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Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

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Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#141

Post by burkaman »

mikeash wrote: post #128
burkaman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because terrorism is more unpredictable. If you don't want to get struck by lightning, stay inside when it storms, or at least don't stand in the middle of an empty field. If you don't want to be killed by a terrorist, don't go outside at all?

Avoiding terrorism is pretty easy: avoid the busy parts of the largest cities. Nobody is carrying out a terrorist attack in Boise. Which is ironic that the Americans who appear to be the most fearful of terrorism are the ones who live in places where it will most likely never happen.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04...

http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article536103...

Can we agree that the conditions for lightning are fairly predictable, and staying safe is pretty straightforward? Whereas "just don't be where all the people are" is by definition advice that most people can't or won't follow.

Honestly I don't think this point is really debatable. Unpredictability is a core characteristic of terrorism. If tomorrow all Americans decided to spread homogeneously across the country and never congregate in large groups, terrorists would think of something else. If it were predictable and avoidable it wouldn't be as scary, which is the whole point of this conversation.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#142

Post by debaserab2 »

banned1 wrote: post #43
komali2 wrote: post #37

I'm slowly trimming away the means I acquire news, because it's all becoming so editorialized. Twitter is bombarded with bots and flamewars, reddit is a lost cause, and news.google.com is mainly driven by larger syndications that have mastered the "Big Headlines Sell" strategy. That leaves HN and my little local papers, Mountain View Voice and its ilk. Great for local stories and tech news, but I feel like I'm missin…

Not really. CNN has gone the way of MSNBC (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). Fox News is, well, Fox News. NPR is, well, for the most part, the Fox News of the left. So on and so forth. In a world of two echo chambers (The Right-wingers and The Left-wingers), it's up to you to make up your mind.…

That's really disappointing that you list an outlet like Breitbart with all the other reputable publications you name in an otherwise well formed argument.

What a sad state of affairs when we've legitimized a publication that identifies itself as central to the political movement that's brought together the xenophobes of our society.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#144

Post by FooHentai »

rndmize wrote: post #80
banned1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. CNN has gone the way of MSNBC (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). Fox News is, well, Fox News. NPR is, well, for the most part, the Fox News of the left. So on and so forth. In a world of two echo chambers (The Right-wingers and The Left-wingers), it's up to you to make up your mind.…

I don't understand this perspective. When CNN gets a story wrong, the right creates a huge storm and people get fired. When the right gets a story wrong (Breitbart still pushing the hard anti-climate change line, Hannity with the Seth Rich conspiracy, the entire birther movement, Pizzagate, and on and on and on )... nothing happens. Nothing. It took Milo saying "maybe pedophelia isn't that bad" before there was enoug…

>It took Milo saying "maybe pedophelia isn't that bad" before there was enough of an outcry for him to be fired.

Your example is nonsense and disproves your point. Read the transcript, that is not at all what was said:

http://heavy.com/news/2017/02/milo-yiannopolous-pedophilia-t...

An actual quote: "I do not support pedophilia. Period. It is a vile and disgusting crime, perhaps the very worst."

You say you don't feel there is as much accountability for talking heads on the right, yet here is a clear example of a talking head on the right being misquoted ('conveniently abbreviated') and actual, real consequences occurring.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#145

Post by banned1 »

debaserab2 wrote: post #142
banned1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. CNN has gone the way of MSNBC (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber). Fox News is, well, Fox News. NPR is, well, for the most part, the Fox News of the left. So on and so forth. In a world of two echo chambers (The Right-wingers and The Left-wingers), it's up to you to make up your mind.…

That's really disappointing that you list an outlet like Breitbart with all the other reputable publications you name in an otherwise well formed argument. What a sad state of affairs when we've legitimized a publication that identifies itself as central to the political movement that's brought together the xenophobes of our society.

It's a good point. Thanks for making it. I do read everything, including fringe publications. In the continuum of publications, everybody will find their tolerance for unacceptable to be different.

Thanks for your honest comment. I did think about your point before including it.

Edit: and i am sorry for offending you.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#146

Post by mikeash »

burkaman wrote: post #141
mikeash wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoiding terrorism is pretty easy: avoid the busy parts of the largest cities. Nobody is carrying out a terrorist attack in Boise. Which is ironic that the Americans who appear to be the most fearful of terrorism are the ones who live in places where it will most likely never happen.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04... http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article536103... Can we agree that the conditions for lightning are fairly predictable, and staying safe is pretty straightforward? Whereas "just don't be where all the people are" is by definition advice that most people can't or won't follow. Honestly I don't think this point is really debatable. Unpredict…

From your first link:

"The analysis measured not whether a city would make an attractive target to a terrorist but rather how well it could withstand an attack, Piegorsch said."

In other words, Boise is ill-prepared to handle an attack, but no statement is made on the likelihood that it would be a target. That likelihood is, of course, quite low.

For the second, the goals of an individual nut who couldn't even make his plan work aren't all that interesting.

Characterizing my advice as "just don't be where all the people are" is super misleading. There are a small number of likely terrorist targets, and my advice is not to be there. If you're worried about terrorism, then you should probably avoid Manhattan, downtown Boston, major airports, etc. And most people paranoid about terrorism probably already avoid these places. Chicago or Miami or Seattle are probably fine. Places away from the centers of likely target cities are probably fine. "Don't visit New York" is perfectly viable advice for a fearful person in Iowa.

You can easily reduce your risk of being killed by lightning, but remaining perfectly safe is hard. Taking shelter isn't necessarily sufficient. Lightning can conduct into buildings, and it can also start fires.

I don't think the fear of terrorism is down to its unpredictability and unavoidability. The same is true of car crashes (someone else's mistake or malevolence can easily end your life on the road, and avoiding the roads is not an option for the vast majority of people) and yet people give little thought to those.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#147

Post by systemvanilla »

losteric wrote: post #138
systemvanilla wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR is known by pretty much every right-of-center person in the nation as being the Fox News of the left. If you're left-of-center you have a stake in NPR's skewed coverage being the neutral truth (because that validates your world view), but it's just not the case. The bias isn't necessarily in the sourcing or the facts, it's in the selective coverage and the constructed narratives and the overt bias in what kind of…

Where are the liberal insane Sean Hannitys or O'reilly's? Not on NPR. Can I trust NPR will blindly support Democrats? No, they're friendly but still critical. NPR is a news station that leans left - and you're right, most people that seek the truth also lean left for some reason. But the left has nothing like "Fox News". There are no liberal infotainment channels that spread propaganda so blindly and unashamedly as F…

> Drawing parallels between any news station and "Fox News" is an insult.

I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#148

Post by mikeash »

humanrebar wrote: post #140
mikeash wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because NPR's audience tends to lean strongly left, and the left in general couldn't understand why anyone would vote for this obvious shyster. I don't see that NPR is at all relevant to it. Having a different source of information won't suddenly make people able to comprehend an utterly different way of thinking. I'm sure I could consume nothing but Fox News and other right-wing media and I'd still be unable to comp…

> ...the left in general couldn't understand why anyone would vote for this obvious shyster If it seems like I'm singling out NPR, I didn't mean to. All left wing outlets messed up or this wouldn't be an issue. I'm saying the audience should do a better job of understanding the people who voted for Trump. And the left-leaning media has to produce many, many pieces aimed in that direction. Why would Fox News produce p…

I'm saying that maybe left-wing outlets didn't mess up, maybe understanding a Trump voter really is just that difficult. I still can't, and I don't think better coverage would have changed that.

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#149

Post by okaram »

systemvanilla wrote: post #129
Dobbs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how NPR and Fox News can be compared in good faith. Yes NPR has a liberal bias, but for the most part it attempts to reasonably source its articles and publish a journalistically accurate news report. Fox News is not a news channel. They have one or two news programs mixed in with "entertainment". Sean Hannity is not news, but entertainment pretending to be news[^1]. [^1]: https://www.dailykos.com/storie…

NPR is known by pretty much every right-of-center person in the nation as being the Fox News of the left. If you're left-of-center you have a stake in NPR's skewed coverage being the neutral truth (because that validates your world view), but it's just not the case. The bias isn't necessarily in the sourcing or the facts, it's in the selective coverage and the constructed narratives and the overt bias in what kind of…

NPR may lean 'left', but it tries to be journalism (Fox News is entertainment and propaganda); if you want to find something like the Fox News of the left, check DemocracyNow, or ThinkProgress

Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product

#150

Post by colejohnson66 »

mikeash wrote: post #126
komali2 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe I tried dan Carlin but was turned off when he made the argument that a third party vote is a wasted vote.

In what way is it not? I'm a firm believer that the two-party system sucks and we need electoral reform to make third parties viable, and every time I vote I wish it were already so... but there's no escaping the reality that the system, as it is built today, makes third-party votes as useful as drawing a spaceship on your ballot.

BECAUSE people believe that. If everyone who wanted to vote third party actually voted third party, they’d actually stand a chance.
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