Thanks for the link. This was a good article summarizing the sad state of how we get information today, although perhaps I think it’s good simply because it echoes many things that I have been saying for some time (such as the idea that Fox “knowingly lied to its audience”). However, there is one point that I believe he didn’t get completely right. He writes: “This conception of democracy requires two aspects of democratic governance to function in tandem if the system is to survive: government accountability and the availability of accurate information.” I believe that there is a third element here, and that is the requirement that the electorate do at least some work and get their information from multiple sources and (most important of all) THINK about what they have just read (or heard). How much critical thinking does it take to realize that there is no evidence to back up the Q-Anon conspiracy, for example? But instead of approaching the whole idea of Q-Anon with the appropriate amount of skepticism because of the outlandish nature of its claims (the operative mantra should be “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”), too many act as if it’s up to us sane people to prove to them that it’s not true (which, of course, as a matter of logic can’t be done). They have it backwards. And this logic applies to lots of other issues such as The Big Lie or the government being behind January 6.
Just because you can bathe all day, every day in misinformation doesn’t mean that you should.
Read of the day:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-155998561
Thanks for the link. This was a good article summarizing the sad state of how we get information today, although perhaps I think it’s good simply because it echoes many things that I have been saying for some time (such as the idea that Fox “knowingly lied to its audience”). However, there is one point that I believe he didn’t get completely right. He writes: “This conception of democracy requires two aspects of democratic governance to function in tandem if the system is to survive: government accountability and the availability of accurate information.” I believe that there is a third element here, and that is the requirement that the electorate do at least some work and get their information from multiple sources and (most important of all) THINK about what they have just read (or heard). How much critical thinking does it take to realize that there is no evidence to back up the Q-Anon conspiracy, for example? But instead of approaching the whole idea of Q-Anon with the appropriate amount of skepticism because of the outlandish nature of its claims (the operative mantra should be “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”), too many act as if it’s up to us sane people to prove to them that it’s not true (which, of course, as a matter of logic can’t be done). They have it backwards. And this logic applies to lots of other issues such as The Big Lie or the government being behind January 6.
Just because you can bathe all day, every day in misinformation doesn’t mean that you should.