The writing style is pretentious, and for the life of me I can't see why trigger warnings, of all things, are being spun into this narrative. Perhaps betrays a lack of understanding of the concept from the author.
Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
211–220 of 346 posts
Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
> HN is the same way when it relates to political news (i.e. liberal, one-sided, pretty much echo-chamber) HN is one of those places where everyone thinks that there are plenty of "the other side" here. There are plenty of fiscal and social conservatives on this site. Probably the only sector of the conservative world that isn't well-represented here are war hawks.
I dunno, what about super nationalist white supremacists? Don't really find them here either.
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Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
I watch Vice News through HBO, high-density domestic and international news during the week.
I've found Vice News to be great for firsthand reports, but lacking on background material. For example, they did a segment [0] on brown coal strip-mining in Germany. The reporter examined the stark human and environmental toll of the mining, but failed to address why such a dirty form of energy was in demand in the first place. I had to do my own research to find out. What I found, in part because I knew some of the…
FWIW in Germany there has been a strong anti-nuclear sentiment in the public, at least since the reunification. The West German Greens merged with an alliance of progressive opposition groups from East Germany, resulting in the modern Greens, "Bündnis 90/Die Grünen".
The Greens are generally socially progressive (though not by any means socialist) but their core messages are similar to those of NGOs like Greenpeace. By virtue of being represented in numerous coalition governments over the years, on communal, federal and national levels, there has been a very consistent and vocal opposition to nuclear power in German politics.
Fukushima was ultimately the straw that broke the camel's back, forcing Angela Merkel (who's actually part of the conservative party, CDU) to officially disavow nuclear power, even though it meant violating some contracts.
The origin of the underlying anti-nuclear sentiment likely lies in the peace movements of the 60s/70s because there is a still a strong connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons in most people's minds and being caught between the US and the Soviet Union there was a lot of awareness how horrible nuclear weapons actually are.
Political processes in determining long-term storage sites for nuclear waste regularly make tabloid headlines, as do the protests around the transport. Chernobyl was likely what made nuclear power a mainstream concern, the constant protests, reporting and debates eroded the support further, Fukushima just was the final nail in the coffin.
Germans as a group tend to be rather risk-averse. The harm of coal power is imminent and obvious but predictable. The harm of nuclear power is delayed and much less predictable but potentially much more disastrous -- it's essentially a gamble (although I'd argue that the odds are pretty darn good and the risks are greatly exaggerated).
That said, Germans ultimately want green energy, not coal power. Coal is just seen as the necessary evil while the gap is being bridged.
Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they are! At least that's how it is perceived by the other side, and that's how you understand that perspective. For a large number of people, truth is in the eye of the beholder. If a story confirms your preconceived biases, the journalist got it right and is telling the truth. If it opposes your beliefs, it's factually wrong. Truth is like relativity: There is no aether, no privileged reference frame. When one…
Maybe it's because defining what the "truth" is is complicated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth
The way humanity uses that word can sometimes be complicated, but don't fall into the trap of thinking that truth is:
Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Economist is good, if you can swallow their ideology It's very open about it, but it does not conform to most people's idea of what news should be. Süddeutsche Zeitung is good in Germany space, although it may do a bit too much of normal and national news.
Just curious, what exactly is their ideology?
Classical liberalism.
Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Economist is good, if you can swallow their ideology It's very open about it, but it does not conform to most people's idea of what news should be. Süddeutsche Zeitung is good in Germany space, although it may do a bit too much of normal and national news.
Just curious, what exactly is their ideology?
Classic liberalism (i.e. fiscally conservative, socially progressive, economically mainstream/globalist)
Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way NPR does the lean is quite interesting in that it's not usually obvious. When they slant something what they will do is either pick someone on the opposite side of something who is off the rails or ineloquent. Or, when the opposition has an argument, they often will challenge the argument. When they have the side they agree with on, rather than challenge they tend to ask supporting questions. That said, Green…
> When they slant something what they will do is either pick someone on the opposite side of something who is off the rails or ineloquent. Or, when the opposition has an argument, they often will challenge the argument. When they have the side they agree with on, rather than challenge they tend to ask supporting questions. This is the modus operandi of NPR and Fox News (and increasingly, every news source). These tac…
I don't know Fox News or NPR, but as an outsider, you're clearly just spouting a load of nonsense.
exposing a compact-enough unit of dishonesty
I used to rotate right, left and centerist papers back in the day, but the insanity you're peddling is clearly just trying to undermine journalism itself, rather than attack a particular point of view.
This is just the same crap the Trump's doing, dressed up in big words. Tar it all with the same brush, undermine it all, leave everyone believing there's no truth anywhere. Where today's left-leaning news is calm and fairly unbiased and today's right-leaning news is proper loony. And that hasn't always been the way, in case you're wondering, the roles have reversed.
All, unsurprisingly, from a green account.
Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
#218I wanted to complain about the title not really making the right distinction, that fear is not a product but a sales method. However, the author actually understands that distinction and really talks about fear being the product. That also implies that people desire fear and that fear is produced with industrial efficiency. Interesting thought.
What is most interesting to me is that people do not know what they want or what they are really consuming.
Yeah, I also often think about that. We act based of a set of needs. But we don't even need to know what these needs are to continue trying to satisfy them.
Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The truth is, there's actually a huge amount of centrist in the USA. Those centrists are reasonable people. They'll hear you out, think, analyze and make up their mind. They'll accept compromise, and they'll try hard to see if maybe there's truth to consider, even if most things said appears exaggerated, or ridiculous. And then there's unreasonable people. They don't want to think, or consider options. In the USA, if…
> In the USA, if you are unreasonable, you're most likely on the right. Most reasonable people are clustered with the left. And a minority of unreasonable people are also on the left, with another minority of reasonable people clustered on the right.
I don't think it's fair to generalize 330 million people like this.
Certainly it feels like there are more reality-denying theories peddled by right wing media, but that could be for a variety of reasons, not limited to:
1. Right wing media is louder in their publicizing of these issues
2. Your media sources are more liberal and you view right wing media outlets as "unreasonable"
I am not American, but I have American friends. You cannot generalize political beliefs into who is reasonable or unreasonable in all their beliefs. Politics is a spectrum, and right now in America you have the loudest people screaming from the extreme right and (IMHO) the centre left. If you identify as more liberal, you're far more inclined to view this coverage as "reasonable" compared to more right leaning coverage.
> Effectively, the right averages to be unreasonable, and the left to be reasonable. I find the media reflect that quite well.
No, this is the current media situation in America. In other countries this kind of propaganda from both sides of the political spectrum is not as prominent, and it's far easier to have a rational and reasonable debate about political issues.
You can draw your own conclusions about America, but please do not come away with the impression that all right-leaning people are unreasonable. It's a big world, and this most certainly is not the case in other countries.
I'd argue it's also not the case in America. American media has just been hijacked by the most loud, extreme group of people (from both sides) because the executives have figured out this style of coverage earns more money.
From an outside view, American news media has basically turned into The Jerry Springer Show. It's trashy and devoid of almost any meaningful content, but people watch it to be entertained.
Re: Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The truth is, there's actually a huge amount of centrist in the USA. Those centrists are reasonable people. They'll hear you out, think, analyze and make up their mind. They'll accept compromise, and they'll try hard to see if maybe there's truth to consider, even if most things said appears exaggerated, or ridiculous. And then there's unreasonable people. They don't want to think, or consider options. In the USA, if…
> if you are unreasonable, you're most likely on the right. Most reasonable people are clustered with the left.
I hope you realize there's nothing reasonable about this statement. IMO, most times when the right has been considered to be unreasonable, so to speak, it has been a response to the left taking things too far. And yes, this includes WWII; there is no Hitler without communism.
This is not to validate nor justify any extremists' actions but rather to illustrate that even when you are supposedly trying to appear centrist, you really aren't and what's worse is that you don't realize it. When this type of thing happens, you end up with bad outcomes. If you're going to be reasonable, also realize you're biased as I am (rightist).