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Started by Cramulus, April 13, 2007, 11:33:09 PM

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Suu

Quote from: leln on June 26, 2011, 11:30:42 PM
I broke down an bought a Kindle today. After half an hour with Project Gutenberg I've already paid for the damn thing and have an enormous intellectual boner. Am I going to go to hell for this?
Sovereign Episkopos-Princess Kaousuu; Esq., Battle Nun, Bene Gesserit.
Our Lady of Perpetual Confusion; 1st Church of Discordia

"Add a dab of lavender to milk, leave town with an orange, and pretend you're laughing at it."

Cain

Quote from: Black Hat Guy on June 28, 2011, 05:43:30 PM
You know how utterly depressing it is to be in the 21st century, in a first world nation that used to run a quarter of the planet, arguing with someone else in another first world nation that used to put people on the moon, about whether magic works or not?

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Cain on June 28, 2011, 06:06:15 PM
Quote from: Black Hat Guy on June 28, 2011, 05:43:30 PM
You know how utterly depressing it is to be in the 21st century, in a first world nation that used to run a quarter of the planet, arguing with someone else in another first world nation that used to put people on the moon, about whether magic works or not?

:mittens:

Just saw & responded to that.
Molon Lube

LMNO

Quote from: Cain on June 28, 2011, 06:06:15 PM
Quote from: Black Hat Guy on June 28, 2011, 05:43:30 PM
You know how utterly depressing it is to be in the 21st century, in a first world nation that used to run a quarter of the planet, arguing with someone else in another first world nation that used to put people on the moon, about whether magic works or not?

Holy shit.  I want to spraypaint that on everything.

Telarus

:mittens: Saw it on WK's forum, reposted to FB.
Telarus, KSC,
.__.  Keeper of the Contradictory Cephalopod, Zenarchist Swordsman,
(0o)  Tender to the Edible Zen Garden, Ratcheting Metallic Sex Doll of The End Times,
/||\   Episkopos of the Amorphous Dreams Cabal

Join the Doll Underground! Experience the Phantasmagorical Safari!


Idem

Quote from: Cain on June 28, 2011, 06:06:15 PM
Quote from: Black Hat Guy on June 28, 2011, 05:43:30 PM
You know how utterly depressing it is to be in the 21st century, in a first world nation that used to run a quarter of the planet, arguing with someone else in another first world nation that used to put people on the moon, about whether magic works or not?
:mittens:

Nephew Twiddleton

Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS

Ambassador KLOK KAOS

The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore, to misuse it.

New Rule:  You are a terrorist and with be dealt with as such.


P3nT4gR4m

#1209
Quote from: Cain on July 13, 2011, 12:38:23 PM
This is the cancer at the heart of news reporting.  Not "libertard/conservatard media bias" (barring FOX), not "the manufacturing of consent" and not even evil reptilian shapeshifters from the 4th dimension trying to keep Teh People down.

Nick Davies, who is currently ripping Rupert Murdoch and News International a new asshole over the phone-hacking scandal, lays this all out quite clearly in his book Flat Earth News, published way back in 2007.

The problem comes down to this: news is a business.  In the past, making a profit was an acceptable, nay, good business practice.  Nowadays, you have to bring back increasing profits every financial quarter.

What this means is, is that you have to do more work than ever, relying on less people than ever, shifting more stories than ever.  You're instantly reacting, instantly passing along the key information, writing it up and getting it on the screen and on the website.  And you gotta do it, in many cases, in 10 minutes or less.  No time for introspection.  No time for fact-checking - just trust the newswire and whoever their source is, even though newswires openly state they do not undertake fact-checking of any kind.  Don't follow-up, or do an in depth report - you've got another 15000 stories pilling up in your inbox!

So you gotta grab market share.  That means you have to make the news stories dumb.  You've gotta pander to this view of the "stereotypical, average viewer", which is often an offensive atrocity in and of itself.  You gotta slot the story into neat little worldviews.

You end up telling people what they want to hear, rather than what people actually need to know, because, as Kai says, people love white sugar, not nutritionally balanced diets.

And all this allows the news to be manipulated by people who are politically motivated, who are passing disinformation down the line, who are looking to make a buck off your ignorance.  Newswire gets a story from an "anonymous White House source".  They write it up.  They pass it along the line.  The newspapers pick it up uncritically and published it.  Did anyone check the source's information, whether or not this source has a history of passing along good, solid information, whether they're a political appointee with an axe to grind?  Fuck no.  And that's how you end up slipping in bullshit about WMDs and fictitious terrorists into the mainstream media and thus nationa consciousness.

Throw into the mix a politically motivated station who uses controversy and inflammatory tactics to drive up their viewer numbers, and you have the Perfect Storm of Media Dumbassery.  They're chasing numbers, that's all.  Newspaper sales and viewers.  They'll do whatever it takes to get them because that's what brings in that quarterly growth.  And if they have to ape the tactics of a station that is patently a political disinfo outlet to do it, they will.

CREAM, baby, is what explains the media.  Understand the business model, understand the game.

Cain ... cutting through the bullshit, as ever!

ETA: change the words "news" and "story" to "media" and you expand the scope  8)

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Suu

Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on July 17, 2011, 06:22:40 AM
Then why have you locked yourself in the Jeep, and why was the sink on fire?
Sovereign Episkopos-Princess Kaousuu; Esq., Battle Nun, Bene Gesserit.
Our Lady of Perpetual Confusion; 1st Church of Discordia

"Add a dab of lavender to milk, leave town with an orange, and pretend you're laughing at it."


P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 25, 2011, 02:41:53 PM
Quote from: Jenne on August 25, 2011, 02:41:19 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 24, 2011, 08:33:38 PM
Quote from: Jenne on August 24, 2011, 08:07:52 PM
Yes, that last paragraph is the ultimate in importance--when they have something to gain.

In other words, their perception of gain and loss seems to harken back to the colonial times, where as the US and UK are clinging to a more, uh, "modern," esoteric form of "gain."  One that politicos can only GUESS at the real-time worth of--because so much of it is just hope and bullshit.

Balls.  Every war America gets into has to do with monetary gain for our corporations.  Every single one.

Sshhhhh.  You know what happens when that sort of truth gets out, Rog.

Everyone sort of farts a bit, and goes on with their day?

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Jenne

Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 29, 2011, 05:08:35 PM
Quote from: Dimocritus on August 29, 2011, 05:06:37 PM
He lives.

Also, Bachmann is a tool-box.

She is the ANNOINTED OF GOD, you filthy heathen.  Vote for her, or God will knock over more of your lawn chairs.

Jenne

Quote from: The Good Reverend Payne on September 27, 2011, 06:16:24 PM
Quote from: Jasper on September 27, 2011, 06:15:04 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Payne on September 27, 2011, 06:11:33 PM

Dude, we got to distract the women in Doks life for a few hours while he makes this a reality.

It's a spiritual duty.

How the hell are we gonna do that?  They're not like the reasonable, even tempered women I'm used to.

Right, you wear the gimp suit, I'll wear the naughty nursey outfit, and we'll do the safety dance.

Bring lots of water. Wearing a gimp suit in Arizona is srs bznz.