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.