The worst thing is when things start getting sensored and you get the creeping feeling that the sensored content is the only true content. Then you just go back in your hole, try not to read the news, and cry a lot.
The Bullshit
91–100 of 214 posts
Re: The Bullshit
#92Many things that used to be "the good old way" have changed. Every generation things the upcoming generation is headed for doom. First it was TVs, then it was video games, now it's social media. I understand the sentiment and know it's easy to think that that one time in the past was the best way. Hell I even think about those few years with that group of people were "the best", nostalgia. But if we always look at th…
The past seemed better because we were younger and instead of our current state of the world we could imagine anything we wanted about the future.
Re: The Bullshit
#93This is a good, well-written rant, but rants are a form of bullshitting, aren't they?
I think the author addresses that quite nicely in their signoff.
Re: The Bullshit
#94Yes, of course there's bullshit everywhere. But what can you do with that knowledge exactly? Knowing that something is fallacious and full of BS doesn't give you some advantage. It makes it worse. Knowing that the system is full of lies and corrupt doesn't provide a means to get some good from that knowledge or take advantage of knowing the "truth". It's just depressing to know that the takers will always be taking,…
I could invoke Always Sunny in Philadelphia Frank's duper/dupee dichotomy or Carlin's rant ('it's all bullshit and its bad for ya'), but I won't. It is lazy.
Knowing something is bullshit helps. Knowing the system and understanding what the levers do is an advantage. This is also the reason there is so much bullshit. Advantage goes to those with accurate world model and ability to use it to their advantage.
All that said, I have no real answers to the posited questions as those probably have to be answered individually.
Re: The Bullshit
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
In response to something you didn't actually say - news is a classic example of when a free market may be bad, but all the alternatives people tried were much worse! And on what you did say - total agreement. The news has always been terrible. The internet has brought the cost of broadcasting so low actual honest or expert opinions and can make it out as well as the orthodoxies of people who can afford media companie…
I always thought PBS and NPR were pretty good. What am I missing?
Yeah, not sure what that guy's on about. PBS, NPR, and other not for profit news orgs like BBC aren't perfect, but then what is? If I had to choose a single news source to try to stay informed, I'd take any one of those three over any of their for-profit competition.
Re: The Bullshit
#96The worst thing is when things start getting sensored and you get the creeping feeling that the sensored content is the only true content. Then you just go back in your hole, try not to read the news, and cry a lot.
So I'd guess that your sensored content is probably a take like "masks are bad" or "covid is a hoax". And the reason I'd guess that, is because the word you're looking for is "censored". Is that right?
Re: The Bullshit
#97> What has changed is that the press used to maintain certain boundaries in the relationship, observing the incest taboo. It kept its pants zipped, at least in public. It didn’t hire ex-CIA directors, top FBI men, NSA brass, or other past and future sources to sit beside its anchors at spot-lit news-desks that blocked our view of their lower extremities. But it gave in. Incredibly, this essay about bullshit is bullsh…
You do have an argument, but was it as blatant as it is now? I just saw Clapper today and no one, but weird people like me remember his lies to the American public. In 1977, you could easily miss it, because it was hidden.
Today it is in plain sight.
Re: The Bullshit
#98> but it isn’t the news and it hasn’t been for ages. I have a better idea. The news has always been shit. There's this weird fetish with "freedom of the press" that distorts the fact that news is still a business, run by free market forces, with the same distributions of incompetence and corruption as any free market. It used to be the "nightly news", but we now have a 24/7 always-on consumption culture and news orgs…
In response to something you didn't actually say - news is a classic example of when a free market may be bad, but all the alternatives people tried were much worse! And on what you did say - total agreement. The news has always been terrible. The internet has brought the cost of broadcasting so low actual honest or expert opinions and can make it out as well as the orthodoxies of people who can afford media companie…
Edit: I'm sorry for the lengthy post, but I felt giving rough examples was necessary to convey the point.
It's true that some unofficial quality voices are disrupting established narratives ... but I'm sorry to say this isn't the shift that matters, because 99% of the 'unofficial sources' are considerably worse than just 'bullshit' in the press.
The 'Giant Kraken Monster' of fake news is really shocking, and it's taking over some sectors. I couldn't quite fathom it until I saw it happen to someone in my own life.
While we argue about 'truth' here on HN, information is being submerged by nonsense on mainstreet.
It's not so much war between civil people arguing over the facts - it's more like Information World War Z of people hopped up on very bad, made up information.
I was at a relative's home a few days ago listening as a he was listening to his Facebook stream and it was very shocking.
I'm paraphrasing from memory, but:
"Tanks will Roll, Power Cut, the Great Reset and Trump will be re-instated by Coup on Aug 10 ..."
"I have a source, who cannot be named, because his life would be in danger, that Nanci Pelosi was in direct contact with the Chinese Communist Party on January 6 directing the assault on Capitol Hill"
"Those that stole the election, put them ballot boxes full of fake votes for Biden, they need to be executed for treason, the True Patriots Will Rise"
"It's masks now, folks, but this is the globalist master plan, it's just the first step. This is the reason the second amendment exists, folks"
"Big Pharma does NOT want you to know about natural cures, because, well, why do you think? You are the experiment folks. The Sheep out there doing what the government tells them - but the Lions, the True Patriots, know better."
"Q said:" - and then a bunch insane of statements from QAnon etc.
It's dizzyingly conspiratorial and it's really scary to watch people eat that up. My family member indicated that they don't believe most of it, but that's their primary news source and, it has affected them greatly.
My family member is becoming an information zombie who is losing their grounding in reality, and cannot be reasoned with on these issues, even if they are quite rational otherwise. Once you start to believe cabals of the elite are killing children in basements in blood-lust ceremonies, that mysterious Q controls things behind the scenes, that vaccines i.e. life-saving medicines are invented as a tool of control, and that of course all of the 'main stream media outlets' are all lying, then what?
Watching them listen - it's like a form of information hypnotism - it's as though they're in a mystical / religious trance. If someone already has a reason to actually 'want to believe', and they don't care, and they just 'let go of rationality' ... then they fall into the trap. I think it's the same kind of programming that cults use.
It's really a sight to behold, and the experience of how the information is communicated, the anger, the tone of voice, etc..
The MSM has a problem with bias that could stand to be corrected, and it's have more quality 'outside' voices, but even some of the better sources often falter. Matt Taibi, probably in the same vein of the author of this piece about 'BS', usually has some great things to say but I feel even he is jumping the shark a bit trying to get attention to his Substack with overzealous headlines.
In order to put this into relative context, here is some polling data from Pew [1][2] which shows a material minority of Americans are susceptible to even the more over the top conspiratorial information (i.e. QAnon), for less egregious but nevertheless still completely false information, I believe the number is much higher, reaching up to 30% for those who believe that the election was fraudulent [3].
[1] https://www.journalism.org/2020/09/16/most-americans-who-hav...
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/16/5-facts-abo...
[3] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/559402-one-third-of-am...
Re: The Bullshit
#99In my opinion this is entirely unreadable. Not for what it has to say, but how it says it. The word "bullshit" is a burden. It is a painful, unscientific term that chips away our objective neutrality every time we encounter it. The author knows. The author is emotional. The author is trying to make US emotional. I don't want to be rashly emotional, I want to be neutral, cautious, objective, thoughtful, and deliberate…
Go read "On Bullshit." You'll find it's actually a very straightforward concept.
Also, not everything in life is science, and emotions can be useful messengers. Ignore them at your peril.
Re: The Bullshit
#100> but it isn’t the news and it hasn’t been for ages. I have a better idea. The news has always been shit. There's this weird fetish with "freedom of the press" that distorts the fact that news is still a business, run by free market forces, with the same distributions of incompetence and corruption as any free market. It used to be the "nightly news", but we now have a 24/7 always-on consumption culture and news orgs…
As with any field in a capitalist society, good things can only really come from those who care more about what they're working on than about any associated profit-motive. I do think that many journalists in the past operated this way. They would chase a story not because it was profitable, but because it was important. Not all of them, maybe not even most, but many. Nobody goes into journalism for the huge paychecks…
>They would chase a story not because it was profitable, but because it was important. Not all of them, maybe not even most, but many.
If you're going to water the statement down to that level, how does it not still apply today?