Ten oz

I have no faith you do.

Obama is a secret Muslim, The Clinton's murdered Seth Rich, Hillary Clinton has a serious health issue she is hiding, Loretta Lynch obstructed justice, Obama was born in Kenya, Sandy Hook was a fake, FBI wire tapped Trump Tower, and etc,etc ,etc are all BS conspiracy stories FoxNews has pushed. The game they play is having on people like Alex Jones, Tami Lahren, Glenn Beck, etc, and allow them to lie at length often pointing out the specific points are good ones or true. Then after the fact passively state than the facts aren't total know or that something hasn't been fully proven yet. Meanwhile they're giving unlimited airtime to the suggestion that the conspiracies are true. That is just one facet of their dishonestly. The also love moving the goal posts. When Obama was president I was constantly seeing FoxNews launch arguments against the way unemployment was calculated as a means of claiming the economy was crap. Today they applaud the numbers despite the calculations being done identically. Was said is that I am aware of all this without even watching. That is how consistent and loud their message is. Merely being in the vicinity of a TV tuned in to Foxnews every so often is enough to hear the message loud and clear.

I dumped cable a few years back. I only watch regular TV and Netflix. My exposure to what it happening in the world comes from the journalism I read (NPR, BBC, NYT, Reuters, etc). It has been fantastic!! I can't recommend it strong enough. All cable pundits, even the ones with good intentions, carry the self interested burden of ratings. All of them can't help but to sensationalize everything. It has contributed to the disconnect society at large seems to have towards what is going on. It is often on at the gym I go to. It is pure garbage. Utter partisan propaganda which is unapologetically self aware and aggressive as it can be. Nearly everything on FoxNews isn't true. May as well just live stream the channel if you example. FoxNews doesn't represent the "other sides" point of view. It represents their lies.

That is basically what I said. Faith, specifically among the religious faithful, is centered around hope. Faith in science isn't centered around hope. In science people trust but verify to the absolute best of their ability over and over and over.

Faith as praticed by the religious faithful seems a lot more like hope than trust. Religious people hope for things as opposed to trust in things. As such the word faith is often being missed used.

This is the Law and Order Administrations; liars:

I don't have cable. I only watch short clips on youtube from time to time.

Trevor Noah made an interesting point on his show. Rather than asking his viewers to contact their Congress reps to complain about the ongoing family separations he asked them to contact FoxNews and complain. His point being that the President is more likely to listen to FoxNews than Congress, he is not wrong.

They can't beat the experience of a farmers market. Beyond the fresh produce farmers markets often have local artists and musicians. It sort gets to the customization I referenced. Buying local original art can't be massed produced. It would defeat the the point of buying original pieces. Plus farmers markets are normally set up in or near parks and attending serves as a way to get out an enjoy the day.

I am hopeful. I actually think this is all a great stimulus for innovation. Like the in store printed shoes Adidas has developed I referenced early retailers will need to innovate their practices to improve service. Also retailers which maintained the quality of their customer service and treatment of employees over the years like REI are currently be rewarded as their competition are closing doors. While REI isn't the greatest paying job they provide their employees loads of perks like free rentals on the equipment they have in store. It is enough attract and keep individuals that reflect their stores brand and are familiar with the products they sell. Of course I live in a major metropolitan. Access to service and products isn't an issue and I see stores close and new ones open in their place every week. In places with less robust economies I can imagine it is a much more pressing issue. This one of the many reasons I never support politicians who say they want to see the govt ran more like a business on champion their business experience as a meaningful qualification.

Sure, but should those making a living off disseminating false information have any liability? Free speech is free speech. You and I are both free to get on twitter or youtube and say whatever we want for the most part. Once either of us get millions of subscribers and are earning a living off our content shouldn't we have some professional responsibility to say things which are true to the best known knowledge or at least run a disclaimer of some type? Even comedians regularly remind the audience that what they say are jokes.

I did a poor job naming this thread and the OP could have been better. That is on me. I conflated different types propaganda without distinguishing between all the different motives (politics, greed, insecurity, religious, etc). Can anything be done to reign in the proliferation of online propaganda?

Expertise is hard to come by though. I remember as a small kid going TV shopping at Sears with my parents and their electronics section had dedicated sales reps that actually know a lot about the products. I recall them walking my parents through everything from how the remote control worked to the different how one would hook up a VCR and Cable box. Last time I went into the electronics section of a large brick and mortar store I had to wait around for several minutes to get helped and the kid helping me didn't know anything about the products I was interested in nor was he willing to give me more than 30 seconds of his time. So it is sort of on them (brick and mortar) to make it worth our time. For a long time brick and mortar stores saved money by cutting staff and limiting pay. When I was a kid we lived in what was a quality middle class California suburban neighborhood and I had neighbors that worked at department, grocery, and home improvement stores. They were decent middle income careers. I understand that inflated real estate costs and having to compete with inexpensive products from overseas played a role in stores freezing out career employees in trade for shorter term, less experienced, lower wage employees but greed played a big role too. They put cost cutting for the sake of profit over the costumer experience not realizing the internet was coming to take over. Look at Blockbuster. They late fee'd themselves right out of business. Those late fees made people so angry with the brand that when they tried to move into online sales no one was having it. Many consumers celebrated in their demise.

Are true leaks more prevalent now? I think in the past people, companies, and etc had a more direct way of interacting with media. Cable news and the internet are still relatively new forms of media. I think it took time to develop ways to use those platforms to manipulate information. I think "Leaks" are just a marketing tool. People know that if the go off the record they have more flexibility in how they deliver their message. Meanwhile media itself knows that the labeling something as "leaked" is sexier and will help boost interest. That said I do not believe there is more legitimately "leaked" information today as there was 30 or 40 years ago. If a company purposely "leaks" something based on their messaging strategy than it isn't truly a leak but rather just a bit of propaganda. Most leaks I am familiar with seem to be orchestrated by the very people claiming to be the victim of the leak. I think on Social Media and streaming websites there should be more oversight for those who have followings into the millions. Once a person or organization has millions of followers they are earning an income which in my opinion makes them a business. All forms of truth in advertising rules and ethic standards should apply. When I see pro flat earth YouTube videos with millions of views it is disheartening. By law those videos should have to run disclaimers. Don't get me wrong though. I am not saying everyone who pedals fake info online, just those who are making a living at it.

If a brick and mortar store offers expertise I am in need of I still prefer them over Amazon. I recently bought a new bicycle and went to several local bike shop in search of experienced cyclists who could provide me quality feedback. One on one conversation with an expert is superior to online reviews in my opinion. Not only did I purchase my bike from a local store but I even paid nearly double what I had planned to spend and felt totally okay with it after going over the pros and cons with the people at the bike shop who I felt genuinely knew what they were talking about.

Right, to an individual it isn't really a problem provide due diligence is exercised but society at large clearly isn't do that.

In western democracies it seems there is always enough money for industry welfare and or economic stimulus be it through tax credits or loans but never enough money for social services. I see this as being cause by 2 different factors. The first being that the standard western business model demands continues growth which isn't a worker-able model for something like Healthcare. Many of the administrators with an accounting, business, human resource, and etc education/background are trained for pro -growth environments which are not applicable and as a result many are incompetent at their jobs. It simply doesn't work to run a service meant to provided care to people like a shareholder owned for profit business. The second problem is the general public's tendency to think in a punitive manner. When the public dislikes any portion of something the tendency is often to vote against the whole receiving govt funds regardless of the downstream effects rather than supporting improvements. Rather than productive change through careful consideration change is punitively forced by the removal of funds.

As people become less able to distinguish between fact and opinion the dissemination of false information becomes more harmful. What can be done?

Absolutely much as possible, even when it is inconvenient, I nearly exclusively eat at family owned restaurants when I dine out. I desperately work to avoid franchises and chains. The service is always better as the employees own the place and are just there while looking for something better and the food tends to have a more authentically homemade feel. Additionally I know the money I spend is staying in the community and not going to someone in Utah who own 50 stores or whatever. I am also all about public transportation. I only ever use Uber or Lyft if I am with people who insist and I can't convince them the Metro is just as good. From the bus driver to the maintenance public transportation supports a large network of quality jobs for people living in the local community. I don't feel support for local business translates the same way when it comes to retail and technology. When I buy a pair of Adidas ultra boost running shoes I know those shoes are not produced locally and the local store I can buy them at isn't owned locally. Shopping retail locally helps the real estate and a handful of hourly wage retail jobs. Then there is the fact that buying items on Amazon is a superior experience. Amazon always has the exact item I want rather than last years model or the next best thing which can often be the case when shopping brick and mortar. Amazon also always has my size. As I mentioned in my previous post I think customization is the next big thing. Brick and Mortar stores will need to evolve by bring something to the table other than factory line produced items. I mentioned Adidas above specifically because they have developed a customized laser printed shoe called Futurecraft 4D. They will have scanners in store that measure your foot and then actually 3d print a sole true to shape and size of your foot in store. I believe customization like that will give people a reason to go to brick and mortar locations. along the customized products I have all the shelving and closets in my home custom install. I live in a small place and wanted to retain all the space I could so I needed things which were designed specifically for my home. It was no more expensive to do than buying quality bookcases and desks would have been.

It is inevitable. If not Amazon some other company would be cashing in on the internet retail business. Brick and mortar retail is dying all over the place but that is no more Amazon's fault than it is the fault of Nikola Tesla that gas lampmen can't find work in 2018. Internet sales make direct to consumer products more accessible. So much so that I suspect in 10 years one might start a thread asking whether or not independent direct to consumer online sales are a threat the Amazon. Change is constant. As thing like 3D printers become more accessible I believe the next wave of consumer products will focus on customization which isn't a areas where Amazon does not have an advantage.

Were the Japanese "illegal immigrants" to the Ainu or Spanish "illegal immigrants" to the Aztec's? Seems to me all populations of people could have been considered illegal at one point or another. Wasn't the Alamo about the Mexican govt trying to remove illegal immigrants from Texas?

If you'd like to discuss immigration there is already an Immigration thread open in Politics. Currently you seems to be using the Composition fallacy:

Why not? Hundreds of millions of people living today have migrated to other countries and historically entire countries like Australia, U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and etc, etc, etc were built by migrating populations. All humans would still be in Africa today if not for migration.

Whataboutism is it own logical fallacy and a type of tu quoque. The difference between the 2 is whataboutism can be total topic shift. Whataboutism often merely seeks to slander in an attempt to shift focus. Tu quoque specifically criticizes an individual for failure to be consistent with their own conclusions. Tu quoque is a charge of "you too" where whataboutism is plainly just a "What about" plea.

Tu quoque, it is basically just a type of red herring where one redirects criticism as a way to avoid defending their own actions.