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Communication Making The World Less Tolerant
angkor writes "Interesting NY Times magazine article with a contrarian viewpoint: "In some ways, global satellite TV and Internet access have actually made the world a less understanding, less tolerant place." " Reg. required blah blah - but the point the author makes is interesting - what if all the hubbaloo about connecting people via the Internet makes us less likely to like each other?
Looks like the trolls have decided to start linking to another domain!
Video Game cheats, hints a
In some small way, knowing about a culture allows some of the more unsavory types to point out that bad things and say "See, they are ALL bastards! Look at what they do!" I am always amazed at how quickly people will forget the good and look at the bad.
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Your post came right before barbaq666. Be afraid, be very afraid....
IGT(H)GSBWSGAA
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
"global satellite TV and Internet access have actually made the world a less understanding, less tolerant place." - only because by the time people stop doing one of these activities they're either
1. annoyed
2. suffering from a short attention span
or both!
Video Game cheats, hints a
I've wondered this many times about how the media affects people and how instant media changes the dynamics. I remember the repeated instant images on Spetember 11th and the sheer hysteria that has occurred.
Having taken several courses on film and media, I know that all media is filtered. While we seem to find that the news is objective, we fail to understand that instant news is as subjective as possible, as instant coverage of an even often presents only one side to the story.
The sad thing is that our education systems don't teach us to question the news. I remember being in my social studies class and we read the the news and treated it like it was all the facts.
I think sites like Alternet are a great counter-culture to mass media. People need to learn to look at several news sources, as well as read up on the background behind the stories.
Perhaps in the United States, a country that seems to be involved all over the world, more emphasis should be places on world history and world cultures in education.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
I have to disagree with the authors viewpoint. As the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day, and understanding among peoples who have disagreed for tens of centuries, isn't going to go away in a decade or two.
I read a really interesting article in the Atlantic Monthly Journal, not too long ago. The article discussed how the Muslim world used to be the center of art and science in the world. They were way ahead of the rest of the world. So the article investigated why that changed.
It made a very persuasive argument that openness and freedom of expression were the primary reasons. Though it may be a coincidence, I doubt it. At the time that the Muslim world was leading art and science, it was much freer and open than other nations of the world. As west became more open and allowed more freedoms, and the Muslim nations did the opposite, the balance began to change and has been that way to this day.
Oppression doesn't work. It stifles growth and it breeds hate. Many of these countries are very successful of blaming the west for their lot in life. It's always easier to blame others for your problems than it is to look inside and see what YOU are doing wrong.
Eventually, this open communication, however, will have a positive effect, I believe. I don't expect it to happen overnight, and there will always be periods of years or decades when there will be heated differences (as we're experiencing now), but the overall trend, as seen from the point of view of a century, I believe, in the end, will show that the world will have grown closer and more enlightened because of the growth of free communication.
every since I started spending long hours on the internet I've become less tolerant of real people.
I find that if I spend a day programming or what not then I'm great with people. But as soon as I start surfing the net and chatting with people I become way less tolerant of everybody.
I think it has to do with how long it takes to communicate a thought. Online you see the entire thought in one shot, whereas in person it takes time to hear the whole conversation. Basically a speed difference. The speed is the main difference.
In terms of tolerating people of other ethnicities I notice no difference, in fact I'm more likely to talk to people within my own group of online g33k friends in real life. We talk fast and keep it short.
I think this bodes well not unless I cut down on my internet time. Perhaps all my fragging is gonna finally backfire.
internet like monkeys'
No troll problem when you cruise the posts at only 2 or higher!
First Reply proving you wrong!!!!!
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Maybe we'll be less tolerant of racism, child abuse, slavery, dictators, monopolies, pollution...
I just don't like the way the idea of tolerance has been appropriated as a good thing. Tolerance in itself has no values, its the things you choose to tolerate that do.
Baz
On a larger scale you also become aware of something which cannot be tolerated in other parts of the world. Eg. Faked elections, no human rights, unbalanced distribution on wealth, etc.
My conclusion is that the "global village" are making us more tolerant. But also more aware. And the media likes head lines like "Election scam in Albonia" instead of "Germans are just like us!"
The statement isn't too surprising, but I think a distinction needs to be made between short-term and long-term effects.
... in short, an evolution of viewpoints and cultures.
In the years before the Internet, most of our communication was with people in conditions very similar to our own. Homogeneity breeds similar viewpoints.
In the short-term, as many different cultures and types of people begin to interact, there will be a lot of conflict as different viewpoints come across. In the long-term, though, as these viewpoints are reconciled, either through debate, conflict, or even violence, the community of shared viewpoints becomes larger, and the differences in opinion should lessen
The Internet should lead to a more unified world community, but certainly not in the short-term.
I'd say there is an increased risk of world propaganda with the net, also taking in account that there are now for the first time world spanning media companies like CNN, which hasnt been there before. I think it might come down to information globalisation, there are no distributed reactions, it risks pretty much to strive either all one way or the other. Saying that by default we hate each other more is a bit too much stereotypist for my taste.
A point to consider is that when there weren't so many selections to news and information outlets, news and information outlets had to be more middle of the road. Now, with so many to choose from, it is more likely that you will get your news from a site (or station) that is skewed to your perceptions of the world.
Instead of being confronted with opinions contrary to those with which you percieve the world, you can be safely confronted with the spin about the world that you already agree with.
Can 'the world be brought together' if everybody is reinforcing their own preconceptions about everyone else? Most likely not.
This article highlights the differences between television and the Internet. TV is a passive medium: you don't usually have to think much (or at all) while watching it and you don't get the whole picture because you only see what the person (or organization) that is broadcasting wants you to see (or is able to show you).
If you read about the same situation from credible sources on the Internet, it doesn't provide you instant gratification and it makes you think more (and hopefully investigate more) about the situation. You are more likely to get different viewpoints on the same topic depending on who wrote the information. While this is a longer process, I would argue it facilitates more tolerant view points from the person doing the reading and the research. Instead of taking up arms, the boy mentioned in the article may have decided to evoke change through peaceful means and become a future leader of his people instead of taking up arms and putting himself at risk of dying a senseless death.
Television is a wonderful entertainer, but a poor educator. (Are you reading this, parents?)
"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation." (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 6)
I liken the world before the Internet to a group of really small colleges, and the world after the Internet to a huge university. People come to both with their own little prejudices and idiosyncrasies. If you find people who share your prejudices or idiosyncrasises (or do not conflict with them), you enjoy their company. We call such people friends.
In a small college, it is really hard to find people you like, especially if you deviate from the mainstream in any way [as most of us do at Slashdot ;)]. OTOH, in a big university, you are more likely to find people who share your view of the world. It's not unusual to see very weird (read: different) groups spring up in a big university, whereas each individual would probably have been a loner in a small college.
The kicker is that in a small college, you have 'x' number of people you don't like. That number is obviously magnified several-fold in a large university. It's up to you to decide how much of the world you want to make your playground, so you meet the people you want and are not so bothered by the people you don't really care for.
Genebrew
Ultimately it is the immense responsibility of the media to present a fair picture. This seldom happens. Usually, the media itself is polarized and has its own prejudices which are driven by what will bag a larger audience. I don't think therefore that communication is the root. A case in point is the portrayal of the US war on Afghanistan. Now I know, many of you out there might not agree, but I thought that CNN's coverage of the American offensive was not without fault. They chose to overlook various, "insignificant" acts of aggression and violence that I'm sure might have transpired on hapless, innocent civilians in Afghanistan.
It is easy to accuse technology for our shortcomings, but that's not true.
We must first learn to dissociate what we see on TV from what is really
happening. So, the call is for depth and objectivity instead of reach.
The NY Times article seems to rely pretty heavily on the influence of CNN. From what I saw of the 9/11 thing, it looked to me like CNN was doing their damndest to drum up a war 24 hours after the attack. So, no surprise there. /. or the newsgroups, I think the results don't fit as well with the NY Times editorial. /. were leading to intolerance, it would be little more than trivia as far as I'm concerned.
If we look at a truly interactive forum like
Also, the premise that simply having more knowledge results in more tolerance is an ignorant and uneducated assumption at best. Simply knowing "the facts" isn't necessarily going to change anybody's thinking or behaviors. If this naive assumption were true, there would probably be more vegetarians than there are today.
However, human interaction and communication is what we, as humans, are all about and it's not as though tolerance is the yardstick by which we judge whether that is the right thing. So even if someone came up with impressively persuasive statistical evidence that communications technologies like newsgroups or
In the case of this editorial though, I don't think the examples are particularly persuasive.
Why is your score 0?
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
1) CNN definitly shows a North American view of the world. I get CNN Europe and it's still mostly USA, USA, USA.
After September 11 (even months after it) by comparison to European news networks it was extraordinary visible how much CNN concentrated on the "War on Terror" and "Live State Department Press Conferences" and "Brave American Soldiers in Afganistan" while all that time the situation in the West-Bank degraded into extreme violence (one side with Tanks, Attack-Helicopters and Fighter-Bombers the other side with Human-Bombs).
2) In order to even start to really understand a Country and it's People one has to live there. Television, magazines, radio and newspapers will NEVER give you enough of a background and people-feeling to allow you to really understand the issues. Going there on vacations doesn't work either - you will always get the "Special Turist Treatment" and the fact that you dress different, behave different and even worse - don't know the local language - will always guarantee that people (even unconsciously) will act differently towards you.
Of course its'not. It's no magic bullet to cure humanity. When we talk of the world getting more connected, the global village, and whatnot, we are speaking of change over many, many, many years. That's where things are headed. We are not there yet. If it looks like we are, it's illusory.
The Internet does not give most a new viewpoint on foreign culture. Poeple still tend to stick to the news they know. People still worship their local news programs (Americans love CNN. BBC News in teh UK, etc). World views are still largely influenced by school and society.
The only way to truly understand and accept more cultures is to get out of your safe little homeland and go travelling.
During the last century, more people were killed by their own governments than were killed in wars. And while some of those killings were known about and the requisite attention paid, many more were purged in massive numbers while the rest of the world wasn't watching.
Stalin and Mao killed literally millions per year while US college students studied their form of government and wondered whether it wouldn't be more fair than their own. After the end of the USSR, historians went in to try to figure out how many had been purged, and literally couldn't determine whether it was 20 million or 30 million -- that's how closed their society was.
But if a government can't run tanks over students in Tiananmen Square without a camera catching the footage, something's changed.
The situation in the middle east is that some cultures are still very closed. When UBL announces on several video tapes that he WAS in fact responsible and a majority of a culture still doesn't believe that fact, something else is going on there. But this is a short-term situation. The fact that al Jazzera exists and provides even a little competition in the war for people's minds, and the net is widely available, means the culture will slowly drift towards openness. I hope...
This is the same problem with the media; we are always seeing the culture at it's worst or only seeing the worst parts of it's culture. You don't see the bakers, clerks, teachers, nurses, doctors, scientists of a culture you see it's brutal armies and tyrannical leaders, it's terrorists and suicide bombers.
This is the real source of intolerance -- you never see anything from the bulk of foreign cultures that are worth saving.
One aspect of this may be that here in the USA we seldom see the non mainstream view. Most people don't use the net(or their brains) to look at a news story we see on T.V. and hear the OTHER side from the internet. The first thing I do when I see an infalitory news story is go out and look at what the other side has to say. I might not a gree with them, but i want to here their side. Ive been lied to bu the us media, or only told half the story, or only gotten the 3 second sound byte too often to trust them for ANYTHING beyond getting the time, and maybe local weather.
The other problem that may be related is a lack of language skills. I only speak english, so reading or searching for information in another language is useless to me. Yeah, theres the fish, but thats no help untill after ive found the article i need to read.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
To start off, 'the globalization of the media' means that we all watch CNN, not that we have access to different and diverse points of view as it would be desirable.
Then, we give too much credibility to the media. Think about how mainstream media covers, often, news about a technology you know well and you know the stupidities that they say, don't you feel upset and think they completely misunderstand? Why should it be different with other kind of news?
We should be able to have access to other points of view (language is a barrier here) and try to look at them with an open mind, this would be more information about one another, not what we have now.
Here in Australia, we in High School (senior year) had a term topic called "Representations of Truth" which basically drilled into us a distrust of everything the media says. Apparently, courses like this come up about every ten years or so but, usually, they're gone in a year or two. Someone doesn't like it.
IMHO, the article's right. The big problem is the one-sidedness of the media. The Egyptian youth only see pictures glorifying suicide bombers, while we only see pictures of barbarians who dared to attack the West, the torchbearer of everything that is good and just in the world </sarcasm>.
The people who said global media would bring peace weren't wrong. We just *don't have* a global media. We have two separate propaganda machines, one on the Islamic side (or wherever) and one on our side. We need full, unbiased reporting, not the fear and hate mongering that has filled our screens since September 11. The media shapes public opinion. Most people will believe what they're told to believe.
But then again, I'm just a kid. What would I know?
Deep linking. They don't want other sites to link to all their good stories without requiring the users who come in that way some pain. They also want some shot at marketing to people who register there. What the NYT really wants is for you to read the NYT online, not sites that cherry pick the best of different media and present themselves as New Media.
...I hate everyone equally.
Trolling is a art,
There is no great mystery here.
Television long ago learned that the highest ratings come from controversy; people watch fights - not shows where people get along.
As a result TV stirs up controversy whenever it can to increase ratings. This is the real reason that the so called 'fairness doctrine' where both sides of any dispute are required to be presented continues; people watch conflict.
Given that TV principally shows conflict - it creates the impression in the viewers that conflict is all that exists; how could it do anything but make relations between people in the world worse?
...where aliens disguised as bikers plot to exterminate humans after seeng all the horrible stuff going on there in their media and concluding that they'd be saving the universe from such evil. When one falls in love with a human girl, he soon realizes that for some unfathomable reason all the good things about humanity just aren't considered newsworthy.
Technology sure evolved, but did you ever ask yourself if humanity has evolved?
"Familiarity breeds contempt?"
Not a new idea...
-Russ
Me
Fact is that people don't like things that are different. That's why as people get older, younger people's music always sucks. The thought processes is, "if I liked X, I'd do/have/be X".
Republicans don't like Democrats, Anglophones don't like Francophones, Catholics don't like Athiests, thin people don't like fat people, vegetarians don't like omnivores, IT staff don't like lusers, and so on.
Most people have a partially tolerant view, that "as long as I don't have to hear/see/agree/participate, I guess it's okay", but that's the extent of it. As for say, racism, the rule still applies, despite all the political correctness we've tried to nurture. (Sure, things are better, but it'll never be perfect.)
Case in point: take a traditional urban black male and put him in a traditional white environment. Who's uncomfortable? Both sides. Tiger Woods aside, since he dresses, talks, and acts without any of the stereotypical "black" affectations. He doesn't "axe" people questions, and he doesn't rap through interviews. I'm deliberately exagerating the point here. While we've damped racism down enough that visible minorities CAN get ahead, they have to act like the majority to do so.
We don't LIKE different. The Internet exposes us to different. Therefore the Internet exposes us to things we don't like. Screw tolerance, I'd just be happy if all those AOL'ers out there would die, die, die.
"Oh no... he found the
The Americans had been going after Osama for years. Clinton was trying to get him relatively early in his term. That Osama was involved in terrorist acts against the US, and that his mob were the most formidable anti-US terrorist organisation, is hardly a point of contention. If you don't believe the evidence, what are the alternative possibilities ?
Exposure to others can aggravate existing prejudices. Also, though, exposure can prevent prejudices from forming.
One think worth noting, however, is the role of censorship and bias. If all anyone sees of the U.S. is what a government hostile to the U.S. wishes them to see, then the "global village" is really just a propaganda machine. Information can always be distorted to simultaneously suit opposite views -- watch any political debate and you can see that in action. And in reality, there is bias in all media (the U.S. is no exception). The stronger the bias, the greater the chances that it can be used to generate hostility.
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
I don't see how anyone can claim that the world is more violent/less tolerant than it used to be. These days if 10 people die its news. 50 years ago 10,000 could die without making headlines. Millions died in the world wars. What we see today is NOTHING by comparison.
There is evidence to suggest that military vehicles did run over students.
3 ,2 06054,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Tiananmen/Story/0,276
That is the thinking that prevents the world from going forward.
Yes, many of the current aggressors as defined by some of the world happen to be muslim at this point in time.
At one time, they were German. Or Russian. Does that mean Russian Orthodox churches were equally responsible?
Religion is a tool. Islam happens to be abused in some areas.
... that most of it is likely to be biased, half-truths, reinforcement of stereotypes, or some times plain wrong. I believe that one needs to choose the sources of information appopriately. Likewise communicating with people too
:)
Same with any real world interaction -- e.g., if you have good friends and read "good stuff", chances are you'd turn out to be good.
Is it just me or anyone notice people going into a rage everytime they see the news or read newspapers? The same old eternal problems seem to occupy front pages every day (tanks rolling in/people bombing, people killed in communal violence, to drill or not to drill in Alaska, Microsoft says OSS is evil
Here is my attempt to "categorize" experience on the net:
News: Plusses -- Essential ; minuses -- Enraging/helplessness
Discussions: Plusses -- Sense of community, wide range of views, healthy debates, find out past discussions ; minuses -- too much content
Information: Plusses -- vital for learning, enriching, easy to get ; minuses -- might end up at the same pr0n site/games site after a few hops
Misc: Plusses -- Health tips, inspiring readings, past literature, depressing reading!
An Arab intellectual named Abdel Monem Said recently surveyed the massive anti-Israel and anti-American protests by Egyptian students and said: ''They are galvanized by the images that they see on television. They want to be like the rock-throwers.'' By now everyone knows that satellite TV has helped deepen divisions in the Middle East. But it's worth remembering that it wasn't supposed to be this way.
The globalization of the media was supposed to knit the world together. The more information we receive about one another, the thinking went, the more international understanding will prevail. An injustice in Thailand will be instantly known and ultimately remedied by people in London or San Francisco. The father of worldwide television, Ted Turner, once said, ''My main concern is to be a benefit to the world, to build up a global communications system that helps humanity come together.'' These days we are living with the results -- a young man in Somalia watches the attack on the south tower live, while Americans can hear more, and sooner, about Kandahar or Ramallah than the county next to theirs.
But this technological togetherness has not created the human bonds that were promised. In some ways, global satellite TV and Internet access have actually made the world a less understanding, less tolerant place. What the media provide is superficial familiarity -- images without context, indignation without remedy. The problem isn't just the content of the media, but the fact that while images become international, people's lives remain parochial -- in the Arab world and everywhere else, including here.
''I think what's best about my country is not exportable,'' says Frank Holliwell, the American anthropologist in ''A Flag for Sunrise,'' Robert Stone's 1981 novel about Central America. The line kept playing in my mind recently as I traveled through Africa and watched, on television screens from Butare, Rwanda, to Burao, Somalia, CNN's coverage of the war on terrorism, which was shown like a mini-series, complete with the ominous score. Three months after the World Trade Center attacks, I found myself sitting in a hotel lobby by Lake Victoria watching Larry King preside over a special commemoration with a montage of grief-stricken American faces and flags while Melissa Etheridge sang ''Heal Me.'' Back home, I would have had the requisite tears in my eyes. But I was in Africa, and I wanted us to stop talking about ourselves in front of strangers. Worse, the Ugandans watching with me seemed to expect to hear nothing else. Like a dinner guest who realizes he has been the subject of all the talk, I wanted to turn to one of them: ''But enough about me -- anything momentous happening to you?'' In CNN's global village, everyone has to overhear one family's conversation.
What America exports to poor countries through the ubiquitous media -- pictures of glittering abundance and national self-absorption -- enrages those whom it doesn't depress. In Sierra Leone, a teenage rebel in a disarmament camp tried to explain to me why he had joined one of the modern world's most brutal insurgencies: ''I see on television you have motorbikes, cars. I see some of your children on TV this high'' -- he held his hand up to his waist -- they have bikes for themselves, but we in Sierra Leone have nothing.'' Unable to possess what he saw in images beamed from halfway around the world, the teenager picked up an automatic rifle and turned his anger on his countrymen. On generator-powered VCR's in rebel jungle camps, the fantasies of such boy fighters were stoked with Rambo movies. To most of the world, America looks like a cross between a heavily armed action hero and a Lexus ad.
Meanwhile, in this country the aperture for news from elsewhere has widened considerably since Sept. 11. And how does the world look to Americans? Like a nonstop series of human outrages. Just as what's best about America can't be exported, our imports in the global-image trade hardly represent the best from other countries either. Of course, the world is a nonstop series of human outrages, and you can argue that it's a good thing for Americans, with all our power, to know. But what interests me is the psychological effect of knowing. One day, you read that 600 Nigerians have been killed in a munitions explosion at an army barracks. The next day, you read that the number has risen to a thousand. The next day, you read nothing. The story has disappeared -- except something remains, a thousand dead Nigerians are lodged in some dim region of the mind, where they exact a toll. You've been exposed to one corner of human misery, but you've done nothing about it. Nor will you. You feel -- perhaps without being conscious of it -- an impotent guilt, and your helplessness makes you irritated and resentful, almost as if it's the fault of those thousand Nigerians for becoming your burden. We carry around the mental residue of millions of suffering human beings for whom we've done nothing.
It is possible, of course, for media attention to galvanize action. Because of a newspaper photo, ordinary citizens send checks or pick up rocks. On the whole, knowing is better than not knowing; in any case, there's no going back. But at this halfway point between mutual ignorance and true understanding, the ''global village'' actually resembles a real one -- in my experience, not the utopian community promised by the boosters of globalization but a parochial place of manifold suspicions, rumors, resentments and half-truths. If the world seems to be growing more, rather than less, nasty these days, it might have something to do with the images all of us now carry around in our heads.
George Packer is the author of ''The Village of Waiting'' and, most recently, ''Blood of the Liberals.''
Regardless of the technological mumbo-jumbo, one thing remains clear to me: all humans are essentially similar.
Humans are generally narrow-minded, self-centered, jealous assholes. I'm not happy about that fact, but there it is. There's little joy in finding out more about people far away, only to learn that they're just like people that irritate me close to home.
And, I expect, they feel exactly the same about me.
I think tolerance is a constant. I think the thing that changes is awareness. As we become more aware of other cultures we also become aware of the flaws in those cultures. Through seeing the flaws in other cultures one hopes that we see the same flaws within our own. Often that awareness causes loathing of the negative behavior and through transference we cast off our anger toward the other culture instead of rectifying the flaw in our own.
People do this all the time. Strong headed people dislike other strong headed people, models dislike other models, fat people dislike other fat people, selfish people see other selfish people as "MORE" selfish. It's a coping mechanism to avoid addressing the problems with oneself.
As we become more aware of what we are doing the "appearance of intolerance" will decrease.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Tolerance is _not_ based on aggreement. Thinking that it is spawned many of the problems mentioned here. Tolerance is definitely not defined by selective application of censorship. Tolerance is also not based upon the notion that it can itself be selectively applied. If someone gets on the air or net and says they disagree with a particular lifestyle, a particular policy or a particular action then it is entirely possible that if those opinions are not in sync with the elitists that set our 'open minded policy', that person will most likely get beaten, slandered, cursed, looted and at the very least censored. When this happens it creates a further divide. People who did not have much of an opinion previously are now galvanized, with the majority of those on the side of the victimized person. This process repeats itself at varying levels throughout the country and world at large, thus acting as a force that backs many into a corner. If you ever want to be surpised, back a 'harmless' little animal into a corner and watch how it will rip you a new one.
On a related note is the distribution of resources. I love charities. I think that they give hope and more physical resources to those that need it the most. I also know that they are addictive and contagious, which adds to their merit. However they are the results of all good things in the world... ACTION. However, many feel like everything in life, including choices, opinions and thought, is taken care of for them. The become sheep who give credence to the saying that 'there is life then there is living.'
If you choose to give to charities, you are doing a great service. If you choose to give of yourself (work instead of just passing cash) you are even better, and will get a much better reward. (That proud feeling that you made a positive difference, instead of just the fire and forget aspect that apathetically hopes something good will come of your dollar). However the line is drawn when you in _ANY_ way try to force others to give to your cause. Yes, folks that means taxes... which means any governmental funding. And here is a hint... remember that topic about a cornered animal? That happens here. You will drive away those that would normally give of their resources and themselves.
Congratulations liberal, you are your own worst enemy, and especially are the worst enemy of the causes and people you _claim_ to champion.
Give ignorant people better communication, and they spread ignorance.
Hate is a disease of ignorance.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Thank you. I'll try to remember those lessons. There may be more need for limericks.
Most people are just too ignorant to think for themselves, they have to be told how to think and what to believe in.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
OK, that was offtopic, but why not fix the original one while you're at it?
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Let's see... IIRC Ottowa is the capital of Canada.
Very nice city. I was there in 94 around July 4 and was one of the first group of people who got to visit the parliament building (it was opened to the public for the first time then). Beautiful building, I drooled over the bookcases. That queen's chair thing has got to go though.
But what does that prove? Half the US population don't know the capital of their own state, nor their senators, not the answer to 2+2 !
More than half the population of the US can't enumerate the guarnatees provided by the Bill of Rights and can't distinguish between "right" and "privilege".
Most of the kids in school today lack courtesy and respect for anything but themselves, a result of their baby-boomer parents and a "self-esteem" focused curriculum in the public schools.
When kids can't read for shit or do simple math I find those that want these children to know more about world cultures to be ridiculous. Because the damn hippies will go for this and ignore the fact that education in the US is already a joke and they won't focus on the basics.
It doesn't do a kid any damn good to know the capital of Canada if s/he has no freaking idea how to figure out how much tax they need to pay on their purchase or they can't read a newspaper.
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
For several decades we have tried being more tolerant of other cultures. As t.v. brings other nations into our homes, we see the results of our tolerance. We see the murder of innocent civilians by religious fantatics in the name of their god. We see women flogged by the police because they were raped. We see teachers sentenced to death for discussing historical facts in the classroom.
We aren't less tolerant. We our outraged by barbarism.
-- Will program for bandwidth
This article is way off. Beware of any editorialist's thesis when it begins, "In somy ways..."
Globalized instant communication is a wonderful thing. It does not make us like one another less. The truth is, we barely know one another.
I remember talking to a Chinese person and her saying, "You Americans really think we're so utterly suppressed over here. I love China." And I remember talking to a person from the Middle East (maybe Turkey?). He said, "I really thought you would be a lot more arrogant, but you aren't at all."
After that, we struck up a conversation about stereotypes we have of one another's countries (of course he had a lot more of America than I did of Turkey). So I'm not a rich, imposing, arrogant Cowboy after all! Good to know.
On the other hand, I once talked to a Palestinian who was so angry I could barely have a conversation with him. He wanted me dead, seriously. And I got angry too.. REAL angry. Of course, I believe this to be a special incident due to our nation's rather unbalanced policy over there.. (in my opinion, don't flame me..) so I don't fault him for it.
You can't stop globalization, and it simply shouldn't be stopped. I think we need to talk more, rather than less.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
- Douglas Adams, THGTTH
Considering that nearly all of the evidence was processed through the government, which is also the accusing party...
Nearly anything is possible. Can you prove that all of the evidence that we have seen (such as it was) wasn't faked? Can you prove that the government didn't do it itself?
I can't.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I remember hearing on NPR last year that the rise of the internet and the ease with which researchers and scientists can now share their data and results had led to less diversity in scientific ideas.
It used to be that people all over would do the same thing in their own way, oblivious to how others were doing it.
Now, with the internet, people discovered one promising way of doing something and then everyone does it that way instead of continuing to pursue multiple paths.
A definite double-edged sword in this case, since it can lead to the avoidance of wasted time and resources on lousy research, but it can also stifle creativity.
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
... in my opinion, why we all seem to be so intolerant of each other online, is that we are now able for the first time ever to speak with lots of people from other cultures whom we've never ever been in contact with before in the history of earth. There are A LOT of preconceived notions we all have about one another and the only solution is to have us all continue to speak and write with each other. We are in the initial stages of communication and we have a lot of fears and uneasiness to get past. Until that is done, all our intolerances will continue to thrive. The internet hasn't made us *more* intolerant. It's just allowed our intolerances to come to light in global grandness. Our intolerances are not hidden anymore. But at least now that they are out in the sunshine, we will more easily be able to fight them and create a more understanding and enlightened world.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
There is a large arugment amoung sociologists about what the exact outcome of globalization will be. To simplify, those who look at the process from a modernist perspective believe that globalization will create one monoculture because it leads to efficiency. Those with a more postmodern approach say that globalization will actually work to make new kinds of cultures and increase cultural diversity. In fact, the "geek" culture can be seen as a new kind of culture that has appeared as a resulut of technologies such as the Internet.
If you really want to get the skinny on globalization, you should go find some good academic sociology journals that address the issue. NYT certainly can't go into any depth on such a complex subject.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
There is a problem when you send signals accross cultural borders, no matter how "neutral" those signals look: the interpretation of the said signals are always culture-dependent. So, unless you favour a unified global culture (and this is not only unattainable in any forseeable time-frame, but probably also undesired), an American-centric global media (and that is what we mostly have) will cause all sorts of problems.
Let me pick some of your own examples to try to explain it.
Child abuse is hot topic everywhere. But then one must define a child. An 8 years old is probably a child everywhere, but eleven year old girls are eligible for marriage in many parts of the world. Is this good? I don't think so, but that is the way things are in those regions.
Dictatorships are usually violent and always inefficient in the mediun/long run. But the definiton of what is a dictatorship is much, much harder to achieve. Just last week the US government was pretty busy first denying then spinning all they could, their clear involvement in a coup the took down for 48 hours the democratically elected president of Venezuela. And during the brief "provisional" government, during which the coup leaders tried to dissolve the Congress and the Supreme Court, the US government and the IMF treated those guys as the de facto Venezuelan government. And the US press, CNN International in Spanish leading them, concurred all the way with the Washington view and with the provisional government view (to the point of hiding up to the last minute the mass protests that defeated the coup and brought back the elected president).
Pollution is another problem very linked to eye of the beholder. After Bush's pullout from the Kyoto Treaty, we in the rest of the world find it very amusing when CNN talks about pollution problems elsewhere. Sounds pretty like "Do what I say, not what I do". Naturally, the same goes for a lot of things.
So, there is a fundamental problem with US dominated news. And when a non-American media organization gains some proeminence, as Saudi Arabian Al-Jazeera network did during the months after September 11th, the reaction showed that Americans are not better than anyone when it comes to dealing with alternate points of view.
What the media provide is superficial familiarity -- images without context, indignation without remedy. The problem isn't just the content of the media, but the fact that while images become international, people's lives remain parochial
The author is (I think) talking about passive media here: sattelite broadcasts and CNN.com. The real value of an interconnected globe will only be realized when individuals worldwide are engaged in creating the media discourse, not merely consuming it.
As has already been noted the current "golbal media" is more like a series of biased propaganda machines with a global scope than anything else. I can read kavkaz.org and get a different viewpoint from CNN.com, but I don't know where I can log into a chat room and actually talk with a real person "over there".
It goes all the way back to the cluetrain: until the people are interconnecting and building the discourse with their own hearts and minds and stories, we will never create a social fabric that can resist being torn by demogaguery, be it from facistic leaders or bias news outlets.
Hopefully this interconnection is already happening, but it's going to take time. We (America/The West) are fairly settled into our consumer culture mode. Unless we really decide to take it upon ourselves to become citizens of our own nation and the world, we're not even going to be able to approach the utopian ideal of a global community.
Howard Dean for president
Repeating propoganda from Newsmax isn't going to make it true. You're dead wrong here. Allow me to interrupt with some facts:
... TV stirs up controversy whenever it can to increase ratings. This is the real reason that the so called 'fairness doctrine' where both sides of any dispute are required to be presented continues; people watch conflict.
Unfortunately for your argument, the "fairness doctrine" (a former FCC regulation) was deleted as a government requirement quite a few years ago. This was in response to complaints from the networks that minor parties were demanding equal time as a result of every news item showing a major party politician, and covering them was not practical and distracted from coverage of the "important" news.
Immediately after the fairness doctrine was removed the electronic media began a massive and unified move to the far left - in news, entertainment, and even children's cartoons.
The change was so universal, extreme, and consistent that now even a moment of air time covering a centerist or moderately conservative view brings complaints that the network has gone to the far right. Actual right-wing viewpoints just don't make it to the air on television, nor do libertairan views, nor anything from most non left-wing-urban-US cultures.
The only exceptions are the exposure of Moderate Conservative (as opposed to right-wing) viewpoionts in talk radio and as PART of the coverage on cable television's Fox News. (The latter has led to some coverage of Conservative views on other cable news channels.)
Now if the media were after REAL conflict they'd be busy covering all sides of the issues, to maximize it. Instead the mainstream media still cover coastal urban and inner-city issues and viewpoints exclusively, with others merely characatured when they appear at all.
The exception of the Moderate Conservative coverage in talk radio and cable news appears to have occurred solely as an economic fallout from the US's culture war: With the Progressive side covered and the Pluralist not, about half the potential audience was not served at all by the mainstream media. Conservative talk radio tapped into this potential source of advertising revenue, as did Fox News when it provided SOME coverage of their cultures' issues and news items.
But you're still on target with the observation that "people watch conflict". It's just that dramatized artificial conflict is much more eye-grabbing than the real thing. So the media plays to their target audiences' biases with stereotypes and fictions, rather than risking offending them or making them more diverse and harder to predict by exposing them to accurate coverage and portrayals of other viewpoints and cultures.
Meanwhile the officials who make the laws and policies are largely isolated from the actual people, but exposed to the media's news coverage. So the media can obtain considerable political power by feeding them false information about the opinions and likely voting behavior of the country's population. Thus they have a strong incentive to avoid any (non-belittling) mention of any political or social viewpoints other than their own and to run rigged public opinion polls whose results can be misrepresented.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"But if a government can't run tanks over students in Tiananmen Square without a camera catching the footage, something's changed."
Has it? Last week some rich Venezuelan company owners, backed by some sectors of the Armed Forces AND by the US government, took down the democratically elected president and put in his place the president of the Venezuelan Federation of Industries.
In 48 hours the so-called "provisional" government was taken down by massive popular protest in Venezula's capital, Caracas. The Venuzuelan private networks AND CNN (both Spanish CNN and International CNN) never broadcasted the protests that brought the legitimate government back while they were happening. And not for the lack of cameras, the rich-people staged protests that some days before led to the coup were lavishly covered.
So, what good is the camera if the networks will not let it turn to the real facts when the real facts disagree with the "correct" point of view?
I don't think that I could like any of you any less.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
"Americans don't know what they don't know"
i know you were trying to make an important point and i got it, BUT....
the more generalized form of the application would be...
"Nobody Knows What They Don't Know"
so the belief in Western intellectual tradition is that in evaluating information given to us be complete strangers, we would use our analytical and reasoning skills to separate the likely from the probable from the improbable from the "Are you smoking rock?" You neatly point out that the average public elementary education in America blows chunks, BUT, you still talking ONLY about our Western set of preconceptions and perceptions
many other traditions do not embrace Western rationalism as anything more (and frequently less) than just another modality of thought
The mystic/spiritual tradtions such as Zen, Shinto and other Buddhist variants, as well as Sufism, and YES, ISLAM...do not necessarily perceive and analyze the world the way we do in the West
This goes well beyond the superfical disconnection of "suicide bomber" versus "homocide bomber", those are both viewing the act through the Western pardigm of "terrorism" and "national liberation struggles"
from the earliest and most malignant days of Western Colonialism, most citizens of the West have always assumed that our idealized model of democratic, pluralistic and cosumer/technologically saturated nations as being the current "Best Practices" for ALL the peoples of the world
yet, in the lengthy and well-documented history of the Middle East and Asia, NOT ONE democracy has spontaneously arisen the way they did in Europe and North America
Not to be percieved as biased, the same holds true of Latin America....
The few extent democracies that arose (say Monrovia and Israel) were exports from other countries and cultures and many of the extent democracies in the world are struggling.
Face it, there are approximately 300 nations in this world, and depending on how generous you are with your defintions, there are only between 2 and 3 dozen democracies...
yet virtually ALL of these nations have their own national/local media, whether print, radio or TV...
you can be sure that most of the countries in the world have highly controlled and contrived media and that they will publish or broadcast those items that serve the purposes and goals of the ruling hierarchy....
the American and European media sure do, why would we expect the media in a "42nd world" country to do any better...
Welcome to Babel...
it will be getting worse before it gets better....
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
Hell, we've been in an undeclared war against Iraq ever since Desert Storm, at least if you count the embargo, air patrols, explicit support for anti-Saddam movements, winking at Turkish violations of Iraqi sovereignty, the Iraqi plot to assassinate Bush the Elder when he visited Kuwait, the Iraqi bounties on American pilots...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
"what if all the hubbaloo about connecting people via the Internet makes us less likely to like each other?"
Hmm. I used to spend waaaay too much free time on IRC. I visited austnet a lot and made quite a few friends. I've even been to Australia and met quite a few of the people I useta talk to.
That comment in the heading of this article kind of surprised me. I found the internet to be a better way to find out more about people. I was able to ask people questions on IRC that I just couldn't ask in real life. Persoanlly I think that lead to better understanding and to stronger friendships.
But you know, I think the NYT was talking about the media. The media has a way of rubbing people the wrong way. When I was in Australia, it was during Clinton's impeachment. Oh my... I could not get away from that, even in Austrlia! I could certainly imagine nobody thinking very highly of us when our president's in the news for being human, but there's missiles being fired in the middle east. That did get a little coverage, but not a whole lot.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think people will know each other better when talking 1 on 1, but you get the media involved, and I think their twisted values will taint everybody's opinions.
"Derp de derp."
Because of its enormous disparities in wealth, and because of the phantasy world portrayed in the media, the US is a particularly bad example to the world.
Living in the West, we have two choices: either we keep our wealth secret, or we work more strongly towards equality, opportunity, and wealth in all the nations of the world. But if we flaunt our wealth and don't share it, the consequences are predictable.
In my opinion, the worst thing about television news is that it is so instant and that a lot of it is American-based. I am constantly telling my non-Western (i.e. Saudi, Iraqi, etc.) friends to not trust television news. It is very important to supplement what you see on television with other outlets (major newspapers, disinterested sources, etc.). It is also very important to train yourself to recognize logical fallacies and the like. Classes on critical thinking are pretty helpful.
Joseph Kalange, Boise, ID, USA
When did he say that? I've seen a couple tapes, but nothing where he says he did it. Perhaps people read in what they want to.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If 2 people, cultures, etc are leaning towards friendly relations, more contact and communication will likely reinforce that tendency.
If they are leaning towards unfriendly relations, then that tendency will likely be reinforced.
It depends on the situation, whether communication and contact have a good effect or not. It appears that it tends to push people away from neutrality and reinforces any current leanings.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Afterall Canada's just another US state.
Really Canadians are just a slower, less pushy, better mannered sub-species of Americans. Even though the occasional Quebecois throwback pops up (for novelty value these throwbacks arn't culled)
The content of the story was unavailable. Whats more, the editors of slashdot all know that it is unavailable. It's not temporarily unavailable, like some are when they get slashdotted, I could bookmark this, and try to read it 3 months from now, and would have the same problem.
I would really like to know why they rerquire registration, but like anyone with any intelligence whatsoever, I realize that asking NYT is pointless. If they even deigned to answer something, which is a big if, it wouldn't be honest in any significant way.
I do post here. 99% of the time about the content of the story. Its obvious though, that being moderated offtopic has absolutely zero correlation with posting offtopic. Heck, if anything, this was the one exception out of many offtopic moderation.
Asking or stating an opinion about the content, is the same thing as "about the content". Not that anyone like you could understand something that falls so far outside the scope of your tunnel vision.
Perhaps we need "getoverit" training.
True enough. Given the over-emphasis of the American Revolution, I can't tell you how many times I've heard idiots remind Brits "We kicked your ass!". I mean, it's all well and good, but failure to understand that the "revolutionaries" were only about, maybe, a third of the population leads to these huge myths.
The most amazing thing about the creation of the U.S. is not its Declaration of Independence, but its Constitution.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Both from geek friendly sources:
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.