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Anatomy of a Moral Panic

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Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#71

Post by ux-app »

Cleisthenes wrote: post #59
treehau5 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You live in a democracy > People pretending they are morally superior or lead better lives through ignorance never cease to amaze me. First of all, we don't have a direct democracy. This concept that everyone has to be 100% engaged (or even 90, or 80, or whatever subjective figure in your head that qualifies good enough is, which is another issue, your concept of being engaged enough doesn't match another) need not…

We live in a democracy is a completely and fully accurate statement. Being pedantic that it's not a direct democracy may be accurate but doesn't invalidate the statement. A representational democracy or a republic is a democracy. Additionally, many states have several elements of direct democracy. For instance many states have direct referendums. As to your second point, I will concede the first person did not claim…

>But reading a few headlines and articles once a week isn't going break anyone.

Mightn't this be a worst of both worlds scenario? If you totally ignore politics and abstain then you have a neutral impact. If you only "read a few headlines" as you suggest, and base your actions off those then you're highly susceptible to fake news and easy manipulation (while having a false sense of satisfaction for "participating").

What follows is that, only those who steep themselves in the minutia of each issue should have strong opinions, which actually seems about right.

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#72

Post by lovich »

Cleisthenes wrote: post #59
treehau5 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You live in a democracy > People pretending they are morally superior or lead better lives through ignorance never cease to amaze me. First of all, we don't have a direct democracy. This concept that everyone has to be 100% engaged (or even 90, or 80, or whatever subjective figure in your head that qualifies good enough is, which is another issue, your concept of being engaged enough doesn't match another) need not…

We live in a democracy is a completely and fully accurate statement. Being pedantic that it's not a direct democracy may be accurate but doesn't invalidate the statement. A representational democracy or a republic is a democracy. Additionally, many states have several elements of direct democracy. For instance many states have direct referendums. As to your second point, I will concede the first person did not claim…

I'd argue that we're more an oligarchy than a democracy. Yea we technically allow for a democracy but the reality is that someone with good ideas and no money is going to lose vs someone with bad ideas but a lot of money.

Especially with our first past the post voting system and the two parties ignoring the plebs whenever they decide on a candidate, ala the DNC pushing Hilary over Bernie. Trump getting picked when the Republican establishment didny want was probably the most democratic part of the previous election, but it wouldn't have happened if he was not independently wealthy

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#73

Post by mikestew »

katastic wrote: post #48

Interesting how >80% of the commenters are defending panics, or attacking the website or author itself instead of actually debating the findings.

What's to debate? There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why product grouping was observed, and that explanation is far more plausible than imagining terrorists are ordering supplies from Amazon. Something something Occam. All we're left with is what you've observed.

Or did I completely miss the point you're trying to make?

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#74

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

Typhon wrote: post #31
Cleisthenes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was your lesson from this? Stick your head in the ground and pretend politics is pointless? Ignorance of politics is a luxury afforded only to citizens of authoritarian regimes. You live in a democracy (assuming that discussion of Trump in politics means you live in the US). Politics is how society chooses to make and use government. People pretending they are morally superior or lead better lives through ignora…

You can pay attention to politics, you can do politics without necessarily following obsessively every little happenstance of things. Once you know some politician is a racist crook, you don't need a reminder every day. You especially don't need a remind from people who will give the same amount of space to the president's crooked necktie or and to the healthcare reform. What you mostly need is coordination to fight…

>The american media were bad before Trump, and they have remained bad as far as I can tell. They completely fail to disentangle the serious from the merely ridiculous.

The issue here is, you paint too broad a brush saying this.

I don't want this to seem like I am aiming this at you necessarily, because I am more just piggy backing a comment to write about rather than aiming this at you so take the rest of the comment with that in mind.. but..

You can follow particular journalists that have a high reputation, and disregard ones that have a bad reputation without disavowing all journalists and the media in general.

Similarly, you can treat bias in journalism the same way you treat a review - you know what journalists see things particular ways and therefore view their slant on things as a bent on an already established world view. Some journalists are so unbiased that you can almost ignore this. Some journalists are so biased you can use them as the canary in the coal mine for how a segment of a population is likely to view the issue etc etc.

There are majority mediocre people in every profession, media is an industry that has picked up a huge proportion of hacks and automated articles in the past 10 years, instead of viewing it as an overall industry - look for the good ones and the interesting ones, not just "all media bad".

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#75

Post by ekimekim »

Laforet wrote: post #58

I might be wrong about this, but I think thermite is used more often as a simple welding method. Railroad workers doing track maintainence routinely use thermite to repair damaged sections. https://youtu.be/5uxsFglz2ig

True, but I suspect they wouldn't be buying it on Amazon. The retail market means you need to look at hobbyist uses, not industrial.

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#76

Post by e9 »

spaceseaman wrote: post #41
sugarpile wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones that affect me directly.

If you truly think that the repeal of ACA won't affect you directly, I suppose there's nothing anyone can do to convince you that the news does matter.

Please explain. I honestly have no idea how repeal of ACA will affect me.

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#77

Post by gcb0 »

the talk missing here: accountability.

reporters can screw up. like everyone else. heck in the IT security industry we have a mantra that you should not punish mistakes, because over time that makes people more prone to hide mistakes instead of disclosing.

why isn't journalism the same? in the past they would publish erratas and mea culpas.

now, they get the clicks, ad revenue, and on to the next "mistake".

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#78

Post by anigbrowl »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #42

The real story in this mess is not the threat that algorithms pose to Amazon shoppers, but the threat that algorithms pose to journalism. By forcing reporters to optimize every story for clicks, ... Because newspapers never did this kind of sloppy reporting before the interweb thingy.

I too was perplexed by that. Moral panics are the stock-in-trade of the sensationalist press, so blaming algorithms for speeding up what was already wrong with the media is kinda ridiculous. The basic problem is that there is a lot of money to be made by telling dramatic-sounding lies to people who want their worldview corroborated. News is a pretty competitive market, so it's not very surprising that the quality of news tends towards a lowest common denominator.

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#79

Post by spaceseaman »

e9 wrote: post #76
spaceseaman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you truly think that the repeal of ACA won't affect you directly, I suppose there's nothing anyone can do to convince you that the news does matter.

Please explain. I honestly have no idea how repeal of ACA will affect me.

...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+will+the+ahca+affect+me

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/here-is-how-the-american-health...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/12/us/politics/r...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-health-care-bill-would-affe...

All that is a bit dated, since the current bill hasn't actually had time to be evaluated. Here's an article

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-obamacare-101-grah...

Oh and if researching this is too hard for you too:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=How+would+graham-cassidy+repeal+affect+...

The most obvious things being you wouldn't have to worry about the individual mandate, but you would have to worry if you currently have a pre-existing condition (which is pretty damn common).

Do people seriously have such little ability to research things anymore?

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