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posted by janrinok on Thursday November 17 2016, @06:04PM   Printer-friendly

Oxford Dictionaries has declared "post-truth" as its 2016 international word of the year, reflecting what it called a "highly-charged" political 12 months. It is defined as an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals. Its selection follows June's Brexit vote [in the UK], and the US presidential election. Post-truth, which has become associated with the phrase "post-truth politics", was chosen ahead of other political terms, including "Brexiteer" and "alt-right".

[...] Oxford Dictionaries says post-truth is thought to have been first used in 1992. However, it says the frequency of its usage increased by 2,000% in 2016 compared with last year.

Mr Grathwohl said: "Fuelled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37995600
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016

Would you have chosen something different?


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:01PM (#428265)

    In other words, even though your guy won, you're still angry.

    Really angry.

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  • (Score: 2, Offtopic) by jmorris on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:27PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:27PM (#428280)

    Trump winning was not the victory. Trump was the sign that we have chosen to die fighting rather than die in apathy. Of course the odds said Trump couldn't be nominated and most certainly would be destroyed, along with the entire down ticket Republican Party if he somehow were nominated. Which proves that when you fight you can sometimes win against impossible odds. When enough Americans get pissed, reality can be remade. For good or ill we do not yet know.

    Do you truly believe that one election is going to cause the Foe to accept defeat and slink away for a time to regain its strength? BrExit certainly didn't work that way, that vote has already been set aside, now we see if they understood that their initial vote for independence from the global system was only an indication that a fight would take actually place. And even now, the Enemy is seeking to corrupt Electors to prevent our vote here from counting in exactly the same way because they are the exact same Foe.

    To win the glorious future Trump has promised, to win so much we tire of all the winning, is going to require a decade or two of unrelenting war first, with the outcome in doubt until the very last. Trump will at most open the fight, guide us through the initial battles and then stand aside and let others take up the burden, after moving the Overton Window enough that those as yet unknown men can become possible to raise up as leaders. The day when we lay down our weapons and enjoy the fruits of winning is not for us, it shall be for our children to enjoy.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:52PM (#428299)

      Lebensraum

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 17 2016, @08:38PM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday November 17 2016, @08:38PM (#428341) Journal

      Jesus motocrossing Christ, you really believe the stuff you spew, don't you? You even capitalize random nouns like in German. Do you think in italics, too? J-Mo, you are so far off the reservation you're out in the ocean somewhere. Trump was a decoy, another piece of dangling bait for the GOP to trick the low-information crowd with. It's gonna be more of the same shit from the establishment GOP it's been for the last 40 years, only now they all think they're allowed to call people "nigger" in public and we have the equivalent of David Duke in khakis and a polo shirt in charge of strategy.

      You're insane. You wanna see "cultural suicide?" This is fucking it.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 17 2016, @10:03PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday November 17 2016, @10:03PM (#428420) Journal

        Trump was a decoy, another piece of dangling bait for the GOP to trick the low-information crowd with.

        Trump is no product of a GOP stratagem. The GOP stratagem produced about, what, 16 other candidates they thought could beat Hillary? Trump was a primal scream.

        You wanna see "cultural suicide?" This is fucking it.

        I'm not so sure Trump is material to that cultural suicide, Azuma. It's hard to accept the pre-Trump cultural reality of the Kardashians, the Osbournes, and Miley Cyrus as "healthy."

        Somebody in one of those post-election analyses linked to last week made a really good point about our cultural reality. Most of the cultural battles progressives have been fighting for for generations have been won. Gay marriage is accepted by most people now. Abortion is legal. Recreational marijuana use is legal now in more and more states. That's a real sea change.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday November 17 2016, @10:26PM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday November 17 2016, @10:26PM (#428434) Journal

          Yeah? And now we have Mike fucking Pence as VP, which means just plain P given he's basically Cheney if Cheney found religion, and we have Steve motherloving Bannon setting strategy. Oh, and a SCOTUS that will get anywhere from one to three people worse than Scalia in short order at this rate.

          That "sea change" can be rolled back with interest. That motherfucker Pence thinks he can electrocute me into not liking other women, do you get this?

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @07:38AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @07:38AM (#428729)

            Sup bitch.

            --MikeeUSA

            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 18 2016, @05:26PM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday November 18 2016, @05:26PM (#428937) Journal

              Not too much, but you're gonna love this: I'm an editor now :) Still training but in a few days I'll be helping the flow of stories along.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @02:49AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @02:49AM (#428588)

          > Most of the cultural battles progressives have been fighting for for generations have been won.

          Average black household wealth is still just ~7% of average white household wealth [pewresearch.org] and most of that is in a single depreciating asset - a car.
          Life is unfair, but when the unfairness is so unevenly distributed we still have a long way to go.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday November 17 2016, @08:02PM

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Thursday November 17 2016, @08:02PM (#428309) Journal

    That's why it's best to have a gun. You never know whose side you're not on until somebody declares you a demon from the burning hells.

    • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday November 17 2016, @09:30PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Thursday November 17 2016, @09:30PM (#428385)

      You could just simplify that to "That's why it is best to have a gun. You never know when you will need it."

      Which is the entire point. When you realize you need one it is usually too late to get one. On either the short term or long term meaning of the phrase. Whether it is when you hear something go bump in the night and suddenly realize the Truth in the bumper sticker rhetoric of "When seconds count, the police are minutes away" or the medium picture of once the riots start the gun stores are not going to be open, all the way to the bigger picture of by the time a tyrant is in power it is going to be far too late to buy guns.

      So buy now, and be sure to buy at least one that isn't on the books and stash it. Probably won't need em but you probably won't ever need your homeowner's policy either, right? Odds say that the vast of majority of gun owners will never fire a shot in anger. Most police officers even get through a whole career in law enforcement without having to discharge their weapon in the field. These are good things. They are signs that chaos, while currently straining against the chains, isn't yet out of control.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @12:45AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @12:45AM (#428525)

        They are signs that chaos, while currently straining against the chains, isn't yet out of control.

        You totally terrorized coward, jmorris! Why are you so afraid? Getting a brain is much better for your security and peace of mind than any firearm.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @08:14AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @08:14AM (#428736)

          Fear is the mind-killer.
          That's not figurative either. The long-term stress of living in constant terror literally shrinks the brain.