Something has to give and it’s not a Republican or a Democrat problem. It’s a media and tech problem and it’s only in its infancy. I can’t imagine how bad it is going to get.
We can no longer implicitly trust any type of media that we consume due to advances in Tech and AI. Especially in things that are so crucial, such as elections.
Republicans have taken advantage of it, Democrats have done it.
We can’t trust the media to police themselves. The media has changed, they are no longer journalists. It seems to me that all, or the vast, vast, majority of them are partisan activists.
It is unnerving and damaging, to the public trust, watching arguments over issues such as this…
Or this…
It’s just driving it home that we can’t trust what we see, read, or hear anymore. I really do believe that, We The People, (yes I am deliberately using the Constitutional preamble) need to pump the brakes. I realize you can’t stuff the genie back in the bottle, but we need to figure it out to mitigate the damage.
Feel free to call me Chicken Little and that the sky is/isn’t falling. But this is how I feel. But I think others feel this way as well.
Years ago, in the 70’s, I sat in a meeting of tech execs talking about this new thing called the World Wide Web. Many of us were concerned, but not in the manner you speak of, we were concerned that Joe Public would believe everything they saw on the WWW because, after all, it’s a new and fresh technological wonder that will certainly by honest and true. So here we are, seeing crap of all flavors and people actually believing it. So much for rational/critical thinking abilities.
I don’t think this is a new problem. If you look at uprisings, riots and revolutions throughout history a lot of them were kicked off by the spread of misinformation. Either unintentionally or intentionally. Even people who are there seeing things with their own eyes will often draw the wrong conclusion about what is actually going on.
But with the internet and digital manipulation technology that misinformation can be made much more convincing and spread almost instantaneously leaving far less time for those with cooler heads to try and calm things down before they get out of hand.
It is all of our responsible to not knee jerk react to any information we see these days without confirming its validity. But that is getting harder to do with so many people with varying agendas looking to twist any and all information to fit their self serving goals.
This point in time seems to be rhyming along strongly with other historically chaotic times like the French Revolution, the fall of the Roman Empire, the end of the Weimar Republic, etc. It would be wise for folks to look at the bad actors who took advantage of those situations and avoid following the new crop of leaders who will pop up promising to “save” us from all the problems they have helped create.
But wisdom seldom prevails and empires rise and fall on a regular basis so best to be prepared to take care of ourselves and our families for the very challenging times we are going to face, likely in the not too distant future. The problems our Nation and the world are facing are systemic and have been brewing for a long time. No matter which side wins in November we are still going to go over the cliff at some point. There are a lot of people looking for their opportunity to take advantage of the chaos. The rest of us can only do the best we can to avoid becoming collateral damage in their game of thrones.
If people had to use their real names on social media, things would be very different. The same way you sign up and a bank account and prove your identity, you sign up for a social media verified identity. It’s the annonimity that allows the spread of hatred and falsehoods.
gaslighting - psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator. Source: Gaslighting Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster.
“If your mother says she loves you, … check it out”.
I get the gaslighting it’s usually fairly easy to detect. What isn’t so easy is something like what the Democratic Party Nominees campaign is doing. You see an article and it’s been subtlety worked over. It is pernicious because you don’t know whether it’s real. Even if it’s coming from, what should be by all a trusted news source.
That is damaging on a societal level, which may be the intent.
Yes, actual newsprint does still exist. I don’t get my local newspaper and haven’t in probably 20 years, nor subscribe to it online, since after it went far left - both the news reporting and the editorial section. It was no longer reporting news, it was only reporting far Left propaganda. I do read it, on a rare occasion, to see if it has changed, but it is at least as bad as it was when I ended service with it. Interestingly, I have been getting emails regularly in the past couple of months from it asking me to resubscribe, but I just delete those emails.
Todd and Dave, I’d say newsprint is down to a tiny fraction of what it was, where it’s still available at all. Most of the regional newspapers have been bought up by one of the big news organizations, and just parrot those. Buffalo News is basically a local version of WaPo, for example, printed twice a week.
Tampa Bay Times (formerly St. Petersburg Times) was one of the biggest independent papers still hanging on. They owned Miami Herald. I used to subscribe for daily delivery. They went more and more left but were still a good source of general Florida and Gulf coast news. Over time, though, they shut down their huge printing operation in St Pete. They went from 5 presses/3 shifts down to 2 presses, then zero. The last remaining papers in Florida all outsource to a contract printer in Lakeland (central Fl) for just 2X per week press runs. Basically, you can’t get a daily paper anymore around here.
One of the Sadder Facts in all this is there’s NO HONOR in Politics/Press anymore.
No Journalists
Just opportunists whose opinions are open to the highest bidder.
‘Reporting’ here in Cactus Junction is pathetic and lame.
People don’t know how to write anymore.
Sure in the past it was sensationalized, but PURE writing ability kept the
reader entertained as well as informed.
The Radical LEFT CONTROLS the Media Mob.
Only here in America can Two Boobs running against Trump/Vance even stand a chance
with the absolute HATRED against Trump stand a chance beating them when they have zero policy’s
and zero credibility. Yet because of Elite’s Money and Media Bias they actually have a chance.
And NOW with the dumbing down of future generations coming up I don’t want to see the results down the road…
I hear Pluto’s nice in the Summertime!
Yes and no Brother. Evil Elite’s who wish to own it all yes—they need to be gone.
A certain Billionaire (and his ‘friends’) need to be given the seat @ the head of the table
so we can al get back to the business of living.
Living today under the clouds of dis-Misinformation (for me) is exhausting
In days not too far in the past coming home exhausted because of a job well done filled
me w/ pride and satisfaction. (My wallet didn’t get anorexic either)
These days I simply don’t care
I admit it
I’m tired
Worn out.
I’d rather live on my savings now (that’s what it’s there for amirite?)
than venture out in the world where an old(er) White guy w/ tons of experience
is overlooked before I even get in the door for some Gen x-z is chosen because of their
'Tat’s, Piercings, diversity… they can have it for a little while. I’m taking a break.
Money is the root of all evil. I’ve seen how it changes those who acquire it and how their views change. Add to that how they will stop at nothing to keep it. Once money is acquired the only thing they don’t have is power…now we have politics. It’s clear to me that either side will do damn near anything to keep both. I vote Republican because usually it’s the lesser of two evils.
Yes technology has gotten better so sifting through made up stuff has gotten harder. How do we become informed if we have to fact check the fact checkers? We used to worry about foreign entities tampering with elections and now our own are better at it?
Yes, it is an issue and concern. But a far greater threat, also related to technology, is the actual reduction in intelligence, critical thinking skills, and knowledge of the real world in a generation raised and educated on tablets and phones rather than books. No, I am not going off topic for in a world in which a significant number of American adults can no longer critically think for themselves, there is even more opportunity for the misuse of AI to lead them down the garden path of an ideological tyranny.
We are already seeing this, of a mass of Americans who are unable emotionally or intellectually to comprehend or live with others who intellectually disagree with them. The Americans who are demonstrating in favor of Hamas, a terrorist tyranny which stands for everything nearly all Americans used to abhor, are a prime example of this. They’re only able to react to those who disagree with them by becoming violent and have done so on repeated occasions. Theirs is the mindset of subjects of tyranny, the sort who will vote down the freedoms of the Bill of Rights and replace it with chains on all of us which they and they alone find comfortable.
Owning firearms as we do requires taking individual responsibility for the results of our own actions. But people who are incapable of thinking for themselves are also unable to even understand being responsible for what they do. This is the danger we face and I, for one, do not have any real solutions to offer – yet.
