I think a lot of this stems from not knowing who to trust when the previous administration was able to get The NY Times, WaPo, and others to put up so many diversions as to focus on a certain person’s moment-by-moment tweets while ignoring all of the really terrible things going on in the world as a whole, not to mention the atrocities h…
I think a lot of this stems from not knowing who to trust when the previous administration was able to get The NY Times, WaPo, and others to put up so many diversions as to focus on a certain person’s moment-by-moment tweets while ignoring all of the really terrible things going on in the world as a whole, not to mention the atrocities happening on our own soil in regards to the detention (*ahem* concentration) camps. [edit (And I do fully realize that those camps are still there and still just as terrible now under the current admin as they were under the last one. Hell, if we were any other country doing this, the US would’ve invaded to bring humanitarian relief, but because it’s on our own soil far too many people turn a blind eye.) end edit] As well the prevalence and volume of the right wing networks, and the people bending over backwards to get the opinion of the expert with decades of experience and schooling under their belt against that of the village idiot, and then actually taking the village idiot’s words over the experts.
If I want to look into the past and read on the truth of the history of our nation without any of the whitewashing or sugarcoating, I know which historians and publishers to go to for thoroughly researched information. But on what’s happening in our country and the world today . . . ? For every 1 truly credible and unbiased source, there are 20 others that have cherry-picked and spun the information to their own desired outcome and called that pack of lies “truth in media”. I’ve been overwhelmed by the madness of it all for 5 years now, and I honestly don’t even know where to begin to look for information that can truly be trusted to lay out current events without bias, spin/slant, coverup, or whitewashing.
Where do you even begin? How do we find truly credible sources that aren’t the same old smokescreens they’ve become? And that’s a truly honest and sincere request. Because I don’t know where to begin or who to really trust for the dark honest truth.
"Where do you even begin? How do we find truly credible sources that aren’t the same old smokescreens they’ve become? And that’s a truly honest and sincere request. Because I don’t know where to begin or who to really trust for the dark honest truth"
Oof, if you ever find a source that fulfils this request let me know!😅 As I said, my solution is to consume a range of sources, from across the political spectrum, whenever I'm really trying to get at the truth of something. If there's a quote or a clip, I always try to find the full source and understand the context. If there's a statistic, I go and find the original research and check the quality of their data.
Obviously, this is intensely time consuming work. And not something that every body can do, or has any interest in doing. But having done it for a while, I think I've become reasonably good at piecing together a story if I think it's important.
For everything else, for the stuff I'm not super interested in, I just leave room for doubt. If I've only read one source of information, even if I've read it thoroughly, I basically consider myself to know nothing at all about the story. If I have a conversation about it and encounter a conflicting account, I try to probe to see where the difference is coming from (is the person I'm talking to misremembering what they read? Am I? Is there some obvious aspect of this new information that discounts one or both of our perspectives?).
The real problem, as perfectly illustrated by Brigit, is how certain people can be on limited information. If we can't recognise that there are always things we don't know, we sabotage our own ability to learn.
I think a lot of this stems from not knowing who to trust when the previous administration was able to get The NY Times, WaPo, and others to put up so many diversions as to focus on a certain person’s moment-by-moment tweets while ignoring all of the really terrible things going on in the world as a whole, not to mention the atrocities happening on our own soil in regards to the detention (*ahem* concentration) camps. [edit (And I do fully realize that those camps are still there and still just as terrible now under the current admin as they were under the last one. Hell, if we were any other country doing this, the US would’ve invaded to bring humanitarian relief, but because it’s on our own soil far too many people turn a blind eye.) end edit] As well the prevalence and volume of the right wing networks, and the people bending over backwards to get the opinion of the expert with decades of experience and schooling under their belt against that of the village idiot, and then actually taking the village idiot’s words over the experts.
If I want to look into the past and read on the truth of the history of our nation without any of the whitewashing or sugarcoating, I know which historians and publishers to go to for thoroughly researched information. But on what’s happening in our country and the world today . . . ? For every 1 truly credible and unbiased source, there are 20 others that have cherry-picked and spun the information to their own desired outcome and called that pack of lies “truth in media”. I’ve been overwhelmed by the madness of it all for 5 years now, and I honestly don’t even know where to begin to look for information that can truly be trusted to lay out current events without bias, spin/slant, coverup, or whitewashing.
Where do you even begin? How do we find truly credible sources that aren’t the same old smokescreens they’ve become? And that’s a truly honest and sincere request. Because I don’t know where to begin or who to really trust for the dark honest truth.
"Where do you even begin? How do we find truly credible sources that aren’t the same old smokescreens they’ve become? And that’s a truly honest and sincere request. Because I don’t know where to begin or who to really trust for the dark honest truth"
Oof, if you ever find a source that fulfils this request let me know!😅 As I said, my solution is to consume a range of sources, from across the political spectrum, whenever I'm really trying to get at the truth of something. If there's a quote or a clip, I always try to find the full source and understand the context. If there's a statistic, I go and find the original research and check the quality of their data.
Obviously, this is intensely time consuming work. And not something that every body can do, or has any interest in doing. But having done it for a while, I think I've become reasonably good at piecing together a story if I think it's important.
For everything else, for the stuff I'm not super interested in, I just leave room for doubt. If I've only read one source of information, even if I've read it thoroughly, I basically consider myself to know nothing at all about the story. If I have a conversation about it and encounter a conflicting account, I try to probe to see where the difference is coming from (is the person I'm talking to misremembering what they read? Am I? Is there some obvious aspect of this new information that discounts one or both of our perspectives?).
The real problem, as perfectly illustrated by Brigit, is how certain people can be on limited information. If we can't recognise that there are always things we don't know, we sabotage our own ability to learn.