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posted by chromas on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the That's-what-they-WANT-you-to-think dept.

In the Salon

There seems to be a lot of science being thrown at the "Trump Phenomenon." Salon covers yet another, and interviews the author.

A new paper, recently presented at the American Political Science Association's annual convention, suggests a widespread motive driving people to share fake news, conspiracy theories and other hostile political rumors. "Many status-obsessed, yet marginalized individuals experience a 'Need for Chaos' and want to 'watch the world burn'," lead author Michael Petersen tweeted, announcing the availability of a preprint copy.

Truth, in such a worldview, is beside the point, which offers a new perspective on the limitations of fact-checking. The motivation behind sharing or spreading narratives one may not even believe can help make sense of a variety of threatening or confusing recent developments in advanced democracies. It also sheds light on disturbing similarities with outbreaks of ethnic or genocidal violence, such as those seen in Rwanda and the Balkan nations during the 1990s.

Preprint of the paper available at PsyArXiv, here. [DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/6m4ts]


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:34PM (11 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:34PM (#733609)

    marginalized individuals experience a 'Need for Chaos' and want to 'watch the world burn'

    Truth, in such a worldview, is beside the point

    Are you marginalized? (Are you depressed? Have you ever been depressed?) Then you must want to increase chaos, and watch the world burn! Are you Lonely? Burn!!!

    This is nonsense, and this is fake news. Why is this being posted on SN?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:06PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:06PM (#733638) Journal

      It's like asking why do people commit arson?

      For some, it is a one time thing, an insurance scam.

      But I'm talking about people in love with committing arson. Who live for watching the burn. What is their malfunction? How similar is it to wanting to watch the entire world, or a nation burn metaphorically?

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:43PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:43PM (#733662)

      Are you marginalized? (Are you depressed? Have you ever been depressed?)

      Most importantly, we must have an inquisition targeting all people assigned the male gender at birth about the number of sexual partners they've had, and then we must establish how many of those sexual partners have regular menstruation. Then we will be able to find out who the incels are and put them to death, which will solve all the problems with capitalist alienation, depression, declining life expectancy in modern nations, wealth stratification (and the inherent contradictions this feature of capitalism creates), social isolation, and marginalization. And most importantly, this will allow Hillary Clinton to ascend to the throne in 2020, so that we can shoot our nuclear wad at the Russian incels.

      Burn the incels! 燃える、燃える!Police be upon them!

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:03PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:03PM (#733674)

        I think there may be therapy now for whatever issues you are struggling with.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:14PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:14PM (#733760)

          no way to get to a zone of absolute fortune on a mystic moon

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:59PM (5 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:59PM (#733751) Journal

      I would say it's on SN because TFA is ostensibly about a political scientist trying to develop a model to understand and predict social breakdown. How do you measure the health of a polity? Can you track that and understand where it stands? Being able to do something like that would be useful for everyone.

      The political scientist interviewed in TFA does not make a strong case. It seems backward to use participation in violent activism (smashing storefronts, assaulting people you don't like, etc) as a predictor for how willing those people will be to share destructive rumors. It's rather like studying violent inmates as a predictor for how many of them will use inappropriate language, when it would be far more useful to study the use of inappropriate language to predict how many of those who use it will go on to commit violent crimes.

      That aside, the most regrettable aspect of TFA is that Salon pushes it into the territory of a screed, placing a banner with pictures of Donald Trump, Alex Jones, and Sean Hannity at the top and constantly casting the questions in a posture of pathologizing anyone who challenges the status quo, meaning Trump and those who support him (and their counterparts in other places around the world right now like Hungary and Sweden).

      In it, as in so much else that is in the MSM these days, speaks the tongue of the Establishment, the 1%, the power elites. "Anyone who challenges our grip on power is an anarchist!!!" There is no self-reflection, that, perhaps, the people arraying themselves against their "order" are really angry at having been cheated and destroyed by that "order." There is no allowance for the idea that challenging the order of the status quo is maybe not about "inciting chaos," but about creating a different "order" that will better serve everyone.

      Nope, for them it's all a zero-sum game.

      How can the political scientist in the article do his work, on what he hopes will be an apolitical model that will be useful, against a backdrop like that? How do the rest of us do likewise in our own spheres of activity?

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:46PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:46PM (#733781)

        Does the name Hari Seldon ring a bell?

        • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:46AM

          by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:46AM (#734057)

          No, that's Pavlov.

      • (Score: 0, Redundant) by VLM on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:17PM (2 children)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:17PM (#733792)

        I'd tentatively agree with about 90% to 99% of your assessment with the caveat that word choice was extremely weird and weak:

        motivations to “burn down” the entire established democratic ‘cosmos'

        That d in democratic needs to be capitalized to represent the intensely biased level of propaganda from legacy media.

        If, as per

        https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx [gallup.com]

        somewhere around 68% and climbing of the population see the biased legacy media as comical propaganda; given that, calling any opposition to the bias "fake news" is going to result in making fun of the legacy media.

        If your propaganda is the laughing stock of 68% and rising of the population, don't be surprised at people laughing right back. If you take their comedy seriously, you'll get VERY confused, but if you understand the comedy is a political display of disrespect, then it makes more sense.

        Sort of like the boomer hippies trying to make smoking weed a political act half a century ago; that sounds idiotic out of context, and admittedly many just were in for the LOLs.

        There's a political meaning behind "your propaganda is so laughable we not only won't be an obedient congregation for your sermon, we'll laugh at you and troll you". Its a symptom, perhaps, of the increasing gulf between successful and unsuccessful along political lines. If one group demands and gets a devout sermon preaching to the choir, and the other less religious side sees your sacred sermon as a joke or punchline because they're no longer devout believers, and then you take their apostasy as merely being indication they need more propaganda and indoctrination ...

        • (Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:51PM (1 child)

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:51PM (#733855) Journal

          We trust the media more than we trust people who cherry-pick two year old polls, though.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:30AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:30AM (#733966)

            Pretty sure you trust whoever tells you what you want to believe.

    • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:49AM

      by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:49AM (#734059)

      Fake news or not, it would explain Brexit...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:38PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:38PM (#733612)

    n/a

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:10PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:10PM (#733642) Journal

      Eris?

      Typo? Hail Eric maybe? Because Eric is a symbol of stupidity or blurting out the wrong thing?

      Hypothetical example:
      Donald Jr: my dad has very few people that he can trust.
      Eric interrupting . . . yeah, the only ones he can trust are the Russians!
      That would be exactly the wrong thing to add. To most people it would be obvious not to say that for the purposes of this example.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:58PM (#733670)

        Pretty sure GP meant Eris [wikipedia.org], goddess of strife and discord. GP may be a Discordian [wikipedia.org].

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:31PM (#733877)

      +1 golden apple

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:12AM (3 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:12AM (#733916) Homepage Journal

      Screw Eris, Bacchus FTW!

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:28AM (2 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:28AM (#733963) Journal

        Before you get all carried away, Buzzard Minoris, you might want to actually read Euripides Bacchae [tufts.edu], all the way till the end.
        Here's the beginning:

        Διόνυσος

        ἥκω Διὸς παῖς τήνδε Θηβαίων χθόνα
        Διόνυσος, ὃν τίκτει ποθ᾽ ἡ Κάδμου κόρη
        Σεμέλη λοχευθεῖσ᾽ ἀστραπηφόρῳ πυρί:
        μορφὴν δ᾽ ἀμείψας ἐκ θεοῦ βροτησίαν
        πάρειμι Δίρκης νάματ᾽ Ἰσμηνοῦ θ᾽ ὕδωρ.

        (Quick note for the non-classically educated: "Bacchus" is the Latin name for the Greek god Διόνυσος, or Dionysis in Romanization.)

  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:48PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:48PM (#733620)

    Because there is literally no difference to what these days goes for "serious" journalism.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:57PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:57PM (#733626)

      Its nothing new. The news has been mostly fake for a long time now:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect [wikipedia.org]

      The only thing that changed is the fake news started calling other things fake news.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:18PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:18PM (#733650)

        ^The cynic paints the whole world with the same broad brush.

        You are fake news.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:04PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:04PM (#733836)

          I've been tihnking the news was "fake", ie unreliable, for my entire adulthood. Just read it about something you are an expert in, they have no idea what they are talking about. Then read about some politically charged topic, its all "anonymous" sources saying this and that. Do you see news outlets keeping score of the reliability of their "anonymous" sources? They would proudly display this if it was any good.

      • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:27PM (1 child)

        by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:27PM (#733731) Journal

        Several thousand years now, by your standards.

        --
        This sig for rent.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:07PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:07PM (#733837)

          My standards really arent that high. Just report the facts in the facts section without picking and choosing.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by suburbanitemediocrity on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:02PM

        by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:02PM (#733752)

        I somehow feel better about cutting out all news 25 years ago after being bombarded for the 18th week in a row of solid 24/7 news coverage of Nancy Kerrigan. I don't feel like I've missed anything as all real, as in pertinent to me, news makes it through.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:01PM (24 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:01PM (#733633)

    Because we have not eradicated stupidity yet. It's on the list right after convincing the "Flat Earthers" that they are mistaken.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:14PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:14PM (#733646)

      Because we have not eradicated stupidity yet.

      Hey, leave those stupid people be with their Nazi slurs, Russian collusion and other ridiculous delusions.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:49PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:49PM (#733785)

        Riiight, cause "good people on both sides" with one side literally carrying Nazi flags is delusional. Because Trump's closest associates selling him out for reduced sentences in no way indicates he is a criminal that worked with the Russians to get elected.

        Yup, ignore reality, those are delusions, believe in your safe space where you can MAGA until your home gets foreclosed on.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:33PM (21 children)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:33PM (#733657) Journal

      The Authoritarians (available at https://www.theauthoritarians.org [theauthoritarians.org] ) has been getting around. As far as it goes, it's a pretty good explanation of how people with poor reasoning skills (aka stupid people) behave. The author tries very hard to avoid calling them stupid, but does not succeed.

      As for conspiracy theories, I read another explanation that can be summed up as teleological thinking. Consider a typical children's show. They are full of objects that have been animated, and given human faces and dialog that suggest they have a purpose. Clouds like to rain on people and things, the sun likes to shine, stars like to twinkle, and trees, chairs, shoes, and even rocks apparently like to sit there and talk about philosophy, or maybe just offer advice on how to be a better sports player from their vantage point of happening to be located near or on a sports field of some sort from which they could observe, and so on. People usually but not always draw the line at body parts. Even in a TV show, your own knee isn't suddenly going to sprout a face to tell you that you hurt it and to not play such rough sports.

      Need for chaos? It's a need, but not I think for chaos. Maybe it's a need for drama.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:41PM (16 children)

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:41PM (#733660) Journal

        Umbrella term "Poor reasoning skills" isn't a primary predictor of right wing authoritarianism.

        It is a predictor of conspiracy ideation and broad apolitical acceptance of conspiracy theories.

        Research has indicated, however, that there's two flavors of conspiracy acceptance, and the broad apolitical kind isn't the majority anymore. Motivated reasoning based conspiracies are becoming dominant. And motivated reasoning is a strong predictor of right wing authoritarianism.

        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:36PM (2 children)

          by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:36PM (#733692)

          You mean the Bilderbergs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group [wikipedia.org] and the Illuminati http://www.theweek.co.uk/62399/what-is-the-illuminati-and-what-does-it-control [theweek.co.uk] aren't really causing Global Climate Change? :-|

          (PS: For those who might not perceive my sarcasm, I am not a conspiracy theorist)

          • (Score: 3, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:26PM

            by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:26PM (#733901)

            Of course you're not a conspiracy theorist.

            Pointing out to everyone how the Illuminati are causing climate change is just being neighbourly.

            You should also let people know how the One World Government are preventing people from travelling to the ice wall that surrounds the flat Earth, keeping the truth from us!

            THEY'RE DOING IT FOR THE LIZARD PEOPLE!!!!

          • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @03:31AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @03:31AM (#733995)

            You mean the Bilderbergs and the Illuminati aren't really causing Global Climate Change? :-|

            Of course not, silly.

            Global Climate Change is obviously caused by the patriarchy.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:56PM (10 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:56PM (#733706)

          Motivated reasoning based conspiracies are becoming dominant. And motivated reasoning is a strong predictor of right wing authoritarianism.

          The first Google hit when I looked for it has this gem:

          The phenomenon of motivated reasoning explains why even smart people on the left appear to be getting dumber

          So while I accept the premise, I doubt your conclusion. [sciencedaily.com] With a little knowledge of current statistical data, [vox.com] I really doubt your conclusion. [psychologytoday.com]

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:32PM (7 children)

            by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:32PM (#733736) Journal

            It's a particularly facile brain that can take psychology discussion of fairly specific psychological phenomena with assloads of research related to them: motivated reasoning, right wing authoritarianism, conspiracy acceptance(and ideation), and reasoning skills, and manage to jump to facile totally unrelated subjects: gender difference in voting patterns, emotionality, and think they've addressed the point at all, much less rejected the primary thesis. Just utterly facile in the extreme.

            You've kinda blithley pointed at emotionality and decided it represents bad reasoning skills. Which is, to my knowledge, a totally unsupported premise in all of psychology. In fact, neuroticism, which is kind of a more objectively measurable(and frequently measured) concept in psychology for emotional responsiveness(though it also represents other personality characteristics, I don't want to oversimplify) correlates with stronger critical thinking skills and even IQ.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:16PM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:16PM (#733763)

              You've kinda blithley pointed at emotionality and decided it represents bad reasoning skills. Which is, to my knowledge, a totally unsupported premise in all of psychology.

              Read more. Heightened emotionality has a negative correlation with critical thinking, it's so well researched I can't even be bothered finding a link.

              In fact, neuroticism, which is kind of a more objectively measurable(and frequently measured) concept in psychology for emotional responsiveness(though it also represents other personality characteristics, I don't want to oversimplify) correlates with stronger critical thinking skills and even IQ.

              Pfft! [sagepub.com]

              The only thing that comes to mind when I read the following is "SJW":

              The second dynamic that generates conflict over risk issues is motivated reasoning. Motivated reasoning refers to the tendency of people to conform assessments of information to some goal or end extrinsic to accuracy (Kunda, 1990; Balcetis & Dunning, 2008; Dunning, 1999; Ditto, Pizarro & Tannenbaum, 2009).

              The goal of protecting one’s identity or standing in an affinity group that shares fundamental values can generate motivated cognition relating to policy-relevant facts (Cohen, 2003; Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Even among modestly partisan individuals, shared ideological or cultural commitments are likely to be intertwined with membership in communities of one sort or another that furnish those individuals with important forms of support—emotional and psychic as well as material (Green, Palmquist & Schikler, 2002). If a proposition about some policy-relevant fact comes to be commonly associated with membership in such a group, the prospect that one might form a contrary position can threaten one’s standing within it.

              Once again I provided correlations while you provided insults.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:05PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:05PM (#733815)

                If a proposition about some policy-relevant fact comes to be commonly associated with membership in such a group, the prospect that one might form a contrary position can threaten one’s standing within it.

                This would explain a lot about the cognitive process of right-wing authoritarianism.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:23PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:23PM (#733823)

                  This would explain a lot about the cognitive process of right-wing authoritarianism.

                  It describes "going along to get along" as part of a collective. [sagepub.com]

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:09PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:09PM (#733840)

              specific psychological phenomena with assloads of research

              Psych research was turned into another arm of fake news long ago. You can read the journals of the 1930s- 1960s to see the older generation tried to stem the tide of BS but they lost because people would prefer to fund fake advances (significant p-values) over real ones (accurate predictions, repeatable experiments).

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:43AM (2 children)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:43AM (#733971) Journal

              It's a particularly facile brain that can take psychology discussion of fairly specific psychological phenomena with assloads of research related to them: motivated reasoning, right wing authoritarianism, conspiracy acceptance(and ideation), and reasoning skills, and manage to jump to facile totally unrelated subjects: gender difference in voting patterns, emotionality, and think they've addressed the point at all, much less rejected the primary thesis. Just utterly facile in the extreme.

              No more facile that the bullshit you just spewed. Note that motivated reasoning, for example, is a emotion-based response and hence, part of the behaviors of emotionality. It's quite relevant to discuss such things.

              Second, I notice a glaring warning sign in "The Authoritarians", namely, it's about a particular subclass of authoritarians (the "Right Wing Authoritarian") rather than the whole lot. It takes a bunch of motivated reasoning and a bit of chutzpah to give a book a more or less universal label and then have it be about attacking ideological opponents. The sciency theater is pretty, but it doesn't change the underlying bias.

              You've kinda blithley pointed at emotionality and decided it represents bad reasoning skills.

              If you're depending on emotional behaviors to reason, then yes, you have bad reasoning skills. It's a given. Keep in mind the point of emotional behaviors. We are cognitively limited in a variety of ways. Emotions allow us to react quickly to changes while not having to add modules for each mode of operation. The brain changes its behavior on the fly to better fit the situation. That's great for survival/conflict situations where quick response is far better than reasoned but delayed response. It completely blows up however when you're in a situation where it is productive to deliberate for a long time. There are many such problems where coming up with an answer in seconds is completely useless. You're not in a race and your emotions aren't a great guide for finding useful answers.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:57AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:57AM (#734062)

                I notice a glaring warning sign in "The Authoritarians", namely, it's about a particular subclass of authoritarians (the "Right Wing Authoritarian") rather than the whole lot.

                Yes it's a subclass but not what you think. Altemeyer writes

                Because the submission occurs to traditional authority, I call these followers right-
                wing authoritarians. I’m using the word “right” in one of its earliest meanings, for in
                Old English “riht”(pronounced “writ”) as an adjective meant lawful, proper, correct,
                doing what the authorities said. (And when someone did the lawful thing back then,
                maybe the authorities said, with a John Wayne drawl, “You got that riht, pilgrim!”)

                John Dean, who loves words the way I love pizza, pointed out this early meaning of “right”
                after pinning me to the wall on how come I called this personality trait right-wing
                authoritarianism. I’ve always called it right-wing authoritarianism rather than simply
                authoritarianism in acknowledgment that left-wing authoritarianism also exists. An
                authoritarian follower submits excessively to some authorities, aggresses in their name, and
                insists on everyone following their rules. If these authorities are the established authorities
                in society, that’s right-wing authoritarianism. If one submits to authorities who want to
                overthrow the establishment, that’s left-wing authoritarianism, as I define things.

                May I suggest you read the book, it's fairly interesting and funny too.

                • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:53AM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:53AM (#734165) Journal

                  Yet another warning sign, pilgrim. Humor to disguise ambiguity of the crucial definition.

                  An
                  authoritarian follower submits excessively to some authorities, aggresses in their name, and
                  insists on everyone following their rules. If these authorities are the established authorities
                  in society, that’s right-wing authoritarianism. If one submits to authorities who want to
                  overthrow the establishment, that’s left-wing authoritarianism, as I define things.

                  Most such definitions are based on what people believe, not on what their external political landscape looks like. And the definition of right wing authoritarian is pretty useless now since any authoritarian can be one, their authority just needs to be in charge.

          • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:32PM (1 child)

            by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:32PM (#733902)

            The first (and second and third also) Google hits I got when I searched "Motivated reasoning" explained to me how "conservatives" set about deluding themselves about climate change, so, whatever.

            Maybe you just got the republican Google.

            • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Friday September 14 2018, @01:51PM

              by etherscythe (937) on Friday September 14 2018, @01:51PM (#734815) Journal

              "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"

              --
              "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:30PM (1 child)

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:30PM (#733797)

          There's also a slight difference in percentage of time the "conspiracy theory" turns out to be true.

          In the old days of gray space aliens controlling the world, the odds of success were roughly zilch.

          In the new days when "conspiracy theory" merely means a truth we are trying to keep quiet as per most of wikileaks documents, the contents of the emails on Hillaries illegal email server, etc, the odds of success end up pretty darn high, admittedly not 100% but certainly not the bad old days of 0%. Given that the lame legacy mainstream media is distrusted by the majority of the population, a "conspiracy theory" success rate around 50:50 puts it competitive with legacy media propaganda sources.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:42AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:42AM (#734055)

            VLM is more dumb than a bag of hammers. And it is true, because a hammer said so! Really? 14 Words? 88? I kill you like my grandfather killed your kind in Germany. They stood up and said, "we are the superior Race!" And he shot them through the head. Actually, too kind, by my way of thinking. Careful where you so identify in public, VLM, It is perfectly acceptable to punch Nazis in the face, since they never did sign an article of surrender, so technically they are enemies of the US, and all the other Allies. Careful where you vacation.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:08PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:08PM (#733676)

        Need for chaos? It's a need, but not I think for chaos. Maybe it's a need for revenge.

        FTFY

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:27PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:27PM (#733687)

          Need for chaos? It's a need, but not I think for chaos. Maybe it's a need for revenge.

          FTFY

          It's no surprise that a president who promises to punish the classes of people that some individuals hate will get the support of that part of the population.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:45PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:45PM (#733744)

          Justice is nothing more than institutionalized revenge.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:45AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:45AM (#733974) Journal
            Only if you completely blow off the concepts of proportionality and rehabilitation. I agree that is a thing, but not everyone does that.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:12PM (11 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:12PM (#733643) Journal

    It is because most adults today (including myself) probably can't pass a high school final exam from 100 years ago.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:38PM (6 children)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:38PM (#733694) Journal

      Depends how much knowledge of current events from a century ago is on the test. Yes, most of us would have a rough time with that part.

      But I think most of us would do okay on the math and science areas. They were by no means uniformly great at teaching those subjects back then, and for some of the same stupid reasons as today. The infamous Scopes Monkey Trial happened in 1925.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by suburbanitemediocrity on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:03PM (5 children)

        by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:03PM (#733712)

        I don't know about the science, but i saw a 1950's textbook on trigonometry and was very quickly humbled and slightly ashamed of my university degree in mathematics.

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:15PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:15PM (#733761) Journal

          That's what I'm talking about. Not current events of the day. Not which Kardashian is sleeping with who.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:29PM (3 children)

          by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:29PM (#733773) Journal

          What did they do? Seeing as 1950 is before there were pocket calculators, teach how to compute trig functions, in case you don't have a book of tables handy?

          • (Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:41PM (2 children)

            by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:41PM (#733828)

            There was a lot more geometry, infinite series and a lot of proofs. And logarithms. Yes, all necessary for being able to calculate your own numbers in absence of a calculator.

    • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:16PM (3 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:16PM (#733820)

      high school

      Ha! Best Analogy Ever!

      Consider the classic/ancient 80s movie "Wargames", when the kid gets kicked out of biology class, as a near perfect analogy to the situation with the journalists and "fake news". Yeah I know it sounds crazy but hear me out.

      In both situations, the masses are being indoctrinated in stuff that doesn't matter and doesn't directly improve their lives. It is merely feel good propaganda. True, if you're going into a bio field like doc or nurse, bio is important, but not for 80%+ of the population. True, if you're a young adult who never learned how to think, maybe you'll learn in bio class, but if you haven't yet you probably can't ever, and clearly the kid in the movie knew how to think and problem solve, as likely did every other kid in that class although probably not using computers. Eventually the curve of young adult patience intersects the curve of authoritarian lecturer and "Class, who can tell me which famous biologist defined the concept of asexual reproduction?" "Uh, that would be your wife". Just like WRT fake news eventually enough commie propaganda BS on CNN results in "Obama was never born in the USA, you know..."

      Now lets look at the effectiveness of the response. Stuff thats been tried by the lefties. Yeah yeah, I know, to be on the left is to fail. Look at left wing economies, left wing family life, left wing science, left wing lifestyle. But humor them and for the sake of argument assume they're not intentionally trying to fail regardless of their typical outcome.

      So in the "Wargames" movie we can slander the kid by declaring his remarks completely NON-KOSHER (ahem) by having the authority figures call his comment "Fake Education" and start rabble rousing to indoctrinate the other proles to hate whatever is defined today as "Fake Education" and so forth. That sounds very left wing, yet also sounds a complete belly laugh.

      Or in the "Wargames" movie they could respond with violence. Consider if the teacher started whacking the kid with a bike lock, directing an angry mob to attack the kid in his car, or more abstract ideas like giving the kid and his family an economic death penalty by messing up their lives. On the very short term that sounds good, but remember from a "COIN" counterinsurgency perspective, like 80% of the population is aligned with the kid not the aggressors. Also its already happening in urban schools with dumber populations that teachers get gunned down for less severe attacks; if the aggressors push the envelope, they will rapidly and effectively martyr themselves.

      Or in the "Wargames" movie the devout authority priest-figure of a teacher could have verbally attacked the kid. "Whaddya mean, my wife, you fucking stupid creationist hick evolution-denier whippersnapper". Sorta like the dialogue in "Gran Turino" but not entertaining at all, and the not entertaining part is a big problem. There are New York Times Editors posting anti-white stuff like that on twitter. That is VERY effective at reducing the spread of the propaganda message; its very out of tune. "Hey you people I'm propagandizing, I hate you" has always been a blue-on-blue score. I strongly encourage my opponents to double down on what is driving their support away.

      Or in the "Wargames" movie they could deplatform the kid, kick him out of school, throat punch his larynx, duct tape his mouth. The problem is 80% of the population hates the stupid message being proselytized, so you're back to the "violence as a solution" outcome where either you have to death camp 80% of the remaining classmates or the classmates start shooting back out of self defense.

      The solution in the linked paper, comically, seems to propose the "Wargames" movie response to "your wife" should be to make fun of the kids psychological state in non-refutable manner. "Oh you think my wife invented it, well fuck you kid you're insane and when are you going to stop beating your wife?" Ehhh somehow I'm not seeing that work out well.

      The fundamental problem is looking for a very small scale solution to a very large scale problem. The large scale problem is the dominant political propaganda is dying and as dying movements often do, its going to extremism, and with that drift leftward the propaganda they've been spewing is turning into a laughingstock and is being responded to in a manner appropriate for standup comedy or maybe shittalking at a bar or shitposting online. Clean the den of vipers and put sane americans in charge of our propaganda instead of mostly insane Israelis? Maybe but thats a lot of work.

      Maybe the best solution to general opposition against propaganda of a dying ideology is simply calmly wait for it to finish dying out.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:18AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:18AM (#734010)

        Whatever you're smoking, dude, you need to ease up on that shit a bit. Seriously.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:10AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:10AM (#734026)

          I rarely read his shit, definitely won't read that wall of text. I must say though, it is amusing watching the crazy users around here slowly start to unravel.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:49PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:49PM (#734267)

        Dafuq did I just read?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:16PM (5 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:16PM (#733648)

    Gossip has been around since humans figured out how to communicate. Now it's much easier to put gossip in writing, and people tend to accept writings as being true.

    Of course it's begging the question: why do people gossip?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:40PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:40PM (#733741)

      why do people gossip?

      Do you really have to ask? [quoteinvestigator.com]

      There's been a recent trend to promote gossip as some kind of virtue. [theatlantic.com] I don't care for gossip, especially malicious gossip which is simply bullying.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:48PM (#733782) Journal

        As Cicero, I believe, said: "Caesar's Kardashian must be above suspicion!"

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:47PM (#733829)

          True, although he elaborated - "In things possible there is nothing Jenner".

    • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:39PM (1 child)

      by shortscreen (2252) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:39PM (#733803) Journal

      possible motivation #1 - I will share this valuable info and maybe get some different valuable info in return

      possible motivation #2 - I will share this idea that might be BS because it would be convenient for me if other people believed it

      possible motivation #3 - I will say these words and it will make me/my team look good, or make the other guy look bad

      possible motivation #4 - I will share this idea for the lulz

      • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:02PM

        by RS3 (6367) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:02PM (#733895)

        It's also common that people like to sound like they're "in the know" and all cool like. Fortunately that NEVER happens here.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:36PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:36PM (#733659)

    started long before trump. maybe he learned from it.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Revek on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:40PM

    by Revek (5022) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:40PM (#733697)

    Why their life sucks. It couldn't be them. No way, no how. It was the Illuminati trained Sasquatches who stole all the left socks.

    --
    This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:29PM (9 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:29PM (#733733)

    As elaborated by George Carlin:
    1. Some people are really stupid.
    2. Some people are full of crap.
    3. Some people are friggin' nuts.

    But only slightly more seriously:
    1. Anti-intellectualism means that a lot of people truly believe that my ignorance is as good as your knowledge. And in the more extreme version, religious belief systems that demand that folks genuinely answer the question "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" with "You, of course."
    2. Everything we know about cognitive dissonance, including the fact that any facts that fail to conform to your belief system will be discarded regardless of the evidence in their favor.
    3. Some people think of backing their political party a lot like backing their favorite NFL team, and thus have no problem spreading deceptions if they think it will help out "their" side. Never mind that they probably stand to gain at best nothing if "their" side wins, because neither of the sides with real power in the political system give a damn about them one way or another (just like their favorite NFL team doesn't really care about their fan bases either).
    4. There is an element of "Because screw you, that's why!" Which is largely a consequence of the supposed adults in the room repeatedly screwing things up, badly.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:32PM (8 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:32PM (#733775) Journal

      1. is self-inflicted, I think. The people who are supposed to be the smart ones, the ones who have really studied and mastered difficult subjects, still fuck things up on an epic scale. So the average person, who didn't go to those lengths says, "Guess you weren't so smart after all, Mr. Smarty Pants." Then he also remembered how haughty Mr. Smarty Pants was all the times he dismissed Mr. Average Person as "not having the faintest idea what he was talking about," and his reaction takes on a more gleeful and vicious edge.

      3. tribalism is a bane of civilization. Tribalists like to exploit that foible to endless effect. They want, in essence, to drag us back to the internecine quagmire that all regions dominated by tribalism have always been. If you think about which regions and societies are successful, and which are not (in terms of the indices of civilization), the ones where tribalism dominate are largely inversely proportional to human freedom and democracy.

      4. rage tends to work that way. You listen to a guy calmly explain why this and this and that and that, and then he stabs you in the face. Then you get a little mad, and listen, with greater effort, to the same guy calmly explain why this and this and that and that, and when you glance behind you because your kid is trying to get your attention or your wife needs an operation, he stabs you in the back. And that goes on and on and on, with the guy betraying and injuring you in any of a thousand ways, and your self-restraint wears away to nothing, and all that remains is rage. In short, where we are with respect to this question has been earned. It has been so earned.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:04PM (7 children)

        by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:04PM (#733813)

        1. is self-inflicted, I think. The people who are supposed to be the smart ones, the ones who have really studied and mastered difficult subjects, still fuck things up on an epic scale.

        I don't think that's accurate.

        The people who cause the greatest difficulties are high-status idiots, which is to say people who were never that smart, never really studied and mastered a difficult subject, but are still put in charge of things, often because of who their daddy was. These people put lots of time and energy into being what Aldous Huxley brilliantly termed "A stupid person's idea of the clever person". Meanwhile the smart people (scientists, doctors, engineers, etc) are busily doing useful work, but are hated by everyone too dumb to do what they do.

        Anti-intellectualism is nothing new in the US, though, as anyone familiar with the Scopes trial knows.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:30PM (4 children)

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:30PM (#733825)

          what Aldous Huxley brilliantly termed "A stupid person's idea of the clever person"

          I saw a girlfriend of a friend of mine watching "The Big Bang Theory". Holy shit Huxley's show summarizes that TV show in eight words.

          To give you an idea how powerful that is to pull it off in eight words, my favorite political movement takes fourteen words to describe itself.

          I think more than one episode of "the big bang theory" suffers from the "Huxley's eight words" effect. Since (((certain people))) invented the media archetype of "the nerd" in the 70s, I think all legacy media has suffered from "Huxley's eight words effect" or whatever its called.

          • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:26PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:26PM (#733844)

            my favorite political movement takes fourteen words to describe itself.

            Before disintegrating into purity tests and outright stupidity.

          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:59PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:59PM (#733892)

            "WE MUST SECURE THE EXISTENCE OF FUCK BETA AND A FUTURE FOR GAY NIGGERS"?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:25AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:25AM (#734035)

            Do you miss r/The_Donald so badly you've gotta turn SN into a latrine too?

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:39AM (1 child)

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:39AM (#733930) Journal

          The people who cause the greatest difficulties are high-status idiots, which is to say people who were never that smart, never really studied and mastered a difficult subject, but are still put in charge of things, often because of who their daddy was.

          Long-Term Capital Management [wikipedia.org]. Led by two Nobel prize winners, including Myron Scholes, of the Black-Scholes Model [wikipedia.org], which is taught all over the world.

          Mars Climate Orbiter [wired.com], designed by friggin' rocket scientists, burned up because they didn't convert English to metric.

          VW emissions scandal [wikipedia.org]. Everybody does say German engineers suck.

          Those are a handful of relatively recent examples off the top of my head. You don't need too many of those to justify the average man looking askance at claims made by the experts.

          Now, you may say those don't add up to "epic," but I reckon they're more deserving of that description than the neat skateboard tricks the kids do like to post to YouTube.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:39AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:39AM (#734089)

            Mars Climate Orbiter [wired.com], designed by friggin' rocket scientists, burned up because they didn't convert English to metric.

            Commenting as an actual rocket scientist, that is not true. The real reason is more involved and had to do with project (mis) management and communication. The software that was used had worked multiple times before, but was ordained from high that it be converted to metric, which was also fine...but not all departments got the memo.

            As Feynman noted in one of his books, the real genius of Apollo was not technical, but organizational.

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:41PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:41PM (#733742)

    When your "fact-checking" is clearly fake... yeah, people will ignore it. The fact checkers all showed massive bias.

    Does anybody seriously trust the fact-checking sites? I doubt even the leftists trust them, despite eagerly using them to "prove" nonsense.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:37PM

      by digitalaudiorock (688) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:37PM (#733801) Journal

      When your "fact-checking" is clearly fake... yeah, people will ignore it. The fact checkers all showed massive bias.

      I just fact checked this and they tell me you're full of shit.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:01PM (8 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:01PM (#733812)

      Does anybody seriously trust the fact-checking sites? I doubt even the leftists trust them, despite eagerly using them to "prove" nonsense.

      It's not about "trusting" a website, ya blithering fuckwit! Instead, you are supposed to look at the website to see what evidence they present. The evidence will speak for itself (or not). If you are trusting a website to spoon feed you the truth, then you are a fool!

      Dear God! It's a wonder that people like you can even manage to walk and chew gum at the same time. While the internet is one of the most advanced tools ever produced, it is well nigh useless if you don't learn to use it properly.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:12PM (6 children)

        by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:12PM (#733818)

        If you are trusting a website to spoon feed you the truth, then you are a fool!

        More generally, if you're trusting any single source of information to provide The Truth, you are a fool. That's true whether that single source of information is the Iraqi Information Minister, the New York Times, InfoWars, Fox News, MSNBC, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, Nature, The Lancet, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Joe down at the bar, the BBC, Al Jazeera, or your favorite politician.

        Furthermore, if you encounter any source of information telling you to not look at the other sources of information, then that's a sure sign to be suspicious: People with good information will be able to provide evidence that supports their position and discredits other sources of information, whereas people with bad information don't want to have to bother with that.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:50AM (5 children)

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:50AM (#733934) Journal

          I think that's a good rule of thumb, but even that is not enough. We must always think critically, especially when the people telling us something are doing so with a writ of authority. Remember that little deal we had a while back, the Iraq War? Everybody, every government body, every media outlet, banged the war drums, telling us all they had evidence, nay, proof! that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. To me, and many others, it all stunk to high heaven of a snow job. Sure enough, that's what it was. All lies.

          I have that same spidey sense now about the preposterous Russian collusion story. Cardboard is made of sterner stuff than that flimsy fiction. And having CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, and every other MSM outlet repeat it day in and day out for two years, a la Goebbels's "a lie repeated ten thousand times is indistinguishable from the truth," has not made it any less fabricated.

          But those are contemporary issues being fought in the agora now. Scientists and others who live and die by evidence and empirical research don't themselves agree on what that evidence means. Tomes have been written about great controversies in science. So if those folks can't agree on what the evidence is telling them, as superior to lesser humans as they are, then how can we expect those lesser humans to be great at it?

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:43AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:43AM (#734090)

            Given how far astray critical thinking has often taken us, maybe it’s time to embrace the Millennial Generation’s approach

            - Senior Policy Advisor to Vice President and Director of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:48AM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:48AM (#734163) Homepage Journal

            Rule of thumb [wikipedia.org]? Can't do much damage with that thing, can we. Perhaps it should have been the rule of wrist [youtube.com].

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 13 2018, @01:02PM (2 children)

            by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 13 2018, @01:02PM (#734211)

            We must always think critically, especially when the people telling us something are doing so with a writ of authority.

            Agreed. The "don't trust a single source" rule is one part of thinking critically. Another good rule is to be especially suspicious of information that appears to confirm your previously held beliefs, because you're more likely to be fooled by that.

            --
            The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
            • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:31PM (1 child)

              by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:31PM (#734252) Journal

              Another good rule is to be especially suspicious of information that appears to confirm your previously held beliefs, because you're more likely to be fooled by that.

              Especially if it's facile. Think of the Atlanta bombing when they arrested that Middle Eastern guy, and nobody questioned it. Of course it was a Middle Eastern terrorist, everyone said, because that's what they do. It turned out to be an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by Eric Rudolph.

              --
              Washington DC delenda est.
              • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:09PM

                by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:09PM (#734302)

                Then there's Charles Stuart and Susan Smith, both of whom came awfully close to getting away with their terrible crimes by saying a big black guy did it. And an awful lot of people believed them.

                --
                The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:53PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:53PM (#733832)

        First of all, most people just look at the pretty graphic. Aside from that issue though...

        It's not just evidence presented. It's evidence left out. It's purposeful misinterpretation of the supposed fact being checked, in a way that makes it more or less provably true or false. It's the initial selection of which facts should be checked at all. It's ignoring minor details or caring about them. It's choosing what to do with old fact-check stories that now have new information to change the verdict: ignore, delete, or rewrite.

        If an aircraft burns up on a taxiway and a politician says it burned on the runway, how should that be fact checked? If the politician is a democrat, the fact checkers pay little attention to the distinction between a taxiway and a runway. The supposed fact is rated true, or at least mostly true. If the politician is Donald Trump, that distinction gives him a "pants on fire" rating.

  • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:05PM

    by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:05PM (#733791) Journal

    The moments of crisis produce in men an increase in life. In a society that disintegrates and is reformed, the clash between the past and the future, the mixture of old and new customs, forms a transitory combination that does not leave a day of boredom. The passions and the characters, released, show an energy that they do not have in the well-ordered city. The violation of the laws, the exemption of duties, customs and conveniences and even dangers, give interest to the disorder. The human race, on vacation, walks down the street, free of pedagogues, returned for a moment to the natural state and does not feel the need for a social brake more than when it has been subjected to the yoke of the new tyrants engendered by disorder.

    - François-René de Chateaubriand
    Memoirs from Beyond the Grave

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:13PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:13PM (#733866)

    It is not a need for chaos. It is a need to make sense of the world coupled with the fear that one is being marginalized. It is the need to NOT have the chaotic and putting labels on it that one can believe in, true or not, makes it worth bearing.

    If you feel marginalized then the ________________ conspiring against you makes perfect sense. On a larger scale, a political leader who convinces you that he's one of you, or stands for your values, gets to name those marginalizing forces. Poor Donald Trump, he's so picked on by the media spreading all those nasty fake things about him! I know he cares about [my not having a job] [my being one paycheck from starvation] [those brown people who take so much from us and give nothing back] [those nasties who want to take my guns] [the world conspiracy against the U.S.] He'll save us all so of course I'll believe his narrative!

    Now replace Donald Trump with whatever demagogue is in office. He's just better at those manipulations than most.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:55AM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:55AM (#733937) Journal

      Now replace Donald Trump with whatever demagogue is in office. He's just better at those manipulations than most.

      Well, he was fresh from Reality TV and understands that that is the country America is now He has good, solid experience with manufactured drama and shock value. Couple that with his background as a dyed-in-the-wool New York City real estate asshole (really, they make the bond traders on Wall Street seem like sweethearts), and you have a pretty solid resume for tearing down the self-congratulatory circle jerk that is the Wall Street/DC power elites.

      I think that much many of us can agree on. Now, whether he is employing those skills in the cause of destroying America, or saving it, is left as an exercise for the reader.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:21PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:21PM (#734183) Journal

      It is a need to make sense of the world coupled with the fear that one is being marginalized.

      Eh, I think there's an even simpler explanation. If you can't win, change the rules. The "chaos" opens up opportunities for the person in a otherwise permanently marginalized or losing position to get ahead.

  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:53AM (7 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:53AM (#734061) Journal

    Interesting discussion, all! I am sure Janrinok is happy. But it does seem to be the case again (not the first time) that most commentors have not actually read the paper in question. Now when I run seminars, with, like, actual graduate students, I expect that they will have read the source material before we have a discussion about the same. So I suggest that everyone check their ideological tribal identities, go read the actual paper, and then come back for some actual intellectual discussion on the thesis of the paper. This is what we need to do to make JR happy, and he deserves it, and not only that, you owe it to SoylentNews, as a sworn Soylentil (excluding TMB, of course), to give the discussion your best attention and critical review. Seriously. We can only afford to lose so many Athanasiuses.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:51AM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:51AM (#734164) Homepage Journal

      If you don't understand the reasons why I do what I do, you're never going to defeat me. Allow me to assure you that you most certainly do not understand them.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:01PM (5 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:01PM (#734169) Journal

      Now when I run seminars, with, like, actual graduate students, I expect that they will have read the source material before we have a discussion about the same.

      Read this paper or don't get credit for this course is a strong incentive to read the source material. What's the incentive for today?

      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday September 13 2018, @07:19PM (4 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday September 13 2018, @07:19PM (#734407) Journal

        Preventing you from looking like an idiot, and perhaps keeping you from frustrating other Soylentils who are looking for an intelligent discussion, and driving them to leave.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 14 2018, @01:41AM (3 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 14 2018, @01:41AM (#734634) Journal
          So no real incentive today. Maybe next time.
          • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday September 14 2018, @05:43AM (2 children)

            by aristarchus (2645) on Friday September 14 2018, @05:43AM (#734716) Journal

            If you are not concerned about looking like an idiot. But then, the obvious rebuttal is, that you do not, as evidenced by all your posts on SN, and the fact you have not yet slunk away in horror of the terrible AGW-denying shill you have become. Read the Fine Article, khallow. It won't bite you.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 14 2018, @11:45AM (1 child)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 14 2018, @11:45AM (#734787) Journal

              If you are not concerned about looking like an idiot.

              To who? I notice you haven't actually discussed the paper either and you submitted the story in the first place. But then it might take too long to have all your personas read the story.

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