'm sorry to say, is not teaching critical thinking, or appealing to better emotions, but rather an equal-and-opposite channel: a news walk-through with the same emotional profile, but with opposite opinions to Fox. Isn't that the point of CNN (or the point of Fox whichever way you look at it)? Cable news is exactly that, a commentary of today's news. Unfortunately all the news broadcasts have gone to cable especially during a time when there are cord-cutters everywhere. News isn't free over-the-air anymore. You have to belong to a certain segment to enjoy (or be susceptible to) that news.

javajosh 5y ago
Some of the nicest, most generous, good-hearted people I know are Fox-addicted boomers. THE biggest assholes I know are liberals. My objection to Fox and it's audience is not personal. Fox is exactly like heroin: it's dangerous to the users, but it doesn't mean the users are bad people. In fact the users are in a lot of pain and are doing their best to manage it with the drug. Fox represents an extraordinary disconnect from reality - and increasingly, just watching it, and buying into it, represents an act of proud American defiance, even if it's wrong. And yet the underlying goals are sound: they want a safe, healthy, wealthy country. Yes, they also prefer white people, and Christians, and resent being forced into accepting crazy diversity shit like new pronouns (one I agree with, actually - only transfolk should get to switch pronouns!). They see the way the left attacks men, and masculinity, the way #MeToo equates allegation with guilt, and object to it by going too far in the other direction. But the resistance to liberal excess is real and comes from a good place - and liberals themselves can't do it lest they be lumped in with rapists and abusers and ostracized. But goddamn, those Fox lies, big and small, come fast and furious from Fox, 24/7, and it's terrible. Their agenda is clear for anyone to see, and there is nothing Fox won't say, no tortured argument or shameless innuendo they won't make, to forward that agenda. It's actually painful for me to watch, even if I think there are plenty of valid things to criticize modern American liberalism about.

exo-pla-net 5y ago

I'm with you. CNN is trying to straddle the fence between being a legitimate news source, and being a Fox-equivalent for the not-very-smart masses. Only Fox is fully cynical about it, knowing precisely how credulous their audience is and spoon-feeding them fabricated infotainment in harmony with Murdoch's worldview. I think we, as the intellectual "elites", need to accept the following ugly reality: 1) A huge portion of the human population is highly susceptible to propaganda. 2) Exposing them to nuanced reality doesn't help them. In fact, anything complicated turns them off. They want simple truths. 3) This subpopulation is never going to change, and they're always going to be with us. Given this reality, the only realistic option to protect our interests, aside from totalitarianism, is to feed this subpopulation counter-propaganda. To provide an alternative, easy-to-digest narrative that's aligned with humanism / Enlightenment values, but that is extremely dumbed down: The Voltaire Factor for the Hopelessly Credulous. The irony here isn't lost on me, but I see no gentle alternative.

h2odragon 5y ago
> we, as the intellectual "elites", > the only realistic option to protect our interests, If I'm on the same side of whatever line you're drawing; those words make me nervous. If I'm on the other side... then I want to prepare for when you decide totalitarianism is the more efficient course, after all. I'm never on anybody's side. That's why I advocate for the personal ownership of any and all weaponry known to mankind: I expect anyone else to want whatever protection we can get from folks that insist they know how we must think.
- exo-pla-net 5y ago
  I'm suggesting words to pacify the credulous away from extremism. Meanwhile, you're suggesting amassing weapons to counter the insidious agenda I apparently have behind my words. And yet I'm making you nervous? Anyway, if it's true that you're tribeless, then you're on my side of the line. You're a humanist. Maybe a humanist with some bizarre ideas about weapons and human nature, and maybe a humanist who's flirting with favoring abstractions over actual human lives, but a humanist nevertheless. On the other side of the line is nativism and xenophobia and fundamentalism and Grand Solutions -- the things that lead to genocide. Those are the ideologies I suggest we squash. If you wouldn't, then you're consistent, but you're unwise. When a wave of extremism rises, you either join in, you flee, or you get summarily executed. Your guns won't save you. You have to stop the wave from rising in the first place.