
Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting - AstroJetson
https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0
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umvi
> a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that
> 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save
> their own lives.

The media has done this to themselves. For years they have eagerly profited
not on the truth, but on the outrageous. Many news outlets will spin the truth
any way they can to make it more outrageous, fear-inducing, or more (in their
parlance) "breaking".

Lastly, the media should not be our source of truth, nor should the government
be our source of truth. Truth needs not to be _told to_ individuals but
_discovered by_ individuals after carefully considering information from
multiple sources.

~~~
krapp
>Many news outlets will spin the truth any way they can to make it more
outrageous, fear-inducing, or more (in their parlance) "breaking".

Breaking news just means a story is current, reported as events unfold or just
happened, nothing to do with how outrageous or "fear-inducing" it is.

~~~
dpedu
> reported as events unfold or just happened

Which means less time is allocated to investigation, fact-checking, and
comparing reports from different sources.

~~~
krapp
Well yes, but that's still not "spin(ning) the truth any way they can to make
it more outrageous, fear-inducing."

The term exists because it refers to special news reports which would "break
into" regular programming, it goes all the way back to radio.

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gnabgib
This is a dupe of a flagged post from 3 hours ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22842336](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22842336)

~~~
AstroJetson
Sorry about that. I had looked for this before I posted it. I'm guessing it
was flagged so I couldn't find it.

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WalterBright
I don't buy that there is some mass conspiracy to gaslight us.

Mass media has been a source of inaccurate, biased, hysterical drivel since
the invention of the printing press. That's always going to be true, no matter
who runs it.

The US has survived epidemics before, and far worse catastrophes.

~~~
dmarchand90
I was just reading the autobiography of William T Sherman during the civil war
he was constantly complaining about the press. The New York Times ran an
unsubstantiated smear article on him. The confederate newspapers said they
were winning the war, and sometimes the locals only found out otherwise when
his armies arrived

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quezzle
Things will substantially return to normal once there is virtually infinite,
less than 15 minute testing.

Sure there will be economic wreckae everywhere but we’ve seen that before. It
presents opportunity and optimism.

Remember “RIP good times”? People always feel like things will never get back
on track when they’re inside the bad part.

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itronitron
the author completely lost me at _" I imagine you feel like I do: devastated,
depressed, and heartbroken."_

~~~
quezzle
Yep not everyone does.

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BLKNSLVR
I don't understand why this article is flagged, or why it's getting the
derision from the HN crowd.

The article rings true to me, it describes a distilled version of the world we
lived in a mere two months ago. The desperation that will exist to get back to
the lifestyles we were familiar with and the gross reality of consumerism that
will be there to hold our hands through the re-transition. And it's nothing
new, it will just be a more condensed, hyper, desperate version of the hyper,
desperate consumerism we had before.

"This is our chance to define a new version of normal"

If the new normal is just progress towards the old normal, then we've learnt
nothing.

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jayd16
I'm sure there will be political gaslighting, blame shifting an credit taking
but in terms of advertising its just business as usual.

