docno42

nicholfd said:

W(here)TF did you get that idea?  I never made any statements about what is real & what is fake, or wanting to be the "source of truth".  I have no desire to be involved with the general public or control anything or anyone.  Maybe you need to take your tinfoil hat off (based on your reply to my simple comment).

Just look at what's happened in the US alone, in the past few years.  Science, facts & common sense don't seem to apply anymore, to a lot of people. 

Well you are seeming to advocate (yet again!) that people are too stupid to think for themselves - you typed out "Science, facts & common sense don't seem to apply anymore, to a lot of people."  Those are your words - thoughts that you have repeated **twice** now.  

So if you aren't going to be the arbiter of science, facts or common sense for those of us too dumb to figure it out on their own, then who is?  

Me personally, figure it out for yourself.  I don't need anyone else telling me what is science, what is factual or what common sense is.  Someone can argue their position, but anyone who declares they are the truth and the way is going to get nothing but scorn and skepticism from me.  Will I alway get it right?  Nope - thinking that anyone is always going to get it right is a pretty dumb and unrealistic standard anyway so I don't know why people like you spend so much time going on about it.  

Do I think the yahoos running any of the media or social media companies are going to be any better at discerning science, fact or common sense?  Hell no!  Just look at the idiots they rely on to "fact check" - it's laughable.  

Here's a wild thought.  Stop obsessing about all those science, facts and common sense everyone else gets wrong - worry about your own understanding of things.  And if you think someone else got it wrong, work on your ability to persuade them to maybe see things like you do.  And if they still don't then maybe you don't have as firm a grasp on the facts as you think you do - or maybe they just like being ignorant.  I sure as hell know the answer isn't some quasi all knowing cabal dictating what the approved thought of the day is.  If you like that totalitarian shit just move to China already.  Maybe you too will get a cushy paid job to gaslight in the forums like some of our fellow posters apparently are. 

Our system may be messy, but at least it's the good kind of mess.  I'll take a free mess over tyrannic oder all day every day.

GeorgeBMac said:
The proof is in the pudding:  China has 25 cases of COVID a day -- partly because they don't have to deal with corrupt idiots teaching people to hate and rebel from their country because "vaccines won't protect you" or one of the many other pieces of one-sided bullshit you hear on U.S. media.

25 cases a day - according to who?  The Chinese government?  The same government that locked down travel inside their own country but let travel outside occur unfettered - so they wouldn't be the only ones economically impacted by the virus? 

Yup, let's trust *them*.

Also vaccines don't "protect" you.  They don't even prevent infection from the virus.  They lesson the symptoms of infection - and if you look closely that's all the CDC claims.  So far the Omicron variant is being reported by the south African doctors as being very mild - hardly any hospitalizations.  If true then the Omicron variant will be far more effective at getting us to herd immunity than the vaccine that's not a traditional vaccine but really a gene therapy under development for more than two decades but not seen previously as economically viable to take through trial because of all the side effects until there was a crises that let them sweep all that under the rug while saving the day and also getting guaranteed payments with zero liability. 

You are absolutely correct - to have ANY suspicions about that is utter bullshit 

Also never mind that natural immunity is stronger, lasts longer, and also provides far more protection for variants.  They haven't even confirmed if the current vax/booster fiasco is effective with Delta, let alone any other variant yet the incessant drumbeat to "vax vax vax" continues unabated.  

BTW - a letter from an actual doctor in south africa expressing her horror at the overdramatization and fear mongering around the Omicron variant: 

Free press indeed - the traditional media is nothing but the propaganda arm for the government - if there was an ounce of independent critical thought or even a wisp of this much vaunted "journalistic integrity" you might see at least multiple sides presented - even if skeptically.  But no....

GeorgeBMac said:
While the Free Press is the foundation that democracy stands on, it is being used by unscrupulous characters to dismantle the democracy that both depends on it and supports it.

Free press - ha!  When is the last time anyone in the mainstream media has talked about Sweden in regards to COVID?   Oh no, we can't bring them up because it blows the current fear generated narrative out of the water.

Look at the recent Kyle Rittenhouse trial.  Kyle is white, shot white aggressors and isn't even a conservative let alone a "proud boy" (if there ever was a dog whistle/straw man any time some idiot in politics or the media brings up the proud boys watch out).   Yet you had multiple reports that got all of that and the above wrong - and are continuing to get it wrong even post trial when there are now legal rulings on much of this crap.  I hope Kyle becomes VERY rich off of all the assholes who distorted his story for their own political gain.  

You know what the greatest foundation of democracy is?  Freedom - period. Full stop.  Not freedom for some protected classes - but universal freedom.  And chief of all - freedom from those who think they have the only version of "truth" that should be heard.  

America became successful because it was the closest thing to a universally level playing field the world has ever seen.  It never ceases to amaze me how many are fervently working to reverse that - and the biggest group of liars are the "diversity is our strength" crowd.  It's Jim Crowe all over, but wrapped in fancy terms like systemic racism and pseudo intellectualism like the 1619 project.   Saving us from racism via noble bigotry.    Ideas so stupid that only the overly educated could mistake them for sophistication. 

AppleZulu said:

No, I don't want social media platforms choosing between opinionated preferences for Ludwig von Mises or Karl Marx. I also don't want social media algorithms promoting opinion-based hokum that contradicts science-based facts because the hokum generates more clicks. 

Why do we tolerate social media platforms inserting bias of any kind?  However noble or ignoble that bias may be?  Give me the tools to pick and filter the content I want and stay the hell out of everything else.  It's time for the FCC to grow a pair and enforce Section 230 as written - selective enforcement is just another fancy word salad to obfuscate for editorial control.  Section 230 was only meant to apply to carriers of others content, not those who exercise editorial control of content.  As soon as any service starts picking and choosing the content on their service, especially when done with vague policies that are enforced in secret, that's editorial control - it's no longer strictly the authors or 3rd party, unaffiliated content - the site is now also claiming ownership of that content.  As soon as sites do that, IMNSHO, 230 should no longer apply - just as it doesn't apply to the New York Times or other sites that publish their own content.  

If a service wants to hide behind 230 protection and still edit what flows through their platform, then at a minimum all their content policies should be required to be made public, and the rational behind all content moderation decisions (as well as showing how the rational ties to those public content rules) to prove they are applying their own rules consistently and not selectively.  Right now you have RAMPANT selective moderation.   And I'm not even talking political/conservative/liberal; just look at Twitch and how sexual content is basically unmoderated for women but if a male gets even vaguely near something sexual.  Anyone who advocates that there isn't rampant selective moderation is either grossly uniformed or a gasslighter of the highest magnitude.  

As for the overall usefulness of social media - I used to use Twitter all the time - but with a third party client (tweetbot) that was free of all the Twitter massaging of the timeline.  I could mute topics and keywords that weren't interesting - and in that capacity Twitter actually wasn't awful.  I have no idea how anyone uses any of these service through their default interfaces; they are utter garbage.  But unfiltered and with the tools to slice and dice the content you are interested in they can be quite useful.

The core problem is we have turned over all of our content and interactions to a handful of very large sites all in the name of convenience.  It's time to get back to the decentralized web.  If you are dumb enough to ditch your own web site and move all your business to Facebook or one of these other tech giants than sucks to be you when their automation or political biases cut you off.

nicholfd said:

It's become obvious that a lot of the general population is incapable of deciding what is real and what is fake... 

And you'll be our savior to rescue the general population from ourselves?

Ha!  No thanks.  The first thing tyrants do is seek to become the sole source of "truth".  Thanks for outing yourself.