First hurdle passed

Source

What do you suggest? Wear a pussyhat?

(The pattern is available online)

However, people are easily manipulated. It is not necessarily their fault if this happens - it can not be entirely passed off as one's own stupidity or bad judgement. You can't really get mad at a dog for peeing on the carpet when his masters have trained him to do so, no?

Mass media is the prevailing vehicle of social conditioning and manipulation. Twenty five years ago, there were 200 companies running the US media. Now there are 5 controlling over 90%. Would you still believe that the media is simply telling you what you want to hear, when it is down to just 1 corporation?

There is a bit of truth in your opinion, of course - the companies need to sell advertising and in order to do so must provide attractive programming, etc. But the bigger picture is that the big wheels behind the news are nearly above and beyond money as a source of power. When you can influence the stock markets, own the banks, and print the money - social control becomes the real means of influence Taking a loss on advertising sales is a no problem at all, even from a financial/business perspective. Kind of like Rockefeller selling oil at a loss to put all of the competition out of business (and then take them over as well)

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you are being programmed

Who made it happen? Customers. They did this. People need to decide for better quality source of info. It will not happen if they are as customers satisfied with the low quality stuff they are getting.

Absolutely. Power in cash is ephemeral. Access to info is the real power. But people will not go for it if they let themselves be manipulated. That's why now media is reaping what they sowed. They have the support of their customer base, popularity and loyalty, trust. They push for more, with every cliche customers positively answer to. They make their customers feel good by delivering exactly what customer needs (just like giving medals to all participants or telling students they are all doing amazingly well in banal robotic stuff). So the only way to snip that umbellical chord is start questioning the quality of info that customers are expecting from media. Decompose the schematic opinion making. Trump is not stupid because he tweets or buys ill fitting self tanner. I'd even remove Trump from any media prezence and see how media do without the show. What would customer do without the self agrandizing opportunities, all the virtue signalling platforms..

The whole media machine you described, the monopoly on a discourse in a society...is indeed a thread to liberty of one's mind. But. Trump is a pretty equal opponent, used the media game to his unvelievable advantage. And - human mind is thankfully not so dependent on bad media (they just make us believe so). It just needs more food for thought. Better food. It will make better choices.

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

Seriously? You believe in this day and age with most people having access to the internet with all its raw data, independent writers and independent media, not to mention social media, and the fact everyone has a camera phone ready to record every snippet we "need more food for thought"?

If you only restrict yourself to mainstream stuff then, sure, I can see where you form your "pov" but it doesn't mean there isn't enough information around. You just need to look for it.

Your view of the media and your lexicon of "on-trend" labels in your posts reveals quite a lot about your own choice of sources. Which, of course, is fine and your own decision but it doesn't make other people's choices wrong, nor does it mean that yours or their opinions are any less valid. You forget that other people have different lifestyles to you so whereas they might read exactly the same information as you, down to the last website, their opinion of it might be 180 degrees different to yours because of their own beliefs, standards and lifestyle.

Unfortunately most people don't have the time or inclination to go looking for news, they get what is forced upon them by the mainstream. They then base their view on this (mostly biased) information and Trump/Brexit and who knows what comes next is the result.

I blame the people and not the media. People who voted for Trump or Brexit are stupid, not because of the way they voted, but because they fell for the oldest trick in the book. If you want truth don't look for it in the mainstream media.

The world has good reporting, we know nearly everything that happens nearly everywhere. What we have lost is the ability to assimilate the news.

Today "we" don't have the time to read thought provoking journalism, and consequently "the news" has deteriorated, to the point of reading one line messages from a paranoiac racist idiot.

Nonsense.

The customers didn't decide on corporate mergers and buyouts.

Media does not just reflect society and culture (and what people want to consume), but creates it, too. The masses are given a range of content to choose from and react to (the self-aggrandizing you mentioned, etc), but the scope of the content is decided by an elite few to begin with, framing the agenda.

How was it in the former USSR? If media is only a reflection of culture and 'what people want and ask for', why do regimes around the world always seek to control it?

Take Germany for example - the growing antagonism of Jews in the 30's did not just come about as a reflection of the views of the average Hans on the street - it was a planned campaign to change cultural attitudes and invoke an environment of fear, distrust, and hatred.

From Wiki:

In his 1965 autobiography, Bernays recalls a dinner at his home in 1933 where

'Karl von Wiegand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, an old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Wiegand his propaganda library, the best Wiegand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Wiegand, was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me. ... Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign.'

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you are being programmed

Ah, another "in-depth" personality analysis, it would be amusing even if it was true, tbh, or based on understanding what I am saying. But let's leave pop-psych personality stuff out of this, Trump's, anyone's. Being personal holds zero value in trying to chase after phenomena. Let's welcome different opinions. I am not in the debate for throwing dirt on anyone, and value those who can stay impersonal and offer another pov..EF has been relatively a good and friendly for this.

There is a lot of info available, but people pick what the want to believe. We can only assume that decades of edutainment and infotainment have brought their fruits, life is amazing and simple: There is no complicated answer to anything. Especially in regards to typos in Trumps tweets and brandname of his tanning lotion. Who said these things were complex?? I find info (the truth) I was looking for. We took a course (and paid a lot) at uni on critical thinking so I am safe. I got a B- which is ok and I managed to please the prof providing the opinion she wanted, with a passion! It is especially pleasant when I find self-affirmation. Yes, the stuff in media makes sense...gimme more. It is a lot of fun, fun is good. How can my media be the bad guy? It is giving what I paid for. I picked it. Awesomness. Let's chant together against some of the stuff media mentioned is chant-worthy. We can for good measure throw some dirt on another media, it is so dramatic (entertaining, brownie points scoring) and gives us a good feeling of "protecting the serious stuff". Warrior worthy.

Right. Right?

Nope.

Things will not go as easily and predictable with the new POTUS. I hope. I think people voted him exactly for that. What they could have predicted (picked, paid for) was not going to deliver what she promised, anyway. I agree with them. Who knows what Trump delivers in the future...but he has been awfully busy and I think it is a good sign. Of course he will make some mess, but people who do stuff always have higher level of mess ups. SJWs do not because selfpromoting activity is not meant to create anything. Just shoot competition down, for self enriching purposes. The justifying theories are there to gain the same shtick media are lobbying for: fanbase, support, back up so they can be openly violent and manipulative. Business as anything else. Screw the competition. Then we will hear an outcry of consumers on how the stuff they picked, paid for and supported, is manipulating them. Victims. Of their own choice. Is Trump doing similar stuff? Why wouldn't he. It is what people (customers) to some extent request. It got him voted. People gave power to him, the same way they keep giving power to media (of their choice) and theories that in the end screw them over. Nobody is forced, in our era, to depend on low quality, unless you make that choice. I say - raise the bar. We can do it here. But stay out of pushing oponents out of debates. Empower your oponents. Welcome them. Talk about ideas only. It will make our choice as consumers/info-researchers better.

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

Aw, diddums. Did we hurt his feelings?

About 40 US cartoons on Trump, to while away the time between his Tweets,

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/carto...on-rec&slide=1

I don't know why you keep trying to push the agenda that "oponents"[sic] are being pushed out of debates. I haven't seen any of this behaviour. A robust disagreement is not pushing people with opposing viewpoints out of the discussion. Maybe if they feel pushed out, perhaps their own argument isn't strong enough and any probing on their points makes them feel defensive. Who knows?

The point that Trump is making America great is always going to be hard to support and fairly easy to counter but then the man himself is finding that already. Sweeping statements are always difficult to back up.

His tantrums are just the result of him being caught without back up, no concrete information, nothing to quantify. At least with his infamous wall, he'll then have something to show (until he realises there are the tunnels he didn't reckon with )

Media - unfortunately, media are now a corporate enterprise. Where there used to be many independent sources, ownership is down to a few very large owners - at least in the US. Pressure to be profitable drives media activities away from thoughtful, indepth work to slickly packaged stuff.

this is a gross simplification, but, people have a fast, easy way of processing information and a slow more effortful way. Fast thinking is aligned with vivid images, failing to seek alternative reasons (e.g.), confirmation bias, and horse race (win-loose) coverage. There are a lot of framing tools which influence how an issue is considered. This is how lots of stuff is written and reported - not because of some nefarious strategy by most media outlets(although this stuff has been around long enough for at least some to understand it). But rather this type of framing is expedient, efficient and satisfies advertisers.

Thoughtful, indepth more complete frames don't fit in TV broadcasts, in many newspapers, on facebook. You have to look for them. And I don't think people look for this stuff. Who wants to spend their life fact checking? So instead, we allow bombardment of what's easiest to swallow. I think a big problem is that we are simply less discriminating and more polarized, so we tend to seek out what we have time for and what we agree with.

Media simply work within the limits of human information processing, made easier by the very large, corporate and redundant main stream media outlets. And the fringe stuff on the margins cause people to shake their heads in agreement. So many things are reported without context.

Truth is somewhere in the middle and requires work.

On some level Trump and his friends get this. He does the outrageous, loud thing well, while the stuff behind him (education policy, healthcare, etc) is dismantled and run into ground. Easier to be attentive to the posturing .

I would so go further. I would go to labels kids get in school when they do not know somehing. C is now called "expert". So, you do not know something nor think about it much, but PC relabelling will make you feel as an expert. Things stopped revolving around ideas/info. We give way to superfitial info processing way before kids get in touch with serious media. Kids expect to be pleased and feel entitled to have inherent expertise even if it is based on lack of mental activity.

Media are smart, why wouldn't they be. Since when being ethical brought cash home? And when ethics is not even something consumers request (they request self affirmation, they are "experts" and the world needs to know), the outcry and demand of ethics on media...is late, simplistic and irrationally selective.

Media are what consumers want them to be. I am a consumer and want EF to be full of different info/opinions. People who stoop down to personal stuff usually do that because they do not bring an opinion/info that does not need this kind of protection, discrediting oponent with personal stuff. People do that for self gain, popularity, virtual thumb ups.

Trump's behavior is unusual, for POTUS. It is exactly what he wants..it is probably who he is. And he even manages that bit of entertainment that consumers/voters crave. He makes me chuckle, tbh. He is funny. The inquisition, SJWs and others sanitising the world to gain support through disingenious means, pretending they care for the marginal people/groups, are not fun nor funny nor offering solution..just dogma, while they protect their theory by discrediting other opinions. Not through impersonal exchange of ideas, mind you. Through manipulating data, hysterics..violence. Groupthink. Pussyhats.

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

Interesting that you see this behaviour as negative in "SJWs" but the exact same behaviour in Trump's administration seems to sit well with you...

Principles are apparently fluid.

Trump does what people who voted him want him to do.

Trump is media on his own.

Anyone who wants better quality, have their informed choice to make. In a timely way, to spare oneself the tedious quest of developing victimhood theories (which is happening now, I think it is pretty evident). Victimhood has never pushed anyone to go get better for oneself, to be expert or get better quality info.

I find it pretty democratic. The whole "take your pick" system - with presidential elections, with media. Business as anything. I do not really understand the opression that Trump's inquisitors are coming up with. I think the only way to compete is to get good info, and quit harping on media deliberately blocking it. Some have, for ever. Find better sources.

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

Hawaii is opposing Trump's number 2 travel ban

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/07/po...l-ban-lawsuit/

In a statement, Hawaii attorney general Douglas Chin said the filings ask the court to declare sections 2 and 6 of Trump's executive order contrary to the constitution and laws of the United States.

(or does Trump see the USA constitution and it's laws as "alternative facts" ? I would expect the POTUS to get it right the second time... only another 4 years left...)

Kinda hilarious that race relations seem to have improved a lot from the lows of the BLM stuff last year under Trump. I had thought Obama would have done a lot there but seems he only made it a lot worse.

Now, to be fair, that comment makes zero sense.

There's public in the foreground that look like a listening crowd and a speaking desk on the right so it's probably some kind of speech. Obviously everybody present will know it's him regardless of the sunglasses and cap.

I'll take that a step further and say, your use of 'on-trend' labels makes me have to read everything you write more than once, and I still come away feeling that English is my 3rd language rather than my mother tongue.

How we respond to media is a massive nature vs nurture debate in itself. I was raised to believe there's good and bad media and we should never lump it altogether as one, which is what we're seeing today, and I despise that mindset.

Now not a lot of people know this (), but when I was at college, I was accepted for an interview for the most prestigious photo-journalism course in the UK. I was nervous enough about being interviewed by the course head tutor as he was an iconic figure himself, having made his name covering the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, but when he led me into the interview room, he introduced me to 'the panel' which was made up of a further 4 members of Magnum. For anyone who doesn't know, Magnum is the World's elite photographic cooperative, the absolute pinnacle of the craft, and co-founded by my No.1 hero, Robert Capa.

When people slam the media out of hand, it makes me bristle. With so much information and disinformation a mere click away, I measure the mass against my personal prefered sources, Reuters and Magnum, because they are the sources many media agencies refer to themselves. There are still elite media sources who present the cold facts which are thought provoking enough, without the need for some small town hack telling you how to interpret them and what to believe. And the next time you hear someone damning all the media, remember that they struggle to get car insurance, let alone life insurance, because the job is so damned dangerous for a number of them. How else would you know what's going on in war torn countries or during terror attacks.