Jivaro wrote on Apr 27, 2025, 12:52:
They want large populations of willingly ignorant people and a lack of critical thinking skills breeds exactly those people. The rise of AI tech makes it even tougher to sort out truth from lies. While other countries are starting to address this at elementary school age (shoutout to my Finnish homies that can't afford NOT to take Russia seriously...and thus have been doing this for a while), the US will never address it.

I went to all public schools, and not especially good ones either, just regular old Michigan public schools... and while it wasn't a constant focus by any means, we did have multiple segments on critical reading/thinking. We would get like news articles and op/eds and have to identify and distinguish between facts and opinions, find biases, stuff like that. It was a long time ago, but we also got some internet education in this respect too.
I can't imagine they've done away with segments like that, being that they're even more important now.

The world has always needed critical thinking to navigate. Previous to the Internet, or even the industrial age for that matter, a lack of critical thinking got you killed. On the hunt, on the frontier, or in a war. Today, a lack of critical thinking is a trait that is manipulated by media and political leaders via the media and specifically the Internet, to maintain power. They want large populations of willingly ignorant people and a lack of critical thinking skills breeds exactly those people. The rise of AI tech makes it even tougher to sort out truth from lies. While other countries are starting to address this at elementary school age (shoutout to my Finnish homies that can't afford NOT to take Russia seriously...and thus have been doing this for a while), the US will never address it. We would have to be able to admit, as a country, that we are flawed at the systemic level.....and we were never been good at that...even before the current administration. We pick answers that only work for a certain class or political alignment, not humans on the whole. It will be the downfall of the nation eventually.

I used to be of the opinion that "news", such as it is, should be objective. Then I lived for far longer than I anticipated and learned that humanity is biologically incapable of true objectivity, as has always been the case and always will be the case.

Reading this thread this morning with tea in hand and dogs at my feet, I was reminded of Seneca and his letters to Lucilius. In one of them, he wrote "Reason then, is the arbiter of what is good and bad, and reason holds cheap whatever is external and not its own. Those things which are neither good nor bad are in its judgement very small and trivial additions; for as far as reason is concerned, every good is in the mind." The popular interpretation of that is that reason alone is sufficient for us to determine what is good and bad objectively. But the last bit belies that. Reason, as employed by the human brain, is also subjective as what is reasonable for some is wildly unreasonable to another. Ergo, the human mind can neither conceive nor perceive anything as objectively true or false, good or bad. Every judgement it makes is inherently biased by what it believes to be true or good.

So the best you can do is realize that news is a perception of an event, not an objectively accurate relaying of it, and find multiple angles of perception to see where they all intersect. Where they all intersect may be the most accurate recollection of an event but it is neither perfectly accurate nor perfectly objective.

That being said, I am going to finish this cup and then head off to cut and throw my 7th and final cord of wood of this trip.

Did I used to do that? If so, that's not what this is now. The subject of the article is irrelevant. It's the adherence to journalistic standards that I am concerned with.

...the Left, the Right, both sides absolutely suck ass at being impartial in their news reportage. with The Left you get stuff like this and with The Right you get that "Liberal Woke Teen Gets DESTROYED By FACTS" or whatever. they're both pretty embarrassing. though we're living in embarrassing times. ten years or so since Donald officially put his foot into our political culture. how's it gotten? better? worse? same? you decide.

Yeah, pretty much.

This comment was edited on Apr 26, 2025, 18:11.

Is this one of those threads where Prez sets off and then gets irked that others set off? A tale as old as time.

But yeah, "legal goons" is a pretty well established thing

I absolutely agree that the "Goon" slant stuff is pretty weak.

if you're trying to come off as NOT an editorial, you've got to keep subjective terms out of things. especially headlines.

the Left, the Right, both sides absolutely suck ass at being impartial in their news reportage. with The Left you get stuff like this and with The Right you get that "Liberal Woke Teen Gets DESTROYED By FACTS" or whatever. they're both pretty embarrassing. though we're living in embarrassing times. ten years or so since Donald officially put his foot into our political culture. how's it gotten? better? worse? same? you decide.

Donald stepped in, said absolutely everything he wanted to say, and the Liberal News like a bunch of morons obsessed with being sure he was heard by absolutely everyone. because it made clickable news. so super job, CNN. good work, MSNBC. if you're ever wondering how it got here, surely you can thank your own handling of all of it.

I was trying to be diplomatic. Anything sets you guys off! 🙂

It's problematic, but not nearly as worrisome to me as people take it as. Like most things the goofy orange and his cronies do. 4 years is not that long. You'll be alright.

Prez wrote on Apr 26, 2025, 16:36:
I'm not angry at liberals. I'm not angry at conservatives. I was trying to make a point. Of course the current administration is engaging in some dubious stuff.

---
dubious /doo͞′bē-əs, dyoo͞′-/
adjective

Fraught with uncertainty or doubt; undecided. Arousing doubt; doubtful.
"a dubious distinction."

Of questionable character.
"dubious profits."
---

Now there is the wrong 'term' to use.

I'm not angry at liberals. I'm not angry at conservatives. I was trying to make a point. Of course the current administration is engaging in some dubious stuff. If I read a news story about that exact thing, written properly, I may very well think that he is being a goon. I might show it to someone else amd say "look what a goon he is being". Not my style, but that is beside the point. I'm not a journalist. I'm just a guy with an opinion. If I am writing editorials, then it's open season on whomever or whatever. There are appropriate ways of communicating in the appropriate situations. If you think that I am making a big deal out of nothing, so be it. But might I remind you that Rush Limbaugh's tag line was "I AM equal time", inferring that he was news. He most definitely was not, but millions of people believed he was. Fast forward to today and those same people are voting Trump into office and declaring climate change is a liberal conspiracy and vaccines contain nano-tracking devices so the government can track you.

Prez wrote on Apr 26, 2025, 15:58:

Beamer wrote on Apr 26, 2025, 15:56:
I actually think "goon" works well.

North American
a violent, aggressive person who is hired to intimidate or harm people

Seems like this is an attorney hired to intimidate Wikipedia. Given that we're arresting judges and creating executive orders directly against individuals until they capitulating, this is all goon behavior

With everything going on, we can call.a spade a spade

Oh well it was worth a try...

No, seriously, we're at the point where this government is threatening legal action at Wikipedia, Prez, and you're angry that liberals called that attorney a goon?

This administration has kicked actual media out of White House press briefings and given their passes to Tim Pool, a man who we had already learned was on Russian payroll. They just stripped away the ability for reporters to hide the identity of their sources by making it illegal to subpoena their phone records without cause.

But the press calling a man hired to intimidate the press out of factual reporting a "goon" is where you speak back up on politics? I don't get why you're angry. This is goonish behavior. We shouldn't have to sugarcoat what is going on. For godssake, a 2 year old American citizen was just deported and we care about the feelings of people defending that? At what point can we call these people goons, if trying to shut down Wikipedia for being factual isn't enough, at what point can we call them monsters that are wiping their asses with the Constitution if deporting a 2 year old citizen isn't enough? I know I've moved from protecting the press to overall protections, but these people have spent years here telling us they care about the Constitution, but as soon as someone they like is disregarding it in the most blatant way any American has seen their president do, they get quiet.

How about calling Trump a corrupt conman using his position to further his own gain? Can we do that after he promised that the the 220 people that buy the most of his cryptocoin over the next month get dinner with him? That has put millions in his pocket already, not the pocket of the country but his personal pocket, and we've repeatedly seen him make executive orders based upon the needs of CEOs that spent a million to eat with him. You could argue where that money went, but not where this crypto money is going.

Can we not call that out because a few lingering people here are still going to say that he isn't an absolutely corrupt man that is using his position of power to benefit himself as he destroys our Institutions and wipes his ass with both the Constituion and the Founding Fathers' intent? Even in a thread that's political?

Beamer wrote on Apr 26, 2025, 15:56:
I actually think "goon" works well.

North American
a violent, aggressive person who is hired to intimidate or harm people

Seems like this is an attorney hired to intimidate Wikipedia. Given that we're arresting judges and creating executive orders directly against individuals until they capitulating, this is all goon behavior

With everything going on, we can call.a spade a spade

Oh well it was worth a try...

I actually think "goon" works well.

North American
a violent, aggressive person who is hired to intimidate or harm people

Seems like this is an attorney hired to intimidate Wikipedia. Given that we're arresting judges and creating executive orders directly against individuals until they capitulating, this is all goon behavior

With everything going on, we can call.a spade a spade

Your typical arrogant and obnoxious condescension aside...

Fair enough, but there's a section for opinions. Did I wrongly assume that Metaverse section has news? Not specifying between news and opinions has caused your side great strife as I am sure you well know. Personally I know what it was. I don't disagree with it necessarily. But does everyone? Obviously liberals don't care. And conservatives have by and large gone silent except for an occasional drive-by. But again, not being able to readily discern between opinion piece and news is what led us here (at least in part) in the first place. Have your opinions. But news is a different animal.

EDIT: And spare me the obvious comment that news is rarely truly unbiased. I'm aware. I'm not as stupid and simple as you seem to think that I am. But there are levels.

This comment was edited on Apr 26, 2025, 15:54.

Prez wrote on Apr 26, 2025, 14:01:
I don't read the Verge, because I think that they suck, so I don't know if this is something they care about, but... If you use the term 'goon' in your headline when reporting on your ideological adversaries, you destroy any semblance of objectivity that you might have had. Even the appearance of objectivity. Again, this might be fine for them. But it seems like the equivalent of posting Breitbart stories as news were this page slanted in the other direction. It doesn't bother me, but I imagine that people on this page would have a major issue were that done instead. If you're extreme left wing, there probably doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this, but objectivity does still matter, even in the disinformation age.

The concept of a written EDITORIAL is, and has never been, at odds with the concept of legitimate journalism. Not sure what you don't understand about this. MAYBE you MIGHT want to consider reading them so that your negative opinion is based on fact and not emotion. I watch Fox News and read Brietbart for this very reason.

When I call the government fascist, I'm doing it from a position of being educated. Try it.

Prez wrote on Apr 26, 2025, 14:01:
I don't read the Verge, because I think that they suck, so I don't know if this is something they care about, but... If you use the term 'goon' in your headline when reporting on your ideological adversaries, you destroy any semblance of objectivity that you might have had. Even the appearance of objectivity. Again, this might be fine for them. But it seems like the equivalent of posting Breitbart stories as news were this page slanted in the other direction. It doesn't bother me, but I imagine that people on this page would have a major issue were that done instead. If you're extreme left wing, there probably doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this, but objectivity does still matter, even in the disinformation age.

---
goon /goo͞n/
noun
A thug hired to intimidate or harm opponents.
---

Everything seems above board.

I don't read the Verge, because I think that they suck, so I don't know if this is something they care about, but... If you use the term 'goon' in your headline when reporting on your ideological adversaries, you destroy any semblance of objectivity that you might have had. Even the appearance of objectivity. Again, this might be fine for them. But it seems like the equivalent of posting Breitbart stories as news were this page slanted in the other direction. It doesn't bother me, but I imagine that people on this page would have a major issue were that done instead. If you're extreme left wing, there probably doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this, but objectivity does still matter, even in the disinformation age.

Trump gov angry that community wiki page is editable by community.

I mean makes sense, one of the big things in such a government is restricting access to information, so the idea of a "wiki" that in fact holds most of human knowledge on many topics (if we think about it, Wikipedia is truly a wonder of the world, and think about how different the world is now that we have it) is abhorrend to them, information needs to be restricted to elites and only dispensed in specific ways so as to control the narrative.