Little clunky, but that’s an interesting way of communicating it.

Yes, that is the stereotype. Regardless though, locating something in Germany does not automatically make it a part of the German government, that’s just where you put it.

Yeah, there’s definitely a hassle vs reward calculus that quickly gets figured. Usually the hassle side of the equation is a little too high unless its something that can be quickly and easily fixed. Like if they forgot something it’s very easy to just go “oh, and can I please get …” which usually immediately reminds them and they go grab it.

Or if the food got royally fucked then engagement can become worth it, even over something harder to fix. Like, if my steak is well done and I ordered med rare, I kinda want either a new steak or a comped meal.

This pre-supposes that the center should be grounded in reality while ignoring that through most of human history, reality was not a driving force in decision-making. That’s a feature of the scientific revolution, the Renaissance and Reformation periods of human history. In the grand scale of things, people-writ-large are still not accustomed to basing decisions on factuality or evidence, but on authority and myth.

Fully teaching this and why it was necessary takes years of education, unfortunately.

If we acknowledge that the right is fundamentally about traditional ways of behavior, we have to acknowledge that a purely factual and evidence-based approach is something entirely different from this. A problem occurs though, if we fail to acknowledge that purely rational people are actually in the minority. Whether we like it or not, the vast majority of people still use some myth to guide their choices, and that’s where the actual center is from a population standpoint. Look at the popularity of things like astrology.

Reality has a left-leaning bias. Look at the farthest right and how much they base their entire philosophy on mythologies of ethnic purity and might. At least the Marxists use evidence and factuality to make cohesive economic arguments based in physical materialism.

I imagine the unified NATO command in Germany will help with this once it is up and running.

A 2014 survey of British MPs – charged with regulating one of the world’s most important financial hubs – found that only 12% accurately understood that new money is created when banks make loans.

I don’t really expect most people to know this one, but 12% of British parliamentarians is a little disappointing.

It’s true they’re getting very hard to find these days. I was very disappointed that even NBC the other day, reporting on the House investigation into Biden, had the gall to simply say that “the White House has not yet had a chance to comment”.

There’s a small handful of good ones still, though, depending on the niche you’re looking for. ProPublica is still an example of responsible journalism for instance.

You do have a valid point. When I encounter something they are reporting that interests me, it would behove me to do further checking. There are other fact checking and news comparing services, and wikipedia usually has some good background information.

Additionally, I could check an article myself to make sure they actually do include an IDF statement in addition to any pro-Palestinian sources’ statements.

I can’t help but notice that Five singles out “lack of transparency” while ignoring “poor sourcing” and “one-sided reporting”. This is a common tactic.

Any responsible journalistic entity should be confirming their sources, and giving any accused a chance to give their own side of a story.

If there was a team of downvoters following him around, then the number of downvotes he receives would be more consistent across his content, with older things having more and newer things having fewer.

Instead what we see is wildly varying downvote totals, seeming to depend on the specific thing he says. People disagreeing with his statements would not fuel his victimhood mentality though.

Personally I do check his account once a day to keep tabs on him. I don’t generally downvote though, I prefer to fact check his statements.

The Daily Mirror is a trashy tabloid out of the UK.

So uh, I appreciate everyone’s sentiment, but this would actually make our problems worse. Living in Russia does not prevent you from running a propaganda network, though sanctions might possibly interfere with supplements sales.

What living in Russia definitely does do, though, is prevent our legal system from reaching you with any form of consequences. Many of our fiercest propaganda foes do live safely in Russia where we just cannot reach them very easily, and they are still a major problem. A lot of the fake local “news” websites, for instance, are run by one single American expat, living in Russia. He just remakes them when they get taken down, he’s made hundreds, all spreading a mix of copied real news and standard Russian propaganda.

Things aren’t always as simple as they seem. Most things, actually.

The specific college was Brigham Young University, a well-known conservative Mormon college that mandates religious education.

The persecution complex with a total lack of self reflection is truly epic.

Excellent summary overall.

One thing though, regarding feeding trolls. This was excellent advice in the earlier days of the internet, back when anyone trolling was doing it simply as a recreational activity, to have fun.

We no longer live in that world though. People have realized that there’s real power here, where one guy on Twitter can start riots through an entire western European country with a single tweet. Where an online campaign can change the political makeup of your country.

Now, in this day, we have a civic responsibility to treat trolls as we would if we encountered these behaviors in real life, because there is no difference anymore. It would be unrealistic to set some utopian standard for our online interactions when the digital sphere has simply become an extension of the physical world, with all the same problems and issues, and thus a responsibility to engage as one’s conscience demands.

As a side note, one idea I saw recently that I liked, I think it was mozz’s, that people receive temporary bans for any examples of using a classic strawman argument. I think this would be fairly easy to enforce and quite productive. It’s almost impossible to troll effectively if you can’t strawman, it’s probably one of the most common features.

No, there is no real need. An account is already pseudo-anonymous. Full anonymity adds no real value beyond making it easier to manipulate vote tallies with bot accounts undetected.

edit: As a side note, this is one of the more transparent social media communities. It’s not terribly privacy-oriented in general. The enhanced transparency is part of its appeal.

Good bot.

Yeah, it’s always surprised me a little bit just how strong they still are. While the often-online do tend to shy away from it, it’s actually still a preferred platform for the less-online, due to how easy it makes coordinating real life events. Also not the sort of segment that usually cares much about data privacy.

Assuming we can avoid triggering mutually assured destruction, probably.

We do happen to be roughly a quarter of the way towards the next century, so this seems reasonable to me. Longer lived Gen Z will likely be able to see the turn of the 22nd century, after all.