- Joined
- Apr 25, 2019
- Messages
- 4,090
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- 234
A knockout argument is never a good way to begin a discussion such as this. They're all paid by "governments, politicians and corporations"? Literally all of them – you've checked all their bank accounts?
Besides, mate, you kind of skipped over the part where I said I'd detail causes and effects not make a political statement. I certainly didn't advocate believing anyone blindly.
But let's begin with the easiest of the questions you raised:
Scientists give you no reason to believe them? Well, how about they possess knowledge you don't, just as you might possess knowledge they don't?
I don't know what you do for a living, but it doesn't really matter for the sake of this argument. Whether you're a lawyer or a plumber, don't you think you should be entitled to greater authority in your field of expertise than someone who's no lawyer or plumber?
@Junglejim is a pilot. Who should call the shots if the flying of an airplane were the task at hand – him or someone that's never flown before? Evidently that's not to say you should throw caution and common sense out of the window. Obviously I'd question our pilot friend here even at 40,000 ft in the air if he advocated flying us into the side of a mountain.
As for governments, that's a very tricky subject. Politicians are occupied in the business of being biased towards their own gains and their constituencies' gains. Yet even I – being thoroughly frustrated by my government – wouldn't defy its authority based on my antipathy alone.
(Or worse, on some foggy notion of little ol' me being generally better informed than officials who have intelligence services and scientific advisory boards supplying them with information.)
The problem with such a behaviour is that in democracies, governments are elected by popular majority. At least on paper, there's a direct link between the government and its voters. Defying the government without a very good reason (e.g. to protect your freedoms if no other remedy is available) means rejecting the majority's right to plot the country's course. Ultimately, it's tantamount to the rejection of democracy itself.
If I became one of those clowns who walk about yelling "XYZ is not my president", how could I expect the aforesaid president's voters to respect my side's president in the event of a change of government?
I couldn't.
Lastly, the objectivity of the media is obviously corrupted by political and economic considerations. By the way, in this day and age with its heavy political polarisation, the supremacy of economic motives is often overlooked. I'd wager any sum you like that if Donald Trump somehow managed to fall out of favour with the American right, Fox News would be the first to rip him a new one. Why? Because they want to earn money.
That aside, I'd suggest for you you're taking the easy way out if you just fall back on the untenable position the media sell nothing but fake news. Not even propagandist platforms like Breitbart or Young Turks match that description – as a matter of fact, their reports are more often right than wrong, albeit heavily distorted by a political spin.
But as much as I lament the state of the media, I don't quite understand the holy wrath displayed by some of you – particularly those who mainly consult media outlets who finance themselves by way of ad revenues and don't even charge you for their (questionable?) services.
If a stranger approached you on the street and told you that X, Y and Z had just happened, would you believe them right away? No, you'd seek out other sources of information and make up your own mind. If one accesses a multitude of sources, it's surprisingly easy to get an accurate picture of the world even today.
But that too is, apparently, too much to ask from some people. They'd rather retreat behind the cozy walls of weird blogs or dive into the echo chambers of Youtube comment's sections to put all their trust in folks who've got no reason – none at all! – to be an iota more truth-loving than ordinary journalists.
Undeniably the news are fraught with hoaxes, false reports and political spin-doctoring. But it genuinely seems to me that most people who accuse the media of spreading fake news could give a toss about the truth. They don't oppose lies. They only oppose reporting they disagree with, untruthful or otherwise.
That, too, is in my opinion a negative side-effect of the West's radical individualism. The processes I wrote about earlier turn us all into little narcissists. Only a narcissist would feel personally offended or threatened by divergent opinions.
At any rate… we don't know everything, we can't do everything, and we can't be everywhere. As such, we require sources of information, experts to advise us and representatives to govern the country in our stead. That's not subservience but the truth, plain and simple. Neither is this to say it's an ideal form of society and government. But it's a hell of a lot better than anything that's ever been attempted before.
