121–130 of 279 posts
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Truly dark times when we can't even trust the CIA anymore.
The CIA was formed in 1947 and the first known controversy was in 1953. And has a whole list of controversies since then. From giving citizens LSD, wiretapping citizens, to supporting Central American cocaine distribution. And this is where you draw the line on trustworthiness? Lol
As an example in recent memory: the World Factbook has been heavily cited lately to argue against the idea of a genocide in Gaza. Maybe a year or so ago, the Factbook was updated, and it claimed that the population in Gaza had grown: no decrease, no inflection point in growth, nothing to see... That claim was in heavy rotation, as soon as it was published.
That the espionage agency of the main weapons supplier to Israel would publish such a claim felt grotesque, and the claim itself seemed ridiculous, impossible, based on even evidenced peripheral information (the 90+% of people displaced, the destruction of all hospitals, the deaths of so many aid workers, the levels of starvation), but... the Factbook claimed it, so it became true to many.
It would be impossible to quantify the effect of this, how many days of horror it added, how many more debates those trying to stop the killing had to do, how much fewer donations were sent to aid workers. But an effect it certainly had.
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> Wikipedia There is nothing wrong with Wikipedia, at least in the main languages. It's crowdsourced and has citations (and where there aren't "citation needed" help identify that). It gives you superficial, in depth and factual information, with links to sources for more details if needed.
There's nothing at all wrong with Wikipedia but it needs sources to cite since it doesn't allow original research and the World Factbook is an important one.
Well, except for the very obvious political bias
https://manhattan.institute/article/new-study-finds-politica...
Unfortunate. So many essays that I wrote in school cited The World Facebook as a source. I'm worried that the death of these easily accessible sources will push more and more pupils into relying on Wikipedia or even worse: AI. Being critical of what you see online and finding facts yourself is crucial to digital literacy.
What's a good resource now for "Do I need K&R insurance?"
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Wikipedia is actually the secondary source when someone reads a page on it, and it requires primary sources (like factbooks) to cite to exist.
Wikipedia does not allow primary sources.
That’s why I used to like Quora - you would often see an answer provided by the primary (and only definitive) source for questions.
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There's nothing at all wrong with Wikipedia but it needs sources to cite since it doesn't allow original research and the World Factbook is an important one.
>There's nothing at all wrong with Wikipedia Well, except for the very obvious political bias https://manhattan.institute/article/new-study-finds-politica...
Is that a bias or just reality?
Right leaning politicians in the US include people paying underage girls for sex, people screaming about "Jewish Space lasers", people obviously stealing money in plain sight with crypto pumps and dumps, people running away from responsibility, people getting caught engaging in sexual acts in public, and on and on and on. Their left-wing equivalents are... extremely mild by comparison. What, some run of the mill corruption and sexual comments that resulted in resignations?
If go past "right wing is associated with more negative things", and look into what those negative things are, you'd realise it's just reality. Just because there are two parties and two categories of political leanings doesn't mean they are somehow equal.
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In International Relations, my #1 or #2 hobby, credibility does not refer to soft power. (my number 1 hobby is philosophy)
Credibility is the core currency of soft power, whether one views its ultimate goal as manufacturing consent or fostering genuine cultural attraction. Without that perceived reliability, the indicator "soft" loses it's meaning.
Not sure its worth dissecting this, but there is a lot of grey area in your claim of the meaning of Credibility. (Credibility and cultural attraction? Pretty sure these have little correlation. Dictators can make creditable threats.) Further, its a debatable claim that there is a 'core currency' of soft power.
As a contextualist, I am not going to die on this hill for your personal meaning of Credibility. But I can attest that your conviction in your claim is stronger than any International Relations Realist practitioner would make.