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Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

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Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#331

Post by xmprt »

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #246
karaterobot wrote: post #196

I wonder why the FCC's fairness doctrine is rarely brought up in articles like this. They used to enforce certain standards whereby news being broadcast on the public airwaves had to be both relevant to the public interest, and presented without overt bias. Then, under Reagan, they just stopped doing that, and to me that's when an already imperfect news industry started to really go off the rails. It sounds hopelessl…

I would be in favor of reclaiming some words like "News" with regulatory controls. Just like the FDA doesn't allow someone to label their product as "Organic" without meeting certain standards, I would argue that we should enforce some basic standards in order to label yourself as "News" or "Media Organization." It would be a slippery slope to navigate with the first amendment and the internet but there is a large gr…

This seems like the best approach. No doubt people will continue to kick and scream about their first amendment rights being infringed upon but as long as they're not actually banned from talking it seems perfectly constitutional.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#332

Post by [deleted] »

ggggtez wrote: post #87

The problem of course is that not every issue needs a "both sides" treatment. Sometimes there are questions of objective facts that reading lies from alternative sources do not actually help you in understanding the truth of the world. The person who desperately tries to cite "50/50" liberal and conservative sources in the article is the worst kind of fence sitter. Sometimes, one side or the other is just wrong, or t…

[deleted]

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#333

Post by _-david-_ »

enraged_camel wrote: post #81
api wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing a lot of people miss is that there is a profit motive here. You can make money, sometimes a lot of money, by building a huge social media following being a political outrage merchant. You can find examples of people doing this on all sides, especially at the extremes where outrage and other powerful negative emotions can most easily be stirred up. All the outrage over "cancel culture" is not about censorshi…

Yep. Look at it this way: the same Republicans who whine about cancel culture went ahead and stripped one of their own, Liz Cheney, of her committee positions merely for the crime of daring to oppose Trump. That should tell you all you need to know about their hypocrisy. edit: I guess I hit a nerve, lol

Liz Cheney was in party leadership. She was unable to lead since she couldn't stop attacking her own party members. That is no different than firing somebody for failing to do their job which nobody would consider the same thing as canceling.

Trying to end a career of people because they donated to some politician or said some inappropriate years ago (that very often was accepted back then) is completely different.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#334

Post by sudosysgen »

crazygringo wrote: post #111
vsskanth wrote: post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

I highly recommend the Economist . Their articles mostly follow a dialectical format -- thesis, antithesis, synthesis, with about a third of the article spent on each one. I don't know of any other publication whose house style is so rigorous in this. It's also highly editorialized, but very open and transparent about the positions it takes -- any bias they have is in the open, but is in the final synthesis after the…

I don't recommend using the Economist as your only source for international news. It's very deeply ideological in a way that is almost invisible if you can't easily compare it to a known truth.

It's certainly not only interested in solutions that can be implemented. It's interested in solutions that enforce the free market, and it paints non-market solutions as infeasible, even though they often work and are implementable. But this is invisible ideology and very easy to mistake for pragmatism, because a pure pragmatist will certainly appreciate many market solutions.

The final synthesis is not after having treated both sides. It's after having treated two sides, which are editorially chosen.

As far as dialectics it would be much more interesting if they could dialectically analyze their own internal contradictions between democracy and interventionist realpolitik, or between free-market fundamentalism and concern about externalities. But it doesn't really grapple with those, which is a sign that it's only applying dialectical thinking in convenient ways.

In any case, the Economist is not any worse than any other mainstream publication. Often they do pretty good reporting. But you absolutely must not rely on it solely especially for foreign reporting where you don't have bearings.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#335

Post by slumdev »

antiterra wrote: post #184
slumdev wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a gay bar in New York City wasn't illegal in 1969. The Stonewall Inn was effectively a brothel with mafia protection, not a gay version of Cheers.

Homosexual behavior was branded disorderly conduct and liquor licenses were revoked as a consequence. So yes, it was effectively illegal if you didn’t bribe the cops. People were arrested because the police didn’t consider their genitals to match their clothes. Drug deals and transactions for sex occurred at Stonewall just as they have occurred on Discord, but I’ve not seen any credible evidence that it was a primary…

You didn't like my comment, so you went through my post history?

Recasting criminals as innocent angels is a disinformation tactic. You don't get to accuse people of laziness when they correct the record.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#336

Post by UncleOxidant »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #324
UncleOxidant wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no end to conspiracy theories. Why should I be obligated to delve into other people's psychosis? I'm not a psychiatrist. There are many more constructive things to spend time on.

When such ideas become mainstream enough to start influencing politics, it would be a good idea to try to understand why those ideas have taken root and grown to that level of influence. Even when such ideas are batshit insane, they are almost always indicative of some severe underlying issue. If that issue isn't addressed, then such ideas keep growing and growing and could eventually lead to disaster. That Q Anon an…

As I said in another part of the thread: For many of these conspiracy theories the 'understanding' part should probably be more along the lines of epistemic forensics - "What kind of misinformation got them to this point?"

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#337

Post by throwaway0a5e »

creato wrote: post #72
rhino369 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure if its true since most media will barely engage with the issue. But Fauci appeared concerned that Covid-19 could potentially be the result of a gain-of-function research that artificially evolved another COVID strain to increase its effectiveness at spreading. If true, COVID-19 is the biggest scientific fuck up of all time. Fauci had allegedly pushed to resume funding that sort of research. Instead,…

This should be trivially easy for proponents of that theory to prove it if that is in his emails. Just link to an un-edited, full context email thread relevant to that topic. So does this exist? If so, just share that link. If not, stop pretending that "media bias" is an excuse to continue sharing the claim surrounded by unfounded conspiracy thinking.

> full context email thread

Nobody who is dumb enough to let such a thing come into existence in the first place winds up with a career arc that takes them through a position of substantial authority at the federal level.

Politicians may be evil but they're not dumb.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#338

Post by Turing_Machine »

munificent wrote: post #277
apocolyps6 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your Muslim friends celebrate Christmas? Do your Jewish friends? Most non-religious americans are something like Christian Atheists. They don't believe in a god, but their worldview, ethics, and cultural norms are still originating in Christianity.

> Most non-religious americans are something like Christian Atheists. They don't believe in a god, but their worldview, ethics, and cultural norms are still originating in Christianity. I like latkes and challah, but that doesn't make me Jewish. All groups influence culture and culture influences all individuals. But simply having adopted a piece of culture that came from some group does not make one a member of that…

Right. People in English-speaking countries observe Sun Day, Moon Day, Tiw's Day, Odin's Day, Thor's Day, Freyja's Day, and Saturn's Day every single week.

That doesn't make them Germanic (or Roman) pagans. Ask the average person about Thor and you'll probably get something based on the comic book character. Ask him about Tiw and you're gonna get a blank look.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#339

Post by takeda »

munificent wrote: post #277
apocolyps6 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your Muslim friends celebrate Christmas? Do your Jewish friends? Most non-religious americans are something like Christian Atheists. They don't believe in a god, but their worldview, ethics, and cultural norms are still originating in Christianity.

> Most non-religious americans are something like Christian Atheists. They don't believe in a god, but their worldview, ethics, and cultural norms are still originating in Christianity. I like latkes and challah, but that doesn't make me Jewish. All groups influence culture and culture influences all individuals. But simply having adopted a piece of culture that came from some group does not make one a member of that…

To add to it, even the Christmas tree doesn't originate from Christianity. It was just adapted from a pagan tradition. The Santa Claus image was created by commercialism. The original saint Claus is celebrating on December 6 (or 7, don't remeber exactly) and that was a priest that anonymously was donating toys to children in orphanages and later was discovered.

Easter Bunny is another commercialisation of a Christian holiday, which has nothing to do with rabbits. It is a day, where Christians celebrate Jesus raising from grave after being crucified.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#340

Post by benzible »

commandlinefan wrote: post #54
benzible wrote: post #42

AllSides buys wholesale into right-wing framing. By what measure is CNN's news coverage on the leftmost side of the spectrum? Is MSNBC really the equivalent of Jacobin or Mother Jones, especially when it devotes 3 hours each morning to center-right Morning Joe? https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings

> By what measure is CNN's news coverage on the leftmost side "The latest Trump scandal shows how much we must still discover about his presidency's assault on democracy" "Trump's DOJ continued to pursue a CNN reporter's records even after a federal judge called the reasoning 'unanchored in any facts'" "A senate report reveals new details about the stunning security breakdowns ahead of the January 6 attack but omits…

This is straightforward reporting. Are CNNs many headlines quoting Trump, Republicans or right-leaning judges examples of right-wing bias? Are news outlets not allow to accurately describe a conspiracy theory as baseless? To do otherwise is to implicitly give credence to it. Reporting is not mindless stenography.
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