This is for topical issues effecting our fair world... you can quit snickering anytime. Note: It is the desire of the leadership of SFDebris Conglomerate that all posters maintain a civil and polite bearing in this forum, regardless of how you feel about any particular issue. Violators will be turned over to Captain Janeway for experimentation.
Yukaphile wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2019 11:43 am
Well, it's hard when people tend to treat the victim as a monster and just shrug off the attacker with flimsy justifications like "he/they was/were traumatized."
I have seen this attitude more than once. That's why it infuriates me so much.
And how much, much more often have you seen people not shurgging off the victim as a monster? Most of the time.
I'm guessing that you're also confusing justification with explanation. Being trauamatised can be a pretty serious condition. It doesn't justify their actions if they do terrible things but it may explain them. Whether or not that's the case depends upon the specifics, whether it's a flimsy attempt at justification or whether someone is genuinely seriously mentally ill. OK this isn't victim blaming but how would you react to a case near me? Someone killed his grandmother. The man who did it (according to the story in the pub, so take with a pinch of salt but I think it still stands as a point) was a mentally ill and had mixed up his medications, and normally worshipped the ground his gran stood on - the next concern was that he might try to kill himself when he realised what he'd done.
Each person responds to it differently. Depends on how you're raised.
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
Yukaphile wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2019 1:54 pm
Each person responds to it differently. Depends on how you're raised.
Exactly. You need to take every case on its own merits and not generalise with "this person is 100% unjustified evil" or "this person is a thorough saint." And accept that people can be 90% thorougly vile and still have 10% good points. Doesn't stop them being on balance thoroughly vile but doesn't mean the good points aren't real either.
Worffan101 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:41 pm
Who's going to bother to do that when they can go out and get fake news that's simple and stupid and easy to understand piped into their brain?
Anyone who's brought up to think a bit more critically, which is why it really needs to be part of schooling.
To be honest I see equally blinkered, prejudiced thinking on both sides of most of these debates. One of them tends to espouse views that usually look more unpleasant than the others but the degree of pigeonholed pre-determined thinking is often the same. Sometimes the people saying what you don't like to hear may have a point, even if it's got rather twisted and exaggerated and mis-used but get rejected because it doesn't fit into a simple "everything must either be good or bad" box.
I mean, our education system is hot garbage and the Republicans are trying to actively sabotage it to pay for the tax cuts they want to give to billionaires. Not to mention this "charter school" nonsense, which is horribly unregulated, essentially a bunch of scams that don't teach a damn thing, and the current Secretary of Education is only making it worse.
IDK, man. When the Left is saying "We need to stop being racist and make a better education system" and the Right is saying "any attempts to raise taxes are literally Stalinism, and also there is no problem with racism in this country, I've never heard of far-right domestic terrorists, MAGA POTUS, MAGA flag, MAGA fatherland", it's pretty obvious who's the good guys and who's the bad guys.
Worffan101 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:41 pm
Who's going to bother to do that when they can go out and get fake news that's simple and stupid and easy to understand piped into their brain?
Anyone who's brought up to think a bit more critically, which is why it really needs to be part of schooling.
To be honest I see equally blinkered, prejudiced thinking on both sides of most of these debates. One of them tends to espouse views that usually look more unpleasant than the others but the degree of pigeonholed pre-determined thinking is often the same. Sometimes the people saying what you don't like to hear may have a point, even if it's got rather twisted and exaggerated and mis-used but get rejected because it doesn't fit into a simple "everything must either be good or bad" box.
IDK, man. When the Left is saying "We need to stop being racist and make a better education system" and the Right is saying "any attempts to raise taxes are literally Stalinism, and also there is no problem with racism in this country, I've never heard of far-right domestic terrorists, MAGA POTUS, MAGA flag, MAGA fatherland", it's pretty obvious who's the good guys and who's the bad guys.
@Riedquat The problem really is when people use that to try and remove the victimhood from the legitimate victims and apply that to the attackers, people who aren't victims at all. That's my biggest beef.
Getting back to the topic, I'll say there's another way to combat fake news. Remove news reporting from the hands of the corporations. No, don't nationalize it or give it to the people. Just... abolish the corporate media entirely. Social media will one day surpass it, and bring us together more thoroughly than news reporting could ever hope to achieve. And there's no political spin either, just people discussing their issues.
"A culture's teachings - and more importantly, the nature of its people - achieve definition in conflict. They find themselves, or find themselves lacking."
— Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
Darth Wedgius wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2019 10:32 pm
Asks how to fight fake news. Mischaracterizes the right.
!
Well, as far as I know, WorfFan is not a professional journalist, or even a blogger or youtuber, so how can what they say be characterized as contributing to a fake news problem?
"Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it."
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
Darth Wedgius wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2019 10:32 pm
Asks how to fight fake news. Mischaracterizes the right.
!
Well, as far as I know, WorfFan is not a professional journalist, or even a blogger or youtuber, so how can what they say be characterized as contributing to a fake news problem?
By a formal definition of news, it doesn't. Even by a very informal definition of news, I doubt someone posting here contributes much to fake news. That wasn't my intention. But I think that his bias will prevent him from being part of a solution to fake news by pretty much any definition.
Yeah, "fake news" to our echo-chamber seeking fellows consists of anything that disagrees with the talking points they've been sold as the "truth." Which is why I didn't bother responding to it for the longest time because it's pretty clear what Worffan is actually getting at. Especially in light of the fact he posted this thread after whining about my "calmly stated lies."
"Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough."
-TR
