Syria.

[He's Dead, Jim]

And with that, which managed to do the insulting-condescending thing I mentioned and responded to 0% of the material in my post, I think I'm done on this topic

 

[J.Paine]

I'm two months away from getting a master's degree and I like to think I'm not a total moron

Really? Credentialism? So instead of weighting up arguments and facts we should all have a dick-waving-contest?
You do know this bullshit argument adds nothing to conversation and also cuts both ways right?
Especially when you mention Abby Martin trying to discredit her and her reports because she...

thinks 9/11 was an inside job.

And then go on to say more credentialist nonsense plus ad hominem.

Cheeto-munching, tinfoil-hat-wearing idiots who never went to college but somehow think they understand the gold market and believe 9/11 was an inside job.

But Abby has a degree in political science...
And I think Ermz has a degree too...
And lots of people who question the official narrative have a degree...or a masters...or a doctorate.
Oh no...We may...we may actually have to think about the things people say rather than disregarding or regarding them simply by association or other arbitrary things like pieces of paper or other superfluous opinions held.

By the way, Abby said recently on the topic of 9/11:
" Actually, I distanced myself from the phrase "inside job" a long time ago, as well as comments I made about the pentagon etc. Over the many years I realized that it's irresponsible to assert unknowable things considering how we do not have access to physical evidence. The phrase is now used to discredit critical thinkers. However I have never strayed from calling out the official story, and I will continue to do so unabashedly."

Okay so lets get this straight.
You try to garner confidence and weight to your own opinion through credentials,
Then quote Abby as having a "bad opinion" and associate her with "bad people" who do not have credentials.
And then Abby turns out to have credentials and no longer holds that opinion.

If this dick-waving-contest of credentials is to continue and if that is what people want, I just want to make something very clear about how this cuts both ways and is ultimately stupid:
Anyone religious is now disregarded from this and any future conversations.
If you are going to believe in a zombie christian messiah or unicorns or whatever faith based nonsense you choose, then you could believe in anything at all and are immediately discredited from any conversation for life.

the main bias is toward shallow coverage and sensationalism - which is more due to viewership than an editorial bias.

I hope you are not suggesting that the news bias is to gain better ratings. All TV news and specifically the big four has been in decline for too long to argue they have a bias aiming for more viewers. Even in the most recent decade this decline is just speeding up. The youtube channel TYT network now has comparable or better ratings than fox news shows. Most MSM flagship news has viewers in the 60+ age bracket. If I remember correctly fox is recently measured at 68+ which is worse than a previous of 66+. So we have the big guns of news with a demographic that is literally dying out. ALSO viewers are aware of this partisanship as trust in the MSM is also in the decline and mistrust is reaching new heights. The MSM bias is obviously not towards a larger audience.

The lack of introspection or any alternative perspective is rife throughout your posts jim.

This statement:

But you simply don't see us invading countries and seizing territory to maintain our economic and political domination...

Is negated by this statement:

We already built the bases and Iraq is in a very valuable geographical position.

I could go on with many more of these but I won't. I am tired of you not seeing your own hypocrisy or bias and with no self correction in sight there seems little point in continuing.
If people cannot concede anything, especially hypocrisy, then it is no longer an exchange or conversation. Maybe its the patriotism others alluded to previously.

No one here is saying that russia is the force of good, no matter how many times people make the allusion. But it would be stupid to suggest that america is or accept the wager of "lesser evils". It is indicative of the zeitgeist that people would assume this equation to be natural or the only two options available. It also shows that the current paradigm only engenders blind patriotism and a sports fan mentality towards war.

Regardless of how much people love barracking for their team, spinning political doublespeak, sliding arguments or contributing poorly feigned altruistic intentions to bureaucracies: Ukraine, Syria and the entire world for that matter are not a chessboard.

 

[Ermz]

I can't be the only one who gives more clout to a state-issued piece of wank-tissue for academics than I do to the equivalent amount of time spent in pursuit of a mom's-basement-jerk-off-zeitgeist-parroting-internet-debate for self-aggrandizing-ego-strokery? One of them implies 4-6 years of the rigorous study of peer-reviewed literature and real-world discussion generally facilitated by published and similarly peer-reviewed authors/researchers, and one of them implies arguing on the internet while googling sources and using a right-click->replace thesaurus method in order to give the appearance of substance and gravitas where repetitive drivel would be obvious otherwise.

You can hold clout in whatever you want. I had hoped however that a modicum of personal respect might be observed upon disagreement, yet you continue to chime in here with spineless personal assaults and limp attempts at discreditation, all the while ironically spouting off about repetitive drivel.

The coursework for most studies is available to the public. That's the great thing about the age of information. It's all out there for whomever to consume as they please. Unfortunately there appears to be an institutionalized belief that unless somebody bankrupts their family savings in order to learn the same subject matter the systematically-correct way, it's invalid. They inherently become keyboard warriors whose points, potential validity aside, are learned through some conspiratorial nerdy tween basement convention.

This notion ties into 'true' education only being for the upper-middle and beyond classes. That somehow your ability to pay your way into a university and subsequently do what you're told somehow sets you apart from the other jerk-offs on the planet.

Am I saying that college graduates waste their time? Of course not, I'm sure much of the course work and study pays off. Educational systems are vital to societies for the generational dissemination of knowledge. Yet the effect is different for each individual. People still come out of the process holding vastly differing perspectives. That, and it's naive to posit that these institutions somehow exist in a vacuum and are immune to the political or social climate of their time. Moreover, college graduates are not always on the 'right' side of history. It doesn't somehow bestow a precognitive ability to perceive the world in a clearer light that mere under-educated mortals cannot.

The interesting thing about being a quasi-nihilist lies in not having much investment in anything. You're always expecting the worst of people (and are rarely disappointed). You don't have the impetus to skew viewpoints in favor of fostering some ulterior agenda. Likewise here, when I denounce the importance of credentials, I do it while holding a degree myself, having authored a text that thousands of people in my industry respect and have benefited from. All of that amounts to nothing, if my reasoning in the case at hand is not sound. It amounts to nothing if I'm pushing an agenda to belie the facts and paint my own picture of a situation. That said, I have no idea what warranted the 'mom's-basement-jerk-off-zeitgeist-parroting-internet-debate for self-aggrandizing-ego-strokery' comment. Again the bipartisan lines continue to be drawn in the subtext of so many of these statements. If you're not institutionally-educated, you're a conspiratory nutjob.

It's sad when discussion drops to these levels. Our ability to even hold a rational discourse is challenged by these silly preconceptions and dividing lines. It's an entirely futile endeavor when participants tap dance around the issues, and just take jabs at one another. Moreover it's worse when errant participants chime in simply to fuel the bipartisan flames, yet add absolutely nothing of worth to the discussion, as evidenced by one of the last posters here.

 

[AD Chaos]

And with that, which managed to do the insulting-condescending thing I mentioned and responded to 0% of the material in my post, I think I'm done on this topic

Just wanted to say even though we may have a disagreement upon the matter of non-bias, while trying to make the point I crossed the line, and made it personal.

Know that it was not my intent to provoke insult, if it came across to you as such, I apologize.


That gif made me laugh hard haha

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Just wanted to say even though we may have a disagreement upon the matter of non-bias, while trying to make the point I crossed the line, and made it personal.

Know that it was not my intent to provoke insult, if it came across to you as such, I apologize.


That gif made me laugh hard haha

No worries man, I appreciate it.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

This thread is the epitome of TL/DR.