Mainstream and social media matters

[Nonc Hilaire]

The Eagle sigil goes back through the Roman Empire to Sumerians. It’s the arrows in one claw and the olive branch in the other that make it distinctively a symbol of the US.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

The Medal of Honor has the eagle facing east, and I think the eagle facing east is supposed to be a symbol of being at war.

[Simple Minded]

The Medal of Honor has the eagle facing east, and I think the eagle facing east is supposed to be a symbol of being at war.

obviously, "We" are in desperate need of a siamese two headed eagle we can all rally around.

Whoa! How about a picture of just a bird's egg? That way each viewer can imagine whatever they want to be inside it.....

[Typhoon]

The Medal of Honor has the eagle facing east, and I think the eagle facing east is supposed to be a symbol of being at war.

obviously, "We" are in desperate need of a siamese two headed eagle we can all rally around.

You've been outed as a sympathizer to the late Russian Imperial family.

russia_imperial_flag.png (229.13 KiB) Viewed 3853 times

Whoa! How about a picture of just a bird's egg? That way each viewer can imagine whatever they want to be inside it.....

Indeed.

Just when one thinks the bar for absurd political accusations could not go any lower, some group digs a hole and buries the bar.

[Simple Minded]

The Medal of Honor has the eagle facing east, and I think the eagle facing east is supposed to be a symbol of being at war.

obviously, "We" are in desperate need of a Siamese twin two headed eagle we can all rally around.

You've been outed as a sympathizer to the late Russian Imperial family.

russia_imperial_flag.png

The crowns won me over!! There's 3 of them!!!

[Typhoon]

Perhaps it was only a matter of time. After James Bennet, the editorial page director of the New York Times, resigned last month, following his publication of a mildly controversial opinion piece by a US Senator about rioting, many speculated that his friend and ally at the paper, Bari Weiss, would follow him out the door after him. Weiss was much loathed by many of the paper’s younger and more militantly ‘progressive’ staff. Today, Weiss announced that she is indeed leaving America’s most famous publication. Her excoriating departure letter is worth quoting in full:

The Spectator US - Bari Weiss| Twitter is now editing the New York Times

"Twitter is not on the masthead of the New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space."

The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people. This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is lauded for its “diversity”; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany.

[noddy]

seems to me the only problem with cancel culture is the thought that their is some silent magority of mainstream folks who are having their information ruined by the cancellations.

id tentatively suggest we have some lefties, some righties and a whole bunch of dont care either way indifferent folks.

all these traditional news sources are hollowed and pitiful shells of when they where relevant papers with adults dutifully giving them money every day.

this site shows that if you scale by population, newspaper sales have been dropping for years before social media and internet arrived - their is a fundamental lack of care for their continued existance by most of the population.

https://www.baekdal.com/monetization/th ... ewspapers/

in the heyday nearly all households got the paper, now its dropped to 10-20% and this process started before the internet.

so, we have a vast magority of people who dont care what the talking heads think and the inflamed fringes supporting whats left, causing it to head off to those fringes to preserve its market.

despite all the protests and high and mighty essays on the alleged crucialness of fair and balanced (tm) factual reporting, nobody actually wants it, or will pay for it.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Numbers count, and some numbers are bigger & more important than others.

The numbers have seen an uptick since it looked like it was on deaths door back in 2012; I wouldn't say it's new growth; it's more consolidation.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

The NYT (since we're talkin' about it) greatest strength was it's foreign wire service and, I guess in general, it's long reach.

If one wanted world news pre-internet, it was the best source one was going to get.

The audience for that was always small-ish; but it was never the size but importance of who was reading it.

It would be trite to go over how much of Washington D.C. bureaucracy is run over their reading the world out of the NYT. As clearly established in just the Trump affair, the line between the media and the "deep state" is materially non-existent, even if there is some formally thin barrier about where it's supposed to stop and start. If one wants to read what the FBI thinks, they read the NYT.

It has been like this for a long time now.

People may not be interested in the news, but the news is interested in them.

And we've had a situation where the old models with some functional purpose have been hollowed out, but the infrastructure, supply lines and importance remained; it was a situation ripe for capture.

===========

As the whole business has consolidated into a smaller cartel, it's become such a better way to focus Sauron's Eye on every shire in the land.

And if there is one thing us Americans don't do well, or didn't- who knows after the revolution -is centralization.

Our jealousy guarded freedoms are only possible because we kept things in a localized disarray for such a long time. And part of that was having healthy local news outlets...no matter how dopey, or trivial or watered-down from the big guys...my local paper now is just cheap-o wire service stories and bush league imitations of what is going on nationally. The death of this stuff should've been a presage of the darker times ahead [tongue a bit in cheek, for now. ]

[noddy]

Numbers count, and some numbers are bigger & more important than others.

The numbers have seen an uptick since it looked like it was on deaths door back in 2012; I wouldn't say it's new growth; it's more consolidation.

right and those numbers dont contradict the big numbers and ties into this wider picture about the nature of the modern press.

they are consolidating on angry right and loonie left and the 80%+ which the rest - are just not caring about those opinions anymore -this process started long before the internet.

id state that the only people that actually, properly think the press is important to democracy, are the press and they are quite vocal about it.

the people have voted with their wallets and the mix of press releases from politicians they follow and social media news from friends and family is about all they actually care about - which is why "they" are all so terrified of "fake news" on social media, its giving them an insight into reality.

this truth is never discussed, its always wah wah wah , the free press, the 4th estate, the foundations of democracy.

its a-grade boomer drivel (tm).

---

this ties into that other downward sloping graph, the trust in politics graph.

Australia
https://theconversation.com/australians ... rch-108161
America
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/20 ... 1958-2019/

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Right.

But if America has run, since the New Deal, on media messaging trickling through all the channels in certain way; "fake news" and that sort of fracturing from the massified-local to centralized-personal creates a vacuum situation.

For the people who have the most to lose from losing the New Deal system, the mask is very much off.

I don't know what else to call the retired General McChrystal using AI systems developed to battle enemy-internet messaging to beat Donald Trump.

[noddy]

Right.

But if America has run, since the New Deal, on media messaging trickling through all the channels in certain way; "fake news" and that sort of fracturing from the massified-local to centralized-personal creates a vacuum situation.

aaah yes, but now we get to the great lies of multiculture and free press and how now that its occured, it smells funny.

in the good ole days, their was 3 tv stations covering small variations of a simmilar viewpoint, only occaisionally being truly different.

[noddy]

I don't know what else to call the retired General McChrystal using AI systems developed to battle enemy-internet messaging to beat Donald Trump.

well, thats going to be an arms race isnt it - escalating troll networks are the hidden truth of our new system.

still, the dogs and the tails are up for debate - some of my family shares plenty of fake news but its always the fake news that rings true to their hard wired beliefs anyway.

--

im being contrarian here but something has never rung true about this entire argument for me and im working out why.

their is this big lie of educated populace, fact based decisions, that never has existed, never will exist and doesnt matter - so i cant buy into it.

so, now we have this problem, of private institutions running social media sites and them setting the rules on who is allowed to lie to who on their private system.

and this is as they should be allowed, in a free market driven country.

any change from that, is turning them into a public good, which is possible in my country more than yours, but their is still the odious aspect of trusting the left wing of government with their fingers on the lever.

how did the right wing get so caught out by the ownership of these new systems - the idiots in my country are still buying newspapers and magazines, they should be buying facebook.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Who wants to write the book about government by intelligence service and go down that rabbit hole?

[noddy]

we can start with the fact that the googles etc are tied to some of the TLA's via funding and how that part of American believes that any globalised, post government system, is going to have them with their hands on the steering wheel.

they dont care if national government becomes impossible, some might say thats a feature and not a bug.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

I don't know what else to call the retired General McChrystal using AI systems developed to battle enemy-internet messaging to beat Donald Trump.

well, thats going to be an arms race isnt it - escalating troll networks are the hidden truth of our new system.

still, the dogs and the tails are up for debate - some of my family shares plenty of fake news but its always the fake news that rings true to their hard wired beliefs anyway.

the "others" get shocked by it and accuse the tail of being the dog.

I'm very much grit one's teeth and let it flow type of person for that very reason.

The purpose of news and how they use it to the average joe on the street and the purpose of it for unaverage joe in a game of throne scenario is different. They are speaking different languages and playing different games with different ends in mind.

The efforts, really just starting, to shut all of it down is pathological...going back to my standby that the quality of people we have in these type of jobs is declining.

[noddy]

The efforts, really just starting, to shut all of it down is pathological...going back to my standby that the quality of people we have in these type of jobs is declining.

only if the outcome is stable national governments.

if you judge them by the outcome of global connections and increasing penetration into more countries, they are doing ok - so far only middle eastern crackpots and china have kept them out.

[insert russian joke on failures of government here]

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

If it were merely planned chaos, we'd probably be better off. I'm probably the wrong person for this line of thinking though, 'cause I'm just not all that impressed with the globalist/nationalist dichotomy. It doesn't sit right with what I'm seeing, and I'm discomforted about how uniform it is--

in an information age where information is weaponized and your "enemy" is encouraging the framework...warning lights go off--

but it's awfully hard to argue against, for me at least. I can't quite put my thumb on a plausible reasoning and am not bright enough to do such a thing.

[noddy]

If it were merely planned chaos, we'd probably be better off. I'm probably the wrong person for this line of thinking though, 'cause I'm just not all that impressed with the globalist/nationalist dichotomy. It doesn't sit right with what I'm seeing, and I'm discomforted about how uniform it is--

in an information age where information is weaponized and your "enemy" is encouraging the framework...warning lights go off--

but it's awfully hard to argue against, for me at least. I can't quite put my thumb on a plausible reasoning and am not bright enough to do such a thing.

its more indifference to local chaos than planned chaos.

they judge things by the big picture of penetration and usage across all countries.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

I'll say something really nice about the globe...it's kinda awesome that 5 billion of us are connected through trade. This is starting to get close to ant colony impressive.

[noddy]

Our jealousy guarded freedoms are only possible because we kept things in a localized disarray for such a long time. And part of that was having healthy local news outlets...no matter how dopey, or trivial or watered-down from the big guys...my local paper now is just cheap-o wire service stories and bush league imitations of what is going on nationally. The death of this stuff should've been a presage of the darker times ahead [tongue a bit in cheek, for now. ]

i have lurker facebook and twitter accounts that follow local police, local government in two layers and the gossip channel for my suburb.

add in the websites for emergency services and weather, I get less filtered, better coverage of the crap that my local paper used to print - it surprised me not they exist largely to reprint most of that stuff for the older generation.

[noddy]

I'll say something really nice about the globe...it's kinda awesome that 5 billion of us are connected through trade. This is starting to get close to ant colony impressive.

yeh, and also hilights the huge advantage the progressive globalists have - its harder to get the grumpy conservatives in each nation to give a lavender about each other.

hence that version of the truth has more focused participants, we are yet to see the global nationalists form coalitions of "ill ignore you if you ignore me" that create big super structures.

[Simple Minded]

seems to me the only problem with cancel culture is the thought that their is some silent magority of mainstream folks who are having their information ruined by the cancellations.

id tentatively suggest we have some lefties, some righties and a whole bunch of dont care either way indifferent folks.

all these traditional news sources are hollowed and pitiful shells of when they where relevant papers with adults dutifully giving them money every day.

this site shows that if you scale by population, newspaper sales have been dropping for years before social media and internet arrived - their is a fundamental lack of care for their continued existance by most of the population.

https://www.baekdal.com/monetization/th ... ewspapers/

in the heyday nearly all households got the paper, now its dropped to 10-20% and this process started before the internet.

so, we have a vast magority of people who dont care what the talking heads think and the inflamed fringes supporting whats left, causing it to head off to those fringes to preserve its market.

despite all the protests and high and mighty essays on the alleged crucialness of fair and balanced (tm) factual reporting, nobody actually wants it, or will pay for it.

Well said. Baskin Robbins by offering 31 flavors drives the old school vendors (who only offer chocolate and vanilla) insane!

freedom of choice from an infinite number of free lance reporters and opinionators, vs. old school brick and mortar how am I supposed to pay for these printing presses and pay my property taxes with so much low cost competition?

gotta satisfy the existing base of paying customers first just to keep the doors open. Interesting parallel with churches.

in light of green fears and deforestation, it is surprising that there are any newspapers left.

[Simple Minded]

I'll say something really nice about the globe...it's kinda awesome that 5 billion of us are connected through trade. This is starting to get close to ant colony impressive.

5 billion of us ants and the most common bitch is 4.99+ billion of the other ants don't agree with me!

soon as we get enough bandwidth, we can all be 5 billion virtual isolated rugged individualists!

VR goggles are new tech? haven't they always existed?