Fear is America’s top-selling consumer product • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by 0xfeba » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #137

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…

> it's screamed at me, dripping in panic: "Trump DID A THING!!!" "Cops Shoot a Guy AGAIN WHY DID THEY DO THAT?!!" No joke. Someone a while back asked here, where are all the leftist conspiracy theories? We know the right wing ones - the contrails, lizard people, Obama is a secret Muslim etc. How come the left doesn't have any? And my idea was that in a bubble environment where all the news is filtered through narrow…

Typically left/liberal pseudo-science/beliefs/extreme views:

* Anti-Nuclear

* Anti-GMO

* Anti-Pharmaceutical industry

* Anti-Vaccine

* Anti-Car

* Anti-capitalism/big business

* Overly pro-immigrant

* Overly pro-organic

* Dr. Oz/Homeopathic medicine/"holistic" medicine

Not all of those are necessarily bad (to me, anyway), but I see extreme views espoused about all of them all the time.

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

#312

Post by ben_w » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 4:10 PM UTC

Hasknewbie wrote: post #192

ben_w wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a similar situation in the UK, however in my case it's mocking Trump and being outraged about Brexit (other than the BBC, Brexit outrage/derision is omnipresent regardless of if the news site or story author is pro or anti). Unfortunately, I can't look to local news, because that's either "goose removed from river Cam after attacking cyclist" or "parking in car park now more expensive than fine for parking ill…

If both pro- and anti-Brexit are outraged, this should be a pretty clear indicator that it's not bias or manufactured editorializing. "Leaving the EU" is a valid political worldview/goal, whether you agree with it or not, however the specific "implementation" known as Brexit has proven to be a scam, because it's not an implementation at all: politicians manipulated and lied their way to victory, and once the referend…

Sadly, the Brexit outrange is different on each side: the Remain outrage is at perceived incompetence by the UK government, while the Leave outrage was directed first at Remainers and now at the EU.

Given the tone of discourse, I am increasingly concerned about the possibility of a literal civil war in the UK — although not sufficiently concerned to think it unavoidable at this stage.

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

#313

Post by axaxs » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #240

axaxs wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They exist, and you don't know it. Just as a middle easterner who wants death to gay people, a gay christian fundamentalist, and a black kkk member. Yes, I jest. Sorta. That's what I love about HN, typically. It has a very diverse community that typically leaves religion and politics at the door. And even if we all met, we may kill each other, we get along here in the sake of tech and interesting sciences.

> It has a very diverse community that typically leaves religion and politics at the door. The fact that it leaves religion at the door means it's not as inclusive as it thinks it is. Just because a discussion contains a religious component doesn't mean it's argumentative or something. > ...we get along here in the sake of tech and interesting sciences. Honestly, the earnest religious are a minority in this kind of c…

I don't agree completely. Being inclusive doesn't require or include tolerance and catering to identity politics. If the site became that way, I'd leave in a heartbeat. In fact, if I know your sexual preference, religion, or political slant here - I already know more than I want to know about you, even if they align with me. And I mean here, on HN, not in real life relations of course.

There are many religious people here. I won't name names, though I do remember them. Mostly proud Christians, as identified by their bios and or websites.

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

#314

Post by tgb » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

0xfeba wrote: post #306

tgb wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conspiracy theories on the left are prevalent. Anti-vaccination is the obvious one. There's plenty about GMOs and Monsanto. I had a health teacher in highschool who gave us an alternative "food pyramid" the only justification of why it was better being that it had been rejected by congress while the other one was accepted. She was obviously left-leaning and is where I'm getting most of these ideas. Anti nuclear power…

Well, the old food pyramid was basically a 'agriculture lobby pyramid': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition)#Contr... It was hardly science-based.

I agree with you that it wasn't great, but the idea that congress's approval is automatically s seal that something is incorrect would, I think, fall under the category of conspiracy theories. She had no interest in addressing the merits of either food pyramid. (Actually I think it was less of "congress approved this therefore it's bad" and more of "a little guy fighting against the establishment got beaten with his alternative so therefore it's good.")

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

#315

Post by pdubbs90 » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #209

pdubbs90 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the BBC and the Economist good for this reason. They are/seem a lot less biased than U.S. stuff through some combination of higher standards and that they'd rather manipulate the emotions of Europeans than Americans (and I am an American).

A lot of the bias is in the eye of the beholder, whoever is in government in the UK will complain about the BBC's bias.

This is why I said "seem." Everything has some bias, but I think foreign publications usually have a less-relevant-to-me bias, which is about as close to unbiased as I can get.

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

#316

Post by Brendinooo » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

mrkrabo wrote: post #265

YCode wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reddit is a lost cause I'd agree only with the default front page/subreddits. There are still a plethora of smaller community subs in Reddit that are thriving and useful. Unfortunately it takes a lot of informed curating to know which subs to ditch.

The "smaller community subs are great" meme doesn't work here. All subs about politics are rubbish.

/r/neutralpolitics isn't bad. Even if neutrality isn't 100% possible (framing of questions/debate can be bias in and of itself), the rules of the sub tend to provide a nice platform for discussing different worldviews.

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

#317

Post by aaronbrethorst » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:22 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #308

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Yeah, I'm a huckster. But I'm the best, and now I'm going to be a huckster for you. ' That is, as best as I can tell, the core of it. That and: - Clinton took the midwestern 'blue firewall' for granted - Russia - Comey - Sexism - Voter suppression, especially amongst African-Americans - Really wrong candidate for a strongly populism-tinged election cycle 120,000 votes total across three states would've flipped the e…

Just a minor correction to that last point: Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by a total of just under 80,000 votes. That means that only 40,000 votes flipping could have changed the outcome, if they had flipped in the right places. Of course, this is nothing compared to 2000, where the number was a mere 269.

Whoops, my bad. You're absolutely right.

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

#318

Post by slice_of_life » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

justin66 wrote: post #289

slice_of_life wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped watching CNN as well because the bias was all too blatant and here I was all these years thinking that it was unbiased or at least tried to be balanced. Marc Andreessen (whom I consider one of the smartest people I like to learn from) touches on this media issue here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZhBVBBBNs0 Even Marc is deeply conflicted when it comes to this particular issue. I think Marc is a partially…

> Marc is a partially closeted rightist Closeted?

Ambiguous. Please let me know what's not clear and I'll respond.

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

#319

Post by jefurii » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

tertius wrote: post #52

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…

The No Agenda show analyses (twice weekly) exactly what you're talking about and compares many sources. They deconstruct the media. They frequently also use European (France 24 and Deutsche Welle) and Asian (like CCTV) to contrast the news in the U.S. They also include RT and compare. http://www.noagendashow.com/

I'm immediately suspicious of someone who tells me they have no agenda.

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

#320

Post by curiousess » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

Kroniker wrote: post #266

bobbygoodlatte wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While entertaining, No Agenda is far too conspiracy-theory laden to be taken seriously. They frequently talk about "chemtrails" and mock scientists who believe in climate change. Not too far off from Alex Jones.

I can see how a new listener might be thrown off, but they really aren't conspiracy nuts. Yes, they frequently joke about chemtrails, but it is within a context of a joke, or as a punchline. Yes, they mock scientists that advocate for global climate change- not because of the actual phenomena, but because of the low quality of the papers that promote it, the corrupt method by which grants are only given to those that…

> When people were freaking out about "Russia hacking the DNC", they scoured the news and put all the evidence on the table, which turns out there wasn't much.

Why would this be surprising for a covert operation? Does this make the story a fabrication?

A "debunking" style of news is interesting provided it's not the only mode of reporting. But if you are always looking for holes in the story, you may miss out on what's actually there.