6 ms·

Capable -- yes. Having to actually do it -- no. I would prefer to live in a world where I can depend on my fellow humans instead of living out a fantasy of self

• Schmerika 8mo ago
  > The "all the entities are wildly rotten and corrupt" meme is hyperstitious. I wish people would think before spreading it. Out of the 27 authors of Daszak's Lancet paper, used worldwide to claim that Coronavirus couldn't have come from a lab, how many had a conflict of interest? How many news outlets repeated their claims verbatim, rather than reading it themselves to find the obvious 'errors'? And how many academic institutions pointed out its flaws? ... Too old an example? Ok - how many institutions sat on the Epstein files, lied about them, kept them sealed, etc, for decades? How many political leaders and business owners worldwide had direct links themselves? How many media companies are giving adequate attention to climate change, and refusing to run ads from fossil fuel companies? How many institutions/countries dared to tell Biden that arming genocide and vetoing ceasefires isn't actually okay? How many countries have sanctioned the perpetrators? Read anything about EPA corruption lately? How about what ICE have been doing? Anyone in DOGE face any accountability for permanently compromising key government databases yet? Because again, if you're relying on media and institutions to get your news on these things you might think everything is fine. It really, really isn't though. You gotta do your own research, I'm afraid. ... And no, none of that was because people believed the "all the entities are wildly rotten and corrupt" "meme". It wasn't ever that they just didn't trust the system enough. Quite the opposite.
  • greggoB 8mo ago
    > You gotta do your own research, I'm afraid. So again, how do you propose one actually does this? Via crowdsourcing on FB? AI-generated news gathering? Consulting with a medium? Like what is your actual, concrete solution for how to obtain and distribute events and occurrences? Journalism may be as imperfect as the humans who do it, but it's at least a concrete, operating means of informing the general public, with an ideally healthy array of outlets having overlapping coverage of the same events. Within this framework, "do your own research" would be called "reading broadly". > ... And no, none of that was because people believed the "all the entities are wildly rotten and corrupt" "meme". It wasn't ever that they just didn't trust the system enough. I have been around long enough to know that the meme does fit for some non-negligible section of the population. It's not to say that the system hasn't given a lot of people good reason for doubt, but a lot of people were already primed to throw the baby out with the bathwater and declare everything a conspiracy.
    • Schmerika 8mo ago
      > what is your actual, concrete solution for how to obtain and distribute events and occurrences? There are lots of valid ways to research things for oneself. None of them involve making fun of people for doing it. > Journalism may be as imperfect as the humans who do it, but it's at least a concrete, operating means of informing the general public, Sure. Reading journalism can be part of doing one's own research. > a lot of people were already primed to throw the baby out with the bathwater and declare everything a conspiracy. Who primed them? Here's a 'fun' and illustrative story that recently unfolded: Did you know that the 4chan forum where the Pizzagate conspiracy - which used the same code words as Epstein's circle - opened the exact same day that Epstein met with its founder? That meant that when whistleblowers talked about real things that happened, or real emails leaked, some people were 'primed' to dismiss them because obviously Pizzagate was a hoax. Some journalists did report well on that scenario; people like Whitney Webb or Sarah Kendzior. They didn't get invited to mainstream media to talk about it though. ... There are a lot of people who believe one of the dumbest conspiracies possible - that scientists are in cahoots over a global warming hoax. Why do they believe that? Could it be that the fossil fuel companies who knew climate change was real in the 70s helped to foster that? Could it be that the media who profits massively from running fossil fuel ads have been complicit? It's not okay to have like 6 billionaires running all your media. It's not okay to have <80 familes owning half the worlds wealth. You end up with all these terrible cognitive side effects in your population from the propaganda they use. Blaming all that on people doing their own research is essentially blaming the victim, at the worst possible time.
      • greggoB 8mo ago
        > None of them involve making fun of people for doing it. I'm expressing frustration at the lack of a proper answer, which you still seem to not be able to provide. > Who primed them? Conspiracy theory influencers, cult leaders, unscrupulous politicians, other people with existing mental illnesses, corporations with a lobbying agenda - the list is as long as there are people with a motive to influence the populace to their own gains. > Here's a 'fun' and illustrative story You're providing a single example (without any references, btw) as a means of exonerating your entire argument. But sure, pizzagate is suddenly looking a lot less dismissible out-of-hand now, given we've come to learn the sheer extent of Epstein's web. I agree that much of the disinformation re global warming is at least funded by corporations and individuals with a profit motive; I agree that the concentrated ownership of the media and wealth are highly problematic. But pumping the "do your own research" schtick and ignoring that it is a term highly co-opted by conspiracy theorists (as well as others with an agenda to misinform) is hardly helping. So again, I ask: what is your concrete alternative to Fourth Estate?