Prelude to the Apocalypse

[BryanM]

It's going to be like in that short story Manna. We're gonna throw worthless humans (aka, all of them) into tiny cube apartments for the fuck of it.

It's gonna be terrific.

[Opus131]

If only we could get rid of capitalism and weed out conservatives for good. Alas, white people are still allowed to vote so there's nothing we can do to prevent the downfall of progress and civilization.

[Bananamatic]

If only we could get rid of capitalism and weed

[Opus131]

You can't get rid of capitalism without weed brah.

[Jonathan Ingram]

So, conservative governments replacing populist ones in South America, economic austerity measures destroying the Welfare State in Europe, the extreme right on the rise due to backlash against immigration, market and media corporations that can destabilize countries or outright overthrow democratically elected presidents, and the biggest economy in the world not even being able to offer something as basic as universal health care means that the West is Marxist.

That's not what he is talking about(note how he doesn't even touch on the subject of economy). Opus131's line of thought is a product of the conspirological Cultural Marxism theory espoused by the more educated(using the term extremely loosely here) circles of the American and Western European right-wing and refers to the subversion of the West(TM) through the cultural sphere by a cabal of ill-intentioned Marxist academics:

Lind's theory was one that has been pushed since the mid-1990s by the Free Congress Foundation — the idea that a small group of German philosophers, known as the Frankfurt School, had devised a cultural form of "Marxism" that was aimed at subverting Western civilization.

The method, he said, involved manipulating the culture into supporting homosexuality, sex education, egalitarianism, and the like, to the point that traditional institutions and culture are ultimately wrecked.

"Their whole plan," he said, "is the destruction of Western culture."

The "they" to whom Lind referred were a group including Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse, all Jews who fled Germany and went to Columbia University in the 1930s.

Lind accused Marcuse, who coined the slogan "Make Love, Not War," of inventing the concepts of "tolerance" and "political correctness." He added darkly that Adorno and Horkheimer "spent the war years in Hollywood" and said they likely conspired to use films as a "social conditioning mechanism" to get gullible Americans to accept supposed perversions like homosexuality.

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate ... conference

[MintyTheCat]

We can debate this as much as we wish to. The situation still stands and you are talking out of your arse, Skykid.

None of this matters of course but if it serves you to tell us all how fucking ace China is and how we are all duped and have just got it wrong, then be my guest, Skykid.
You can cherry pick what goes on in China as much as you like but for a start there are far greater powers than you who speak out against the chinese state - read state not people.

And you dare call me a stuck record - teapot calling kettle, mate.

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/c ... -and-tibet

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/as ... fic/china/

You can tell us all how wrong we have got it if you like but...

China remains an authoritarian state, one that systematically curbs fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion, when their exercise is perceived to threaten one-party rule.

Swallow that in any way you see fit and it stands. Dress it up if you like but if it quacks like a duck, Skykid, it's a duck. Those organisations are worth substantially more than my opinion and your opinion and I tell you that those organisations are not tourist boards either.

I just love the way that anything, and I mean anything, that is not pro your opinion and it is immediately propaganda or we have not witnessed anything. You remind me of one of those polytechnic sociology types that you find hanging around Universities and actually like Rick from The Young Ones:



Not a pollution I'm afraid but:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/as ... ort-china/

Human rights defenders continued to risk harassment, arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and torture and other ill-treatment for their legitimate human rights work. Cao Shunli died from organ failure in a hospital in March after being denied adequate medical care in detention for an existing condition.5 She had been detained at a Beijing airport in September 2013 when on her way to a human rights training in Switzerland.

But, as Skykid says "it is a big country" and bad things always happen to other people, right? Let's see if Skykid can put some spin on this. He seems reluctant to raise the other points such as oppression, poisoning due to industrial accidents and indeed the chinese state's position on ensuring residential areas are not build right next to facilities that caused that large explosion last year in Tianjin.

Skykid, don't ever let people from Germany of all places lecture anyone about state oppression

For the record I am british and although Skykid may tell us all as to how we know nothing as we have not seen anything, I have travelled widely and lived in three countries thus far. I have also lived abroad far longer than Skykid has been living the chinese dream. I have always kept an eye on how each countries' government behaved.
It may shock, no kill you, to realise, but Germany - these days - is substantially freer and nothing in terms of scale compared to the level of oppression in say the USA.
Hell, even the UK is more oppressive than Germany these days.

Apart from the overly conservative and completely besotted with the catholic church Bavaria, Germany and most Germans live completely normal lives and have not got the state hassling them every five minutes you can also agree or disagree with the party line without being thrown in prison.

Let's put Skykid's convictions down to a matter of survival for now

Cheers.

[Hagane]

That's not what he is talking about(note how he doesn't even touch on the subject of economy). Opus131's line of thought is a product of the conspirological Cultural Marxism theory espoused by the more educated(using the term extremely loosely here) circles of the American and Western European right-wing and refers to the subversion of the West(TM) through the cultural sphere by a cabal of ill-intentioned Marxist academics:

Oh, so basically they believe that anyone who thinks homosexuals and non-whites are humans and doesn't want to lynch them is a Marxist, and probably part of the world Jewish conspiracy. Which would make anyone who isn't on the farthest extreme right a Marxist, and would explain Opus's ignorant usage of the term.

[Opus131]

So, conservative governments replacing populist ones in South America, economic austerity measures destroying the Welfare State in Europe, the extreme right on the rise due to backlash against immigration, market and media corporations that can destabilize countries or outright overthrow democratically elected presidents, and the biggest economy in the world not even being able to offer something as basic as universal health care means that the West is Marxist.

That's not what he is talking about(note how he doesn't even touch on the subject of economy). Opus131's line of thought is a product of the conspirological Cultural Marxism theory espoused by the more educated(using the term extremely loosely here) circles of the American and Western European right-wing and refers to the subversion of the West(TM) through the cultural sphere by a cabal of ill-intentioned Marxist academics:

Lind's theory was one that has been pushed since the mid-1990s by the Free Congress Foundation — the idea that a small group of German philosophers, known as the Frankfurt School, had devised a cultural form of "Marxism" that was aimed at subverting Western civilization.

The method, he said, involved manipulating the culture into supporting homosexuality, sex education, egalitarianism, and the like, to the point that traditional institutions and culture are ultimately wrecked.

"Their whole plan," he said, "is the destruction of Western culture."

The "they" to whom Lind referred were a group including Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse, all Jews who fled Germany and went to Columbia University in the 1930s.

Lind accused Marcuse, who coined the slogan "Make Love, Not War," of inventing the concepts of "tolerance" and "political correctness." He added darkly that Adorno and Horkheimer "spent the war years in Hollywood" and said they likely conspired to use films as a "social conditioning mechanism" to get gullible Americans to accept supposed perversions like homosexuality.

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate ... conference

As i may have mentioned before, what we are really dealing with here is a conflict between a nomalist and realist world view respectively:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x27d5k ... non_webcam

This is the real subtext of every ideological or political battle that has occurred in history but especially this past several centuries, where nominalism has for the first time gained the upper hand (where as it was always pushed back in the past, by Plato and his followers in ancient Greece, and by the Scholastics during the high middle ages).

To me, political affiliation is something of secondary and relative importance, and for the most part, where people argue that something is Marxist for instance, what they are truly talking about is the manifestation of this aforementioned nominalist world view of which Marxism is but an expression, rather then being its actual source and primary cause.

Obviously, the vast majority of people do not possess the type of insight i just presented, but deep down they do perceive what the actual issue is and to refer to something as a "Marxist" idea generally does get the point across to others who also have an instinctive sense of what the underlying problem is.

This is not to say that actual Marxism is not also present in some form. To wit, the way racial issues are treated as class warfare (which is made patently obvious by the notion, popular among the progressive left, that minorities or women cannot be either racist or sexist because racism and sexism are to be defined as prejudice + power, or some such nonsense of obvious Marxist stamp). But ultimately this is of relative import because it doesn't take long for the true underlying nominalist agenda to rear its ugly head.

[Opus131]

Oh, so basically they believe that anyone who thinks homosexuals and non-whites are humans and doesn't want to lynch them is a Marxist

Yes. That's precisely the case.

Meanwhile, it is ok to think of whites as non-humans because whites have all the power, or something. Still completely oblivious to why the left is starting to lose ground i see, but i wouldn't expect an ideologue to be aware of what is actually happening in planet reality.

[Opus131]

China remains an authoritarian state, one that systematically curbs fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion

So China is no different from any western university.

[Hagane]

Poor little oppressed thing.

[Opus131]

ANYWAY

[Ed Oscuro]

I will check out this video on that cat René Guénon later, he has an intriguing look about him.

Putting aside nominalism vs. realism for a moment, I wanted to just make a comment on "the Left" vs. voters.

As much as I like to poke fun at youse guys' knowledge of the issues, the level of literacy in this thread is unfailingly more elevated than that of people you'd find on the streets. There are a lot of people who live with a tribal mindset, and who furthermore will complain when the Tribe of the US of A gets too big for their conception of "I got mine"-ism. As Deckard put it - "the kind of cop who used to call black men niggers," except this isn't in the history books; people still say it. There are parts of this country where you wouldn't hear the blood libel anymore, simply because there are no Jews there and it was an epithet from a century ago. Instead you will find an up-to-date version (c. 2001). How many of these people are there? I don't know, but there certainly are enough people to raise hell for belief that being a Muslim, or even just wearing some kind of head covering, means a person is marked out for special maltreatment. If these people knew a bit more, maybe they would change their ways - or maybe they'd rediscover some old epithets like "bigamist" to yell at refugees from ISIS and even people from unrelated groups like the Sikhs. And of course, the special interest groups get their ways too - just follow the right wing fringe around to standoffs and places reputed to harbor traitors (like pretty but poor Hailey, Idaho).

We have had some charismatic visionaries like Dr. King trying to light a fire under people and grow the American "tribe," but even he didn't receive unhesitating support - aside from being murdered, his call for social justice "Beyond Vietnam" was too far for a good chunk of the establishment Left of the day, and in fact would probably have been so had he delivered a speech Beyond Iraq or Beyond Afghanistan.

This is because liberals are naturally like other groups of individuals collected under an arbitrary label - they share at least one belief in common, but may otherwise be totally different. This naturally does not promise any particular result when it comes to political campaigns - first of all, who do we vote for? Leftists, or politicians? On the one hand we have trained chameleons, and then Trump, who will change colors, suits, and slogans until they find an issue for the campaign. On the other, we have things that the Left has actually accomplished - things which may be well loved but which the voters would never check a box for. Despite the notable change in attitudes towards gays and gay marriage in the US, people are not going to turn out to the polls en masse to reward the hard work of liberal campaigners on this issue. Nor would it make much sense to consider Log Cabin Republicans part of the monolithic "left" in a campaign. And, in fact, it is an open question as to whether today's Left candidates would spend political capital on this, either. Nor will they spend a lot of time talking about things that the Left accomplished and which have been long coopted as policy planks for the Right.

The lack of a central director for the Left isn't a bad thing - change happens in the US through a variety of avenues, and real change does not necessarily require winning a Presidential election, though it can help. Liberalism and political campaigns will influence each other, but neither defines the other, except maybe in the case of the most inflexible Administration - but Nixon did go to China.

So I am in total confusion about what the mythical monolithic Left is supposed to do for Presidential elections, except perhaps, as individuals or as groups when expedient, continue to press on with the things that interest them, without regard to polling or man on the street interviews. Some of these people will be politicians, and by the rules of that game the people pick the candidate and issues both, not the other way around.

[Mischief Maker]

As i may have mentioned before, what we are really dealing with here is a conflict between a nomalist and realist world view respectively

"May have?" "MAY HAVE?!!" Is this what all that 2+2=4 bullshit was about?

The problem here isn't that we're too dumb to follow your super smart reasoning, the problem is that you're a phenomenally shitty communicator, Opus. The prefix of communicate is co-, if the person you're talking to isn't comprehending your statement, you're not communicating. Step outside yourself for a moment and reread this statement of yours:

Capitalism has nothing to do with it. Marxism is the official religion of the west, and journalists are among the most ardent believers.

You haven't even postulated that Marxism is nomalist and Capitalism is realist yet. How the hell can you reasonably expect a reader to draw the conclusion that when you say "Marxism" is the official religion of the west, what you actually mean is that nomalism is the religion of the west? You do realize that Marxism can imply hundreds of other completely unrelated topics, right?

When you were repeating 2+2=4 over and over and over again to, as I now understand, reference realism, did it never occur to you that your audience was not getting the message and maybe you needed to express your views more explicitly? Or did your devotion to realism blind you to the idea that your ideas could be interpreted in any other way?

TL;DR: Nominalism rulz, realism droolz!

[Ed Oscuro]

nomalism

[Mischief Maker]

nomalism

The philosophical belief that universal yumminess does not exist.

[trap15]

This thread really turned into something special. I hope it never stops.

[Skykid]

None of this matters of course but if it serves you to tell us all how fucking ace China is and how we are all duped and have just got it wrong, then be my guest, Skykid.

It doesn't serve me because I'm here and you're there, numbskull. I never at one point attempted to persuade you that anything was "ace", I've tried to explain that your belief in that which you have no firsthand experience is borne from a news media composite and nothing more.

You have no experience, you're just acting as a sock puppet for agenda riddled mass media.

And you dare call me a stuck record

Oh I'm sorry...

For a start the place is filthy and has areas that are heavily polluted

Take their air pollution for example

these are facts with regards to their levels of air quality

Did we all imagine the smog issues?

Air quality wise

this is one reason we don't have Berlin and indeed Germany in the news over its level of air pollution.

Beijing's level of air pollution.

You have said yourself how bad the pollution is

Is there pollution or is there not pollution?

mercury poisoning

black rain

The black rain must have rotted your brain

Mercury poisoning

Industrial accidents

Black Rain is not a problem even though it makes people ill

Let's have that explosion again

when did the Black Rain become an issue

all the pollution in Beijing

you can pollute

For the levels of pollution to be that high

emissions policies?

politics, finances and pollution cloud your judgements

industrial accidents occur

mercury poisoning

My issues with the level of pollution

light bulbs that contain mercury

mercury poisoning of workers

lead poisoning, mercury poisoning

poisoning due to industrial accidents

...I was under the impression you had been repeating yourself.

You can tell us all how wrong we have got it if you like but...

China remains an authoritarian state, one that systematically curbs fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion, when their exercise is perceived to threaten one-party rule.

It's not entirely wrong. You see, you take these statements (and those of Amnesty International, which is absurd) at complete face value, where there are actually a million shades of grey. Religion isn't banned - there are too many Christian churches already. But it's true you can't demonstrate against the government and that media is censored. It's true you can't see tits in the cinema because there's no rating system. It's true there's corporate and government corruption and a lack of law enforcement. And it's true that the police forces act independently of the government and are occasionally responsible for infringing human rights based on their practices.

Except the one about tits in the cinema and you can take any of the above and apply it to the UK, US and the EU and it will fit pretty much the exact same way.

Is it true you're going to be 'disappeared' and tortured to make false confessions like you're in a Stalinist regime? No, that's highly unlikely unless you were considered to be seriously compromising national security or law. The exact same things happen in the US, for example, for even lesser reasons - especially under the Patriot Act which essentially makes all your civil rights null and void and means you can end up being raped, tortured, humiliated and waterboarded simply if you're under suspicion of conspiracy: no hard evidence required.

You want to call Amnesty International about that one too?

Dress it up if you like but if it quacks like a duck, Skykid, it's a duck.

Ok I agree, you're a duck.

Those organisations are worth substantially more than my opinion and your opinion

Finally we're at the heart of the issue. Took a while to get here, but we're here. This is why you're ignorant: because you accept and trust third-party information wholeheartedly, as you've just admitted. You have no ability to self-educate and are unwilling to look outside of the propaganda matrix - therefore you are a deluded parrot of the tabloids with no voice of his own.

I just love the way that anything, and I mean anything, that is not pro your opinion and it is immediately propaganda or we have not witnessed anything.

What have you witnessed? A newspaper article? A TV spot? A blog?

You're entire argument is based on information without context. You have not witnessed anything for yourself, yet you're happy to sit in your chair and tell all the other people exactly how it is.

You remind me of one of those polytechnic sociology types that you find hanging around Universities and actually like Rick from The Young Ones

Ok.

Human rights defenders continued to risk harassment, arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and torture and other ill-treatment for their legitimate human rights work. Cao Shunli died from organ failure in a hospital in March after being denied adequate medical care in detention for an existing condition.5 She had been detained at a Beijing airport in September 2013 when on her way to a human rights training in Switzerland.

^ Tragic. But this doesn't tell me anything. At all. How do I know any facts or details about this incident, bar the fact that all the emphasis in this paragraph is "Human Rights"... ?

For the record I am british and although Skykid may tell us all as to how we know nothing as we have not seen anything, I have travelled widely and lived in three countries thus far.

Evidently that doesn't make a person intelligent.

I have always kept an eye on how each countries' government behaved.

But you haven't been to China, so you don't actually know anything. I and others have pointed out numerous times that you sound like a jackass.

I've addressed all of your points and you haven't read or responded to any of them, and I haven't actually denied that most of your criticisms exist, I've just argued that they don't necessarily exist in the way you perceive them to.
In reality your 'cold war' thought process is a figment of sensationalist news media, making you nothing but a loyal Murdoch pawn.

The most impressive thing you've managed is to repeat the same points fifty times over and say absolutely nothing of value.

[rancor]

Don't go too rough on him, Skykid - I've engaged Minty before, and things like logic and experience don't count in arguments against him. When he can't intellectually fend for himself, he'll be off to tell mom or dad on you:

The post reporting tool is for posts that are absolutely against the rules - and NOT for posts you have a personal disagreement with, Minty. Please DO NOT abuse it, as I'm getting sick of seeing a report nearly every week from you on posts that you have a daily disagreement with.

I have also lived abroad far longer than Skykid has been living the chinese dream.

Puh-leeze. You went from one first world country to a neighboring one (UK to Germany). In the US, we would call that distance a work commute.

[Opus131]

"May have?" "MAY HAVE?!!" Is this what all that 2+2=4 bullshit was about?

It was. I sort of tend to forget what it is that i inflict on a forum with my drive by shooting style of posting.

The problem here isn't that we're too dumb to follow your super smart reasoning, the problem is that you're a phenomenally shitty communicator

Well you know, English is not my first language.

But i think the problem is that i'm dealing with things most people aren't really all that familiar with but which in my view ought to be obvious, whether you agree with them or not.

You haven't even postulated that Marxism is nomalist and Capitalism is realist yet.

That's because neither Marxism nor Capitalism are nominalist or realist per-se. What i said is that the underlying subtext of any intellectual conflict that has been afflicting the west since time immemorial has been between a nominalist and realist mindset, and things like Marxism and Capitalism are for the most part an outgrowth of this underlying ideological rivalry.

And i mean, isn't it a telling sign that whenever any right-wing person speaks of Marxism this term always appears to be interchangeable with relativism in their eyes?

How the hell can you reasonably expect a reader to draw the conclusion that when you say "Marxism" is the official religion of the west, what you actually mean is that nomalism is the religion of the west?

Well, Marxism provides the dogma. Nominalism is the metaphysics.

You do realize that Marxism can imply hundreds of other completely unrelated topics, right?

That's a nominalistic way of looking at things.

When you were repeating 2+2=4 over and over and over again to, as I now understand, reference realism, did it never occur to you that your audience was not getting the message and maybe you needed to express your views more explicitly? Or did your devotion to realism blind you to the idea that your ideas could be interpreted in any other way?

I pretty much expected people to understand what i meant right away. Mostly because it is patently obvious what it was that i was getting at.

In a way, it is almost like you think something is not intelligible until you apply a label to it. Wonder where that attitude comes from.

[Skykid]

When he can't intellectually fend for himself, he'll be off to tell mom or dad on you

I'd assume that's 24/7 then.

[Mischief Maker]

But i think the problem is that i'm dealing with things most people aren't really all that familiar with but which in my view ought to be obvious, whether you agree with them or not.

Alright then, let's get down to brass tacks. Why is capitalism any more realist than Marxism?

I personally doubt that capitalism is realist. This thread already had a long discussion of how currency lacks any intrinsic value. The only reason metals like gold and silver are currency standards is because they're elemental. This enabled people in the ancient world to determine the purity of gold coins with quick and dirty techniques that facilitated faster trade. When you see the image of the pirate opening a treasure chest and biting one of the coins, it's not that he's hungry, he's determining how pure the gold is by how easily he can sink his teeth into it.

So, let's hear it. Why does capitalism lean realist and Marxism nominalist?

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Mainstream western media is revealed as a highly efficient agenda driven propaganda machine as soon as you begin to read between the lines. It's a thoroughly impressive practice of distraction and subliminal creation of collective opinion. I'm in awe of it as much as I am distressed by it.

The only difference is Chinese mainstream media is neither as efficient nor as detailed. To be blunt, it's rather ham-fisted. As a result any Chinese resident with an internet connection is fully aware of censorship in the news media, and will tell you quite openly about it.

The question I often ponder is what's worse: To be fooled so completely that you've essentially been softly brainwashed, or not to be fooled at all, but continue to be submissive?

The western media has a very easy job because their lies are based on what the people want to hear in the first place. The West is in full 1984 mode at this point. People say that communism was defeated during the Cold War, or whatever, where as it is very much alive and kicking in the West. Communist countries like China are just LARPing at this point. The real Marxism can be found in Western universities, western entertainment and western media, and westerners love every bit of it.

Skykid, I like that you insist on painting a nuanced picture of China and that you use actual everyday experiences to make your points (although I also think you overrate these experiences. Academical sources in most cases paint a better picture of reality than personal experience due to many factors (selective bias etc.), but I agree you should, ideally, have both academical knowledge and practical knowledge if you want to call yourself knowledgeable on a certain area), but I keep wondering where the hell your conviction that the Western news media is controlled by some monolithic ideological complex comes from. Who exactly is it supposed to be that controls the media? To what end? In what ways can it influence it? Please note that although I clearly have a different opinion from you (I am, for example, convinced that the media in Germany for example is highly pluralistic - different opinions, different perspectives - and highly critical of our own and other governments, and I think this can be shown by comparing different news sources), these are real questions, and I'd be very interested in hearing your answers.

[Skykid]

Skykid, I like that you insist on painting a nuanced picture of China and that you use actual everyday experiences to make your points (although I also think you overrate these experiences. Academical sources in most cases paint a better picture of reality than personal experience due to many factors (selective bias etc.)

I agree with selective bias as a natural element. It all depends on someone's personal experience and how they find the world around them. Is it happy, are they happy, are the people they know happy - and so on. But - as I've demonstrated - I'm not actually oblivious to problems and I haven't actually dismissed any of them: I'm just questioning their real-world severity and the way in which an outsider perceives them based on the very limited sources of information available.

In reality I have a list of beefs with China as long as my arm, but they're less easily relatable to an outsider so I haven't bothered mentioning them.

but I keep wondering where the hell your conviction that the Western news media is controlled by some monolithic ideological complex comes from. Who exactly is it supposed to be that controls the media? To what end? In what ways can it influence it? Please note that although I clearly have a different opinion from you (I am, for example, convinced that the media in Germany for example is highly pluralistic - different opinions, different perspectives - and highly critical of our own and other governments, and I think this can be shown by comparing different news sources), these are real questions, and I'd be very interested in hearing your answers.

It's a great question and I'll try my hardest to give you an answer!

First of all, it's not a monolithic ideological complex - that's when it becomes conspiracy realm. At it's absolute lowest rung, it's about money and power. News media has owners, it can be bought and it can be paid for. They're the most basic fundamental reasons for its corruption. Now imagine we put those three elements in a sphere and started to add little arrows pointing to all the different people and groups who can and would benefit from those elements and the first that spring to mind are the corporate and political worlds.

It's not exactly very well concealed that the likes of Fox news or Russia Today are openly biased. It's not a secret that The Sun newspaper is fiercely conservative. When you examine why - why do all the authors for these particular outlets and publications all seem to sing from the same hymn sheet - you can begin to figure out that it's not because they said 'I voted Cameron' on their CV, but because they end up being a cog in a publication that has an existing agenda and serves an existing clientele. Cameron's clientele, either directly or indirectly, have given some lump sum to someone somewhere to gain a political advantage through powerful biased media. The same thing happens in most developed countries, especially when there are leaders looking to protect the rich from taxes.

Fox is brazen, others are less obvious. And the less obvious are even more dangerous, like the BBC, because their corruption is more difficult to spot.

News stories themselves come with price tags: one is a monetary value the other a sensationalist value. Are you going to pay Newscorp for the rights to a story about migrating honey bees or are you going to pay for one about muslims raping children and then wring that story out for all its worth to maximise response and readership, and in turn profit, for the next two months?

Of course, sensationalism wins. It's where the money is. And if you can spin one sensationalist story into a movement or a series of stories, then you have the power to shape public opinion and keep selling your product. "We need more stories about muslims doing bad things, they're loving it!" and so on.

Demonisation of a minority is about as clear as it gets, and you can be sure that there are individuals who benefit from that, especially people who want to wage war on brown people and gain enough public support to avoid it being vetoed.

Finally, it's a business. Profit is beyond morality. Demonizing China is a great money spinner - people have learned to love it. Everyone wants someone to blame for their unemployment or other financial woes, let's make the guys raking in all the cash look shitty for the sake of our personal empowerment. Soon it's a hot topic, and people feel less down about someone else having all the success because, well, they're commie assholes.

It's about reading between the lines for yourself and identifying a pattern in the operation. Whether you're in America, England or Europe, everyone has a slightly different outlook on different subjects and slightly different concerns, but if you can start to suck the agenda out of the articles and spot the distractions that bookend them, there's some enlightenment to be had.

I did my best, I hope this answers your question!

[EmperorIng]

So, let's hear it. Why does capitalism lean realist and Marxism nominalist?

This should be obvious, though. Capitalism is derived from a real-world principle (exchange of goods of differing/equal values), whereas Marxism is based off of an idealistic supposition of how things ought to be (government-mandated distribution and economic management). One has a long history of real-world practice (to say the least), whereas the other can boast of its long-standing organizational and humanitarian failures in its implementation.

The values of objects (or objects of value) can be socially-agreed upon, but the actual act of transaction is something we encounter every day of our lives and have done so for thousands of years. Whereas Marxist thought operates on a very abstract level of possibilities that have yet to be born out in any significantly positive way.

I would again point to the writings of [former Marxist] economist Thomas Sowell on Marxism, in which he dismantles many of the false assumptions Marx and Engles made as the basis for their economic and political philosophy.

Thomas Sowell - Marxism: Philosophy and Economics

To think otherwise you would have to ignore the simple fact that "free-market" competition has made nations wealthier, and that "government-mandate markets" (for lack of a better term atm) have made nations poorer. Why do you think China keeps on getting richer as it moves further away from Marxist principles?

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

(SKykid:) Thanks for taking the time to type a thorough, thoughtful reply. While I agree there are typical perspectives or political leanings that certain publications have, I don't think that this is the same as having an agenda. There can be left leaning and conservative perspectives, and while different sorts of publications would write different articles, I would say that, as long as they were good (= high journalistic standard) articles, they would both contain the same amount of truth. I am still convinced that by accessing a broad range of Western media, you get a good/ truthful idea of what is going on in the world, so to me, your perspective seems needlessly nihilistic - and I am convinced that there is something like a high journalistic standard that the majority of journalists of serious media at least try to adhere to. Seems like we agree on quite a few of the details (ad customers influencing coverage on certain topics etc.) but our interpretations differ significantly.

Anyway, let's continue with the Trump bashing...

[Ed Oscuro]

In many (perhaps most) cases what we call "ideological bias" is far less important than wholly innocent causes, when creates the impression of truth from a simple consensus across all news outlets.

It is also a fool's errand to try and discuss news as if it is wholly controlled or owned by journalists and their publishers. The News just gives a storyline a push out the door - but it gains its legs in society at large, and of course the reports usually originate partially outside the imagination of a reporter (usually).

I have outlined two stories of "conventional wisdom." One shows no consensus or special insight into events despite the close scrutiny of not only reporters but legions of "experts," and the other shows a consensus which is, quite clearly, very fragile and suspect even given the best of intentions.

Case One: How do political candidates get chosen? First and foremost, they have to remain in the news; they have some qualities that the political reporters and columnists think make them noteworthy. It is often not intentional, but in one year the journalists might spend a lot of time "vetting" a person "rumored to be a potential candidate" when that person themselves is not ready to be a candidate, and this can close the door to later campaigns - which happened to Mitt Romney's father back in the day. In another year the journalists might be following a hot-button issue more closely than they had four years before, and they might be awed by "star power" - Kennedy faced few tough questions, but some years later Humphrey faced withering criticism. Nixon charmed the pants off many reporters just by virtue of having a great speechwriter - because journalists are suckers for high-flying prose. (These observations come from Washington Monthly's "Inside the System," in an article written by a political reporter who covered Presidential campaigns.)

Case Two: How should we explain the massive drop in crime in the US during the early '90s? (Economist Levitt and reporter Dubner consider this question in a chapter of the book Freakonomics). It is not because reporters had some ideological bent, or even that sensationalism would always trump reporting just the facts; eventually the news did come out - the crime rate was falling dramatically, and this was good for news too. Journalists aren't the only sensationalists - they come at one point in the journey of a story through society, which you can't understand by considering the News alone. Few journalists have the time or ability to challenge dubious claims by experts (which makes the trend towards better-trained expert journalists such a potentially helpful thing - assuming they can escape the same traps of false explanation which also ensnare academics; the trend towards more self-assured journalists is also such a potentially harmful thing). As it turned out, when it came time for experts to execute an about-face from their dire predictions of crime increases - many experts carried on making these well into the period when all indicators actually showed crime was dropping - they offered a torrent of explanations. Most of these were completely wrong but, if you read them, might seem plausible, or good in of themselves and so worth mentioning seriously.

The flood of explanations was not a consensus at first, though bits and pieces of these explanations persist in the debate over two decades after they were first offered, despite having no value in explaining the crime drop. For instance: Just the other day I heard some experts arguing crime on an NPR talk show. More than 10 years after Freakonomics, one of the experts wanted to explain black crime in terms of opportunities and reducing incarceration, while the other pointed out that national economic trends do not explain large trends in crime. Ironically, there is something true in both explanations, and the experts are largely talking past one another in this exchange. Most peoples' natural inclination would be to assume that "the economy," overall, can be used to explain crime rises or drops, but more than 10 years ago Freakonomics cited evidence that dismissed this (as well as pointed towards the efficacy of incarceration at reducing crime). It is easy to get lost in the weeds - despite all the explanations offered on the show, more than 10 minutes in one of the guests admitted this:

I'm going to take the tack that Paul took, which is that we don't have clear lines of explanatory force. We simply don't know.

Of course they continued on through the rest of the program offering explanations. Freakonomics' partial explanation (one of four - the others being tough-on-crime, increased incarceration, and increased policing) for the crime drop - abortions - did get mentioned on the show, but it came after many minutes of discussion of black gangsters growing up, getting tired of being sick, feeling the crack cocaine wasn't cool, etc. And, of course, this may indeed be a worthwhile explanation. It's hard to tell, and it is certainly hard to debunk these things on the fly.

But does that mean we're worse off in a system which has, as ChurchOfSolipsism said, a pluralistic media, just because the news might not be completely accurate? Well, it so happens that in other nations with state-controlled media, there isn't any likelihood that the news there will be more complete or more accurate, either, because those societies have their own experts and their own storylines - and even fewer opportunities for challenging them.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

But does that mean we're worse off in a system which has, as ChurchOfSolipsism said, a pluralistic media, just because the news might not be completely accurate? Well, it so happens that in other nations with state-controlled media, there isn't any likelihood that the news there will be more complete or more accurate, either, because those societies have their own experts and their own storylines - and even fewer opportunities for challenging them.

Political freedom (and according to everything I have read, we find more of it say in Western Europe than in China) is not just a good in itself - it will lead to many processes, including journalism, evolving and developing a higher quality, since plurality itself will lead to competition.

[MintyTheCat]

Don't go too rough on him, Skykid - I've engaged Minty before, and things like logic and experience don't count in arguments against him. When he can't intellectually fend for himself, he'll be off to tell mom or dad on you:

The post reporting tool is for posts that are absolutely against the rules - and NOT for posts you have a personal disagreement with, Minty. Please DO NOT abuse it, as I'm getting sick of seeing a report nearly every week from you on posts that you have a daily disagreement with.

I have also lived abroad far longer than Skykid has been living the chinese dream.

Puh-leeze. You went from one first world country to a neighboring one (UK to Germany). In the US, we would call that distance a work commute.

A real chestnut you are, Rancor. The factor is living in other countries - as you yourself live in another country. No brownie points for living in a shanty town, ghetto, the north pole or the moon you understand, Jeff. Don't be too cheap and let it sit when someone does not agree with your ideology on guns.

proportion, or you've just illustrated the point that more guns = safer people - but in my area o...

We have agreed to disagree on your "guns for everyone" tack and me not agreeing with you.
You are entitled to your beliefs that guns are awesome and protect people and I happen to be of the other opinion. You may have been sprung and hence not bother to debate that topic any longer after that last wonderful quote but the matter stands: we do not all need to agree and this does not entail that we must all be at war - for a start if that were to be the case I would not last long as you and people of your opinion have all the guns, matey

Don't use this as some cheap little means to play one upmanship, Jeff - we expect a little more of you.

(*) Icarus is not my father, just in case and the matter wrt reporting spam and such was reported and cleared up despite what Rancor would try and have you all believe.

[MintyTheCat]

WROTE: is a contender to beat the seminal work of War and Peace to prove how very, very right he is and how incredibly wrong we all are and especially MintyTheCat because he lives in Germany which is not a Third-World Country

I cannot keep up with all these messages, what kind of job do you have, Comrade Skykid, you appear to have simply oodles and oodles of time to write bollocks on this forum