Should the UK leave the European Union?
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
I agree. What has that got to do with democracy. We have free speech. You are free to lie as much as you wish (within the law). As is the press. What is the alternative?Eduk , irresponsible journalism causes alarm and despondency where its not justified by facts.
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
That is exactly the point.
MSM is owned by a tiny minority of rich corporate interests and have no hope of representing the people. Aside from Newspapers the ITV is also in the hands of a oligarchy and the BBC has long lost the last vestiges of impartiality.
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
It's like you are saying cliffs are a huge threat to all life except for you who can obviously just see them because you are the only awake person.
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
I think there are a couple of false dichotomies in here. Perhaps TH has them also, I haven't followed the whole thing, but I will respond just to what I see here.Eduk wrote: ↑September 5th, 2018, 2:47 pm Which is it Thomas. Either the free press are a huge threat to democracy or it is as easy to see their bias as it is to tell water goes down?
It's like you are saying cliffs are a huge threat to all life except for you who can obviously just see them because you are the only awake person.
Some thing can be easy to notice, for example, if someone can deal with cognitive dissonence. Or if one has had experiences that make one more skeptical of consensus expert or 'expert' opinion. So the ease is dependent on factors in the one noticing.
I had experiences when I was a child with a kind of authority, and expert authority with mainstream consensus support. I noticed that what at first seemed like an exceptional failure was a systematic one. This has made it easier for me to notice inconsistancies, absurdities, etc. in mainstream experts. Someone for whom it would be a current emotional shock to find out that expert consensus is or even might be wrong, is less likely to find it easy to notice.
Also, I am not sure he has asserted that he is the only awake person. IOW you may think it is everybody vs. TH, when in fact this is part of the ongoing constructed myth.
You and I may disagree, but the assumptions should not get hopped over regardless.
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
I may not be getting the metaphor, but it seems to me something can be a threat if you don't notice it, but it can be easy to notice it if you are willing/can deal with what that entails.
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
Obviously that's a ridiculous statement as through the internet alone I can read almost everything ever written.
Obviously that's a ridiculous statement because even if you take one of the worst offending papers in the UK such as the daily mail it is a long long way from being mein kampf.
Obviously that is a ridiculous statement because if mein kampf were the only available thing to read anywhere then where would you have read criticism for mein kampf? Where would your sources reside?
Thomas said it was obvious that everything is mein kampf, as obvious as water running down. If that is the case then I fail to see the threat.
Everyone is biased. It's impossible not to be biased. The question is biased in which direction and to what extent. For example I am biased towards quality of life.
Also back to the original point. So what if newspaper X is biased. We allow free speech. This is a democracy. The owner of newspaper X is living in the same democracy. You can argue that the owner of newspaper X is a negative influence. You can argue they have undue influence. Personally I am slightly with Thomas in that the threat is obvious. But my conclusion therefore is that perhaps newspaper X only has the influence that it is granted.
I mean I would love to live in a world free from misinformation. But banning free speech is not, I think, a path to such a world.
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
Sure, but I took that as hyperbole. And much of what I haven't quoted here that you mention.
For me the problem is not that a rage of opinions and positions are unavailable that there is a massed center that tend to represent certain interests. So yes, you can find the left or righty journal or something online to criticie that massed center, but the massed center effectively marginalizes other ideas to the fringe. A la The Manufacturing of Consent, whch was written way in a time when there was much more diversity in the mainstream.Also back to the original point. So what if newspaper X is biased. We allow free speech. This is a democracy. The owner of newspaper X is living in the same democracy. You can argue that the owner of newspaper X is a negative influence. You can argue they have undue influence. Personally I am slightly with Thomas in that the threat is obvious. But my conclusion therefore is that perhaps newspaper X only has the influence that it is granted.
I mean I would love to live in a world free from misinformation. But banning free speech is not, I think, a path to such a world.
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
Can you provide me some examples?For me the problem is not that a rage of opinions and positions are unavailable that there is a massed center that tend to represent certain interests. So yes, you can find the left or righty journal or something online to criticie that massed center, but the massed center effectively marginalizes other ideas to the fringe.
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Re: Should the UK leave the European Union?
So the whole refugee crisis, right wing populist politicians on the rise, Russia as bad guy in Syria - Russia was the first one to actually go after ISIS like a country with a modern military can - is in a false context. It is not simply happening, it is something that was set in motion because Neo-cons have wanted to get into Syria - they've gottne in a bunch of other places already in accordance with their project for a new century blueprints. None of this means Assad is a good guy or Putin either.
But it is a context that shifts all the debates about the influx of refugees and then the Syria situation itself. And yes, you can confirm most of this in mainstream sources where it is however mentioned very passingly and in the finer print.
There should be huge calls for criticism of Western policies in destabilizing Syria. In fact, the knowledge that this refugee crisis is Western created can actually unify right and left activists and organizations, rather than having them split around populists and lefty anti-populists.
But this is overwhelmed by news that contextualizes the crisis there in other ways.
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