What's a Person to Do?

[Mike in CA]

Probably an English thing, but an F250 Powerstroke sounds like a lawnmower!

It does, doesn't it! Except it's a "lawnmower" that has 925lb/ft of torque and will tow 18,000 lbs.

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[TycanNewHampshire]

call me crazy, but the problem is not 'Fox News' and the problem is not that people who think differently than you 'are idiots'. The problem is all media outlets and the fact that we only choose to listen to those that agree with our internal monologue.
I also believe the problem is the comments of 'get rid of that friend' or 'don't even bother to wrestle with that pig'.
In the spirit of being liberal, sensible and pragmatic, you actually become bigoted, opinionated and close minded by signaling that your view is the only virtuous one and all other views are not valid.
If my comments offend you, you are reacting in the same manner as those that you state are 'not ready to hear the truth yet'.
We need to stop shutting people down, calling them names (pig, idiot) and dismissing their worth as a fellow human being for simply looking through the world from a different lens, on any particular subject or topic.
When your child, or niece or nephew makes a comment on a topic that they are not well verse in, do you call them an idiot or a pig? I don't.
I have a conversation and share my knowledge on what they are unaware of and then I listen to see if I can learn something more from them to increase my level of understanding (one can actually learn a lot from a child's mind).
We will never progress as a society if we do not have positive, civil dialogue, with good intent and be willing to listen to contrary points of view. Otherwise, we become an authoritarian society and we start to divide everything into two.
Take my comments for what they are worth....just one person's opinion, independent of thought and not looking to get others to 'agree with me', but rather look forward to listening to thoughtful comments that do not go to the lowest common denominator of lazy and simply slander, name-call and objectify another human as an animal for simply not thinking exactly like you.

 

[Tsingtao]

Nice “friend”

My summary of your conversation…
You- check out my new awesome car.
“Friend” - meh, let me tell you what a bad choice you made.

I’d be done with that Toxic person but that’s just me.

I swear this guy forwarded the e-mail to me with the best of intentions, probably trying to save my life -- even though I live nowhere near Miami.

 

[Hirschaj]

I swear this guy forwarded the e-mail to me with the best of intentions, probably trying to save my life -- even though I live nowhere near Miami.

You have a great perspective on life. Cheers!

 

[Tavsan]

I agree we need to stop shutting people down and try to respectfully express an alternative argument to theirs to seed some doubts in their minds hopefully such that their critical thinking will do the rest. But I would not let off FB and Fox news lightly. They are guilty of peddling lies and absolutely made up bat-shit crazy stories. I am always ready to learn from someone who disagrees with me but not when they are peddling crazy conspiracy theories. I still try to be respectful and tell them it is not true and they should consider reading/watching/listening other sources as well. All that said, I agree we need to stop talking over each other and listen and understand each other. No matter how crazy someone sounds I try to be respectful and express my point of view and why I think the way I do, try to list sources, data and some reasonable method and logic. I hope it is helping.

call me crazy, but the problem is not 'Fox News' and the problem is not that people who think differently than you 'are idiots'. The problem is all media outlets and the fact that we only choose to listen to those that agree with our internal monologue.
I also believe the problem is the comments of 'get rid of that friend' or 'don't even bother to wrestle with that pig'.
In the spirit of being liberal, sensible and pragmatic, you actually become bigoted, opinionated and close minded by signaling that your view is the only virtuous one and all other views are not valid.
If my comments offend you, you are reacting in the same manner as those that you state are 'not ready to hear the truth yet'.
We need to stop shutting people down, calling them names (pig, idiot) and dismissing their worth as a fellow human being for simply looking through the world from a different lens, on any particular subject or topic.
When your child, or niece or nephew makes a comment on a topic that they are not well verse in, do you call them an idiot or a pig? I don't.
I have a conversation and share my knowledge on what they are unaware of and then I listen to see if I can learn something more from them to increase my level of understanding (one can actually learn a lot from a child's mind).
We will never progress as a society if we do not have positive, civil dialogue, with good intent and be willing to listen to contrary points of view. Otherwise, we become an authoritarian society and we start to divide everything into two.
Take my comments for what they are worth....just one person's opinion, independent of thought and not looking to get others to 'agree with me', but rather look forward to listening to thoughtful comments that do not go to the lowest common denominator of lazy and simply slander, name-call and objectify another human as an animal for simply not thinking exactly like you.

 

[TycanNewHampshire]

I agree we need to stop shutting people down and try to respectfully express an alternative argument to theirs to seed some doubts in their minds hopefully such that their critical thinking will do the rest. But I would not let off FB and Fox news lightly. They are guilty of peddling lies and absolutely made up bat-shit crazy stories. I am always ready to learn from someone who disagrees with me but not when they are peddling crazy conspiracy theories. I still try to be respectful and tell them it is not true and they should consider reading/watching/listening other sources as well. All that said, I agree we need to stop talking over each other and listen and understand each other. No matter how crazy someone sounds I try to be respectful and express my point of view and why I think the way I do, try to list sources, data and some reasonable method and logic. I hope it is helping.

I think you make a good post, but just be sure to be completely objective to the 'news' sources that you are not calling out. I happened to have gone to a prominent institute of technology in Massachusetts (not very cryptic, I know....) and I am always searching for the truth in reporting. My alma mater did a series on truth in the media and I can back up my statements with data and facts, but the 'others' are just as guilty, they are just more palatable to your particular sensibilities. So, I would argue that there is equal amounts of 'spin'/'bs' to go around....the question becomes, which story that has spin offends your own personal position the most? This is where you start to take a few data points and paint a broad brush that this view is all garbage.
My view (all are free to disagree and tell me that their news outlet of their choice is 100% fact based and they don't have opinion hosts) is that we have a crisis of truth. This is compounded (in my view), when you start to silence one views and opinions as mis-information and then don't allow those thoughts to filter through the 'digital public square'. Time reveals the truth, as long as there is freedom of expression/speach. How many times have we got the story wrong in the beginning and if dissenting views were stifled, that wrong thesis would simply become fact (they don't get the headlines, but look at how many retraction pieces have been written over the last few years....they got it wrong, but that original story is what permeates as truth).
My view is democracy is messy, if we are unable to listen, ask questions about a particular view and hold people accountable for those questions, we slip into the dystopia of the novel 1984....heck, we may already be there where the Ministry of Peace (defense) - wages wars (offense) and the Ministry of Truth - peddles lies and propaganda by selectively leaking facts that fit the agenda or don't give the retraction as much attention as the mis-information that was printed in the beginning as truth.
We need to get to a point where we argue about interpretation and position that one takes toward a set of facts and truth...that conversation is civil and healthy. However, we are arguing and debating over the actual facts and when only one truth can be set by bureaucrats and a government, our individual worth is at stake. Because you may agree on something now, but you may not always agree and if it is an area that you are a subject matter expert in, you will be marginalized as a conspiracy theorist and enemy of the people if you dissent.
I simply ask, is that level of conformity and normalizing of thought worth the price we will pay and the inability to voice our opinion without being denigrated? Remember, one view that is socially accepted today, may not be that view in the future and you will want a voice then.....I just hope we all still have it. We all have feelings of self-importance and when someone of something challenges our view, it is human nature to go into fight-or-flight, my view is that we need to recognize this and when we have a visceral reaction to not push away, but embrace this as only then will we all evolve. Otherwise, we will join a tribe (of thought) and start to throw stones at the other tribes and realize that we have not evolved much, we only have new technology to cause more harm than any stone or 'shunning' from the tribe could ever do.
Sorry, I don't mean to be preachy and I know not all are willing to do this as it is hard, but slightly dramatically our human condition seems to depend on us getting over this challenge.

 

[gnop1950]

...
My view (all are free to disagree and tell me that their news outlet of their choice is 100% fact based and they don't have opinion hosts) is that we have a crisis of truth.
...

I've been around a long time and from my perspective, the biggest change is the willingness of people to embrace false news, and the proliferation of false news, simply because it supports their point of view. One problem is, at least on some of the networks, the rise of opinion hosts and the demise of news hosts. Fox has news shows, although a number of their "News Anchors" have quit over the past year due to disagreements with the opinion hosts.

However, when I try to engage in and exchange ideas with someone that primarily watches Fox, for example, what I often hear are them echoing the opinions of the opinion/entertainment hosts, not the news folks. Some of the studies MIT, and others, have done show that falsehoods/lies spread much more rapidly on FB and Twitter than the truth and that is a problem when people use those, and opinion shows, as authoritative sources of information.

I'm pretty conservative, but find it difficult to have an exchange of ideas with those that embrace conspiracy theories or insist that the earth is flat, green scaly aliens disguised as aliens are running the government, or vaccines are a way to implant microchips in the population.

Until a way is found to combat misinformation, including holding "opinion hosts" accountable for promoting outright lies, on either side, the divisions are just going to become worse.

Letters similar to the one the OP posted have circulated for many years. The big difference, at least to me, is how many people are exposed to them now and end up accepting them as fact.

 

[TycanNewHampshire]

@gnop1950 I tend to agree with everything you posted, I think there is a lot of truth in what you say.
I feel that at some point, the social contract with a news organization changed without informing the viewer. What I mean is that they switched to these opinion hosts, but kept the branding that they are 'news'. Unfortunately, I think that those that embrace the opinion as fact did not catch on to that social contract change and think that if it is said on the 'news network', that it is truth. Hence, my comment on a 'crisis of truth'. Organizations have the obligation to explicitly state when an opinion is, just that and when they are acting as 'reporters'.
The blending of the two has caused chaos. One way to combat this is to not switch programing from news to opinion every hour....it blurs the lines. We should have dedicated channels that focus on traditional journalistic integrity and ones for opinion......unfortunately, that does not get the ratings like an organization that interweaves the two and unfortunately the people and society pay for that profit in the form of division, confusion and mistrust.

 

[Tsingtao]

I think you make a good post, but just be sure to be completely objective to the 'news' sources that you are not calling out. I happened to have gone to a prominent institute of technology in Massachusetts (not very cryptic, I know....) and I am always searching for the truth in reporting. My alma mater did a series on truth in the media and I can back up my statements with data and facts, but the 'others' are just as guilty, they are just more palatable to your particular sensibilities. So, I would argue that there is equal amounts of 'spin'/'bs' to go around....the question becomes, which story that has spin offends your own personal position the most? This is where you start to take a few data points and paint a broad brush that this view is all garbage.
My view (all are free to disagree and tell me that their news outlet of their choice is 100% fact based and they don't have opinion hosts) is that we have a crisis of truth. This is compounded (in my view), when you start to silence one views and opinions as mis-information and then don't allow those thoughts to filter through the 'digital public square'. Time reveals the truth, as long as there is freedom of expression/speach. How many times have we got the story wrong in the beginning and if dissenting views were stifled, that wrong thesis would simply become fact (they don't get the headlines, but look at how many retraction pieces have been written over the last few years....they got it wrong, but that original story is what permeates as truth).
My view is democracy is messy, if we are unable to listen, ask questions about a particular view and hold people accountable for those questions, we slip into the dystopia of the novel 1984....heck, we may already be there where the Ministry of Peace (defense) - wages wars (offense) and the Ministry of Truth - peddles lies and propaganda by selectively leaking facts that fit the agenda or don't give the retraction as much attention as the mis-information that was printed in the beginning as truth.
We need to get to a point where we argue about interpretation and position that one takes toward a set of facts and truth...that conversation is civil and healthy. However, we are arguing and debating over the actual facts and when only one truth can be set by bureaucrats and a government, our individual worth is at stake. Because you may agree on something now, but you may not always agree and if it is an area that you are a subject matter expert in, you will be marginalized as a conspiracy theorist and enemy of the people if you dissent.
I simply ask, is that level of conformity and normalizing of thought worth the price we will pay and the inability to voice our opinion without being denigrated? Remember, one view that is socially accepted today, may not be that view in the future and you will want a voice then.....I just hope we all still have it. We all have feelings of self-importance and when someone of something challenges our view, it is human nature to go into fight-or-flight, my view is that we need to recognize this and when we have a visceral reaction to not push away, but embrace this as only then will we all evolve. Otherwise, we will join a tribe (of thought) and start to throw stones at the other tribes and realize that we have not evolved much, we only have new technology to cause more harm than any stone or 'shunning' from the tribe could ever do.
Sorry, I don't mean to be preachy and I know not all are willing to do this as it is hard, but slightly dramatically our human condition seems to depend on us getting over this challenge.

Great post, and my apologies if my original post smelled like an attack on Fox News (not my intent at all). Next time this happens, I'll just report the e-mailer to the Ministry of Love and let them deal with him!?

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