A good article about the problem of our modern form of reading… Thanks for sharing.
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This is more of an essay than a story, but it’s good food for thought, especially if you’re a horror fan:
I’ve thought it was a shame that we lose Barbra just as she finds herself again… but NotLD is a tragedy all around, and her particular tragedy was coming across her zombie brother, the one being she couldn’t bring herself to fight.
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Although this is a short video, this seems like the appropriate place to post it. I don’t think I’ve seen such a concise, clear breakdown about the relationship between “content creators” and the platforms that host the content. It seems like very important information to have if you’re an aspiring content creator. I’ve associated with a number of content creators (some of whom aspire to do this for a living) and, for the most part, they seem blissfully unaware of their rights to their content and what their platforms can or cannot do with that content. This ignorance is fine if you’re just making content as a hobby, but it seems like something you need to grok if you’re aiming to do anything more than be a hobbyist.
I know a lot of people aspire to be content creators today, so odds are there are many people on this forum who may have (or have tried and failed) to explain this to friends/relatives. Hopefully this video, which is less than 10 minutes long, saves you some time, because lord knows I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to get people to understand that no, twitch (for example) isn’t obliged to support you, promote you or even to keep hosting your content, they’re in it to make money for themselves in the aggregate.
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Americans are up to their necks in urgent crises, from an ever-evolving pandemic to climate disaster to supremacist autocracy, and can’t bring themselves to tackle, let alone acknowledge any of them.
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To me, this looks like a must-read for the author’s fellow journalists. They’ve been complicit in supporting/enabling distribution of information that is confusing and divisive for the benefit of the wealthy business owners, powerful pols, and corporate interests. Promoting lies or both-sides arguments have increased the number of folks who don’t know what the truth is - and no longer put in the effort to find out. It’s easier to be told what to think and who to believe. Confused sheep are also more easily led, so convincing people that nothing they do matters tends to tip the scales at the polls.
This reminds me of the stories about how individuals aren’t doing enough to stop climate change, or it’s the DNC’s fault that the GOP/GQP have been working overtime to undermine democracy. That’s just more misdirection. I’m not buying the argument that it’s the public’s fault that they’re not tackling all of the crises created - on purpose - by organizations with far more resources and the ability to manipulate the electorate in their favor. We’re in a fight on multiple fronts, and taking control of who gets elected is just one step. Getting news outlets cleaned up is another crucial one.
The evidence of our issues is not in dispute; we are merely fighting over perception. Nuance, complexity, doubt, and reflection are hindrances in a war of words. Victory depends on being direct about our opponents, their intentions, and our plans to stop them.
I’m looking forward to reading or hearing a lot more direct headlines/articles with details about those responsible for our current crises, political inaction, corruption, tax avoidance, legislative abuse/exploitation, or government waste/fraud/funding/spending, as well as labeling/revealing misinformation and misdirection for what it is. We shouldn’t have to dig for this, panning for nuggets of truth in never-ending streams of bs and getting lucky a few times a week. This should be on blast, 24/7, all day, every day in major outlets - with the misleading, disingenuous crap relegated to a few channels known to have sold their souls to the forces of evil. Maybe we should set up a challenge to try it for one year - and watch how fast politics/government becomes much simpler to understand and manage.
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There is… a lot… going on in this article about Saudi Arabia under MSB (still crown prince, not yet the absolutist monarch).
(in case you’ve used up your 3 free articles).
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An interesting story about self-publishing, gatekeeping, inequity, and advances:
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I see this piece is causing quite a stir today:
She claims she’s a liberal, but i find that hard to believe.
Her main complaint seems to be that a lot of people on campus disagree when she says something unpopular. She poses as a brave defender of free speech and open debate, then reports quivering with fear when others disagree with her.
Sounds familiar, the whole frozen peach malarkey. Must we keep having this same tired discussion?
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“No no no, I meant that I should have the freedom to freely debate whatever I wanted. Not that you should.”
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I think she’s trying to take a new angle on it all, claiming that the problem isn’t disagreement, but rather such wide, deep, ostracizing disagreement that it amounts to medieval levels of public shunning.
Which sounds to me like bs, not to mention a lot like what Nazis and such have been saying for a while now about campus environments.
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Oh, it’s a very clearly defined line of bullshit from the usual suspects.
Here, have an example: Thinking Out Aloud: How the prestige opinion media model encourages siloing and other disasters
(Note: when Lorenzo there talks about Helen Dale, he’s referring to the person with whom he shares a blog site, who used to be known as Helen Darville, but became famous as Helen Demidenko)
Basically: the real problem is Leftist hellholes like the BBC and the Australian ABC and NPR telling you Left-fascists what to think and making you all jump down the throat of people who are just asking questions about whether it wouldn’t, in fact, be better to just give the country to the billionaires oligarchs, and this is why free debate in the West requires us to sell the BBC and the ABC to Murdoch.
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Seconded.
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Not exactly a “thoughtful” story! But certainly an “interesting” one.
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It’s up to all of you. The topic’s loosely-themed enough that it’s not a derail (I think), but the subject’s certainly worthy of its own thread. I’d be happy to do a split, if it’s requested, or start a thread quoting significant posts.
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Requested! I lack the BBS-fu to do this with confidence.
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I don’t see it as a derail, as long as it’s discussing something thoughtful and/or interesting. This seems on topic with the posted article being replied to…
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We could do a poll, maybe? I’d like to get a better idea from the participants on what they’d prefer done with their words (though voting is open to all.)
Should we split the Neurodiversity discussion to a new thread?
- Yes, split and move all relevant posts to a new topic
- Create the new topic and quote relevant posts in first comment/s (no posts get moved)
- No split, but create the new topic anyway
- No split or new topic (no action taken)
0 voters
The poll will close in 24 hours.
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I would certainly argue that the way that we use the internet was informed by how we interacted in other ways well prior to the internet… one example is how punk zines circulated as a physical sort of BBS? So I get there this is coming from… but I do wonder if it’s a bit teleological? Like, he mentions the ancient idea of all of existence being a living, interconnected thing (comparing it to a human body, where when you hurt your foot, it registers in the head), which he describes like “cybernetics” which is a modern word (Norbert Wiener). So, is that really the same thing? I don’t know how useful it is to map new concepts onto older concepts and call them the same thing.
Maybe more compelling is his argument about human technology being “natural” not artificial and that we keep mistaking behaviors as being uniquely human, when they’re often not.
The article is interesting, so I’ll look into picking up the book at some point, I think.
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Just, FYI, as the creator of the thread, whatever people want to do is fine with me. It can stay or it can go.
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