What the Heck?! Thread (Closed)

[kwaigonegin]

All news are biased to a certain extent and I for one definitely don't disagree that there are a lot of 'fake' news out there with extremely biased agendas and hyperbole HOWEVER that was not the point I was making.

People can believe whatever they believe and news makers can make whatever news they make. That to me is freedom. It is not the government's job to decipher what is good for the people and what isn't. Let the people decide for themselves.

If someone believes that the moon landing was staged or the Earth is flat (extreme sample) because they read it on some news website so be it. It's not the government's role to shut it down because government consists of people which obviously has their own set of biasness and agendas.

It's far from ideal and I understand that constricting certain freedoms may have been done with good intentions however it's a slippery slope.

 

[PanAsian]

You don't understand what he meant. You can have access to every kind of news, from every source in the West. In China you simply can't - there are no other sources than what they're said to write. And that's truth as we all know.

I remember that recently some newspaper editor just put some kind of anti-Xi faction kind of advert in a simple newspaper and... heads rolled after that. The same as in US. But in US you can go and read the story from the other side.

I do understand and in my previous posts responded to the several points kwaigonegin made specifically regarding Western media coverage of China.

The point you are making, that the Western information environment is less censored than that in China is certainly true. However less censorship does not guarantee that the whole truth will be available or prominent. It does guarantee an abundance of information of a wider range of quality which may or may not reveal the whole truth.

 

[plawolf]

All news are biased to a certain extent and I for one definitely don't disagree that there are a lot of 'fake' news out there with extremely biased agendas and hyperbole HOWEVER that was not the point I was making.

People can believe whatever they believe and news makers can make whatever news they make. That to me is freedom. It is not the government's job to decipher what is good for the people and what isn't. Let the people decide for themselves.

If someone believes that the moon landing was staged or the Earth is flat (extreme sample) because they read it on some news website so be it. It's not the government's role to shut it down because government consists of people which obviously has their own set of biasness and agendas.

It's far from ideal and I understand that constricting certain freedoms may have been done with good intentions however it's a slippery slope.

Well it's not just about some obscure philosophical principle here, but often vital everyday matters that people care passionately about and make extremely important real wold decision based on their belief of what is true. Having that belief based on blatant lies can, and have had real, and sometimes devastating real life consequences for a hell of a lot of people.

How many thousands of people lost their lives in the Iraq war, which was waged on a lie? You have horrific and entirely preventable diseases, which we had previously all but eradicated, making a comeback becomes some parents chose to not believe in science or believe in made up science; you have police officers gunned down in the streets because certain groups of people think they are waging war on black people; you have racial attacks against people because politicians and certain parts of the media are playing the race card. I could go on and on.

Do you not see a slipper slope with too much freedom? You should, because the west is travelling down that slope and picking up speed fast.

If it could be that people's choices only affect themselves, I would say, 'be my guest, go chase that Darwin Award!', but we live in an interconnected world, where the choices we make can affect far more than just ourselves.

I live in the UK, so I am experiencing first hand what it is like to see a bunch of irresponsible twats fundamentally threaten my future economic prosperity by telling bare faced lies to get the more gullible and poorly educated part of the population to vote for an option that they will never ever get. Something I fear you might be getting familiar with yourself in the not too distant future.

The fundamental underlying principle underpinning the entire idea of democracy is that voters need to be making well-informed choices. A million people voting for X because of a lie won't make X magically become the truth.

If you care about democracy, you have to care about the truth, because democracy simply cannot function with only lies to guide people's votes.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

.....
on topic.
Bird drops salmon on Seattle power lines, knocks out power
Originally published December 15, 2016 at 10:00 am Updated December 15, 2016 at 6:18 pm

Seattle City Light says a bird, likely hunting over the Duwamish River, seen here near the South Park Bridge, dropped the fish on a power line. (Greg Gilbert / The Seattle Times)


More than 170 utility customers lost power when a fish fell on power lines.

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Seattle Times staff reporter
Update at 12 p.m.: The fish is believed to have been a salmon, according to Seattle City Light. A witness apparently saw the fish fall from a bird and hit the power lines.

It was quite the fish fry.


South Seattle customers lost power for more than two hours after a flying (perhaps flopping) fish fell on power lines near the Duwamish River in South Park.


Ospreys and eagles frequently hunt in the area, said Connie McDougall, a Seattle City Light spokeswoman. The fish likely wriggled its way out of becoming lunch Wednesday afternoon, but met a different, unfortunate end.

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Something fishy about south Seattle outage: Bird dropped fish on power lines causing 2 hr outage for 172 customers. Power back now.

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A witness saw it fall from the sky and hit the power lines in the 1000 block of South Elmgrove Street, McDougall said. In all, 172 customers were affected.


Crews got out there almost immediately and there was … an electrocuted fish” on the ground below. The crew identified the fish as a salmon.

Birds often cause power outages, and City Light

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.

In 2015, 162 birds caused outages and two bald eagles were killed.


A fish tale is a new twist, McDougall said.


“I’ve been at City Light 15 or 16 years. We’ve had a couple encounters with raccoons and certainly birds,” McDougall said. “I’ve never heard of a fish before.”

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[MwRYum]

View attachment 34706
.....
on topic.
Bird drops salmon on Seattle power lines, knocks out power
Originally published December 15, 2016 at 10:00 am Updated December 15, 2016 at 6:18 pm

Seattle City Light says a bird, likely hunting over the Duwamish River, seen here near the South Park Bridge, dropped the fish on a power line. (Greg Gilbert / The Seattle Times)


More than 170 utility customers lost power when a fish fell on power lines.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Seattle Times staff reporter
Update at 12 p.m.: The fish is believed to have been a salmon, according to Seattle City Light. A witness apparently saw the fish fall from a bird and hit the power lines.

It was quite the fish fry.


South Seattle customers lost power for more than two hours after a flying (perhaps flopping) fish fell on power lines near the Duwamish River in South Park.


Ospreys and eagles frequently hunt in the area, said Connie McDougall, a Seattle City Light spokeswoman. The fish likely wriggled its way out of becoming lunch Wednesday afternoon, but met a different, unfortunate end.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Something fishy about south Seattle outage: Bird dropped fish on power lines causing 2 hr outage for 172 customers. Power back now.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

A witness saw it fall from the sky and hit the power lines in the 1000 block of South Elmgrove Street, McDougall said. In all, 172 customers were affected.


Crews got out there almost immediately and there was … an electrocuted fish” on the ground below. The crew identified the fish as a salmon.

Birds often cause power outages, and City Light

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

.

In 2015, 162 birds caused outages and two bald eagles were killed.


A fish tale is a new twist, McDougall said.


“I’ve been at City Light 15 or 16 years. We’ve had a couple encounters with raccoons and certainly birds,” McDougall said. “I’ve never heard of a fish before.”

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What human needs a stealth bomber and graphite bombs to do, nature did it with just a bird and a fish...

 

[kwaigonegin]

Well it's not just about some obscure philosophical principle here, but often vital everyday matters that people care passionately about and make extremely important real wold decision based on their belief of what is true. Having that belief based on blatant lies can, and have had real, and sometimes devastating real life consequences for a hell of a lot of people.

How many thousands of people lost their lives in the Iraq war, which was waged on a lie? You have horrific and entirely preventable diseases, which we had previously all but eradicated, making a comeback becomes some parents chose to not believe in science or believe in made up science; you have police officers gunned down in the streets because certain groups of people think they are waging war on black people; you have racial attacks against people because politicians and certain parts of the media are playing the race card. I could go on and on.

Do you not see a slipper slope with too much freedom? You should, because the west is travelling down that slope and picking up speed fast.

If it could be that people's choices only affect themselves, I would say, 'be my guest, go chase that Darwin Award!', but we live in an interconnected world, where the choices we make can affect far more than just ourselves.

I live in the UK, so I am experiencing first hand what it is like to see a bunch of irresponsible twats fundamentally threaten my future economic prosperity by telling bare faced lies to get the more gullible and poorly educated part of the population to vote for an option that they will never ever get. Something I fear you might be getting familiar with yourself in the not too distant future.

The fundamental underlying principle underpinning the entire idea of democracy is that voters need to be making well-informed choices. A million people voting for X because of a lie won't make X magically become the truth.

If you care about democracy, you have to care about the truth, because democracy simply cannot function with only lies to guide people's votes.

To be fair the Iraq war thing wasn't a lie. The media reported it as is. The one making the lie was the Bush admin which further proves my point because the news also reported the inconsistency and the 'lie' afterward.

People have the right to make up their own minds.imagined if the US gov censored everything negative about that. We would never know the truth about anything. To this day we would still think Iraq had WMD and intended to use against the US.

To know light is to know darkness. To know the truth, you have to know the lie.

I'm sure many citizens of NK think their country is the greatest country in the world because that's what the government tells them all of the time. To them what they see in the news is Truth and Factual.

 

[PanAsian]

To be fair the Iraq war thing wasn't a lie. The media reported it as is. The one making the lie was the Bush admin which further proves my point because the news also reported the inconsistency and the 'lie' afterward.

People have the right to make up their own minds.imagined if the US gov censored everything negative about that. We would never know the truth about anything. To this day we would still think Iraq had WMD and intended to use against the US.

To know light is to know darkness. To know the truth, you have to know the lie.

I'm sure many citizens of NK think their country is the greatest country in the world because that's what the government tells them all of the time. To them what they see in the news is Truth and Factual.

The "free" media didn't create the lie in the case of alleged WMD possession to justify the Iraq war but not only did the "free" media fail to uncover or even second guess the lie when it mattered before the war, the "free" media also propagated the lie. The truth ultimately revealed itself and it's great that the "free" media didn't suppress it or forget about it but the "free" media didn't uncover it either.

Although we have been debating about the imperfection of systems I believe ultimately the drive and the responsibility to find out the truth lie with each individual whether they are a media producer, media consumer, both, or neither. Man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains. When there is a will there is a way. The truth is out there!

 

[Franklin]

To be fair the Iraq war thing wasn't a lie. The media reported it as is. The one making the lie was the Bush admin which further proves my point because the news also reported the inconsistency and the 'lie' afterward.

People have the right to make up their own minds.imagined if the US gov censored everything negative about that. We would never know the truth about anything. To this day we would still think Iraq had WMD and intended to use against the US.

To know light is to know darkness. To know the truth, you have to know the lie.

I'm sure many citizens of NK think their country is the greatest country in the world because that's what the government tells them all of the time. To them what they see in the news is Truth and Factual.

Both kwaigonegin and Pl

 

[Franklin]

Both kwaigonegin and Plawolf are making good points. If you let the government crackdown on "fake news" then the government has a monopoly on "the truth". But if you give all news and information out there equal weight then you end up dumbing down and confusing large number of people about important issue's. There are no good choice's, its always the lesser evil.

In the case of the Iraq War the media in the run up to the war has taken the US governments position not only on the WMD but also on the links to terrorism and that post war Iraq will be a beacon of freedom and prosperity lock stock and barrel. Iraqi claims about them not having WMD was never given equal weight in the discussions. It was never taken seriously. The media never questioned the flimsy evidence for all these claims made by the US government. Journalists covering the war later admitted that they wanted the Americans to win and that they where actively rooting for the American side during the invasion. That hardly qualifies for journalistic independence that's sooo crucial to their trade.

Journalism is like politics or law there is the theory of how it should work and then there is the reality of how it does work. And the difference can be glaring.

The problem is that too much of the reporting is driven by narrative and ideology. And that has put blinders on their eyes for a lot of things happening around them.

 

[plawolf]

To be fair the Iraq war thing wasn't a lie. The media reported it as is. The one making the lie was the Bush admin which further proves my point because the news also reported the inconsistency and the 'lie' afterward.

Iraq WMD wasn't a lie? Also, isn't the core justification for a 'free' media that they are supposed to critically challenge what the government says instead of just mindlessly parroting their party lines? Can't have it both ways. Either you take the responsibilities of being a free media seriously, or you can accept regulatory oversight to make sure you are going your job.

Also, they reported the truth afterwards is a piss poor excuse for their failure in the first place, and while it might go some way towards redemption, it alone cannot fully mitigate the screw up in the first place. For example, if I turned myself into the police after I killed someone through gross negligence, that might help give me a lighter sentence, but admitting the error will not be enough by a long shot towards settling my debt to society.

People have the right to make up their own minds.imagined if the US gov censored everything negative about that. We would never know the truth about anything. To this day we would still think Iraq had WMD and intended to use against the US.

To know light is to know darkness. To know the truth, you have to know the lie.

I'm sure many citizens of NK think their country is the greatest country in the world because that's what the government tells them all of the time. To them what they see in the news is Truth and Factual.

You can only make up your mind based on the information you are given. When you are asked to choose between two lies, it's almost impossible you will get the right answer.

If I gave you two cups of poison and asked you to choose which one to drink from while telling you they are both wine, is it your fault for choosing to drink a cup of poison or mine for misleading you?

What part of we need balance between freedom and rules that promote responsibility is so hard to get?

My entire point is to highlight the fact that total unchecked freedom is just the opposite end of the spectrum to NK style total oppression. Both are arguably equally bad in their own, opposite ways.

The counter to NK style total oppression is not to go off the deep end at the opposite end of the spectrum and have nonsense like 'post-truth' become mainstream.