Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

It's Not "MIS"information, it's "DIS"information From Conservatives

"Misinformation is spreading on social media as some fight to stop what they call censorship. The Supreme Court is now grappling with how the First Amendment applies to the online world."

Misinformation: wrong information by mistake.
Disinformation: wrong information by design.

Click on the link below for a 15-minute "60-Minutes" segment parsing out the difference and exposing the dishonesty of Republicans/conservatives/MAGAs:

The Right to be Wrong 

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Puberty Blockers: Beware Of The Media

Right-wing media is awash with bogus "evidence" of the harm from puberty blockers. This link is a prime offender in promoting the bullsh!t, but don't let its name let you think it is valid. Here is the truth about this website (link)(link). 

Below you will find several links to VALID SUPPORT for puberty blockers:

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Suicide And The Media: A Lesson In Failure

"After a long hiatus, Dr. Alan Smerbeck AKA Stormy Decisis is back to cover a topic we've been talking about discussing for a while. What does the research tell us is the responsible way to cover death by suicide? What kind of impact can the media have on the greater population if they get it wrong? And how many different ways did 13 Reasons Why completely screw up?"

Click on the link below for how not to present suicide to the public:


Thursday, February 29, 2024

Deep Fakes & AI: Destroying Truth And The USA

"AI-generated deepfakes, entirely fabricated audio and video of recognizable people, are here. They have been on the horizon for years but they have finally arrived during the biggest global election year in history which may prove to be a make-or-break year for democracy itself as we struggle to separate fact from fiction and autocracy is on the rise around the world."

Click on the link below for a problem that society MUST address YESTERDAY!!


Disinformation: Destroying Truth And The USA

"Barb McQuade is the former US Attorney from Michigan, and current University of Michigan Law School professor, NBC legal analyst, and CAFE contributor. She joins Preet to discuss her new book, Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America, and how false information has become a serious threat to national security."

Click on the link below for a problem that society MUST address YESTERDAY!!

Saturday, January 6, 2024

A Major Reason Why Conservatives Are So Powerful

Ever wonder why Talk Radio is essentially void of progressive push-back against the lies of conservatives? Or, why Faux News is so powerful? Click on the link below for why the truth of the progressive point of view is largely absent to the typical middle/lower-class voter who generally lacks critical thinking skills:

America’s Political System is Being Manipulated - but by who?

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Friday, November 10, 2023

The Media And Gaza

"Media literacy is a basic requirement for understanding the war in Gaza, as propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation are being distributed for both ideological and financial reasons."

Click on the links below for a prime example of why one needs to tune up one's science-based thinking when analyzing media reports on serious events:

Broken News: Understanding traditional media and social media reporting on the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza

Monday, September 11, 2023

Sports Betting: We Didn't Learn From Its History

"Sports gambling through smartphones has become widely available and wildly addictive but the effects are being felt beyond the individual gambler's bank account and anxiety levels. Partnerships between gambling companies and colleges, influencers, and even journalistic institutions like ESPN are changing the fundamentals of the sports themselves and how they're understood by fans - all for the worse."

Click on the link below for a blight on society from which the USA did not learn from history 100 years ago.

Bet Your Life: Sports betting is opening new and expensive ways to waste your time and destroy your mental health.

Sunday, July 9, 2023

The Dark History Of The Information Age

 "You’ve probably encountered phishing emails or computer viruses. Or maybe one or more of your accounts has been hacked or compromised. How and why do hackers hack and what are they generally seeking? Our guest this week points out that understanding the answers to those questions is essential for making sense of the psychological, economic, political, and social motivations for and effects of cybercrime. Scott Shapiro is a Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School. He is the author of a new book called, “Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks.” The book dives into five historical examples, one of which involves its namesake, Fancy Bear, a Russian cyberintelligence unit responsible for hacking the Democratic National Convention. Shapiro joins WITHpod to discuss some of the biggest inflection points in the history of hacking, why the internet is so vulnerable, the role that generative AI may place in future cybercrime and his thoughts on if we should really be concerned about cyberwar."

Click on the link below for the podcast and transcript:


Saturday, May 13, 2023

History, Authority, Expert, And Growing Up

History: the study of past events.

Authority: the power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior.

Expert: a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area.

- - - - - - -

Human history began in ignorance, violence, and within small nomadic groups. As time progressed, humans became more organized and settled but ignorance and authoritarian control persisted. Democratic ideas evolved out of Greece but humanity at large was still ignorant of reality and under authoritarian control. Organized religion sprouted from persistent human ignorance of reality in attempts to explain the unexplainable, as well as to reinforce authoritarian control and to provide some comfort. Eventually, only a few hundred years ago, modern science and the Industrial Revolution sprouted. These phenomena exponentially expanded human knowledge, progress, and well-being. Democracy became a reality and knowledge expanded to the point where it caused the founding of institutions dedicated to creating expertise in specialized areas. 

The above growth in freedom, knowledge, and understanding of reality can be viewed as being analogous to a child growing up. However, there is a major immaturity from our ignorant and superstitious past holding humanity back and it is religion. Ironically, the most prominent religion has the following teaching but can't accept it as a reality:

  • "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." ~ I Corinthians

ISN'T IT MORE THAN TIME FOR HUMANITY TO GROW UP?

 

Friday, April 21, 2023

The History Of Trumpism

"Chris Hayes: 'There is no referee. Fox News and the conservative movement destroyed the conditions for that. So now, it is just a head-to-head battle of who you like more, who you believe, and who you trust more. They trust Donald Trump.'"

Click on the link below for a 10-min video of how conservatives have destroyed our society:


Thursday, March 16, 2023

The Internet And Artificial Intelligence (AI)

"Today, we take a look at some of the emerging elements of technology and regulation that will likely shape the next era of the internet and our relationship to it. For today, these will include synthetic relationships with artificial intelligence, fake audio, and video virtually indistinguishable from reality that will facilitate disinformation, reinterpreting Section 230 for a new era of internet content and the ongoing struggle to regulate social media platforms."

Click on the link below for a podcast analysis of the dangers ahead regarding AI's effect on our media, particularly the internet:


Saturday, January 28, 2023

TV And The Lowest Common Denominator

In mathematics, the lowest common denominator is the smallest number of all the common multiples of the denominators when 2 or more fractions are given. In the media, it refers to the appeal to as many people as it possibly can so that advertisements are worth more and the revenue stream will steadily increase. 

Since the most prominent media in our culture is network television, one can expect that the level of education of the target audience would be the lowest in this media. Thus, the proliferation of mind-numbing shows like "The Housewives of (fill-in-the-blank)", fake wrestling, "not-very-funny" comedy, and network news that promote "fair and balanced" reporting and opinions without consideration of facts and the findings of science. For example, it is rare for them to truly present the harmful effects of religious activities, as well as alternatives to medicine, conspiracy theories, and other pseudoscience. 

In light of the above, there has never been a greater need for mandatory age-appropriate education in critical thinking and rigorous, timely fact-checking of all media. A gullible society can be easily molded by unscrupulous actors, including but not limited to corporations, politicians, and organized religions.

Society has figured out how to handle physical trash (sort of, at least). It's more than time for brain trash to be appropriately handled.

Friday, January 20, 2023

A Look Under The Hood Of Fox News

The two most dangerous media outlets presently are Fox News and Talk Radio. Both have dominated mainstream news in terms of number of viewers/listeners for many years. Legitimate news outlets have been trying to understand how this could happen. Click on the link below for a 7-minute video from Beau of the Fifth Column giving insightful commentary on the problem, focusing on Fox News.

Let's talk about "just asking questions" 

Monday, January 9, 2023

This Would Not Happen If All Were Science-Based Thinkers

"Since the mid-2010s, the rise of the populist left and the populist right has shaken up the American political spectrum. Both movements have maneuvered to pressure and persuade the political establishment to adopt their objectives. But in recent years something unusual has been happening. We’re seeing the formation of a pipeline that circumvents the center altogether — and directly connects left-wing to right-wing populism.

"A group of journalists and media personalities who once were at home on the far left has formed a niche but influential political subculture that encourages leftists to abandon leftism for the populist right. Its most recognizable faces are former icons of leftist discourse who have millions of diehard fans: Glenn Greenwald, a co-founder of The Intercept, known as one of the most powerful critics of the “war on terror” in the Bush era. Matt Taibbi, a former Rolling Stone writer, who was famous for excoriating defenders of neoliberalism and likening Goldman Sachs to a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” Tulsi Gabbard, formerly a Democratic House member and 2020 presidential candidate, was aligned with the Bernie Sanders wing of the party.


"But in recent years their focus has changed. These commentators had never hesitated to criticize Democrats alongside Republicans. But now they've pivoted to targeting liberals nearly exclusively, while forming ties with the authoritarian right."

Click on the link below for the full story. This would not be happening on the liberal side if all where science-based thinkers:

How the populist left has become vulnerable to the populist right

Sunday, December 18, 2022

An Evidence-Based Look At Fake News

"Does fake news spread better than true news? Do bots spread fake news? What can we do against fake news? Does social media increase political polarization? Is it true that we all live in political echo chambers? In this video, we look at what scientific studies have found and what we can learn from that."

Click on the link below for the scientific details "Without The Gobbledygook:"

Fake News, Echo Chambers & Polarization: How Bad Is Social Media?

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Can You Spot The Logical Fallacies In Advertising?

"I don't want to shock anyone, but here's a piece of frightful news: Sometimes products are marketed using fallacious logic. That's different from lying about your product; marketing with logical fallacies is a way to make your product sound great by appealing to our natural tendencies to be susceptible to fallacious logic. Tell us something about your product that sounds persuasive — regardless of whether it's actually a real merit or not — and we get all impressed. Today we're going to look at the practice of spotting logical fallacies in the marketing of products, and we might even try doing a little of it ourselves."

Click on the link below for an interesting podcast looking at the psychological manipulations being used by virtually all advertisers: 


Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Soap And Health

"James Hamblin made a splash when announcing he hadn’t showered or used much soap in five years. The physician, Yale public health lecturer, and staff writer at The Atlantic experimented on himself as research for his latest book, 'Clean: The New Science of Skin.'

"Hygiene rituals are as old as recorded civilization. While Muslims and Hindus created elaborate cleaning rituals, European Christians thought bathing increased your chances of falling ill thanks to miasma theory. For centuries, changing your linen shirt supposedly bestowed cleanliness—not soap and water. Many Christians during this era only had one bath in their entire lives: baptism."

Click on the link below for some interesting information that, like much of science, is counter-intuitive:


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Choose how you look at reality wisely. Yes, it is a binary choice.

Choose how you look at reality wisely. Yes, it is a binary choice.
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