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The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

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TordelBack

#13875
Yep, no arguments there - people you meet in person are almost always an improvement over what you see in the distance, the internet being a heightened example.  However, this is heart of the problem: the internet, together with 24 hour news and colouring-book tabloids, have become an easy substitute for engaging with reality, or your fellow humans.  And this is what brings this bottomless pit of lies and ignorance screaming into the real world, via opinion, platform, votes, mandate and policy.

It's obviously a function of growing up in the 70s, but as a  kid I had understood the business of politics was telling exactly as many crowd-pleasing lies as you could get away with before the facts were exposed by journos in a 'scandal' with the fibber swiftly being turfed out of office.  Now the second part of that story no longer exists, journalists having been replaced by a chorus of online liars (paid, misguided or malicious). 




Tjm86

It's curious but reading through this, I'm minded of some of the stuff that I was reading back in the nineties about Internet culture, it's democratic power and it's implications.  Some of it was downright bonkers and certainly there was a degree of utopian fervour that I struggled at the time to cope with but looking back on it ... wow!

I think for me, the turning point was the advent of 'social media' and Facebook in particular.  The Internet slowly morphed into a far uglier place, although it had always been there.  There seemed to be a lack of restraint, a willingness to pour out bile without any regard to the consequences.  What made it worse was that often in schools the consequences poured out into the real world but teachers, parents and kids all struggled to deal with it.  It became largely unmanageable and no one was really taking responsibility.  Did those kids basically learn that it was possible to be as abusive as you want without any consequences?

That generation are now adults and are starting to engage with a wider range of media sources.  Have they brought the same habits with them and were the lessons that they learned part of the reason why the internet is now so problematic?

The Legendary Shark

I think that in the past people could be victimised via notes passed in class amongst a handful of their peers, as it were. The internet provides the potential for those notes to be passed amongst millions. The core problem remains the same in this aspect but the scale has increased dramatically.

Most of the problems are not new but the extent to which those problems can cause harm is new.

People always have printed books or pamphlets expounding their pet theories or theses, from the insightful to the insane and every flavour in between, but instead of reaching a few readers they now have access to a virtually unlimited audience.

Under these conditions, where data massively outweighs knowledge, we must all be careful what we let past our personal filters. As I've said before, an open mind is like an open wound - if you don't look after it, it'll get infected and the internet is a swamp rife with disease.

But there is also truth, humour, compassion, love and all the good things about the human condition present also, also massively magnified and accessible to a virtually limitless audience.

The internet is, in my view, neither a good nor a bad thing - it is simply a tool. It is also a very young phenomena and we have not yet learned to use it as well as we might. It will continue evolve and change and the way we use it will both drive and be driven by that evolution.

We can only hope that the people passing notes in class will grow out of it, as most of us do.

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Tjm86

A lot of truth there my friend.  Probably the same thing was said about Caxton's invention.  I wonder how much the far lower (apparent) cost of access influences this.  As you say, scope is definitely a factor.

This place has always amazed me with its compassion, sensitivity and receptiveness.  Even the most controversial amongst us is receptive to censure but it needs to be used so infrequently.  A good example of your core point.

I think my concern is that the 'people passing notes' are growing up having learnt that they don't need to grow out of it, that in fact there is a big wide world where they can carry on the practice and tools such as Facebook and Twitter re there to make it possible, with loads of people chanting them on and shouting down anyone who challenges them.

The Legendary Shark

As probably one of the more controversial posters myself, I agree with what you say. I've posted a few things on here that I regret, or regret the form and tone of some of my postings, and have been prompted to examine and, where necessary, change my tone or apologise or both. Nobody actually forced me to do these things and I'm still prone to prosthelytizing on occasion and am aware that this is one of my flaws (I'm doing it now!).

Another option would have been for me to take my ball and go home, to turn my back on the forum and slope off. That option has been very tempting in the past but I like it here and happily I resisted the urge. One of the major factors I have identified in threads like this one is that "I disagree with you" has somehow become synonymous with "you are an idiot and I hate you," which is, in reality, probably not so accurate as it sometimes feels. As someone said earlier, it's almost impossible to communicate nuance and intent just through text.

One of the problems is that it's easy to pass a note in class anonymously and then walk away if it blows up in your face. In a real classroom, if the perpetrator is caught then the humiliation and shame are immediate and personal, an uncomfortable sentence of public disapprobation to which most of us have been exposed at some point in our lives.

I'm not really worried that some people think they can get away with bad behaviour on suchlikes as Twitter and Facebook. There have always been mannerless oiks and, unfortunately, there always will be. I think that internetters will evolve to see them for what they are and treat them appropriately.

If Twitter and Facebook become mired in mannerless oiks they will simply be abandoned for new platforms like Steemit and what have you.

I think the bad elements are necessary because they demonstrate what not to do, how not to behave, and encourage us all to learn better netiquette. I like to think that I have learned from my own bad behaviour, and the bad behaviour of others, during my virtual lifetime.
Even if everything I've written above is piffle of the highest order, one thing is certain: the rest of the web could learn a lot from this place!

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CalHab

Quote from: Tjm86 on 07 November, 2017, 06:38:42 AM
I think for me, the turning point was the advent of 'social media' and Facebook in particular.  The Internet slowly morphed into a far uglier place, although it had always been there.  There seemed to be a lack of restraint, a willingness to pour out bile without any regard to the consequences.

I think the culture of some forums (fora?) like 4chan, Something Awful, some subReddits has basically taken over the internet.

It always amazes me when I see an old-school troll on a comments page or forum. They seem so antiquated and quaint. Don't they realise that it's over? The trolls won. They have their man in the White House. They got Britain to sabotage its future. Their voices are given "equal weight" when we endlessly debate the destruction of the climate. What's the point in trolling now?

The Legendary Shark

It's always darkest just before dawn.

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IndigoPrime

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 07 November, 2017, 07:30:44 AMPeople always have printed books or pamphlets expounding their pet theories or theses, from the insightful to the insane and every flavour in between, but instead of reaching a few readers they now have access to a virtually unlimited audience.
There are interrelated issues here, which are time, money and access. In terms of access, there's a relatively level playing field, in the sense anyone can be a publisher now. This means any old crap can go on the internet and be used by dribbling idiots at 'proof'. But also, people are much more likely to self-select the content they 'want' to read. This means they head towards things that confirm what they already believe, rather than looking for relatively neutral stances on any subject matter.

This all dovetails with analytics and income. The former is a vicious cycle, in analytics in many cases driving what a publication will write about. If a certain type of story is popular, they will write more, to get advertising income. And because people are now unwilling to pay for journalism at every single level, quality is going down the toilet because there's no money to pay for investigation. It's now depressingly simple for someone to seed disinformation and for it to spread throughout the entire publishing industry.

I'm not sure what the way back is, if one even exists. In the British press, we also see its effects. The Telegraph, for example, is increasingly shifting from a reasonable and sane right-wing newspaper to a broadsheet take on The Daily Mail. Even in niche industries (tech and gaming, say), a lack of money is causing people to rush when it comes to news, reviews and even features. That lack of scrutiny allows an awful lot of shit to happen. (And even when you get a relatively 'good guy' among the dross, you'll find problems. The Guardian, for instance, is haemorrhaging money at an obscene rate.)

The Legendary Shark

True enough, but there are investigators like James Corbett who fund their projects through voluntary donations and make their content available without charge. Whilst I do not endorse every project of his, I would recommend many of his pieces such as How Big Oil Conquered the World and Why Big Oil Conquered the World.

He does, of course, have his own perspective and agenda but this is in no way unique; all journalists have their own perspectives and agendas, as do we all.

I agree that most of us are attracted to those subjects and ideals we are already interested in and like to have our views reinforced. One thing I will say for Corbett is that he open to being corrected. For example he, like me and many others, believed that President Kennedy signed an executive order limiting the power of the Federal Reserve. When told that this was a myth, he investigated and (to the protestations and jeers of many "truthers") found that the executive order in question was in fact an instrument allowing the Fed to retire and replace worn out bank notes without requiring written permission from the President. This prompted him to investigate a little further and uncover further ties between JFK and the banking system, undermining one of the major planks of the assassination conspiracy theories. I would not claim Corbett is unique in his willingness to question his own beliefs but it does, to me at least, suggest a level of investigative and interpretive integrity which, whilst not a guarantee of accuracy (there is no such thing), does lead me to hold his investigations and reports in higher regard than most.

There are many investigative journalists like Corbett out there who are not beholden to publishers, owners or advertisers and are funded by reader donations. This arrangement is not, of course, an ironclad guarantee of accuracy, impartiality or integrity but then, neither is being printed in a traditional newspaper.

The media is evolving and it is our responsibility to filter it as best we can and to make donations to those we deem worthy of our money. There is no way back, there are only ways forward.

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CalHab

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 07 November, 2017, 09:11:41 AM
It's always darkest just before dawn.

I live in a country which has Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary and where Jacob Rees-Mogg is thought of as a credible and plausible next PM. Things can get a lot darker.

Professor Bear

The problem isn't that new-fangled media has taken over our brains, it's that old media went and shit the bed.
People used to trust old media sources even when they were being told unpalatable truths, but those outlets lost that trust and people looked elsewhere.  The Guardian being caught time and again falsifying stories (particularly about Putin, one of the few people in the world about whom you don't need to make shit up) and being funded by tax avoidance isn't the failing of "the internet", it's the failing of old media to adhere to its own self-professed standards and pushing its audience into the waiting arms of Russian bots and tailored newsfeed algorithms, and instead of calling them out on it, we make excuses and say they're just going where the money is so they can compete with the internet, handily ignoring that print outlets like the Telegraph have been tailoring their reportage for decades based on the interests of their advertisers.
When absolutely every outlet is revealed to have feet of clay, obviously people are just going to pick one they like and stick with it, hence so many people using The Canary or Guido Fawkes as if they were news outlets rather than glorified blogs.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 07 November, 2017, 09:11:41 AM
It's always darkest just before dawn.

It's actually darkest when the sun has gone out forever.

IndigoPrime

Oh, man. The Canary was rife for a while in my Facebook feed. It's bloody awful – a Breitbart of the left. As for traditional print, I agree with quite a lot of what you say, Professor Bear, but would still argue that standards are sliding due to a lack of money, and a desperation for eyeballs. The Telegraph as an example was always a right-wing newspaper, and, yes, it had an agenda. But it never used to be batshit.

Also, there's that notion of editorial curation that's being hurled out of the window. Magazines are a superb format, because you can self-select in terms of a relatively broad 'genre', but then get served up a selection of content you may not have expected, but may end up liking – or at least broadening your experiences with. To some extent, traditional newspapers are the same. The internet bulldozes all that, leaving you in a cycle of clicking through to things you already know you want to see.

Also, the lack of financial investment means you have no concerns about time investment in what you're exploring, meaning content is far more likely to be rapidly abandoned. (Back in the day, I used to read magazines cover to cover, because I didn't have much money and wanted to squeeze every drop of value out them. These days, the internet serves up more crap than I could read in a lifetime every second, but I'm not paying for it so can leap from article to article. But I don't believe the format is beneficial to me, in the main. And the quality of the content, generally speaking, is getting worse.)

JamesC

Quote from: Professor Bear on 07 November, 2017, 01:51:24 PM


Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 07 November, 2017, 09:11:41 AM
It's always darkest just before dawn.

It's actually darkest when the sun has gone out forever.

Your super soar-away Sun?

ZenArcade

The sun hasn't gone out Bear, you're just lying in a cave gnawing on a mastodon bone. Z  ;)
Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

JayzusB.Christ

Seems like Ed Gillespie jumped on the Trump Train and fell off. America hasn't completely lost its collective mind just yet.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"