Have we lost the ability to know the truth?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
One of the things I find troubling is so much mis/Mal information on the internet, so that we may have lost the ability to know what's true. It's not the internet, but those who deliberately disseminate misinformation via the net.

In the 1950s & 60s, we had the "voice of God" 6:30 PM news reports from NBC, CBS, ABC/BBC. Today, biased opinion masquerades as news. I fear the deliberate effort to create disbelief in government. Not that our government doesn't deserves scrutiny, but calculated disinformation may have sad consequences.????????
 

Truth in 1950s, 1960s? Government?

Korean was is a "police action" not war
Commies in US State Dept turns out McCarth was right on, see NSA Venona decrypts!
Kennedy asssannation..just Ostwald
Bay of Pigs Cuba

just a few examples....

Jon
 
We haven’t lost the ability we’ve just been inundated with alternative narratives from actors with motives other than the truth. Many people just don’t want to spend the time and are happy to consume these alternatives if it rings a bell with them.

Most of this is occurring because social media’s ability to circumvent any responsibility in the matter. Their profits are driven by the numbers of clicks and there’s nothing better than promoting controversy and alternative information.

Social media companies should be held to the same standards as regular media outlets and should not be allowed to propagate this stuff. Not only are nut cases using it to make money, but foreign actors are using it to destroy our democracy.
 
As a church-goer from back in the 70s through early 2000, I noticed many invited and revival speakers put out a lot of disinformation either from their imaginations or from hearing it from other church leaders. They would label it the truth because it was different from what local, national, and international (secular) news was reporting. It was like juicy gossip, people loved it, people wrote books about it, it was God-centered in that scripture verses were thrown in to back it up. None of it made sense, but there you are. :rolleyes:
 
fuzzybuddy said:
One of the things I find troubling is so much mis/Mal information on the internet, so that we may have lost the ability to know what's true. It's not the internet, but those who deliberately disseminate misinformation via the net. In the 1950s & 60s, we had the "voice of God" 6:30 PM news reports from NBC, CBS, ABC/BBC. Today, biased opinion masquerades as news. I fear the deliberate effort to create disbelief in government. Not that our government doesn't deserves scrutiny, but calculated disinformation may have sad consequences.????????
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Basically, this is what's called "post-modernism".

Minimal faith in institutions of any kind, with the predictable concomitant social fragmentation, and the advance of individualism over social compromise.

It's just how it is. There'll be no going back within our lifetimes, and I'm fearful that it will take a complete implosion of the current social order before there'll be a trend toward a mutually beneficial social order.
 
Judycat said:
As a church-goer from back in the 70s through early 2000, I noticed many invited and revival speakers put out a lot of disinformation either from their imaginations or from hearing it from other church leaders. They would label it the truth because it was different from what local, national, and international (secular) news was reporting. It was like juicy gossip, people loved it, people wrote books about it, it was God-centered in that scripture verses were thrown in to back it up. None of it made sense, but there you are. :rolleyes:
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I think there's a basic anxiety over uncertainty, and a great hunger for answers, making attractive statements an easy sell.

But absolute certainty does not exist, and if you can gradually immunize yourself to this idea by small increments, like small doses of cobra venom, repeatedly, it provides a different way to look at life.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
One of the things I find troubling is so much mis/Mal information on the internet, so that we may have lost the ability to know what's true. It's not the internet, but those who deliberately disseminate misinformation via the net. In the 1950s & 60s, we had the "voice of God" 6:30 PM news reports from NBC, CBS, ABC/BBC. Today, biased opinion masquerades as news. I fear the deliberate effort to create disbelief in government. Not that our government doesn't deserves scrutiny, but calculated disinformation may have sad consequences.????????
Click to expand...
It's "Misinformation" when it's coming from the other side.

Digging up a person's past to destroy them, that's what censorship was all about in 2018-21
 
Years ago we had professional newcasters. Today we have to listen to or read a lot of bull that is written by people with little or no education and with little or no common sense. One of the really big negative aspect of opening up the World Wide Web to all the "PEOPLE."

I guess it's democracy. Sort of "rule by the people." Now the PEOPLE are out there on the great world wide web giving out their "truth" on government, law, sex, marriage, teenagers, grocery shopping, the war in the Ukraine and how to live well.

Public opinion is good as long as we know it is just someboy's opinion.
 
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1955 said:
We haven’t lost the ability we’ve just been inundated with alternative narratives from actors with motives other than the truth. Many people just don’t want to spend the time and are happy to consume these alternatives if it rings a bell with them.

Most of this is occurring because social media’s ability to circumvent any responsibility in the matter. Their profits are driven by the numbers of clicks and there’s nothing better than promoting controversy and alternative information.

Social media companies should be held to the same standards as regular media outlets and should not be allowed to propagate this stuff. Not only are nut cases using it to make money, but foreign actors are using it to destroy our democracy.
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Thank you, saved me the time in composition and the effort of typing with my limited keyboard skills.
 
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Some people are too lazy to read the news any more. If it's not in a video, they don't want to look at it.

Some people don't want to be exposed to any facts that don't comport with their world view, so they get their news filtered through websites and news broadcasts that tell them what to believe, who to hate, and what to be outraged over.

For the rest, there are legitimate news outlets, and they're not hard to find.

I've been reading The Guardian for the past few years. It's a British news organization but they have a U.S. version. They're not quite as corporatized as U.S. news media and not run by Wall St.
https://www.theguardian.com/us
 
I never believe one source. When I read the news, I usually comb several news sites. I never believe anything, unless other sources are saying the same thing. I learned to be skeptical a long time ago when the GMO fiasco began and got into our food supply, and we were lied to on a number of levels. Same with the Covid vaccines, but I won't go there. Let's just say

The truth exists only
after you receive multiple realities
of something, and it comes from
different sources, over time,
to form a schema in your mind.
Then I will stop and listen.
 
SeniorBen said:
Some people are too lazy to read the news any more. If it's not in a video, they don't want to look at it.

Some people don't want to be exposed to any facts that don't comport with their world view, so they get their news filtered through websites and news broadcasts that tell them what to believe, who to hate, and what to be outraged over.

For the rest, there are legitimate news outlets, and they're not hard to find.

I've been reading The Guardian for the past few years. It's a British news organization but they have a U.S. version. They're not quite as corporatized as U.S. news media and not run by Wall St.
https://www.theguardian.com/us
Click to expand...
I read the Guardian as well!
 

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