Surprised to find this uses "it's" in ways that we would today is are incorrect. Is this letter just wrong or did which is correct change in the last two centuries?
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
281–290 of 359 posts
Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally view it as a duty. Part of being a citizen in a (kind of) functioning democracy is understanding the nuances of the stuff that is screwed up around you to the best of your ability so that when the time comes to vote or have a meaningful discussion with others around you, you can be a voice of reason. Ignoring the world around them is how so many Americans still think Iraq had something to do with 9/11. I…
>> Ignoring the world around them is how so many Americans still think Iraq had something to do with 9/11. Consider that maybe them ingesting news from the President and other "news sources" are the reason they think this. Not because they are ignoring the world. If they ignored the world around them, they wouldn't have an opinion at all. So in that case, how good is the consumption of information? This is a lot like…
Your larger point is correct.
> people didn't think about if the world was round or not
As someone who once spent 2 hours bored on a boat, I do not find this credible.
Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the protests are 'mostly peaceful' and any violence is due to reactionaries.
I don't think anyone is claiming the protests are 100% peaceful. The question, then, is how much violence occurs relative to total protest activity? If fewer than 50% of protestors engage in violence, wouldn't it then be accurate to describe the protest as 'mostly peaceful'?
What about those that try to escalate things and aren't affiliated with the protests?
Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unschooling/Home-schooling + https://www.sjc.edu/ (if they want to) IMO
Looking at https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/great-bo... , this is definitely a good list of "foundational texts of Western civilization" as they say, but the world is a lot more interconnected than it was in 1696, and this curriculum leaves out most of it. There's nothing wrong with studying one part of the world or one community of ideas as long as you're open about it, but I don't think I would b…
I’ve noticed this to be a common criticism of collections of western thought. It has some validity.
Do you know of any similar lists for eastern thought? I know of some of the big eastern authors but I’d love an equivalently better list of “Great Books” for the eastern tradition.
Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
#285The feeling that it's just completely impossible to know what's going on in the world is really debilitating. I spend probably an hour a day reading headlines from major outlets with a bunch of different political alignments, and to be honest, I don't really know why I even do it. By the end of it, all I really have is a vague silhouette of a picture of what might have happened, according to a handful of corporations…
>> The feeling that it's just completely impossible to know what's going on in the world is really debilitating. Is it? Why? Does it meaningfully change your life to know what's going on everywhere from the mundane to the impactful? Our lives are lived in the present, locally. You interact with people in your community thousands of times more than people you read about thousands of miles away. Be where your feet are.
We live in a democracy. If you vote, I hope you feel a responsibility to only vote on what you think you're reasonably informed about. It's really hard to do. I'm in California (SF), where we have a zillion things on the ballot. Half the time, it's something that sounds obviously good, but on doing research there are probably terrible unintended consequences (like so much of the news). Or look at voting Biden vs Trump. They, and papers on their respective sides of the divide will tell you entirely different things about what reality is and what's going wrong. I have to learn about what's happening beyond me to decide. If we get medicare for all, will it mean horrible wait times or death panels or will it turn us into a Narnian Scandanavian utopia? The firmer a grip we collectively have on how the world works and what's happening, the better the results of our democracy, directly affecting us.
And there's more than just us. Take BLM, or the conditions of sweatshop workers who made my shoes, or the kinds of people trying to immigrate. Should I vote for changes to policing or for crackdowns on rioters? Should I buy someone else's brand of shoes or is fair trade just to make ignorant hippies feel good? Should I help innocent people escape terrible conditions, or are they largely violent criminals to be kept out? It won't affect me either way, but that's a cop out anyways.
> Be where your feet are.
I prefer "think globally, act locally."
Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
#286The feeling that it's just completely impossible to know what's going on in the world is really debilitating. I spend probably an hour a day reading headlines from major outlets with a bunch of different political alignments, and to be honest, I don't really know why I even do it. By the end of it, all I really have is a vague silhouette of a picture of what might have happened, according to a handful of corporations…
I don't think we can know everything by any means, but I've started getting my news from subject matter experts who show their work & give full access to their research vs. the spectacle of corporate news.
I'll still skim for anything important, but I'm not even reading what they say, I'm looking for actual sources. Outlets that don't bother to give any sources are generally not worth reading.
Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
#287[deleted]
Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> The feeling that it's just completely impossible to know what's going on in the world is really debilitating. Is it? Why? Does it meaningfully change your life to know what's going on everywhere from the mundane to the impactful? Our lives are lived in the present, locally. You interact with people in your community thousands of times more than people you read about thousands of miles away. Be where your feet are.
I personally view it as a duty. Part of being a citizen in a (kind of) functioning democracy is understanding the nuances of the stuff that is screwed up around you to the best of your ability so that when the time comes to vote or have a meaningful discussion with others around you, you can be a voice of reason. Ignoring the world around them is how so many Americans still think Iraq had something to do with 9/11. I…
But you still don’t know what’s going on in the world. You just know slightly more superficial coverage of the topics du jour that NYTimes, WaPo, etc care to push.
It’s worse to read the news and think yourself informed than to be ignorant and know it.
Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
#289The feeling that it's just completely impossible to know what's going on in the world is really debilitating. I spend probably an hour a day reading headlines from major outlets with a bunch of different political alignments, and to be honest, I don't really know why I even do it. By the end of it, all I really have is a vague silhouette of a picture of what might have happened, according to a handful of corporations…
> The factual raw material can even be done away with sometimes as evidenced by how much of the news is just media reporting on itself (often centering on Twitter!).
For a concrete example of that, Deadspin in 2013 spelled out how ESPN created its own narrative to report on: https://deadspin.com/how-espn-manufactures-a-story-colin-kae...
Re: Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper (1807)
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Decentralization is better termed "de-professionalization." The institutions which used to, at the very least, dedicate serious resources to going out into the world and gathering facts no longer function properly or just don't exist. But now the people they were gathering the facts from are connected to the internet. Local newspapers often had a police blotter publishing the police reports in the locality. Now you…
This is why I'm convinced independent journalists are the future. Fact finding itself is a shrinking part of the job. Fact checking the monunental amount of data out there is increasingly important. As such, the need for these megacorp publishers is going away. Edit: Just look at the BLM movement. Lots of people believe these are peaceful civil disobedience and lots of people believe they're communist race riots. Rig…
When there's enough conflicting information out there, fact checking just turns back into fact finding, doesn't it?