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How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

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Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#111

Post by rosser »

smokeyj wrote: post #108
rosser wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't read "give until it hurts" in "give over and over myriad petty, unsexy ways". That's your own bias creeping in, I think.

No, I just think it's paradoxical to free your mind of fixation only to fixate on something else (relentlessly helping others). I don't think being happy, or contributing to society requires a fixation on giving - or for it to be uncomfortable. Bill Gates seems to be a pretty generous dude, but I don't think he makes being Jesus-like his identity. So in a certain sense, I think working smarter not harder is a healthi…

Where do trying to be "Jesus-like", relentlessness, or replacing one fixation with another come into it? That's the bias I'm talking about; you're making a leap from one extreme to another that's unsupported by anything in the discussion, or the referenced text.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#112

Post by fireflash38 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #87
jameskilton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are at their core emotional creatures. You don't get engagement with logic and facts. Instead you go after emotional stories. It takes immense mental effort to see through these stories and to hold back the immediate emotional responses. Many people have no clue that they are being manipulated in this way.

I came to the US in 2000. At first I found the constant excitement in TV news interesting but after two or three years I noticed that I couldn't handle it anymore. It just wasn't comfortable for me. Is it maybe that most people have checked out too and only a small but loud minority is addicted to all the nonsense? On Facebook it seems it's only a few people that constantly post web links or engage in flame wars. Mos…

Just because they are quiet doesn't mean they aren't impacted.

I know someone who only ever posts about gardening, and yet I know for a fact she reads almost everything people post. Her husband on the other hand is constantly posting and commenting on far-right posts. They are still influenced the same way, they just express it differently.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#113

Post by brianzelip »

karllager wrote: post #80

As a kid, I grew up in a country with almost no advertising. Repeat after me: No ads in the streets, in the TV, in the radio, nowhere. One day we found a magazine (from another country), which contained ads. Two people smoking cigarettes in a strangely alien world, some kind of jungle - or a safari, maybe. This image was so strange in many ways: Why is it there in a magazine, that was about something completely diffe…

Reminds me of how refreshing it was to not see any ads while traveling in Cuba almost 20 years ago.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#114

Post by moduspol »

matt4077 wrote: post #68
laretluval wrote: post #10

The narrative that information distribution was more accurate in the past because of "traditional journalism" has always struck me as self-serving. > Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda — has become the biggest casualty in this algorithmic war for our attention. Is the best solution really to fight propaganda by leaving our information distribution to a selected elite that we have to trust to follow som…

> Is there a trustless way to implement journalistic standards such as sourcing? No, there isn't. But people really misunderstand how journalists deal with sources. Here's a recent compilation of behind-the-scenes stories from journalists, that also happens to better communicate the actual work they do than I've seen before: https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/scoops-fahrenthold-greg... In short, an "anonymous sourc…

> But the only story that was provably wrong was the Scaramucci-Malta story by CNN.

There were at least a few others [1].

And those don't include the legitimizing of the Steele Dossier, which was a few levels separated from an "anonymously-sourced story," but hardly the paragon of journalistic standards.

And that doesn't take into account Comey's testimony, where he claimed that often the people talking about these things to reporters don't know what's going on [2].

I think people concerned with journalistic standards since the election aren't totally off-base.

[1] https://www.circa.com/story/2017/05/12/what-a-breathless-med... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/6g53av/jam...

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#115

Post by amelius »

hprotagonist wrote: post #9

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kin…

The most evident and problematic might be the worship of youth though. I'm curious if cultures in which the elderly are more respected and admired, are generally also happier.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#116

Post by ShabbosGoy »

maxxxxx wrote: post #87
jameskilton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are at their core emotional creatures. You don't get engagement with logic and facts. Instead you go after emotional stories. It takes immense mental effort to see through these stories and to hold back the immediate emotional responses. Many people have no clue that they are being manipulated in this way.

I came to the US in 2000. At first I found the constant excitement in TV news interesting but after two or three years I noticed that I couldn't handle it anymore. It just wasn't comfortable for me. Is it maybe that most people have checked out too and only a small but loud minority is addicted to all the nonsense? On Facebook it seems it's only a few people that constantly post web links or engage in flame wars. Mos…

> Most people I know are very quiet.

That's by design and intentional. Anything you say online can be used to convict you in some obscure court of public opinion where your viewpoint didn't align with the mainstream viewpoint.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#117

Post by thebokehwokeh2 »

awkwarddaturtle wrote: post #94
anotherbrownguy wrote: post #46

>Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda "The good old days", except that never existed. Journalism has always been the tool for the powerful to paint a positive picture of themselves to the general public via "unbiased agents" called journalists who are "free to write anything" as long as it serves their masters. Now that almost anyone can publish their opinion and share it with everyone, the ones who have…

> >Journalism — the historical counter to propaganda Wow. Then they need a lesson in the history of journalism. They might want to read up on hearst and pulitzer and the founding of modern american journalism. > "The good old days", except that never existed. Journalism has always been the tool for the powerful to paint a positive picture of themselves to the general public via "unbiased agents" called journalists wh…

> foxnews and the nytimes are just propagandists like any other

This is a textbook example of the lazy, uneducated thinking that causes fear and outrage. Lazy lazy lazy false equivalence. To say that "they're all the same" is absolutely not the case and nor will it ever be. The sooner people become more discerning of the information that they consume, the better off we all will be.

There is an extremely large gulf in the baseline quality of reporting between those two outlets. If you cannot discern that, then you are too far gone.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#118

Post by Fezzik »

xutopia wrote: post #96
hprotagonist wrote: post #9

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kin…

Which book, article or letter is this from?

The essay originated/followed from his Kenyon Commencement Speech. It is well worth listening to, I think.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#119

Post by dmckeon »

gmarx wrote: post #37

I noticed his violent crime graph stopped around 2013. Convenient. Yes violent crime is down by the standards of the previous 50 years but I'm pretty sure it has been inching back up over the previous two, at least in cities. Nothing to panic about yet but also nothing to be dismissive about. Also, though I too long for the old days of journalistic standards, let us a remember one of the side effects what creating th…

Regarding the graph of perception, it shows "% saying there is more crime in the US than a year ago." That's more like an estimate of slope than an estimate of number of crimes.

Also, if you drill down to the Pew image, and count years/tick marks, the year perception turned from downward to upward was 2001, which I believe is not a mere coincidence.

Increasing awareness of more distant crimes through social networks and the aging of the baby boomer generation may also contribute to the increased perception of growth.

Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit

#120

Post by sqeaky »

dageshi wrote: post #75
sqeaky wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long until a critical mass of people forms to allow some more useful form of news to gain economic momentum? Will it ever happen? If not will the economic repercussions leave us with a decent world or some kind of dystopia?

I don't think they will, they'll turn off the news completely and follow "news" about other stuff instead. Sports, video games, hobbies, they'll ignore current events and politics or anything else they might find anxiety inducing. That's what I do anyway, I'm much happier for it.

I suppose it is possible that a critical mass of people will give up. That seems unlikely to me, too many care for better or worse. The people that care will either remain poorly informed for gradually get more informed and by our electing of Trump it seems quite likely misinformed with reign for some time. (I am not trying to politicize this, but trump got huge help from crazy news sources like breitbart)
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