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Wrong info. spreads like wildfire these days with the popularity of social media and it's really bugging me. I'm trying not to let it bother me but most of it is negative and incorrect, not facts. It really shows there is a huge number of people that know nothing about our government, history or our country. It's not as if I know everything by a long shot but I don't repost things I see on someones page w/o even knowing it's true.
I have let a lot of things go by and not said anything, otherwise I may not have some of those friends but some I can't let go. So, if a FB friend posts something that I know for sure is wrong and I can find a link to a nonpartisan site explaining the fact, is that wrong? It's not been taken well a few times because they just looked at it as me defending a particular party or person. Totally not true, I vote for the person and not for the party. I just think it's irresponsible to pass along negative incorrect info. and a bit lazy I might add.
Does anyone else have an issue with this and should I just block myself from seeing their posts, shut up or keep on telling the truth. The truth is my preference but the truth also causes problems it seems.
I do. They posted to share their idea with others, so it is an open invitation anyway. And many of my FB friends aren't really my "friends" but some actually sent add request after we engaged in debates, with opposing point of views.
Wrong info. spreads like wildfire these days with the popularity of social media and it's really bugging me. I'm trying not to let it bother me but most of it is negative and incorrect, not facts.
So, if a FB friend posts something that I know for sure is wrong and I can find a link to a nonpartisan site explaining the fact, is that wrong?
By all means, correct away.
However, one common problem is that people bend over backwards to claim things are easily ascertainable facts, when quite often, they are not easily ascertainable facts, despite being presented/misrepresented as such (of which there are no shortage of websites, non-partisan ones included, that also fall prey to misrepresenting a rather speculative theory with fact).
Certain claims are relatively easy to fact check, and they are accurate to a reasonable degree of certainty which is sufficient to satisfy most inquiries, and the margin of error can usually be roughly calculated by looking at the collection methodology. These generally include what one might call "simple statistics," but also can include other categories such as what people said (e.g. did a public servant utter a certain statement).
Other claims, particularly those classes that require complex statistical analysis and require rigid proof of causation to validate them (a requirement almost never achieved in practice - which is why economists are often second-rate mathematicians, save a few exceptions who were brilliant minds in game theory, and some smart guys too in the more recently popular fields of econometrics and public choice theory [the latter being the newer of the two]), should rarely be presented as fact (and yet, that doesn't stop people from succumbing to spreading "voodoo economic" claims presented as facts).
There's a reason why economics has been referred to as "the dismal science" (though the phrase has taken on a somewhat newer and more expansive meaning from its original usage). It suffers from the same pitfalls that most social sciences do, which is the inability to prove causation with sufficient mathematical rigor in complex chains where you have n-large numbers of market actors and where the market rules and rationality and agency of the market actors is often much more unconstrained than it is in game theoretic exercises where the values can be bounded.
Last edited by FreedomThroughAnarchism; 11-04-2011 at 12:49 PM..
Politics isn't "black and white." Most political statements are arguable.
Politics is chock full of blatant lies, like:
*OMG, the White House is renaming the annual 'Christmas Tree' the 'Holiday Tree'! (blatant lie)
*OMG, the Obama Administration just made the Navy kick out a chaplain for refusing not to say 'Jesus' in his sermons (blatant lie- the chaplain was kicked out for refusing an order to provide non-denominational prayers to troops, and he was kicked out in 2007 when, you know, someone else was in the White House)
These are just a couple example of political Facebook lies I've found lately. And, no, they're not arguable. Not by anyone with any grasp of reality, anyway.
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