No. We know the name of the next Splinter Cell.
Who can you trust anymore?
- Thread starter Coins
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Out of Working Order
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But there's more to us than videogames!
OP... I don't know what you're talking about.
Bring on E3.
I H8 Memes
Member
Does the argument about if the sun actually did it or not change the fact that Mars is also seeing global warming as is the solar system? If its not the sun, then what is it?
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I definitely am surprised by how mainstream things like 9/11-inside-job are.... And yeah, Global Warming is very similar. We definitely live in an age where the popular consensus on what "reality" is has become very fragmented.
Then again... with the battle over religious truths... perhaps it has always been thus....
Then again... with the battle over religious truths... perhaps it has always been thus....
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
Yeah, that's not true either. Trutherism is mostly the province of conspiracy-minded leftists and libertarians. Basically those who really really really despise the Bush government or really really really despise government in general.
Neither liberals nor conservatives in general give it serious consideration.
In the article that you linked but seem to not actually be reading:
And the MIT article you linked is a 1998 article about global warming on Triton. The article appears to be about scientists trying to understand the machinations of global warming elsewhere in the universe, which in no way precludes, contradicts, or debunks the greenhouse effect, which is what is required to seriously argue against man-made global warming.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Right.. there are people on the "right" and "left" who think 9/11 is an inside job... but it is not a mainline view of either the "right" or the "left".
But probably more lefties believe it
I think 9/11 inside job oversimplifies it. It should be more like 9/11 traitors among us. Not that "the gubment" did 9/11, but that perhaps certain players in the intelligence community were playing for both teams, and helped certain people do certain things. Not knowing that they were necessarily assisting pre-9/11 potential terrorists, just providing assistance to Saudi-linked freedom fighters.
Just saying "it was an inside job" when most people don't know what an inside job means. They point immediately to Bush or Cheney or someone like that, when in a bank robbery inside job, it's usually a clerk or a manager, not the bank's president.
Just saying "it was an inside job" when most people don't know what an inside job means. They point immediately to Bush or Cheney or someone like that, when in a bank robbery inside job, it's usually a clerk or a manager, not the bank's president.
Im not really talking about truthers. I dont put any stock into people who say the US government brought the towers down. However, both sides spin blame onto the other side. They do it for political gain. Blame Bush! Blame Clinton! I dont understand why you have to be a truther to accept that maybe we were lied to when the guy that Bush himself appointed to find the truth says the official version is a lie.
The article discusses the machinations of global warming elsewhere, youre right! However, in our political environment, the discussion isnt open to that. Again, a close minded approach is used to spin your vote or get your money.
Why cant mainstream news and media present everything to us? Turning on the TV or opening a webpage and not being asked to lean towards a political belief is harder and harder to do everyday.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Not saying I agree, necessarily... But that type of 9/11 inside job is 1000x more plausible than the usual understanding.
A small team in the CIA allowing it to happen or enabling it to happen, because it would further their goals? Sure. Could happen. They fund rebel coups and stuff in foreign nations to produce favorable outcomes, so domestically? Why not. The perfect antidote to post-Cold War apathy towards funding military.
It's the "Bush did it" or "New World Order" stuff that really stretches my credulity.
You are framing this completely wrong.
If you don't trust the credibility of certain people, and then pick and choose what you want to be true because "you can't trust anyone", you are doing it wrong.
Empirical proof. Science. These things are the closest we can get to the truth with minimal human interference.
This book might help you sort out why people believe, and how you can decide what to believe.
Kurdel's been recommending this book a lot.
MadOdorMachine
No additional functions
To the OP, quit watching the MSM. Fox News, CNN and MSNBC are nothing but propaganda designed to instill fear in people. The media tends to focus on negativity and shock factor because that's what makes more money. Whenever I watch them I get paranoid and feel like most people are untrustworthy too. In reality, it's the exact opposite. Most people are good, but the media has conditioned Americans to not trust people - don't help people on the side of the road, etc. I'm not saying if you're a woman you shouldn't protect yourself when walking in a dark parking lot at night, but the media has over exaggerated the idea that the world is unsafe.
thecouncil
Banned
seriously though, trust yourself. take what facts youre given, do some research on actual studies and facts and draw a conclusion.
there are the facts of 9/11 that you cant deny.
there are facts about global warming that you cant deny.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
MadOdorMachine
No additional functions
Exactly. I didn't know there was a name for it though.
Any book on cognition and information processing will have a few chapters on this stuff.
I'd rather read a textbook on the subject than a book written by a man with an agenda.
Cultivation Theory as a whole is interesting (check out Resonance and Mainstreaming). Gerbner is brilliant. You also might be interested in these theories:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda-setting_theory
When it comes to truth in news sources, I legitimately don't know who I can trust. I don't know if people are inserting their own opinions in the news, or twisting the story. It seriously bothers me.
I can never tell if people are being honest when they state things on the internet.
Help me GAF.
I can never tell if people are being honest when they state things on the internet.
Help me GAF.
That logic isn't sound as no form of communication can truly be removed from an agenda. Are there varying degrees? Sure. The book covers issues with an agenda like politics and social issues (the weakest part of the book) but his reporting of the studies regarding cognitive biases and information processing are impartial as you can get -- as Shermer is both a psychologist and historian by trade. If you don't like Shermer there are others -- many, many others.
It's how the brain works. Everyone thinks they are being honest and that they are closer to the truth than others. No one believes what they believe is false; otherwise they would not believe it. The twist will always be there; your job is to develop techniques of processing information, understanding agendas, and reaching logical conclusions with middle-ground. And, most importantly, being open to change. It's the easiest thing in the world to continue agreeing with what you already believe.
I term I best like is "rhetorical literacy." You must understand all information is agenda-laden and that one must develop the ability to parse it impartially.
I'm a psych major.
I like reading the textbooks because the only agenda the writers seem to have is making the dull read as fun as possible with dry humor and interesting examples.
I don't agree with the setup of Shermer's conceptual hierarchy.
We tend to read books by people who we already kind of agree with. Shermer has his built-in audience. I tend to read books that are dry but give all the same information with non-controversial examples.
Mr. E. Yis
Banned
To start with, Democrats in Congress vary widely on their views, while Republicans are somewhat more united in their views, unless they want to be ostracized. To add to that, Democrats and Republicans as parties change their beliefs, opinions, and goals all the time. Democrats as a party currently is more right than Democrats 25 or 30 years ago (more in line with the Repubs at the time), and Republicans currently are extremely more right than Republicans at that time; they are currently at batshit insane levels. Democrats might be slightly liberal in words, but their results are halfassed, or cater to corporations. Republicans don't even hide when they do. Compared to other 1st world countries, the U.S., in it's corrupt corporate politicians, it's brainless media, and it's ignorant citizens, is VERY right wing. The U.S. doesn't have a legitimate left wing/socialist political party. 3rd parties don't work at all in the U.S. until we get runoff voting like most other countries. The saying "Reality has a liberal bias" is, for the most part, true.
Required reading for you. And I also would recommend to travel outside of the U.S. to get more range of perspective in life.
The official version of 9/11 is definitely wrong. That doesn't mean that the conspiracies are right though. At this point, it doesn't matter anyway. I don't know where you get that 9/11 is still a 'daily discussion' in the media, because it isn't. And boy I'm definitely glad that it isn't anymore.
News programs are made to distract, scare, and maybe entertain once in a while. They are not made to inform. Despite what Fox News says, the media as a whole is at least 75% right wing, and likely 96% corporate controlled. Liberal media is designated to random shows on a few channels, a few public tv channels, and 1 or 2 listener-sponsored liberal channels. And even most of these are corporate controlled.
LOL WTF are you talking about
If you believe this first sentence that you wrote, then you have already picked a side.
Climate change is more correct of a term, since some areas would get warmer, and others colder. But it's not a myth. There's huge amounts of evidence that the earth's climate is changing at a very very rapid pace.
Ok, first it's very true that the earth experienced major variations in temperature cycles since it was formed. No denying that. It's stupid to argue that humans caused the cycle that we're in now. That's not true. What IS true is that humans' actions and pollutants have accelerated and/or possibly made the change cycle more extreme than what it would have been. There is a lot of evidence for this. Most of it is obvious. This wouldn't matter too much for us, if it weren't for the fact that our way of life (ample food, water, gas, etc resources) depends on things staying how they are. So if a slight weather change happens where we get a staple food resource, or if average ocean temperatures raise 1 degree, or raise in height by only a few inches, there will be HUGE consequences for all 7 billion of us, poor and rich alike. These are very small estimates. Likely it will be much much more. It's deceptive and dangerous to see this issue as a political party issue - you should see it more as a human issue.
And looking at the big picture, the universe as a whole could be experiencing a cooling- if the universe is growing, and stars becoming farther from each other, there is more cold empty space in between everything. But by that time, the earth will be 'warming' (swallowed by the sun as it grows into a red giant).
The news has gotten worse at reporting actual news, but the news was still very very controlled when your father was young, too. Your father has nostalgia glasses.
Coins- My question to you is- why did it take you to reach the age of 36 to wake up from your distractions to question things?
Is there any video footage of Keanu from this shot?
To be honest, the book really opened my eyes.
The book takes a biological look at beliefs, and really helped me understand why people believe. The biological factors and processes involved with belief just blew my mind.
If you find yourself at the point where you hesitate and wonder what to believe, you need to be properly equipped to make a final judgement. This book gives insight to how belief works, which is a great way to avoid falling into some fallacious traps or adere to flawed reasoning.
They have the agenda of writing a book a college will green-light and professors with unavoidable biases will accept. I had a Communications professor whose background was in Gerontology and he spend a good 30 minutes shitting on the previous text book used in our Psych of Aging / Family Development class. Say I concede your textbook point -- which I don't necessarily -- that doesn't make the information presented inherently more sound than in a well-written work of nonfiction.
What is his hierarchy? The book is a bit rusty in my head.
And yes -- we do. That does not necessarily invalidate information presented in the book as wrong -- he literally reported the peer-reviewed studies and their follow ups -- at least, as far as the basic stuff is concerned. There are problems with the second half of his book.
The catch is that you have to believe the contents of the book and the sum of knowledge from which it results.
Everything in the mind arises from belief of some sort.
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
Different types of textbooks seem to be made of different qualities these days. Science textbooks, for the most part, are at least adequate, but American history textbooks are a wretched excuse for teaching both American history and the social science of history itself (they're ridden with biases and a fervent agenda to deify American history, at any rate). I don't trust most textbooks, anyway. Go to the historians and theorists for interesting perspectives!
Psychology and cognition can be paradoxical. Who knew.
What are you trying to say?
The problem with todays world is everyone is spouting ideology over reality. The reality that we have a lot of people in this country that are liberal and don't want and extreme conservative country.. And of course we have conservatives that don't want to be drowned in radical liberalism.
Ever since the economic collapse and pbama was elected there's no gray area.
Ever since the economic collapse and pbama was elected there's no gray area.
Processing information about human information processing is suspect to biases and shortcomings as is everything else. You could argue the idea of trying to objectively understand "understanding" is futile, but I don't necessary agree.
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
Reality, as according to scientific models and mathematica, is a construct designed to make the world more palatable for Western society. In the backwaters and third-worlds here on Earth, anyway, people still operate from a perspective that fully-recognizes illusion and subjectivity as the core of their lives. And, in those places, the mortality of concepts, ideas, and symbolic exchange between life and death is something of importance.
Baudrillard was a genius. And I'm only a master thinker (though that's fine too).
Baudrillard was a genius. And I'm only a master thinker (though that's fine too).
Panthalassic
Member
This was the US during the Cretaceous period:
also
What?
also
What?
The machine trying to understand itself using the tools it created and the sensory systems inherent to itself cannot be truly objective. Ever.
Even the language we use to describe ourselves and the terms we use to separate ourselves into parts (nucleus, ganglion, myelin sheath, arm, wrist, hand, finger, eyelash, eye, cornea, pupil, gray matter, white matter, etc) and describe our politics (liberal, moderate, conservative, libertarian, anarchist, etc) and the words we use to describe behaviors (right, wrong, necessary, evil, good, just) and the words we use to describe others (friend, enemy, freedom fighter, terrorist, leader, craven, etc) all come from us.
We can't be truly objective about anything, and because there's so much knowledge out there that has been collected over time - all of it biased (not much of it, but all) - we have to start believing things in order to function. We can't just sit down and question everything.
But because of who we are, who birthed us and raised us and fed us, and what they fed us, and how they clothed us and what we did and when and why and how and how often and who we befriended, and what we experienced - what we saw, what he heard, what we read, where we saw it from, who and where we heard it from, and where we read what we read - we are the summation of subjective experiences and cannot ever be objective about anything.
We have to believe things. And when we say we're being objective, it just means were adhering to a standardized set of beliefs that a large number of people have agreed upon - which is what history and science and politics and religion is. A collection of largely agreed upon ideas that become perspectives for others to adopt at their choosing (or not at their choosing).
And even though I'd like to believe that everything I said in this post is true, I cannot. It's just something I believe based on who I have added up to be at the moment, based on a whole lot of factors that I had no control over and some that I believe I had control over but perhaps never did.
I used to trust Al-Jazeera for the most part, until I watched this (sorry, but it's in Arabic):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sf2vWrL7kM
It's a mistranslated report on the discovery of Ardi. Al-Jazeera edited out enough vital bits from the conference report in order to make it seem like the scientists were discussing how they debunked the theory of Evolution.
The report even starts with "Darwin's theory, which claims that humans came from monkeys, has been debunked!". The fuck?!
And since then, I've met a lot of people who believed every word and used this bullshit as a counter argument whenever evolution came up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sf2vWrL7kM
It's a mistranslated report on the discovery of Ardi. Al-Jazeera edited out enough vital bits from the conference report in order to make it seem like the scientists were discussing how they debunked the theory of Evolution.
The report even starts with "Darwin's theory, which claims that humans came from monkeys, has been debunked!". The fuck?!
And since then, I've met a lot of people who believed every word and used this bullshit as a counter argument whenever evolution came up.
POWERSPHERE
Member
Eh, it's all not a big deal, live life and be cool.
(I should take my own advice, but still)
(I should take my own advice, but still)
When Shermer talks about the parts of the brain observed when a person reacts to a statement, he isn't basing it on his beliefs. He is basing it on scientific experiments and observations.
When he talks about how he is a libertarian and agrees with Ayn Rand, he clearly makes the point that it is his personal belief system.
I don't agree wih his political views, and when he gets on the topic of the chemestry of belief as observed through the lens of science, you can't really disagree. Unless new scientific data comes out and disproves these observations, or offers another valid interpretation of the data. In any case, we must always keep an open mind and not be afraid to change our mind.
When he talks about how he is a libertarian and agrees with Ayn Rand, he clearly makes the point that it is his personal belief system.
I don't agree wih his political views, and when he gets on the topic of the chemestry of belief as observed through the lens of science, you can't really disagree. Unless new scientific data comes out and disproves these observations, or offers another valid interpretation of the data. In any case, we must always keep an open mind and not be afraid to change our mind.
Forceatowulf
G***n S**n*bi
If Stone Cold Steve Austin taught me anything useful it's this:
Don't.
Trust.
Anybody.
Don't.
Trust.
Anybody.
blame space
Banned
Monocle
Member
What in the world are you talking about? This looks like a giant wad of postmodern bullshit.
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
Takes a lot to explain, but it's as simple as reading up.
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