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I think people should expect accurate information. Kinda the same as with justice. We know justice is served by people in nice togas and juries of peers who ar

I think people should expect accurate information. Kinda the same as with justice. We know justice is served by people in nice togas and juries of peers who are really a nice name for your neighbours. And yet we still demand and hopefully will continue to demand justice, even if those people make mistakes or sometimes behave fraudulently. The problem with Israeli-Hamas conflict isn't that the accurate information isn't available. It is that too many people decided to side with either belligerent and are selectively accepting information. It is that both sides of the conflict decided to use misinformation to bolster their media presence and their right to defend themselves. It is that the people who have open and measured view of the situation are not feeling safe expressing their views and feel pressured to support either side or shut up. I am personally suspicious of radical opinions, but I feel no way to express any support to more moderate and rational opinions without exposing myself as target for both sides. This problem in turn is result of some more general socio-politic changes, poor education and capture of media by organisations who discovered it is better to serve extreme views on any matter because it lets them steal more of the focus of consumers by exploiting our natural biases. Because of the polarisation, you have to choose a lesser evil. If you don't like "trumpism", you have to side with "radical left". If you don't like "radical left", you have to side with "trumpism". This is how masses of people can be captured by extreme views, which should not be the norm, in my opinion.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> The problem with Israeli-Hamas conflict isn't that the accurate information isn't available. > It is that both sides of the conflict decided to use misinformation to bolster their media presence and their right to defend themselves. How can these two claims be compatible with each other? The first says that accurate information is available. The second says that it isn't.
- wizzwizz4 3y ago
  Strictly speaking, it says that inaccurate information is also available.
  - planede 3y ago
    You can destroy information with noise. Accurate information about the conflicts (or anything) is also available in the digits of pi.
- Woshiwuja 3y ago
  [flagged]
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Accurate information is available. Figuring out which of the many, many bits of information we're bombarded with are accurate is frequently tough.
myko 3y ago
> If you don't like "trumpism", you have to side with "radical left". If you don't like "radical left", you have to side with "trumpism" This strikes me as incorrect. There isn't really much "radical left" in the US, Biden himself is a centrist. I take your overall point regarding accuracy of information, and I think the comments re: "radical left" are an example of the inaccuracy we see in US media. "Radical centrism", maybe.
- gosub100 3y ago
  I think the word "radical" or "far" as in "far right" are being perverted to deny the existence of both the "radical left" and deny the existence of a moderate right. I've noticed the language war (as in, changing the meaning of words) is more heavily employed by the "far left" (see what I did there?) than the right, but I'm happy to see evidence of the right using it. For instance, I think if the right fought the language war, nuclear energy should be called "green energy" because it doesn't emit greenhouse gases. And you should be called "against green energy" if you oppose nuclear power. To be clear, I am vehemently against changing the meaning of words, but it's seemingly an arms race and I happily add the word "far" to referring to the left just to help balance things out. I just wish it didn't have to be this way.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    The concept is in general use. The terminology is not symmetric, but I don't really see that "the far right" is necessarily more pejorative than "extreme progressives".
dragonwriter 3y ago
> The problem with Israeli-Hamas conflict isn't that the accurate information isn't available. Yes, it is, because this... > It is that too many people decided to side with either belligerent and are selectively accepting information. ... includes almost the entire American media and political establishment on the Israeli side, which keeps everything that isn't Israeli propaganda out of most formal information channels, and in other channels the only thing with enough juice to get through is Hamas-aligned propaganda. > Because of the polarisation, you have to choose a lesser evil. Nah, that's just the nature of the US electoral system. Partisan polarization is a distraction (well, its what makes the two choices substantially different, in contrast to the 1930s-1990s realignment period when political polarization was often quite high, but the salient divide was misaligned with the split between the major parties, so that the split was within each party rather than between the parties.)
- tick_tock_tick 3y ago
  > includes almost the entire American media and political establishment on the Israeli side For the media I don't know if I agree. I think they have painted Hamas in a much more favorable light then expected. They seem to refuse to run in person interviews with member of Hamas or even random people on the streets of Gaza because of how quickly it would sour any "both sides" narrative.
gadders 3y ago
>> It is that both sides of the conflict decided to use misinformation to bolster their media presence and their right to defend themselves. In the wars I've seen in my lifetime, this really seems something that only started with Ukraine/Russia. I know in the Gulf War the sides would spin news to portray them in a more favourable light, but not (to my knowledge) masses of lies like in Russia/Ukraine or Israel/Hamas.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  From Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East: > a few decades later King Enmetena of Lagash (c. 2450 BCE) was still fighting Umma over the same territory. Fortunately for historians, he wrote a long summary of the conflict, setting his own actions in the context of decades of what seem, in retrospect, to have been rather futile wars. This is one of the earliest attempts anywhere at writing a history of events. > He started his history not with the life of his great-grandfather King Ur-Nanshe, but with the gods. According to King Enmetena, it had been the god "Enlil, king of all the lands, father of all the gods" who had "fixed the border (between the god) Ningirsu and (the god) Shara," meaning the border between the kingdoms of Lagash and Umma. The border had not been created by men; it had been the work of Enlil himself, the greatest of all gods. This obviously meant that it had to be maintained just where the god had set it and it had to be protected from movement. And so, as he described it, one Lagash king after another had attempted to do just that, against what they saw as the dastardly incursions of the kings and armies of Umma. > No doubt the kings of Umma saw things differently. Royal inscriptions [anywhere] and, in the ancient Mesopotamian context, year names, are generally not viewed as particularly accurate sources of information about what happened during the events they commemorate. Later in the book there is a discussion of a king who issued a year name memorializing his conquest of a city on his borders; meanwhile, documents formalized in that city continued to use the year names issued by an entirely different king.
- mpalczewski 3y ago
  This is par for the course. We've had the gulf of tonkin incident, and weapons of mass destruction. The difference is now we have more information, so it only looks like it's gotten worse.
vineyardmike 3y ago
People should expect it, but it’s a fool’s errand. Misinformation has been used as a tool of war forever. Russia especially has been known for it. The problem is that there is no trustworthy source of truth, so you’re forced to pick who you trust. Just think about the Palestinian hospital. Is it a Hamas stronghold? Hamas says no, Israel says yes, the US says yes, some doctors say no. Some past doctors said yes. Hamas has used hospitals and human shields in the past (depending on the source you follow), so it’s possible they’d do it again. Looking beyond the hospital story, this plays out everywhere. Countless stories are manipulated or have contradictory sources. You have to pick a source. Should US citizens believe their government? Maybe the “terrorist organization” that’s seeing its people massacred? The government that is currently mass bombing a city? The media doesn’t even have reliable information because the truth is not apparent. Everyone has an incentive to be the truth-teller. Unbiased news only exists for unimportant news.

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> The problem with Israeli-Hamas conflict isn't that the accurate information isn't available. > It is that both sides of the conflict decided to use misinformation to bolster their media presence and their right to defend themselves. How can these two claims be compatible with each other? The first says that accurate information is available. The second says that it isn't.

wizzwizz4 3y ago
Strictly speaking, it says that inaccurate information is also available.
- planede 3y ago
  You can destroy information with noise. Accurate information about the conflicts (or anything) is also available in the digits of pi.
Woshiwuja 3y ago
[flagged]
ceejayoz 3y ago
Accurate information is available. Figuring out which of the many, many bits of information we're bombarded with are accurate is frequently tough.

myko 3y ago

> If you don't like "trumpism", you have to side with "radical left". If you don't like "radical left", you have to side with "trumpism" This strikes me as incorrect. There isn't really much "radical left" in the US, Biden himself is a centrist. I take your overall point regarding accuracy of information, and I think the comments re: "radical left" are an example of the inaccuracy we see in US media. "Radical centrism", maybe.

gosub100 3y ago
I think the word "radical" or "far" as in "far right" are being perverted to deny the existence of both the "radical left" and deny the existence of a moderate right. I've noticed the language war (as in, changing the meaning of words) is more heavily employed by the "far left" (see what I did there?) than the right, but I'm happy to see evidence of the right using it. For instance, I think if the right fought the language war, nuclear energy should be called "green energy" because it doesn't emit greenhouse gases. And you should be called "against green energy" if you oppose nuclear power. To be clear, I am vehemently against changing the meaning of words, but it's seemingly an arms race and I happily add the word "far" to referring to the left just to help balance things out. I just wish it didn't have to be this way.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  The concept is in general use. The terminology is not symmetric, but I don't really see that "the far right" is necessarily more pejorative than "extreme progressives".

dragonwriter 3y ago

> The problem with Israeli-Hamas conflict isn't that the accurate information isn't available. Yes, it is, because this... > It is that too many people decided to side with either belligerent and are selectively accepting information. ... includes almost the entire American media and political establishment on the Israeli side, which keeps everything that isn't Israeli propaganda out of most formal information channels, and in other channels the only thing with enough juice to get through is Hamas-aligned propaganda. > Because of the polarisation, you have to choose a lesser evil. Nah, that's just the nature of the US electoral system. Partisan polarization is a distraction (well, its what makes the two choices substantially different, in contrast to the 1930s-1990s realignment period when political polarization was often quite high, but the salient divide was misaligned with the split between the major parties, so that the split was within each party rather than between the parties.)

tick_tock_tick 3y ago
> includes almost the entire American media and political establishment on the Israeli side For the media I don't know if I agree. I think they have painted Hamas in a much more favorable light then expected. They seem to refuse to run in person interviews with member of Hamas or even random people on the streets of Gaza because of how quickly it would sour any "both sides" narrative.

gadders 3y ago

>> It is that both sides of the conflict decided to use misinformation to bolster their media presence and their right to defend themselves. In the wars I've seen in my lifetime, this really seems something that only started with Ukraine/Russia. I know in the Gulf War the sides would spin news to portray them in a more favourable light, but not (to my knowledge) masses of lies like in Russia/Ukraine or Israel/Hamas.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
From Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East: > a few decades later King Enmetena of Lagash (c. 2450 BCE) was still fighting Umma over the same territory. Fortunately for historians, he wrote a long summary of the conflict, setting his own actions in the context of decades of what seem, in retrospect, to have been rather futile wars. This is one of the earliest attempts anywhere at writing a history of events. > He started his history not with the life of his great-grandfather King Ur-Nanshe, but with the gods. According to King Enmetena, it had been the god "Enlil, king of all the lands, father of all the gods" who had "fixed the border (between the god) Ningirsu and (the god) Shara," meaning the border between the kingdoms of Lagash and Umma. The border had not been created by men; it had been the work of Enlil himself, the greatest of all gods. This obviously meant that it had to be maintained just where the god had set it and it had to be protected from movement. And so, as he described it, one Lagash king after another had attempted to do just that, against what they saw as the dastardly incursions of the kings and armies of Umma. > No doubt the kings of Umma saw things differently. Royal inscriptions [anywhere] and, in the ancient Mesopotamian context, year names, are generally not viewed as particularly accurate sources of information about what happened during the events they commemorate. Later in the book there is a discussion of a king who issued a year name memorializing his conquest of a city on his borders; meanwhile, documents formalized in that city continued to use the year names issued by an entirely different king.
mpalczewski 3y ago
This is par for the course. We've had the gulf of tonkin incident, and weapons of mass destruction. The difference is now we have more information, so it only looks like it's gotten worse.

vineyardmike 3y ago

People should expect it, but it’s a fool’s errand. Misinformation has been used as a tool of war forever. Russia especially has been known for it. The problem is that there is no trustworthy source of truth, so you’re forced to pick who you trust. Just think about the Palestinian hospital. Is it a Hamas stronghold? Hamas says no, Israel says yes, the US says yes, some doctors say no. Some past doctors said yes. Hamas has used hospitals and human shields in the past (depending on the source you follow), so it’s possible they’d do it again. Looking beyond the hospital story, this plays out everywhere. Countless stories are manipulated or have contradictory sources. You have to pick a source. Should US citizens believe their government? Maybe the “terrorist organization” that’s seeing its people massacred? The government that is currently mass bombing a city? The media doesn’t even have reliable information because the truth is not apparent. Everyone has an incentive to be the truth-teller. Unbiased news only exists for unimportant news.