
Some Fake News About Me from Bloomberg - toss1941
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158709087061/some-fake-news-about-me-from-bloomberg
======
djsumdog
I'm sick of this "fake news" crap. It's just called "news" and it hasn't been
fair or objective in any western country for over a century.

I actually have a lot of respect for Scott Adams, and I feel that he, and
others, who supported the unpopular side of the Americans Next Best President
reality show that was on last year, have been unjustly labelled for what was a
set of equally terribly choices.

Scott Adams constantly uses "Cognitive Dissonance" (so does Bill Nye and the
vSauce guy Michael .. it's the buzz word of the year) and says in his blog
that you can't tell when you're in it, even though he claims he's not in a
state of Cognitive Dissonance himself!

I have an unpopular view myself, I think the game is rigged, the parties are
the same, the points don't matter and that no matter which president gets
elected, we'll go to more wars (Obama started bombing 5 countries. Clinton
would have done the same. So will Trump. America's industry is dependent on
war).

While I respect Scott Adams and don't think he should face the unjust
criticism he has gotten, I still don't agree with his outlook. I don't think
he's an idiot or racist or deceived. I think that all of America is simply on
the losing side of the false left right divide, and have said as much:

[http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-fallout-of-
american-a...](http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-fallout-of-american-
anger/)

I could be wrong though. Maybe there is a difference between the two parties?
I might have fallen into nihilism; accepting only the sources that feed my
world view that America's political system is hopelessly corrupt and broken. I
wouldn't mind being wrong, but I don't think that is the reality.

It's important to doubt your axioms and to constantly challenge your world
view. Beware of nationalism or standing behind a person or idea because you
feel you have to. Cognitive dissonance is giving the electric shock to the
other person in the Milgram experiments because you didn't see that there were
other options, and the reality is you won't know for sure what you'd do until
you are in that situation.

~~~
astrodust
> I might have fallen into nihilism...

You have fallen into nihilism.

"What does it matter? Republican? Democrat? The Earth will be consumed by the
sun in a few billion years anyway."

Thank you Marvin.

~~~
djsumdog
He was my favourite character in those books. :-P

------
Rapzid
I was eleven or twelve when I first got turned on to the bull spun in news
stories. A few friends and I were going around our small, one light town on
our BMX bikes when a writer from the local newspaper started interviewing us.
She was making a dumb fluff piece but we didn't know and we were excited to be
in the paper. I recall feeling duped and angry when I read the piece;
misquotes and context spun out of whole cloth. I've always hated people
misquoting or misrepresenting things I have said..

It was an important lesson I'm happy to have learned. Once you know what to
look for, you can see it everywhere.

------
ryanx435
For anyone wondering about the connection to the subject of the authors other
article, marina abrimovic, she is the artist at the center of the "spirit
cooking" controversy and personAL friends with John podesta.

The joke is that she got an extremely positive article, adams got a negative
article, and the punchline probably has sonething to do with fake news and the
author working for podesta or something.

More about spirit cooking, if you're interested:
[http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/4/wikileaks-
john-...](http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/4/wikileaks-john-podesta-
invited-to-spirit-dinner-ho/)

------
toss1941
Just speaking about accuracy in all reporting of our time (not including
specific trade publications), I think there has to be a clever moniker for the
phenomenon that occurs when you read or hear a news report about a subject you
are already intimately familiar with, where you spot multiple errors peppered
throughout the article. Then, on subjects we know little about beforehand, we
walk away confident that what we just consumed was wholesome and true. That
has to have a name already right?

~~~
Nadya
You've probably read the name here on HN, so here you go:

The Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect

~~~
toss1941
Thanks! And to add, how can one possibly become less confident instead of more
confident in our media the older one gets? I think the media is just a tool,
to be used by those with the strings of the reporters, or the reporters
themselves, to drive a desired message. Truth is hard to find. Wait, I'm
already a cynic. Oh well, I'll just go watch old shows on netflix like Star
Trek TNG where I won't be inundated with carefully crafted dilemma's with
equally carefully crafted solutions and virtue signaling. Wait a minute...

------
astrodust
There's got to be something about this pattern of prominent people publicly
losing their minds in the worst possible ways: ESR, Scott Adams, Jontron, even
Bobby Fischer.

This is the same person who lost his shit over a sweater
([http://blog.dilbert.com/post/146361457021/the-humiliation-
of...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/146361457021/the-humiliation-of-the-
american-male-in-2016)). Chugging too much Infowars?

~~~
tnone
I thought pointing out post-truth politics was good? But only if the left does
it, I suppose...

Character assassinations from afar are nothing new. It's been the progressive
activists' favoured weapon for sure.

~~~
astrodust
Your comment is, in a nutshell, what's wrong with dialogue today.

