Fake News
“Fake news” is not news, and “alternate facts” are not facts. Those are personal biases expressed with a modicum of believability and truthiness. It doesn’t take much truthiness, because both sides of the political spectrum are determined to hear only what they want to hear.
When “fake news” plays to our predilections we tend to accept it readily, and then we repeat it to our friends. When “fake news” works against our personal beliefs, we tend to reject it as propaganda maliciously generated by the “opposite side.”
The other day a white police officer pulled over a white woman. When she refused to get out of the car, he said, “Hey, haven’t you heard? We only kill black people.” Those are the facts as recorded on the officer’s car camera. Depending on your choice of media outlet, you are going to hear two completely different versions of the implications of those facts.
That event was just too juicy for either side to pass up.
With the advent of new sources of media technology, personal opinions are creeping more and more into our daily consumption of “newsworthy” events.
The Constitution protects us from government censorship of speech in the First Amendment. It does not, for better or for worse, protect us from opinionated slanting of speech as delivered by politically motivated media outlets or the internet. Freedom of speech is, in fact, one of our most valued principles.
Still we need to fight back. Seek unbiased coverage of the news. Jettison coverage that divides us as a nation.
What is coming down?
The news reader caster said, “A Chinese space station will break up in the atmosphere, scattering debris some time between Saturday and Wednesday. Scientists say that it is unlikely anyone will get hurt.”
Or I wonder if instead the real story is that Tiangong-1 is full of 500 KT yield thermonuclear Multiple Independently-targeted Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV), precisely timed and also from Sea Launched Balistic Missiles (SLBMs, also MIRVed) and mobile land based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs, MIRVed) from both China and Russia. Between them they could simultaneously strike more than 2000 detonations, many more than military US and NATO assets. If any NATO SLBMs submarines survive, their launches are few and defended by missile defense. Even Russia could do it alone–total destruction of NATO and the US while suffering no damage except for staying indoors for a few weeks of intense fallout.
I hope the first story is true, I am not ready for the second. But it is possible. I suspect that strategic Russian planners have modeled offensive massive pre-emptive nuclear strikes. And they know that the current US president says that he wants to modernize our nuclear forces. Time is of importance.
You may be paranoid, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get us.
The first story turns out to be true. https://www.space.com/40101-china-space-station-tiangong-1-crashes.html. But it is also true that Russia has the world’s most powerful offensive strategic nuclear force while the US is the world’s most valuable target.
WinLoseorDraw would like to quibble with your phrase “valuable target” Dr. Strangelove.
It is certainly true that the Great U.S. of A. is high value real estate, but Russia would not get any “value” from “targeting” us.
They are much better off using us as a foil which is what they currently do.
An article in Breitbart News, December 7, 2017, claims that scientists committed fraud by changing data to show sea level rise when the data did not. In 2009 East Anglican University, the big source for the UN’s climate policies, was found to deliberately discard information that did not support the institutions’ climate story. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/06/tidalgate-climate-alarmists-caught-faking-sea-level-rise/
WinLoseorDraw can easily believe that university academics would find rationales to dismiss information that seems to contradict its original premise.
WinLoseorDraw does not believe that scientists routinely commit fraud.
You said, “An article in Breitbart News, December 7, 2017, claims that scientists committed fraud…”. The key word is “claims.” In WinLoseorDraw’s humble opinion, Breitbart News is quintessentially hyperbolic in its partisan proclamations.
Change the name Breitbart News to Breitbart Fake News!
Yes, information overload is a big part of the problem, and you correctly ask, “…when was the time and place when a population had an optimal level of accurately judging objective reality?” Yes, since the ancient Greeks, sophistry has been problem. Unfortunately, we seem to be experiencing a new low. People on all sides of the political spectrum are diving into the cesspool of “Yellow” journalism. We need to be on guard more than ever.
Is information overload part of this problem? If so, when was the time and place when a population had an optimal level of accurately judging objective reality?
I recently read Winston Churchill’s “History of the English-Speaking People.” Richard III (ruled 1483-1485) placed the young heirs to the throne in “protective custody” where they conveniently died of “natural causes.” Richard did not get away with this and Churchill writing in the 1930s thought that such crimes would be soon forgotten in modern times because new events are constantly generated and reported; he thought that information overload was an advantage to Nazi and Communist dictators.
Maybe a provisional answer my Question 2 is the period of the Age of Reason in Britain and then the US up until the beginnings of forced mass schooling followed by radio, TV and mass entertainment. The Age of Reason is in the past, now is the age of hyperconsumption of goods and services including information and entertainment.