• SoylentBlake
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    1 month ago

    You can, however, interpret what the politician says, descern the parts that are meaningful. This shouldn’t need to be quantified, as we do this automatically. Diving into this is to dive into neuroscience and biological imperative. Insisting a road map into how we mentally triage information is philosophy and, more importantly, not the point. It is arguing in bad faith. We can all tell what points someone is stressing or leaning on even in rambling meandering conversation. We all know statements said in passing or flippantly - they might suggest something more, but that remains to be seen if it’s indeed acted upon, so we make a mental note and back burner it. When there’s multiple instances of dubiousness then it’s story worthy. Otherwise it’s focus on the main topics at hand, regardless of if you agree with them. This isn’t rocket surgery, it just requires attentiveness.

    A journalist can, and should, report the information and fact check to the best of their ability. The news team he hands it in to should be fact checking and helping ensure it’s accuracy. It’s not a one person show and, like most things, when you do it for a while you actually can get good at it. And rather fast.

    Above all has to be an almost religious adherence to the truth. Fuck objective truth, it doesn’t exist. Neither does altruism. Neither does objectivism. You’re taking esoteric thought that only hold any value when used as parameters. Perfect isn’t attainable but that doesn’t mean we still making art.

    You’re argument is just smart enough to rationalize yourself out of action. But life is action. The thoughts in your head aren’t real, nor are your plans. If they are, where are they? I care about what happens in reality, and if needed I can work at underlying motive or reasonings, but I don’t need those to understand what has manifested into being.

    Hate breeds hate. Tolerating hate is just allowing a tumor to grow. It will, as tumors do, eventually metastisize and go malignant. If we know that, and we allow that, then the blame is on us. See; Tiger Eating People’s Faces Party. We must be intolerant of intolerance else it spread and overwhelm us all. If that dialectic is to much for you to hold at the same time then you’re not ready for the conversation. There will be many many times in life where there is no good choice but you still have to choose (refusing to choose is still a choice). As unpleasant as it is, there is behaviour that can not be tolerated by society for the health and survival of society. It’s a duty we have to uphold and if you can’t, thats fine, just step back and let those who can, do. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

    A religious adherence to truth necessitates admitting when you learn you’re wrong. There’s nothing wrong with being wrong. There is everything wrong with learning you’re wrong and you not accepting that. The entire basis of rationality, and society, are built upon the fundamental, a priori, notion. There’s no hyperbole in that. It is the bedrock of civilization.

    • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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      1 month ago

      I do not think you entirely understood what I was trying to convey, be it from misunderstanding on your part or poor phrasing on my part I am unsure, because my argument isnt for non-action nor is it for tolerance of hate. My last statement there was a statement that one doing reporting should be open about what one’s biases are, which is advocating for taking a specific action, not for doing nothing. The topic of hate didnt even come up in my response really, but that is partially because, I view it as a case where bias is desirable (in the sense that intolerance is in my view morally undesirable, and so portraying it in a bad light in the hopes of limiting its spread in society is a good thing. That in itself represents a bias, one against intolerant views, which is fine as bias is not a synonym for “bad” nor one for “incorrect”, merely for favoring a side in something. If the side one is favoring is actually correct in that thing, then presenting that argument in a way that favors that side is actually more accurate than presenting the argument entirely neutrally, despite being biased). All my response there was really saying is that given fallibility of our ability to determine what is true, it is preferable for organizations seeking to inform others to state what side they are taking, rather than attempt not to have a side and inevitably fail in doing so while still presenting themselves to others with the false sense of impartial objective accuracy that would come from believing that claim.

      • SoylentBlake
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        1 month ago

        Well put. Thank you for the clarity. I appreciate your effort towards elucidation.

        I agree there has to be a neutral as possible position if only to teach. Finding that balance has, for the past 4 decades at least, been an impossibility, due to politics, forcing us to graduate students with absolute no sense of recent history or the current world they are being thrust into. I harbored anger over this at least til the end of my 20s, and I wasn’t the typical student. I have read the newspaper front to back daily since the start of my junior year (or since I was 16). I had read a dozen Chomsky books and Professor Zinn on my own in high school. I knew exactly how the educational system had failed us. I was so upset by the seemingly entire collection fo adults in the country failing to agree on what actually transpired in recent history that I started reading philosophy for an example of what great humans could be capable of, because there were clearly none in DC during the Clinton presidency.

        I still contend that there is a large amount of fact that is discernible, that journalists used to rigorously parse thru. It’s not for my knowledge that I’m concerned, it’s the normalization of news-cycle theatre that concerns me. Case in point. Trumps assassination attempt. The fuck his ear got hit. Anyone who has ever shot an AR-15 will tell you that he wouldn’t have an ear left, even if it was just a graze, let alone be walking around with a normally “healed” ear less than two weeks later. It was staged and it cost that fireman his life and somehow everyone just moves on believing what they want. All for a photo op.

        No 80 year old on this planet is going to heal a bruise that fast, anywhere on their body.

        Regardless. I think we understand each other. Cheers.