[Torus34]

The news media, often maligned for distorting information ['fake' news, etc.,] has accorded the President of the United States of America Donald Trump immediate access to their services without stint. When President Trump's aides announce that he will have something to say the news media fire up their microphones and satellite dishes and bring us his words as they are spoken.

It is later, sometimes quite a bit later, that analyses of his words are broadcast. That some of the things the President says are counterfactual no longer requires citations. It's common knowledge.

So ... what if the media reversed the order, held up the tape of President Trumps comments, and instead provided a pre-speech analysis, including pointing out the errors. Then, the public would be able to listen to President Trump with knowledge of what he says is correct and what is not correct.

'An informed public ... .'

[ness31]

It is later, sometimes quite a bit later, that analyses of his words are broadcast.

Analyse it for yourself. Your view is just as valid as some two bit journo or commentator. Maybe then, the world will make more sense to you..

*twaddles off to find glass of red*

[Torus34]

@ness31;

Sir, I suspect that not all viewers of President of the United States of America Donald Trump's broadcasts do much more than listen to him and go on with their lives. My suggestion was informed, in part, by the pre-game shows before NFL games.

Best of the season to you and yours.

[Beren]

People should have grown their own Trumpreters by now.

[ness31]

@ness31;

Sir, I suspect that not all viewers of President of the United States of America Donald Trump's broadcasts do much more than listen to him and go on with their lives. My suggestion was informed, in part, by the pre-game shows before NFL games.

Best of the season to you and yours.

I suspect you may be right. I just think it’s the public who need to be a bit more proactive.
We already refer to leaders as ‘mouth pieces’. I can’t see what good there is to gain by having another ‘mouth piece’ decipher what the other is saying.
Even in Animal Farm, all species understood the pig

Thanks for your good wishes

*slinks off to cradle head and sip coffee*

[XogGyux]

The news media, often maligned for distorting information ['fake' news, etc.,] has accorded the President of the United States of America Donald Trump immediate access to their services without stint. When President Trump's aides announce that he will have something to say the news media fire up their microphones and satellite dishes and bring us his words as they are spoken.

It is later, sometimes quite a bit later, that analyses of his words are broadcast. That some of the things the President says are counterfactual no longer requires citations. It's common knowledge.

So ... what if the media reversed the order, held up the tape of President Trumps comments, and instead provided a pre-speech analysis, including pointing out the errors. Then, the public would be able to listen to President Trump with knowledge of what he says is correct and what is not correct.

'An informed public ... .'

This is a terrible suggestion. I understand that you mean well, and I do understand your frustration but I disagree behemently with this. It is not in the public’s best interest to have a media that filters information and spin/present it after being analyzed and tweaked, etc. Everyone with IQ points in the 2 digits or above knows the media is bias, you can definitely sense it in their tones and in their criticism. Ideally news media should limit itself to pure factual information without criticism or even “spinning” and let people analyze the information by themselves. Obviously this is unattainable as people will always have bias, and thoughts. Attempts should be made as to minimize bias at all counts.

If news media were to actively do what you propose, you would only amplify the problem that we already have. We would have MSNBC showing as much of the BS that trump talks (which is plentiful) and doing only partially cover or tone down when he does happen to say something that makes sense. On the other hand you would have FOX news doing exactly the opposite. At the same time the public would become far more outraged at the “other side” because they are not even aware of what the other side is reporting.

You can see this crap in authoritarian countries such as Korea, China, Cuba, Russia, etc where the media is heavily controlled by the governing party. They get to spin the crap out of everything. Transparency is good, the fact that you can see the crap as well is exactly the reason why you should always advocate for transparency. If you cover it up, the crap will not go away, it will simply continue to smell and possibly propagate and infect everything.

The real problem is the people. We are the culprits by being idiots. There is a large group of our population that not only they don’t care that they are uneducated but they are proud of it... as if being an ignorant/stupid was some sort of achievement or something. I do not shame people for being “less smart” or even dumb, I don’t judge them as inferior for having received less education, etc but don’t come to me stating that you are proud to be uneducated because that is simply sad. I pity the fool that is proud of being an ignorant, who is proud of being uneducated and who is incapable of using logic.
We need to start emphasizing that people should receive education and be taught on how to think logically. If all the information you get is false, and you are filtering while committing dozens of logical fallacies and on top of that you have a shitty background education, you are doomed to never come with a reliably adequate response.

[Torus34]

ness31 & XogGyux: Sirs,

My 'suggestion' was, hopefully, understood as something which will not come to pass. Rather, it was tangential to what I see as a central feature of political dialog and reportage. It was intended to stir the thinker in the reader. Now dig deeper.

Let's start with what we 'know'. Our minds are filled with all manner of, for lack of a better terminology, data pieces. Some of these are accepted by us as fact -- that is, they're true by general agreement and often by logical argument. 2 + 2 = 4 and the Earth orbits the Sun can serve as examples.

Then there are other things we 'know' which are not firmly based in fact but contain uncertainty. 'America is the greatest!', 'Conservatives are warmongers!' and 'Liberals are destroying the country!' nicely define this class of data piece in the political realm. [Ed.: Please note that broad, general statements such as these may well contain bits of factual data when partially unpacked.]

And that's where the mental mischief begins when we discuss politics, cultural beliefs, religion and any number of topics. We put together both types of data pieces in our minds -- often willy-nilly -- without rigorously defining the accepted true facts involved. The distinction between, say, political and scientific exposition limns this nicely.

There are, as you know, any number of ways to slice an apple. Similarly, there are a number of ways to divide people based upon their politics. Lib/con, Rep/Dem and capitalist/communist are three. I propose that another is of considerable significance. We can divide people's approach to politics [Ed.: And political belief,] by whether they argue from a basis of fact or emotion. In other words, which type of data piece to they use as the building blocks of their political argument. both with others and with themselves. I submit to you that these two general groups, reasoning and expostulating from quite different data sets, have great difficulty understanding each other. It's almost as if they speak different languages. Perhaps in some sense they do.

Season's best, and if you're sufficiently insulated from the effects of America's present political battle ['The Wall'], enjoy the show as brought to you by the media writ large.

[Ed.: There are enough explicit and implied topics in the above for a number of interesting discussions.]

[XogGyux]

ness31 & XogGyux: Sirs,

My 'suggestion' was, hopefully, understood as something which will not come to pass. Rather, it was tangential to what I see as a central feature of political dialog and reportage. It was intended to stir the thinker in the reader. Now dig deeper.

Let's start with what we 'know'. Our minds are filled with all manner of, for lack of a better terminology, data pieces. Some of these are accepted by us as fact -- that is, they're true by general agreement and often by logical argument. 2 + 2 = 4 and the Earth orbits the Sun can serve as examples.

Then there are other things we 'know' which are not firmly based in fact but contain uncertainty. 'America is the greatest!', 'Conservatives are warmongers!' and 'Liberals are destroying the country!' nicely define this class of data piece in the political realm. [Ed.: Please note that broad, general statements such as these may well contain bits of factual data when partially unpacked.]

And that's where the mental mischief begins when we discuss politics, cultural beliefs, religion and any number of topics. We put together both types of data pieces in our minds -- often willy-nilly -- without rigorously defining the accepted true facts involved. The distinction between, say, political and scientific exposition limns this nicely.

There are, as you know, any number of ways to slice an apple. Similarly, there are a number of ways to divide people based upon their politics. Lib/con, Rep/Dem and capitalist/communist are three. I propose that another is of considerable significance. We can divide people's approach to politics [Ed.: And political belief,] by whether they argue from a basis of fact or emotion. In other words, which type of data piece to they use as the building blocks of their political argument. both with others and with themselves. I submit to you that these two general groups, reasoning and expostulating from quite different data sets, have great difficulty understanding each other. It's almost as if they speak different languages. Perhaps in some sense they do.

Season's best, and if you're sufficiently insulated from the effects of America's present political battle ['The Wall'], enjoy the show as brought to you by the media writ large.

[Ed.: There are enough explicit and implied topics in the above for a number of interesting discussions.]

Well the thing is you have misidentified the problem. The way I see it, the media is not the problem (although certainly I can think of dozens of things that they could be doing better).
Lets take, for instance a fact: The world is round (or spheroid, whatever you want to call it, it looks more like a marble than a sheet of paper). This, by all reasonable accounts, is simply a proven, verifiable and indisputable fact in 2019. Except it is not, there are thousands if not hundred of thousands (I certainly hope its not millions ) of people that believe it is actually flat and that there is some sort of conspiracy to try to convince people otherwise (as if somehow someone would benefit from such a lie?, who knows). This is of course idiotic because of all of the evidence that exists, and if you don't want to hear it from a 3rd party, you can do the math yourself and you'll find out that it is indeed round. But thats not all, if you don't trust math, you can do plenty of cheap experiments to prove this for yourself (e.g. put a laser on pole in the coast, jump on a boat with a mast, aim the laser to the mast near the shore, then start rowing away and you will slowly see how the laser keeps pointing higher and higher in the mast until it goes above it. But if that is not enough, you can get a camera fitted with a gps, get a large balloon, fill it with hydrogen and it raise and raise while the camera records, it will go high enough so that the curvature of the earth is visible, as the balloon raises, the hydrogen will keep expanding until the balloom will explode and the camera (presumably protected so it is not totally detroyed) will fall back to earth where you can retreive it with the GPS, grab the memory card and watch the captured images of the culvature of the earth. You can become an airline pilot and circumfly the whole glove and finally you could become an astronaut and see it all by yourself. But despite all this and more... there are still morons that believe the earth is flat.

Studies have shown that people that believe in at least 1 conspiracy theory are far more likely to believe in additional ones and that most people that believe in 1 conspiracy theory also believe in many. Similar to how superstitious people tend to believe in multiple totally unrelated superstitions (e.g. ghosts + vuduu + astrology or religion + bad/good luck + tipping salt shaker).

The problem at its core is one of how people think (or rather, how they think BADLY). And this goes all the way back to the point I tried to make in my previous post. What we need, is to have people learn how to use basic logic and increase the basic education level.

[Torus34]

XogGyux: Sir,

we're in general agreement with the exception that I have not fingered the media as the problem. The media writ large is intended to include TV, radio and 'net reportage and commentary. What I'm writing now is a part of that definition. As such the media is nothing more than a tape recording of us, the people.

And yes, if you wish to shred almost any statement such as 'People know the Earth is round' to an extreme, it's possible to find one or more deviations. [Ed.: If you say 5 + 6 = 11, you did not include base 7 and 8 systems! Gotcha!] That observation is rather beside the thrust of the argument, however.

So, back to fact-based vs. non-fact based positions. As you noted, it's we, the people who are at the center of the problem of agreement. That some do not wish to know is nicely documented in the mid-1800's group called the 'Know nothings'. That, again, represents an extreme case. More often encountered and far more interesting are the vast majority of us who can, with the ease of a two-way switch, carry two conflicting views and change from one to t'other as circumstances change.

Regards.

[One Degree]

There is little evidence education makes people more logical and less dependent upon emotion today. To believe this, you would first have to admit IQ has zero validity. It is mainly an emotional appeal today rather than a logical deduction since our education system has become an indoctrination system.
I don’t care how smart you think you are, if the media repeats it enough, you are likely to accept it without true reasoning.
Hubris increases your vulnerability to propaganda.
This does not mean I don’t think education is important, but it’s results are dependent upon the reasoning ability of the individual that exists separately from the education process.

[Torus34]

One Degree: Sir, thank you for taking time to respond.

I'm not quite sure of your meaning. You note that education these [Ed.: Latter?] days is indoctrination. You also state that education seems to have little effect upon people reasoning logically with facts as opposed to responding emotionally. Is that because of the nature of the education process as it exists or an inalienable characteristic of any education process?

Regards.

[One Degree]

One Degree: Sir, thank you for taking time to respond.

I'm not quite sure of your meaning. You note that education these [Ed.: Latter?] days is indoctrination. You also state that education seems to have little effect upon people reasoning logically with facts as opposed to responding emotionally. Is that because of the nature of the education process as it exists or an inalienable characteristic of any education process?

Regards.

Education by definition requires indoctrination. The only difference today is the educator’s willingness/ability to give alternatives to his own view. The polarization of society must also infect education as it can not be separated from society. It was apparent when I was in college in the late 60’s.
Other than that, my observations can only be based upon personal experience. If I had accepted the reasoning of my social science professors, then my thinking today would be different. My own reasoning caused me to reject theirs. So, education’s attempts to indoctrinate me failed due to my personal characteristics.

[Torus34]

@ One Degree. Sorry to take so long to respond.

Your anecdotal post nibbles at the question of whether education -- that is, formal schooling -- can teach us to examine issues with more of fact-centered logic or emotion as a basis. And, come to think of it, is one to be preferred over the other, and why?

Disclaimer. My training is in the sciences and my thinking patterns have been those which are needed in science from an early age. I have a deep-seated bias toward logic/fact-based analysis. This doesn't rule out all manner of speculation, but it keeps such thought separate from belief.

Regards.

[One Degree]

@ One Degree. Sorry to take so long to respond.

Your anecdotal post nibbles at the question of whether education -- that is, formal schooling -- can teach us to examine issues with more of fact-centered logic or emotion as a basis. And, come to think of it, is one to be preferred over the other, and why?

Disclaimer. My training is in the sciences and my thinking patterns have been those which are needed in science from an early age. I have a deep-seated bias toward logic/fact-based analysis. This doesn't rule out all manner of speculation, but it keeps such thought separate from belief.

Regards.

I am in no hurry. Reply when you want.
My views are not scientific at all in the way most think of it, but I believe they are reasonable possibilities. For sake of argument though, I don’t mind describing my views as just my ignorant opinions I share.
I don’t think one is better than the other. We need both factual knowledge and reasoning ability. Sometimes one provides the answer and sometimes the other does.
I view logic as a language to explain what we already figured out by other means. The very nature of logic says this is what we do. We first have an idea of the truth and then we try to prove it to others using logic which is a language we invented for that purpose.
I firmly believe we already figured it out with a ‘quantum logic’ that is not step by step at all. We just don’t understand how we do it. I have ideas on that, but enough of my rambling for now.

Edit: @Torus34 , sorry, I just noticed the emotion reference. It can not be eliminated from our reasoning because it is part of us, but some are still ‘clearer thinkers’ than others.