Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I don't think one can exclusively follow smart people and solid sources on Facebook. Particularly when the group providing sources is friends.

You've got some dumb and deluded friends and family. We all do. They're going to post shit, and the algorithms are going to silo what you get in terms of suggested stories based on what they post. You get shit on your shoe no matter how much you try to stay above it.

Which is why I don't do Bookface. I know the people I want to know, and I stay in touch. I don't give a fuck what someone I knew in high school, or some third cousin, thinks about anything. Fuck them. I'm not in touch with them for a reason.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I think you think I'm talking about YOU, as opposed to a hypthetical FB person. the original question was "is it good that trump tells people to ignore the NYT." Sebby thought shaking the respect for NYT was good- I suggested in a word where most people get their news from shit sources, shaking the respect for the NYT is not "good."

Now this was not about you for several reasons- one being I'm fairly sure you aren't listenting to trump's advice.

but there is very much a hive mentality that FB drives, where people post as reasoned truth stuff that they should suspect. Example- today 70% of my feed is posting short summaries about how hollow/stupid trump's achievments were in singapore. they might have been hollow. but here's the thing, most people i know know fuckall about international relations. and most of those people were posting about how failed trump was when the meeting was cancelled a few weeks back. (he's bad to have met, he's failed because the meeting was cancelled- contradictory?) I don't see how these people aren't simply accepting AS TRUTH things they are being told. Those people, Dem and R, need to read the NYT and WSJ and other things that may have flaws, but at least try to have some level of integrity.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

and yet you walk into those cocktail parties full of yahoos every weekend?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

One of my pet peeves lately is people talking about threats to democracy when they mean threats to the rule of law. And neither needs to be an existential threat to be taken seriously. For example, you worry a lot about the power of prosecutors, something that is not an existential threat and is not a threat to democracy but is an obvious problem from a rule-of-law perspective.

I don't think Trump is a huge threat to democracy. I do think he is a threat to the rule of law, but mores the problem is the Republican Party. The rule of law depends on compromise, and on participants agreeing to respect and abide by process when they are on the losing side. Conservatives don't want to do this.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I sometimes see stuff I like on Facebook, but of all the stuff that my friends are posting, Facebook does not show me the best of it, because their algorithms are trying to engage me in the way that other people are engaged. I have some pretty interesting friends. But I'm stuck with Facebook's revenue-generating filtration methods.

I suspect that you and I both find much more useful stuff outside Facebook. Personally, I love Twitter. But I'm stuck with a media ecosystem whose economics are massively impacted by Facebook.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

is that why you don't respond to my Guernica posts?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Uh, correct.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Facebook have a bar and food? Chicks to look at?

I’ll go anywhere there’s better than well alcohol. Except exclusively wine and beer functions. That’s rude. Have a bar or don’t.

ETA: And have actual bourbon. Jack Daniels is not bourbon.

Actual court conversation
 

Defense lawyer: “I’m sorry your honor, what did [plaintiff’s lawyer] say?

Court: “I don’t know I stopped listening to him ten minutes ago.”

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I'm not sure why this is any more of an issue than in real life. I have plenty of idiotic friends. I am able to edit what they say, ignore what is stupid, and take what I need from every interaction outside of Facebook. This worry that somehow these morons will completely influence me there as opposed to anywhere else is ridiculous.*

I don't give a fuck about what acquaintances from HS think either. But I have a number of acquaintances from college and law school who post very thoughtful shit that helps fill out my perspective and since I can't read everything, I am often pleased to find an article that I might not have found on my own. You know, kind of like here.

TM

*Please note that I fully understand that there are a lot of people who simply get their news straight from the feed and never read any articles (and don't have the capacity to understand half the shit they agree with or disagree with anyway). And I think we're all in agreement that those people are the ones being influenced by Cambridge Analytica, Russian troll farms, etc.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

He’s right. I’m dumber for having read that story.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Agreed. See my last post.

This is true. There are people who are completely uninformed who are waiting to be told what to think. We are pissed off because those people used to be told by the evening news or the paper what to think. Now they're seeking out their own news and people of like mind and there's no end to the bullshit sources who will reinforce whatever that is.

But I'll tell you this, I've had some amazing reactions to some of my posts from people who are unable to think through an issue who are happy to have it broken down for them.

But I am not saying that we aren't all in our own bubbles on Facebook. That article which showed the difference in news feeds based on whether you were left or right was really scary.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I hear you. It isn’t much different from real life in terms of filtering what you see.

I just prefer getting stuff directly from news sources and skipping entirely the often insipid stuff friends and family post. My news feeds from Apple and google and the stuff I get here and from friends via email tends to be of a predictably higher quality.

I don’t feel like spending the time to filter Bookface.

I also dislike small talk and effusive personal stories. I just don’t care much.

Bitch-slapped.
 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8396251.html

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You are totally and completely wrong here. Years ago, we had a mainstream media. It was expensive to publish newspapers and to run TV stations, and they had strong economies of scale, so you didn't have many choices. People basically got their news from common sources.

Information technology has radically changed this. Anyone can publish anything on-line, in text, images or video, at little to no cost. Printing presses are now like assholes -- everyone has one (and when you have the former, you can be that latter). The revenue models that kept the mainstream media going have fallen apart. Google and Facebook make their money by providing individualized content, and everyone sees something different. There are no more common sources.

IMO, this is one of the biggest drivers of polarization. There is a historical argument (made by Benedict Anderson) that nations formed because of newspapers, which created imagined communities of their readers. Each person now lives in their own imagined community.

Re: Bitch-slapped.
 

Saw your title and figured you were linking to this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/n...y-general.html

Cuckoo Pants
 

Full Retard: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.fad149199359

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

What you've written is entirely correct. However, I was writing to TM, and more generally to the types of sophisticated media consumers who post here. That social media has created a scenario in which TM has to sift through thousands of different stories rather than five or six networks and newspapers doesn't render him any less able to separate the bullshit from the credible. It simply makes the job a lot more time consuming for him.

But as to the average consumer? You're sadly spot-on. And I agree 100% that customized news feeds (using "news" liberally as most of it tends to be opinion) and social media siloing have tribalized people. This is why I detest Bookface. It is ruining society. It's given boring narcissists a platform from which to spew their dull and exaggerated wares, creating depression, envy, and a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses phenomenon most people cannot afford. It's destroyed the notion of true friendship in favor of slight and tenuous connections (I think I'm closer to actual friends with people here than anyone I've met on social media). It's annihilated privacy to an extent beyond Orwellian. And nodding to Huxley, it's provided a grand ugly diversion for the stupid masses who consume media and news exclusively through it. They sit on it for hours a day, checking likes, emoting at each other, venting in ignorance with little to no understanding of that on which they comment.

Bookface is a cesspool. On news and current events, it's all the people in the room who should never be allowed to speak given bullhorns. On social matters, it's an asshole factory of people screaming, "Look at me! Look at me!"

I don't want to look at you. And I don't care what you have to say. There's 90% probability you're a narrow minded ass with nothing useful to offer.

Which is why I come here to discuss politics and current events. I know I'll hear something in response that's well considered and informed.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

Why does that bother you?

ETA: Everything in there strikes me as fair and we absolutely should be doing more to empower women.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I still love the Twitter.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

So you pledge to vote for feminist women only? Really?

You're not going to be in charge of anything? Really?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

The mute button is a wonderful thing.

And if you continue to follow people like John Carney, you’ll hear a smart (but incorrect, in my view) voice on the fiscal and economic aspects of Trumpism.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Yes, although like Facebook before it, it keeps trying to make it worse on the false belief that its algorithm can do better than chronological.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

I'm going to have a strong preference for feminist women and giving others the chance to be in charge of things.

We're so far from that being literally true or possible that you need not pause over hyperbole.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

I would love to not be in charge of anything. Being in charge of things is the main disruptor of my biking and other habits. Um, hobbies.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

I was reading a FB thread about "white privilege." This one insipid white guy said, "because of it, I decided not to take a management position and instead became an EMT(or some such). It struck me, even accepting the guaranteed management jobs waiting for all whites, that minorities would be better off if HE HAD taken the management job, then he could cause change. Isn't that true here also?

The other thing that all such pondering (like yours) lacks, is a recognition that there is not standard for what "feminists want." My daughter has some clear ideas, and expectations. I can's always agree, or understand, but at least I can process what she thinks. But then I see FB friends who are feminists and way the fuck out there. They post stuff that states what is "right things" for men that can only make me think I can't imagine dating, i can't imagine a world where they have achieved these things. Often it seems a world a man couldn't be in.

That's why saying "sure, whatever a feminists wants" is actually leading to extending the problems, because the world as envisioned to meet the dreams of all feminists, wouldn't meet the dreams of many feminists. You adder are the problem.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

Would you sit in the front of room for spin class so the women can check out your ass; i mean assuming you are willing to drop 15 lbs first?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I share this love. Twitter is the best way to get breaking stories. You have to sift through some bullshit, but it delivers way faster than any other source. The Green Revolution in Iran was a great example.

I also like Twitter because it compels one to offer a great link, clever joke, or pithy commentary, unlike Facebook, where people emote ad nauseum:

I don't give a fuck about your latest struggle with addiction, Miriam. And I certainly didn't need 10,000 fucking words on it. Stop analyzing yourself up your own ass and maybe you'd meet someone nice and stop having to take all those pills.

Lovely McMansion, Wendell. Love the turrets. And the children's gazebo. Are those weimaraners?

Thank you, Candace... We do need to raise awareness about huffing in the middle school! Billboards. More billboards. Maybe a fun run, too? 5k?

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

What you call hyperbole (presumably including when you said you agreed with everything she said) is virtue-signaling, and masks the real problem that it's hard to figure out what, concretely, is to be done. In its way, it's like the way that conservatives all vie with each other to show that they are purer in their aims to trigger libs ("I'm going to drown the government in the bathtub" "I'm going to build a wall" "I'm separate brown children from their parents as a deterrent"). The problem comes when such people find themselves in actual positions of authority and have convinced themselves that their hyperbole is an action plan.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

It doesn't bother me. It's just retarded.

It's an essay written by someone with the mind of a thirteen year old. Only it's in WaPo.

I expect this sort of idiotic shit from folks on the Right. I don't expect it from a distinguished media outlet, or from the Left. I know that's naive, and perhaps a double standard.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

2. "My retarded shit vs. yours" isn't doing the country any favors.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

I'm always the problem, Hank.

Voting for women and thinking "hey, maybe I should take a step back and see if someone else wants to take the lead" doesn't really run into too many conflicting "dreams."

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

to be fair, adder passing on "his chance" to be in charge isn't really that big a sacrifice.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

This is a phrase that never had a terribly good use anyway but regardless has become entirely useless aside from signalling that the person using it does not care about whatever issue is being discussed.

I don't think you don't care, so maybe it's not the best word choice.

Voting for women and taking a step back sometimes seem like pretty concrete ideas of what's to be done.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

Is it voting for women, or voting for "feminist" women? If it is the latter, please define.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

If you hadn't said those things, all those people wouldn't have gone and voted for Trump. I hope you're sorry.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

The word "virtue-signaling" has many excellent uses. It defines a certain type of self-righteous behavior in which one professes beliefs, judges others for disagreement with those beliefs, but never takes any useful action to help the aggrieved or persecuted people who are the subject of those beliefs. And as Ty noted, usually those beliefs are extreme, which is intentional. If you accuse the signaling person of talking and not actually doing anything, they have the built in excuse that their aims are so radical they cannot be achieved in the current system.

I could be accused of virtue signalling by voting third party. Except that I did intend to contribute to the third party voting numbers. And I didn't judge Hillary or Trump voters for voting as they did. (I suspect the most ardent virtue signalers voted for Jill Stein and told everyone they did so, endlessly... on Facebook.)

Voting for anyone based on anything other than platform and skill is unwise.

Re: Cuckoo Pants
 

In other words, "virtue-signaling" is anti-virtue-signalling?

I disagree with you. The phrase suggests that people are saying things for the purpose of having appeared to have said thing and how it will reflect well on their intentions, rather than because the thing is particularly true or useful or likely to lead to some useful outcome. When you said that everything she said was fair, you didn't actually mean that you actually agree with what she said. You just approve of her cause, directionally, even if you don't agree with specific things that she says. Probably you think that it does the world some measure of good if men like yourself support her, even if they don't really always mean it. The phrase "virtue-signaling" is not entirely fair here, because it seems like you probably think that the public act of agreeing with her will somehow have some effect on the world apart from telling everyone here that you are on the side of feminism, although I confess that unless underpants gnomes are involved, I don't get it.

Sure, but now you're qualifying your agreement with her in a pretty significant way. If you take her words seriously, and I'm not sure you do, then you wouldn't vote for a male Democrat running against a Republican. "Taking a step back sometimes" sounds great. Who doesn't want a vacation? I'm thinking of taking a step back in a few weeks and going to Tahoe or Paris (or ideally the place in Utah that TM recommended, but my wallet can't do that). But that's not what she was saying either.