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I notice this quite a bit, and especially with older people. I think they lived during a period when you could easily BS your way through life and it was hard to verify facts in a pinch. But today, so much information is easily accessible and can be found in 2 minutes! Even when corrected with links and evidence proving the contrary, so many of them double down instead of taking a step back, re-evaluating their previously held views, and admitting ignorance. Why is there not more shame and embarrassment from this behavior?
Unless you're doing original research/investigating, it's really not that easy to verify facts. There is a lot of lying and confusion out there.
How could I verify if we got the whole story with 9/11? With the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan? With the current war in Unkraine? Am I getting ALL the facts? Or just the cherry picked facts that support the narrative/agenda that powerful people want me to believe in? What was deemed "misinformation" or "conspiracy theory" with regard to Covid changed. People like Rachel Maddow of CNBC said the virus would stop and go away if everyone got vaccinated. (I've seen the video). That proved to be false. But to the best of my knowledge, she never retracted her statement or apologized. The idea that it came from a lab was also dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Although it will never be proven conclusively, once it became a viable possibility, the media that reported it came from wet markets did not retract their stories or apologize.
The mainstream media has had a huge consolidation in the last 20 years. The United States ranks #42 in press freedom.
Most of us aren't good at critical thinking, but think we are.
Psychologists have documented many well known cognitive biases that humans have that we use to process information. And I do believe powerful people use those biases against us.
The other factors at work are people are busy/distracted/lazy and they just go with the headlines they see. A lot of people don't want to question the mainstream narrative of their social group because they don't want to be ostracized. It's easier to just go with the flow of the people around you without questioning anything (and people tend to do what's easy in the short run). And then there's conformation bias. We all look for evidence supporting what we already want to believe (but we generally only think only other people do this, not ourselves). Critical thinking takes effort and is not intuitive. Schools often don't teach any kind of critical thinking. That's become more true in recent years instead of less--and I don't think that's an accident, either (just my opinion).
People are emotional creatures first. We're not really fact oriented.
I've spent years on CD supporting my "facts". I can't tell you how many times people don't even bother to read links that you post, but will dismiss what you're saying out of hand. Or they do read it and then dismiss your source as not credible.
Before I learned the NYT was a complete joke, I would sometimes read the whole article and discover facts they mention deep in the article directly contradict their headline and their first couple of paragraphs. Well media knows that most people read the headlines and the first paragraph or so. They have science on that. Very few people read the whole article. Maybe 5%.
So some people think they know the facts because they read the first couple of paragraphs of a NYT article and think other people are idiots, not realizing that they were the ones being manipulated.
The NYT, of course, is hardly alone in that practice. I had a chilling experience my freshman year in college. Teacher asked us to introduce ourselves, our profession and why we chose it. The journalism major said, without any hint of moral qualms, that she chose journalism to manipulate people's opinions. That is the type of person filling journalism rooms these days. They want to change the world to make everyone think like them.
Before I learned the NYT was a complete joke, I would sometimes read the whole article and discover facts they mention deep in the article directly contradict their headline and their first couple of paragraphs. Well media knows that most people read the headlines and the first paragraph or so. They have science on that. Very few people read the whole article. Maybe 5%.
So some people think they know the facts because they read the first couple of paragraphs of a NYT article and think other people are idiots, not realizing that they were the ones being manipulated.
The NYT, of course, is hardly alone in that practice. I had a chilling experience my freshman year in college. Teacher asked us to introduce ourselves, our profession and why we chose it. The journalism major said, without any hint of moral qualms, that she chose journalism to manipulate people's opinions. That is the type of person filling journalism rooms these days. They want to change the world to make everyone think like them.
Yes, that last part is quite scary. The few real journalists who remain have been talking about this for a while. Yet a surprising percentage of supposedly smart, educated people believe everything the mainstream media outlets say without question.
Please, can we stop calling people names such as "racist", "bigot" and "xenophobe"? That just shows me right there what the bias is. Just remember, that the information that you may think is "correct" is also based on your personal viewpoints and isn't necessarily correct, accurate, or factual. That's what this post is about. Calling other people names because you don't like their statements or beliefs is an example of not being willing to see the truth of a matter and it's the reason why the news outlets are so biased.
What gives you the right to say someone else is wrong and call them names? Maybe you're the one who's wrong. Calling people names when you know nothing about them is a form of abuse.
An example is, Donald Trump said recently "They are killing people in Manhattan now like never before." But the homicide rate there is actually only 1/6 or 1/8 the rate it was in 1980. (How could he possibly not know that, if he's from there?
Overstatement but it is up a lot from the Bloomberg era and because of "bail reform" and "raise the age." We care more about the rights of thugs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowlane3
and "My administration was the only one during which Russia did not take over a country." (False. From 1945 to 1979 in Afghanistan, Russia never took over any countries).
Are you kidding? While they did not formally take over the effectively dominated:
Hungary
Czechoslovakia
Poland
East Germany
Bulgaria; and for a while
Yugoslavia
You don't send tanks into countries such as Hungary without domination.
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowlane3
"If you were not for me, NATO would not even exist now." (False. NATO has existed since 1949, and would be here regardless of who was President.)
He said "You know, they say that wind turbines cause cancer." (But who is "they"?)
I notice this quite a bit, and especially with older people. I think they lived during a period when you could easily BS your way through life and it was hard to verify facts in a pinch. But today, so much information is easily accessible and can be found in 2 minutes! Even when corrected with links and evidence proving the contrary, so many of them double down instead of taking a step back, re-evaluating their previously held views, and admitting ignorance. Why is there not more shame and embarrassment from this behavior?
There are links and there are links. Some false, some true, all contradicting each other.
What gives you the right to say someone else is wrong and call them names? Maybe you're the one who's wrong. Calling people names when you know nothing about them is a form of abuse.
This was not addressed to me, want to make that clear before I even say anything. But it got me thinking.
The first time I encountered the word, "xenophobia" it was in high school and we were reading in our history textbook about Japanese internment camps. While I understood the lesson and the meaning of the word, I also thought "what a long and ridiculous word. I wonder if I am supposed to remember this word, just it is a wacky word on its face, I can't imagine ever using it."
I was a kid...did not think to encounter it in the world around me, I guess. At least not then.
Of course I would imagine that some folks might be upset that I was even learning about a shameful thing that my country had done. "Teaching kids to hate America!" As though kids should learn nothing but pro-America propaganda of cowboys in white hats and shining cities on hills. And then can be shocked if they ever get successful enough to visit another country and the people there don't like them! Won't that be a hoot.
Anyhoo.
Words have meanings.
If one just set out to call somebody a name, they might say, "Poopie head!" or "Rat face!", you know, something that while vaguely unpleasant, need have no basis in fact. Typically if someone calls another person racist, or bigot, or xenophobe, it is more an allegation, an accusation, with some cause beginning in the words or actions of the accused.
Some people ARE guilty of those things.
But I think we've got to stop way short of assigning the worst possible traits to our neighbors...after all, just about all of us actually want the same things for the most part, to be able to work a job and pay our bills, live our lives as we please and not be pushed around by other people this way and that. Most want to love and be loved, to go on vacation now and then, to raise our kids, to retire one day. To know that today and tomorrow and next year, we'll have food on the table and a roof over our heads, and that we earned it and no one will take it away from us. Most of us want the same things. We just have different ideas about who cares whether we get any of that, and who wants to try and prevent us from having it, and what tactics they are using to deprive us of our lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness.
I told my father not long ago, to beware of this, because it is manipulation. I don't know that he listened to me. But if you're feeling outraged or threatened or thinking that half of the country (that "other" half that is not like you, obviously) has lost their damn minds... I don't care if you are screaming about "Groomers" or "Fascists"...you are falling right into someone's trap and you need to stop and think. Because whatever it is, I just about guarantee it's nowhere NEAR as bad as someone wants you to think it is. Your neighbors aren't your enemies.
Thinking that they are? I cannot imagine anything more anti-American than that.
Please, can we stop calling people names such as "racist", "bigot" and "xenophobe"? That just shows me right there what the bias is. Just remember, that the information that you may think is "correct" is also based on your personal viewpoints and isn't necessarily correct, accurate, or factual. That's what this post is about. Calling other people names because you don't like their statements or beliefs is an example of not being willing to see the truth of a matter and it's the reason why the news outlets are so biased.
Quote:
Originally Posted by smt1111
What gives you the right to say someone else is wrong and call them names? Maybe you're the one who's wrong. Calling people names when you know nothing about them is a form of abuse.
I don't know who called who a name specifically, but these are real terms that describe real people. So, I don't know what you're going on about, but if it has triggered you, then maybe it's time to look deep at within yourself. I don't know anyone who'd get triggered by a descriptive word unless it's something they're deeply insecure about themselves and projecting. I'm not offended by the term 'racist' because I'm not a racist. But I know for a fact that racists exist and are all around us.
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