The truth comes out

[Dark Jaguar]

Turns out that not everyone is comfortable selling their soul for the millions cable news pays their mouth pieces.

He did "take it back" and apologize today.  I think what he said Monday is what he really thinks though.  Outbursts like that don't just come out of one day's bad mood.  And he was right too.  CNN, MSNBC, and of COURSE Fox News are news stations that have failed us all.  Fox News is propaganda for the right, CNN promotes a false sense of "both sidesism" which he goes into here, and MSNBC pretends to be a left leaning network but when push comes to shove, they're centrists beholden to the money above all else.

For profit news has failed as badly as for profit prisons and for profit healthcare.  And no, I'm not saying state run news is a good solution like it would be for those other two problem industries, but we do need A solution.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Cable news is junk food and poison. I try to get my news from NPR or written, reputable publications. I find the Hill, Politico, Washington Post, BBC, and NYT, among others to be reliable (though NYT seems pretty partisan at times).

I hate to be pessimistic but it feels like Washington and much of the media empire are too corrupt and dysfunctional to be salvaged. I really don't know what the way forward is, but I'm not hopeful. Addressing consolidation of media seems to be a good step, such as Sinclair owning and controlling a multitude of local news affiliates and using them to push an agenda. At the same time, there has also been a rise of hyper-partisan publications like Breitbart and conspiracy sites like Info Wars, that are polluting our political discourse. Twitter and other social media have become breeding grounds for conspiracies like "Covid-19 is a hoax, big government wants to police you."

The internet has made our "epistemic crisis"[sup]1[/sup] much worse. Rather than using it to pool our resources and consolidate our knowledge, and let the truth shine forward, instead, we've all been split into our own post-modern ecosystems where Your Truth isn't the same as My Truth. 20 years ago, it would be inconceivable that a lunatic idea like The Earth Is Flat[sup]2[/sup] could take any kind of foothold. Welcome to hell.

Beefing up laws that compel journalists to tell the truth will pose difficult questions over weakening the first amendment. Lengthy and costly legal battles could ensue over what an outlet publishes, how truthful it is, etc, and may very well hamstring journalism into walking on eggshells, lest (e.g.) our litigious president press charges over coverage he doesn't like. You know he's salivating to do just that.

1: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/...mic-crisis is a good article I remember reading months ago
2: https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/...bf6f87ec66 Only 2/3rds of millenialls believe the earth is round

So yeah, welcome to kill yourself Thursday, pass the arsenic punch bruh

[Sacred Jellybean]

shoutout to the 16% of millenialls who "aren't sure" the world is flat. Somehow that's even worse than those who convinced that flat. "duuuurrrrr idk flat or curved?? never thought about it gimme a min"

[Dark Jaguar]

shoutout to the 16% of millenialls who "aren't sure" the world is flat. Somehow that's even worse than those who convinced that flat. "duuuurrrrr idk flat or curved?? never thought about it gimme a min"

That's distressing.  I've been trying to pinpoint just how the education system has failed these people so completely, but frankly they WERE educated on this.  Everyone was, so the failure lies somewhere else.

I suspect it ties into numerous systems sending bad messages to the public at large.  For-profit pharmecudical research and for-profit schooling may just be a factor.  It's become the norm for everyone, left and right, to dismiss certain claims of various industries as "things they'd say to make a quick buck".

Healthcare is one of them.  People have an inherit distrust of "big pharma" because of that profit motive.  Just look at all those movie plotlines involving some evil big wig intentionally hiding the cure for cancer because treating it makes more money.  Thing is, that distrust is well deserved.  Big pharma really is putting profit ahead of the well-being of their customers (that is, mandatory customers IE patients) every time they drastically jack up the price of absolutely necessary medicine and medical equipment.  Frankly, medicine should not even BE a business.  However, at least we have laws requiring that medication actually do what it says on the tin and that side effects be, and thus they DO have to actually perform scientific testing.  We don't live in the wild west where someone sells a bottle of straight cocaine as a miracle cure from a soap box.  However, far too many people distrust vaccines.  The way out of our current pandemic is a vaccine, but the government is going to have to make it MANDATORY here.  Legally binding, EVERYONE will need to get it (barring a doctor advising specific patients not get it yet due to compromised immune systems, and those very exceptions are why everyone ELSE needs to get it).  Will our current government have the leadership will to mandate it?  I'm not so sure.  In the past they did at least, but now we have people putting the country in danger because they distrust an industry to the extent that they dismiss valid scientific data in favor of random gossip on Facebook.

Flat earthers tie into this I believe.  College is for profit- so are charter schools which the current administration seem dead-set on making the ONLY schools we can have.  Not everyone can afford college, so for those that can't they're seen as elitist institutions where people pay to get sheets of paper, and the things they come back from it saying don't make much sense when all you have is "common folk" knowledge like the nonsense they put in movies and TV shows, written by other uneducated people.  This isn't meant as an insult, though it sure sounded like one when I reread it.  The reality is, the masses DON'T know what's best for them right now and that's a failing.  College should become simply the next stage of government sponsered schooling.  However, as people leave high school and dismiss college as unecessary, they get this attitude that rejecting what they learned back in public school is fine too.  They were only in it for the money after all, just teaching from books to the test.  (That is of course not accurate and laughably so.  "Teaching to the test" is a problem many teachers fight, and government jobs are by and large mandate driven, not profit driven.  They have to accomplish their goals above all else, even if it means the teachers spend part of their own paychecks on class supplies.)  That general distrust of authority born of the profit motive simply drifts everywhere else, and it becomes easier to believe in conspiracy.

From there- the investment fallacy takes over.  They're committed, not in money but in thought, and it becomes harder and harder to turn around and admit you're wrong.  You want to know why flat earthers believe so very many other nonsensical things?  It's because while believing the earth is flat is easy when you don't think about it, the moment you DO start to think about it you realize just how much of modern science it contradicts, so piece by piece flat earthers have to reject one thing after another just to make it feel consistent in their minds.  For example, they have to reject that planets and stars exist.  They have to reject how far away the moon and sun are, and thus they have to reject that they are even physical objects by saying they are mysterious heavenly discs illuminated by supernatural law and thus unknowable.  They have to reject gravity itself, the most self-evidenct of facts about our physical world.  They have to reject literally every piece of photography ever made showing that curve, claiming that computer chips "alter" images or that old video is either faked on a sound stage (they become moonlanding deniers) or that satellite video predating CG is CG.  When you realize that every single thing they reject is just a piece of evidence that contradicts a flat earth, you realize just how selective they're being.  They've even had to invent a bizarre conspiratorial explanation behind GPS.

It's sad, but it stems from that initial distrust.  Want to counter the flat earth movement or anti vaccers?  It starts by getting that trust back.  Somehow, some way, I tied this back to universal healthcare and college for all.  That's because everything has to do with everything else.  Our world is connected.  The division between things is an artifact of language.

[Sacred Jellybean]

However, far too many people distrust vaccines.  The way out of our current pandemic is a vaccine, but the government is going to have to make it MANDATORY here.  Legally binding, EVERYONE will need to get it (barring a doctor advising specific patients not get it yet due to compromised immune systems, and those very exceptions are why everyone ELSE needs to get it).  Will our current government have the leadership will to mandate it?  I'm not so sure.  In the past they did at least, but now we have people putting the country in danger because they distrust an industry to the extent that they dismiss valid scientific data in favor of random gossip on Facebook.

The anti-vax moment is extremely depressing. We're in a situation where we'll need it the most. Though, a vaccine isn't likely to be created and tested any time soon, is it? I've heard a year to 18 months. Even when one is invented, I still stop short from believing the government should make it mandatory. I don't have an irrational fear of vaccines, but in principle, the government forcing its citizens to take a drug is just a little too far for me. I'm behind not allowing unvaccinated children to attend public schools (particularly if parents have the choice to put them into a private school that more closely aligns with their beliefs) but further than that just raises my hackles.

Unfortunately, I don't know a good solution. What else can you do, stop unvaccinated people from going out in public? Force them to register as "unvaccinated" and track them and stop them from coming to crowded areas? I don't know of any solutions that aren't less draconian than forcing them to take the vaccine to begin with. In an ideal world, people would put their trust in science and we wouldn't have to be debating this, but a bunch of Karens got educated at YouTube university with a minor in memes, and suddenly, they know more than scientists.

For college, I actually believe that "everyone needs a diploma" is a toxic mentality and has resulted in a lot of problems. As demand has risen, tuitions have skyrocketed, resulting in crushing student debt that graduates have to contend with. A lot of them don't even land jobs that are relevant to what they studied. I agree that education in a multitude of subjects is enriching. But I think colleges should go back to being elite institutions for people who are earnest in studying and learning.

Take myself. I've always disliked school, insofar as I didn't like to write essays, study for exams, etc. Learning is its own reward, and doing it on my own terms is more interesting. To me, I'd have been just as fine going to a trade school that only focused on my job skills (software engineering). That being my major, I obviously liked those courses the best, and they were most relevant to what I wanted to be doing for a career.

On the other hand, when more slackers like college-aged, pot-addled Beanjo enter the university, pretty soon, they have to start watering down the curricula to ensure enough students pass. It all arises from this toxic idea that everyone needs a bachelor's degree in order to have a decent job. It seems to me that colleges should keep their integrity as an elite institution for the brightest and most motivated minds. Trade schools and apprenticeships seem like the best entry points into the workforce for everyone else. A non-trivial amount of software companies don't require a diploma, and will readily employ a person who has the equivalent years of work experience (I want to say Google does this?).

Don't get me wrong. As stressful as it was, I'm glad I went to college, and learned the things I did, even non-Comp-Sci subjects. I just don't think that it's a good solution on a wide scale.

I won't make any claim as to whether college should stay public/private as it is now, how much the state should sponsor students, etc. I'm a little undecided on that, and will only say that everyone who wants to go to college, should be able to, with little-to-no financial burden. Having it be fully state-sponsored seems like a good idea, provided we could put some kind of cap on tuition fees, otherwise colleges could charge whatever they wanted to and make bank on all our tax dollars. How that could be calculated/implemented is beyond me. How do you price a thing like that, exactly?