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The Onion buys Infowars

nytimes.com

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Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#741

Post by lmm »

data_maan wrote: post #425
andrepd wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is governed by the European Commission, which is not elected. Say what you will about reactionary British conservatives, the fact remains that the EU is not a particularly democratic organisation.

How is that true, if the body that nominates the European Commission _is_ elected?? By the same argument you could say UK or US or any other solidly democratic is not democratic, because some commission or organisation is not directly, by the people, elected. (If you go for the direct election argument, the UK fares pretty badly BTW.)

> By the same argument you could say UK or US or any other solidly democratic is not democratic, because some commission or organisation is not directly, by the people, elected.

It's a matter of degree rather than a binary. Representative democracy is a little less democratic than direct democracy. Elections every 20 years are a bit less democratic than elections every 5 years. Having the elected representatives appoint a head of state is a bit less democratic than electing one directly. The more layers of indirection you add, the more it becomes a bureaucratic oligarchy.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#742

Post by jacknews »

Larrikin wrote: post #273
jacknews wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot quantify it. IMHO emotional damage is not a thing, at least in terms of people merely saying things about you. Have you not heard 'sticks and stones...'? If someone claims false facts about you, and is credible, and that then has a material impact on you, then sure, that might be something for the law. Otherwise we'd be prosecuting every gossip.

Your feelings that it is not a thing have no bearing on the actual law. I'm sure you and Alex Jones both agree, but luckily the victims, the jury, and the law don't.

That is my point, the system is broken and political.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#743

Post by idle_zealot »

akira2501 wrote: post #645
josefresco wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funniest thing would be to keep running the site as-is but swap out the insanity for stuff that reads like insanity but is legit or morally sound. The audience might not notice, and could (IMHO) easily be duped into supporting good causes!

> The audience might not notice, and could (IMHO) easily be duped into supporting good causes! What a deranged fantasy this is and yet how often it shows up. The audience will notice. Those who don't and eventually discover your duplicity will never forgive you for it. What you propose is disgusting and amoral, as it has no value, and is designed to mollify yourself by bulling people you clearly perceive as being ben…

It's amoral (sic) to improve the accuracy of a journalistic publication you've purchased? I'm struggling to find a more charitable way to interpret your statement.

Or is just the usage of the word "duped"? Some people are more interested in sensational rhetoric than more even-keeled reporting. It's unfortunate that they're currently mostly taken advantage of by hucksters. I think the creation of publications genuinely interested in facts but that use more appealing rhetoric is important to preserving journalism as an institution.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#744

Post by savingsPossible »

skulk wrote: post #161
hersko wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Babylon Bee has been a good replacement.

I opened Babylon Bee and all I saw was mockery of already marginalized people. I guess that's funny if you hate them.

I did see two objectionable articles. One about a 'car for woman that crashes' and one about the TGBL+ members of the Biden administration. This out of 10 or 20

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#745

Post by idle_zealot »

TZubiri wrote: post #610
consumer451 wrote: post #18

Tim Onion's (Ben Collins) statement on Bluesky: [0] > Hi everyone. > The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars. > We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website. > We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off. > I can't wait to show you what we have cooked up. Next post: [1] > Does anybody need millions of dollars worth of…

Absolutely poetic. Dude tried a career in journalism. Had a crazy theory that a school shooting was fake. School shooting wasn't fake. Dude doesn't say "I'm sorry, my bad, I'm retiring from journalism", but goes down fighting. Looks good to me.

> Dude tried a career in journalism.

> Had a crazy theory that a school shooting was fake.

This is absolutely not what happened. Jones is a grifter, and was never a journalist. He had no journalistic aspirations, and peddled exclusively in inane conspiracy theories either crafted personally or adopted selectively to inspire a constant state of fear and paranoia in a particular type of vulnerable person while aggressively channeling their anxieties into purchases of his prepper gear and phony health supplement business. This is a rare case of such a fraudster managing to accrue enough ire and attention that legal charges stuck and sunk him for the harm caused by one of his many careless lies. There are many like him who continue on with much the same strategy, some of whom have gained enough power and influence through their actions that they are now effectively untouchable by the legal system.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#746

Post by dmurray »

notahacker wrote: post #352
vidarh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that is not the point. The point is it was a favorite attack point used by Brexit supporters. A whole lot of the accusations against the EU applied just as much - sometimes much more - to the UK itself.

We have people who frothed at the mouth over the role played by unelected bureaucrats now frothing at the mouth at proposals to remove the last hereditary Lords from our legislature... (in fairness, those people tend to hate the Civil Service in the UK too. And they're elected hereditary Lords, albeit via a franchise consisting entirely of other hereditary Lords)

How few people need to vote to appoint someone before they're considered "unelected'"? The 805 Lords? The 538 of the US electoral college? The 121 Cardinals of the Conclave? The 101 of the American Senate? The 27 EU Commissioners?

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#748

Post by Out_of_Characte »

I understand the vitriol against mr jones perfectly. Before his sandy hook saga I was actually somewhat of a fan of his work. I remember hearing an idiotic rant of his complaining that the US government was putting chemicals in the water that turned the frogs gay. But sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. "Researchers have found evidence that even extremely diluted concentrations of drug residues harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/birth-control-in-...

That, and the purposeful addition of fluoride and other additives do put our freshwater at risk of a scandal if we ever undercount or overcount any risk. I wouldn't even put it past 1960's era scientists to have come up with insane grant proposals for asymmetric warfare of freshwater. Hell, who knows what project flies under the radar until its not. These are all things I would expect to read in an onion news article. Alex jones had the same vibe the onion had with their 9/11 coverage and why I think the purchase is both satirical and not at the same time. Satire is heterological in that way.

What I would like to remind the reader of is that alex jones made a big mistake in vilifying the victims. But please do not take that as a pass to do the same to alex jones as he did to his victims. An eye for an eye will make the world blind.

After the coup we will finally have the most trusted source of our news back.

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#749

Post by dmurray »

graemep wrote: post #469
ben_w wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or is this in the UK different? A bit; mostly as you say, but also it's a kingdom and has the House of Lords whose seats are partially heritable, partially religious appointments from the state religion with the monarch at the top, in addition to those appointed by the elected government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Spiritual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Temporal

> partially religious appointments from the state religion There are also, in practice, a number of other religious appointments made to provide other religious groups with representation. > in addition to those appointed by the elected government. Those are the most problematic IMO. Businesspeople (because the rich do not have enough influence on politics and cannot get their voice heard?), and former politicians. I…

> no-one like (for example) Tim Berners-Lee is.

Alexandra Freeman [0] or Lionel Tarassenko [1] might fit your criteria as technocratic appointments to the peerage - just how "like" TBL do they have to be? Sir Timothy seems like the kind of character who could reasonably be appointed, too, if that's what he really wanted.

I agree with your point that it's dominated by businessmen and aristocrats, but maybe not quite as badly as you think.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Freeman,_Baroness_Fr...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Tarassenko

Re: The Onion buys Infowars

#750

Post by agumonkey »

jsheard wrote: post #2

The announcement by America's Finest News Source: https://theonion.com/heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars/ Alex Jones response: https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1857058831135645739

How can Jones respond this way when families are backing that. Does this qualify as insanity or more like bottomless greed ?
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