The Political & Philosophy Thread

[Dak]

http://www.city-journal.org/html/what-poverty-11845.html

Killer read.

By the end of three months my doctors have, without exception, reversed their original opinion that the welfare state, as exemplified by England, represents the acme of civilization. On the contrary, they see it now as creating a miasma of subsidized apathy that blights the lives of its supposed beneficiaries. They come to realize that a system of welfare that makes no moral judgments in allocating economic rewards promotes antisocial egotism. The spiritual impoverishment of the population seems to them worse than anything they have ever known in their own countries. And what they see is all the worse, of course, because it should be so much better. The wealth that enables everyone effortlessly to have enough food should be liberating, not imprisoning. Instead, it has created a large caste of people for whom life is, in effect, a limbo in which they have nothing to hope for and nothing to fear, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. It is a life emptied of meaning.


"On the whole," said one Filipino doctor to me, "life is preferable in the slums of Manila." He said it without any illusions as to the quality of life in Manila.

 

[arg]

i got a boner for Milo for this, no homo

 

[Dak]

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/154336783261/fake-news-versus-misleading-news

all news is persuasion, and it is presented for that purpose even if the presenters don’t think of it that way.

 

[Einherjar86]

He's making good points, albeit in a pretty crude and slapdash manner.

I think he's right that all news is persuasion, and I think that Noam Chomsky (among others) would agree. He's also right that it's neither good nor bad, intrinsically anyway; but it isn't meaningless. And Adams seems to be suggesting that fake news and misleading news are qualitatively the same thing. I don't agree with that.

There's a difference between presenting a biased position on a topic by including only certain facts or details and presenting an entirely fictional topic. The former might inflame people's passions about an actual issue, which partake of a real social discourse; the latter, by contrast, might inflame people's passions about an imaginary issue, creating a discourse that distracts from pertinent matters.

That's my take, anyway.

 

[Dak]

There's a difference between presenting a biased position on a topic by including only certain facts or details and presenting an entirely fictional topic. The former might inflame people's passions about an actual issue, which partake of a real social discourse; the latter, by contrast, might inflame people's passions about an imaginary issue, creating a discourse that distracts from pertinent matters.

That's my take, anyway.

I understand that perspective, but I see little difference. They are both diversionary. There's an argument to be made that misleading news is worse. It brings to mind the (variously phrased) old adage that "the most dangerous lie is the one closest to the truth." When Trump says blatantly false things that can be debunked in about 30 seconds on Google, that seems much more harmless than an "objective" NYT article.

 

[Einherjar86]

Yeah, I can see it either way. But it doesn't seem to matter that a comment by Trump can be debunked in thirty seconds on Google, since his supporters believe him anyway. So then it becomes a matter not of the story's veracity, but of the willingness of a consuming public to believe it. And in that case, it strikes me that someone spreading false news - especially the kind that will appeal to half the country - is doing more harm than someone spreading slanted perspectives on real topics.

The people who believe false news stories will inevitably end up ignoring more pressing concerns, even if they are depicted in a biased manner in the New York Times.

 

[Dak]

But what constitutes a pressing concern?

 

[Einherjar86]

Your point is well-taken, except that I know you believe there are pressing concerns that we can assess in a pragmatic, and not merely subjective, fashion.

 

[Dak]

Your point is well-taken, except that I know you believe there are pressing concerns that we can assess in a pragmatic, and not merely subjective, fashion.

Well pragmatism and subjectivity aren't mutually exclusive, it is idealism and pragmatism which appear exclusive. I've become much less idealistic. For example: I don't like Mattis' position on Iran (because Iran isn't a threat to the US), but at this point it's much more in the US interest (and therefore my interest in general terms) to take a hard stance there and staunch the constant flow of fail everywhere else as it relates to the military.

 

[Einherjar86]

Exactly. Then there are "pressing" concerns that we can assess pragmatically and not merely subjectively.

 

[Dak]

Exactly. Then there are "pressing" concerns that we can assess pragmatically and not merely subjectively.

Really? Some people think Mattis' positions are ruining all the progress of the Obama administration because it will motivate Iran towards nuclear weapons, and because they aren't white they will probs use them, and we will all die because MAD. That's a subjective reality. Alternatively, another subjective position is that the US military is more awesome than ever because transgenders are obviously the most badass warfighters possible and now we can openly produce them. Mattis may threaten this awesomeness.

 

[Einherjar86]

You just admitted that pragmatism and subjectivity aren't mutually exclusive. Scientific procedures allow us to discern issues that concern us, and I for one think we can grant such issues a little more gravity than, for instance, a made-up story about a child sex-slave ring going on in the basement of a pizza joint.

 

[Dak]

You just admitted that pragmatism and subjectivity aren't mutually exclusive. Scientific procedures allow us to discern issues that concern us, and I for one think we can grant such issues a little more gravity than, for instance, a made-up story about a child sex-slave ring going on in the basement of a pizza joint.

So there it is. I hadn't even heard about it until "real news" talked about it, and I know quite a few deplorables. Might actually be a better evidence of misleading news.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't quite follow that comment.

 

[arg]

right wing girls are so fucking hot





god damn. i wish they'd smother my face with their assholes while saying right wing things and praising Trump. that'd get me so hard.

 

[Einherjar86]

And dumb.

Tomi Lahren is a special brand of vapid.

 

[no country for old wainds]

right wing girls are so fucking hot

god damn. i wish they'd smother my face with their assholes while saying right wing things and praising Trump. that'd get me so hard.

they could smother your face with their face and fart a bunch and it'd be the exact same experience

 

[arg]

id be okay with that too

seriously though we need more conservative and libertarian millennials to crush the leftie disease

 

[CiG]

I've met way more utterly retarded left-wing women than I have right-wing women.

Personally I prefer people that rub both sides the wrong way. I don't find mindless sheep-like thinking to be attractive at all.

 

[Dak]

I don't quite follow that comment.

There's all this hysteria over fake news and the example of how dangerous it is this pizzagate bullshit. One story, which somehow tons of people had been duped by, yet I hadn't heard of it until after it was pizzagate (and I read a lot of different news sources, and I have a sufficient number of Trump supporters contributing to my FB feed). I suspect this blowup about fake news is an example of how misleading news can be just as if not more dangerous. Kind of like the breathless coverage given to Richard Spencer's national white nationalist gatherings that bring together a few dozen white nationalists from all over what is supposedly an incredibly racist nation. Even *if* coverage isn't slanted, what is covered shows a bias of its own, particularly when the level of coverage is so grossly out of proportion to the event.