People Who Know How the News Is Made Resist Conspiratorial Thinking (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Conspiracy theories, like the world being flat or the Moon landings faked, have proven notoriously difficult to stomp out. Add a partisan twist to the issue, and the challenge becomes even harder. Even near the end of his second term, barely a quarter of Republicans were willing to state that President Obama was born in the U.S. If we're seeking to have an informed electorate, then this poses a bit of a problem. But a recent study suggests a very simple solution helps limit the appeal of conspiracy theories: news media literacy. This isn't knowledge of the news, per se, but knowledge of the companies and processes that help create the news. While the study doesn't identify how the two are connected, its authors suggest that an understanding of the media landscape helps foster a healthy skepticism.

[...] "Despite popular conceptions," the authors point out, "[conspiratorial thinking] is not the sole province of the proverbial nut-job." When mixed in with the sort of motivated reasoning that ideology can, well, motivate, crazed ideas can become relatively mainstream. Witness the number of polls that indicated the majority of Republicans thought Obama wasn't born in the U.S., even after he shared his birth certificate. While something that induces a healthy skepticism of information sources might be expected to help with this, it's certainly not guaranteed, as motivated reasoning has been shown to be capable of overriding education and knowledge on relevant topics.

[...] As a whole, the expected connection held up: "for both conservatives and liberals, more knowledge of the news media system related to decreased endorsement of liberal conspiracies." And, conversely, the people who did agree with conspiracy theories tended to know very little about how the news media operated.

Comments

News at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

News people write news story saying news people are smart and not suckers

also they connect to DPRK WiFi without any worries and just shrug when they canâ(TM)t grt on instagram

Re:News at 11

[giggleloop]

So you'll be representing the idiot population this evening I assume?

How News is "Made"

[CanHasDIY]

People who understand that mass media is nothing more than a branch of some corporations PR department, tend to not believe the unverified B.S.spouted by mass media.

Film at 11.

Re:How News is "Made"

[dgatwood]

It's not quite that simple. It isn't that they are mouthpieces for corporate PR, so much as that they don't always look too carefully at the PR blurbs that corporations send out, nor apply a healthy enough dose of skepticism.

The problem fundamentally is that at the local level, journalism doesn't pay very well, and only a few people are lucky enough to make it to the top tier TV/radio/newspaper outlets where it does pay well. This means most of the best and brightest tend to avoid the whole field unless they are really motivated. You have to assume that most of the people doing the reporting and investigating did not double-major in anything, and have no deep knowledge of any other subject besides communications, lack solid grounding in statistics, and so on, which makes them easier to mislead. And by the time they get old enough to be cynical enough to distrust the corporate PR stuff, they're too expensive to keep on the payroll.

Of course, eventually even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and there are a lot of journalists out there, so in aggregate, mistakes tend to be self-correcting eventually, but it's a very real problem, and IMO is getting worse with each passing year.

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, CanHasDIY! This article needed an example of simplistic, conspiratorial thinking, and your post is great example!

Re:How News is "Made"

[freeze128]

"Next on 'How It's Made'..."

"News!"

Re:How News is "Made"

[RightwingNutjob]

Indeed. Most people have actual jobs for a living, and of those, a fair fraction actually develop some degree of expertise in whatever it is they do. Journalists...politicians...what exactly is it that they do for a living or at the very least go to school for? Running their mouths. It takes about seven years to learn a job. What's a 25 year old pretty face on camera an expert at?

Re:How News is "Made"

[CanHasDIY]

So, being skeptical of mainstream media, because one understands how "news" comes into being, automatically makes a person a conspiracy theorist...

You didn't even read the whole summary, did you?

Re:How News is "Made"

[CanHasDIY]

Of course, eventually even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and there are a lot of journalists out there, so in aggregate, mistakes tend to be self-correcting eventually, but it's a very real problem, and IMO is getting worse with each passing year.

As of last week, CNN was continually bandying about this story, that the Trump administration had handed down a list of "banned terms" to the CDC.

Thing is, there is no such list, and no one ever said any terms were banned... but CNN has yet to announce any sort of retraction for the blatantly and demonstrably false claims they're perpetuating.... and they're far from the sole villian in this regard (looking at you, MSNBC and Fox).

Ergo, I don't expect much if any self-correction in the near future, any more than I expect banks to self-regulate without destroying the economy.

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's all corporate PR departments" isn't rational skepticism. It's simplistic and overly broad. As are your scare quotes around news.

Accepting everything is stupid. Dismissing everything is just as stupid.

Re:How News is "Made"

[CanHasDIY]

... and making smart ass comments that in no way contribute to the conversation... how would you characterize that behavior?

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the slashdot comments and moderation on those stories. Dozens of upmodded post bashing Trump. The handful of posts calling out as an obvious fraud piece with not backing were downmodded to -1 and called Russian trolls by the usual heavy commentators here.

Nobody is going to change their mind after the initial story justifies their political bias. At best they will tentatively agree, then conveniently forget in a month or two and return to the original position. AmiMoJo used to do it every fucking week when we had "sexism fridays". Now he ignores all contrary evidence and refuses to communicate with "the trolls".

It's disgusting how few people use reason and are critical of those that do.

At this point the news really isn't worth reading. There is no benefit to being informed when the information is lies and there is no benefit from putting forth the enormous effort to discern the truth when the majority of people impacting your life believe the lies anyway.

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

pot/kettle/black

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

People who understand that mass media is nothing more than a branch of some corporations PR department, tend to not believe the unverified B.S.spouted by mass media.

Film at 11.

Exactly! It's one big conspiracy!

As a matter of fact, I think I saw an article about this somewhere, where they were trying to convince us we just don't know how the news is made. Or something along those lines. I obviously didn't read it, because everybody knows it's just dictated by corporations and PR departments.

And the lizard people.

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

People who understand that mass media is nothing more than a branch of some corporations PR department, tend to not believe the unverified B.S.spouted by mass media.

Film at 11.

The news is fake but the lies are real.

Re:How News is "Made"

[tbannist]

Oh, he's definitely contributing. Sure, he's contributing at your expense by taking your foolishness down a notch. You might not like it, but other people are enjoying it.

Re:How News is "Made"

[AmiMoJo]

Here's the actual story, so we are on the same page:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12...

Can you state specifically which sentences are inaccurate? It seems to be correct, there is a list and it did come from Trump's administration. It was later clarified by the CDC that the ban is only on the budget reports for Congress. CNN reported that too.

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is, there is no such list

Because you say so? "Thing is", if you want to correct a news report you need to cite your sources or nobody will believe you.

and no one ever said any terms were banned

According to the Washington Post, Alison Kelly did. That she did has not been denied by anybody. I checked snopes and all I found was a very generic official denial that leaves a lot of wiggle room. The CDC director even confirmed that the staff meeting took place and that "confusion arose" from it. This sounds more like a confirmation of the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune reports.

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you state specifically which sentences are inaccurate?

The phrase "ban" is inaccurate, yet was repeated by WaPo, CNN, NYT, and probably others since they tend to lift any story and repeat it without verification.

"A report in the NYT suggests the budget discussion, from which the WaPo report came, suggesting side-stepping certain words in order to secure budget funding from Congressional Republicans. Neither report cites their source for the supposed word blacklist."

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a little more than that, but believing that the NYT, Washington Post, CNN, Washington Times, and Fox are unbiased sources of news is unforgivably naive.

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

> ... Even near the end of his second term, barely a quarter of Republicans were willing to state that President Obama was born in the U.S ...

Hussein Obama was born in the U.S. is the conspiracy

Re:How News is "Made"

[Jane Q. Public]

No, your own story is inaccurate.

What the CDC director actually said was "There are NO banned words at CDC." emphasis mine

That statement was reported by sources across the media spectrum, from Left to Right. So why did you get it wrong?

Re:How News is "Made"

[umghhh]

Statistics and reasoning and ability to make arguments w/o at least denigrating the opponent are skills not available to majority of humankind. This is a major fail and something we will never alleviate, not in all humans. So there is a problem in the whole population. You can see it everywhere else - in SW development or engineering (which sadly SW development has hardly ever become). What I observe is that even publications that used to (try to) stay objective like the Economist are suffering from major 'left' tilt.The public is agitated and this shows here too.

Re:How News is "Made"

[AmiMoJo]

Follow the link to CNN and read the story. It includes that quote and others.

Both statements are true, it just took some time for the full facts to come out.

So why did you get it wrong? Didn't read the article before condemning it?

Re:How News is "Made"

[RedK]

Follow the link to CNN and read the story. It includes that quote and others.

Both statements are true, it just took some time for the full facts to come out.

So why did you get it wrong? Didn't read the article before condemning it?

The story is plain wrong. There are no banned words, not even in budget submissions. You can literally use the words and no one will bat an eyelash. Nor did the White House ever say "These words are banned".

CNN and other leftist media are exagerating a story where some manager at CDC said : "If we want our funding approved for projets, make sure these projects are not about topics the administration doesn't feel the CDC should get involved with, because they are running the governement on lean right now".

It's much more nuanced than the coverage. What the heck does the CDC have to do with Diversity to begin with ? Yes, that would be a red alarm to the current administration that a proposal with the word "Diversity" is overspending and thus it wouldn't get approved. And thus the suggestion to people to not use that word. It's not banned. Think of it like someone telling the DOD to not use the words "Nation Building" in a budget report. It's not that it's banned, it's that the President made it clear in many speeches that the overall direction of the DOD is not to nation build.

Re:How News is "Made"

[david_thornley]

What I observe is that even publications that used to (try to) stay objective like the Economist are suffering from major 'left' tilt.

"Objective" is highly subjective. Have you done anything to check if your viewpoint has gone rightwards while the Economist stayed in place?

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternative word choices reportedly were presented in some cases. For instance, in lieu of "evidence-based" or "science-based," an analyst might say, "CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes," the source said.

It's much more nuanced than the coverage. What the heck does the CDC have to do with "evidence-based or "science-based" to begin with? Yes, that would be a red alarm to the current administration that a proposal with the words "evidence-based or "science-based" is overspending and thus it wouldn't get approved. And thus the suggestion to people to not use that word. It's not banned. Think of it like someone telling the DOD to not use the words "evidence-based or "science-based" in a budget report. It's not that it's banned, it's that the President made it clear in many speeches that the overall direction of the DOD is not to use anything that's "evidence-based or "science-based".

Re:How News is "Made"

[Billly Gates]

Of course, eventually even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and there are a lot of journalists out there, so in aggregate, mistakes tend to be self-correcting eventually, but it's a very real problem, and IMO is getting worse with each passing year.

As of last week, CNN was continually bandying about this story, that the Trump administration had handed down a list of "banned terms" to the CDC.

Thing is, there is no such list, and no one ever said any terms were banned... but CNN has yet to announce any sort of retraction for the blatantly and demonstrably false claims they're perpetuating.... and they're far from the sole villian in this regard (looking at you, MSNBC and Fox).

Ergo, I don't expect much if any self-correction in the near future, any more than I expect banks to self-regulate without destroying the economy.

Yes 100% true and accurate ... In terms of language accepted on the CDC budget.

The story that it was censorship and made up was to discredit CNN to try to falsely prove it's liberal and paid for by Democrats by Fox.

Sneaky and sleazy made to appeal to those who barely pay attention

Re:How News is "Made"

[AmiMoJo]

The CDC decided not to use certain words in their funding report, because those words might trigger members of the government. Instead they used euphemisms. The words included things like "transgender".

These facts are not in dispute. You are trying to dispute the use of the word "ban", arguing that it is instead self censorship due to the potential triggering which is somehow functionally different and/or not as bad.

Re:How News is "Made"

[Anonymous Coward]

So now it's "self censorship" whereas a few posts back you were asserting that yes there was a banned list and it came from the Trump administration? How much do you get paid to post this shit, anyway?

Yeah. Trust the media!

[aliquis]

In North Korea, China, Russia, Turkey, Syria, Sweden, Iran, Germany what could go wrong?!

Even more so with socialism, globalism, immigration you didn't wanted and very large private media companies.

Citizens are wrong. Media is correct. Believe it!

Re:Yeah. Trust the media!

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you been smoking them chem trails again?

Re:Yeah. Trust the media!

[serviscope_minor]

In North Korea, China, Russia, Turkey, Syria, Sweden, Iran, Germany what could go wrong?!

Sweden and Germany rank substantially better at press freedoms than the US:

https://rsf.org/en/ranking_tab...

It's facile to put them in the same grouping as North Korea and so on.

Re:Yeah. Trust the media!

[Anonymous Coward]

"hey look mum. someone made a website and put a ranking in it."

wake up and smell the cofveve,

Re:Yeah. Trust the media!

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't understand the list. The list is made up of countries the US has issues with. You could have the freest press in the world, but if you aren't kissing up to Uncle Sam you are not free.

As bad as it sounds it is even worse now that every country has to live up to the White nationalist KKK standard that Trump pushes. But those are the breaks kid.

Re:Yeah. Trust the media!

[serviscope_minor]

libtards

Ah you're clearly an idiot who is not actually interested in any sort of reasonable discussion. Good to know.

Re:Yeah. Trust the media!

[aliquis]

I'm totally up for discussing things but to begin with anyone of them got no right to complain for the rules of "discussion" and how to treat others in it themselves. They have never been interested in it.

Secondly regardless of what they want it should simply be denied on the ground of human freedom and right to not give a shit and not be bothered by them.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

The Birth Certificate was verified by the Republican Governor of Hawaii personally, something no Governor had ever done before. The inconsistencies didn't exist. And more than one site proving them was proven to have introduced them themselves, just to point them out.

There is lots of evidence he was born in HI, and no evidence he wasn't. Even if he wasn't born in HI, the law today would have granted him citizenship at birth (And yes, you can retroactively apply that to a birth before a law change). So, he was born in HI. All the evidence says he was. No evidence exists that he wasn't. And even if he wasn't, he'd still have been eligible to be president.

Uh-huh, the NSA wasn't spying on us. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes the conspiracies are true and worse than we ever imagined.

Re:Uh-huh, the NSA wasn't spying on us. Really.

[HornWumpus]

All the craziest conspiracy theorists are part of the few conspiracies that are true.

They're acting like gibbering fools to discredit those telling you the world is flat.

Re:Uh-huh, the NSA wasn't spying on us. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you do have a point. Ridiculing one claim and then associating other claims with the stupid one is an old tactic.

One person or group being stupid does not automatically invalidate all the claims/questions of all the people.

Re:Uh-huh, the NSA wasn't spying on us. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

And these other "loony conspiracies" were also all proven true this year:

1. Hollywood and the political elite have been exposed for their rampant and horrifying sex abuse against men, women, and children alike
2. Weather modification just jumped from “chemtrail” conspiracy theory into mainstream reality, as Congress began holding hearings on geoengineering
3. 20,000 documents were released in August proving the EPA conspired with chemical companies to unleash deadly toxic substances on the public
4. US media giant Sally Quinn admitted she practiced the occult to murder people—and she was praised for it
5. Mainstream media finally admitted the United States has been aiding terrorists in Syria
6. The Federal Reserve bank was exposed in June to be a working arm of US Intelligence
7. Declassified document proved the conspiracy that the CIA planned and carried out the 1953 Iranian Coup
8. Billionaire elitists openly admit to Ingesting the blood of young children
9. CIA drug trafficking conspiracy was blown wide open in an explosive History Channel series
10. Mainstream science showed Vitamin C’s ability to fight cancer

Looking at this list, we can understand "how the news was made" to put these topics in the conspiracy bucket in the first place. Each item has powerful entities requiring a "factual blackout" in order to operate its agenda. If the truth was made at the same time as the news, many of these operations could not operate as they did, and a number of principal "movers" might be incarcerated.

Maybe (part of) the cure is not to pay attention to sock puppet accounts on popular forums such as /. I'm pretty sure Shakespeare is still relevant today because of his exposing how conspiracy and power are inextricably intertwined in almost all of his works.

Re:Uh-huh, the NSA wasn't spying on us. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the immense (official) black budget, as well as the unofficial budget from drug running and other operations, and the shear number of security agencies an indication that secret things are being organized and carried out on a colossal scale?

Newsmakers (like CIA operative Anderson Cooper et al): Meh, mere conspiracy theory!

Anyone still thinking newsmaking is honest business is a fool.

Re:Uh-huh, the NSA wasn't spying on us. Really.

[ilsaloving]

The frustration for me is that so many people spend so much time focusing on the idiotic conspiracy theories, it ends up creating enough noise to hide the real stuff.

Hell, look at the anti-vax crowd. How many 10s or 100s of millions have dollars and man-hours have been spent demonstrating over and over again that the vaccine-autism link is nonsense? And yet people continue to believe it, and resources continue to be wasted on that lie.

If all that effort had been spent on finding the actual cause, how much less time would it have taken to learn what we know now? How many lives would have been dramatically improved because we could have switched gears to education and regulation to reduce the incidents of pre-natal exposure to various chemical agents, etc?

Fake News!!

[skipkent]

Bill Hicks 1992 - https://youtu.be/5uyCJKEMOx8?t...

You know what also helps? Having a personality

[H3lldr0p]

No. I'm being serious. Having a deep understanding of yourself, having an identity that goes beyond "I am for X" & "I am against Y" provides an bulwark against propaganda and conspiracies. Watch kids. They start out believing everything parents tell them. Once they take on traits that their parents don't have, you can see them begin the first phases of critical self-assessment.

All of this can be achieved in many ways. The best comes in the form of exposure. Exposure to philosophy. Exposure to culture. Exposure to other people and their lives.

You want to stop conspiracies and propaganda dead in its tracks? Get your kids out of your comfort zones and into the real world.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[HornWumpus]

Having a 'full of shit' uncle is key to teaching bullshit detection. And it's great fun for the uncle.

Suggestions:

Rules to burping. If you burp and you're inside, with a girl, who's not a part of your family, then you should say 'excuse me'.
Say 'now' when mom is looking for 'please'.
They are made of cells, which are like tiny legos. (gotta sneak a truth that sounds like bullshit in)
Beer and chocolate cake is a balanced diet. The only reason they have to eat vegetables is because they are too young to drink beer.
If a girl complains about you leaving the toilet seat up, that means she wants you to pee with the seat down.
If she says for you to sit down to pee, she means on the floor in front of the toilet and go for the 'three point shot', with the seat down.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[slashdotiscompromisd]

It is so frustrating that you choose such a narrow scope to your logic. It makes me lose faith in you as a human being.

WHY do so many people have these superficial identities based on just saying they are X or Y? WHY are they not exposed to philosophy or culture? Are we not at the pinnacle of public education funding?

The only thing to think is that the people in control of education and media want to make people stupid. They want them to define themselves with superficial labels. This enables them to be controlled with those labels. This allows them to be programmed.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[Dread_ed]

Very interesting post. I remember as a child having a very firmly defined sense of right and wrong, truth and non-truth. It was binary and relatively uninformed, however as I began to read the encyclopedias at my house I developed a system of grading "truth" and knowledge that was no longer binary. There was true, false, told as true (or false) when it was known to bet the opposite, told as true (or false) by many but unsubstantiated, generally known as true (and it is not), generally known as false (and it is not), generally known as wither true or false (and it is!), reported as true (or false) merely for entertainment, reported as true (or false) merely to be contradictory, reported as true (or false) merely to be inflammatory, devils advocacy (I didn't call it this as a child, I leaned the phrase much later when accused of doing it by a teacher)...There were more, many more.

After a couple of years of this, at about age 9, I realized that the vast majority of human beings I was forced to interact with were completely full of shit, had no regard for actual truth and knowledge, and carried around a bunch of completely false information in their heads that allowed them to justify their own actions without ever engaging in any serious introspection or circumspect examination of reality.

Nothing I have seen in the rest of my time on this planet has contradicted this thought with regard to the vast majority of humans.

The problem with exposure as a panacea for this type of pervasive thought is that people continue to bring themselves with them to their new areas of exposure. They go to church, and because they are judgmental and small minded, turn God into a judgmental and small minded reflection of themselves. They go to school, and because they are both insecure and tyrannical, they turn their schools into adult daycare with whacked out cultural rules that prevent humans from ever having a real interaction with other humans. They go to work, and because they are obsessed with their own success as a means to quiet their own insecurity and inadequacy, they create an environment where everyone needs to watch their back, must be guarded, defensive of their position and reputation lest someone stomp all over their future prospects. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

I get what you are saying though. Exposure is key, like the Mark Twain quote about travel implies. However, it also takes a receptive spirit for that exposure to do it's work.

What is missing is simple, and can be summed up in one word: Humility.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[slashdotiscompromisd]

Let me reduce the summation further.
What is missing is honesty.
But honesty requires clear sight just as much as pure will.
What is missing is objectivity.

People no longer value their own two eyes. They listen to authority too much and it overrides their senses, instincts, and critical thought. This is because of evil authority.

People like us, we need to prepare to fight back by any means necessary. We need to destroy this society, or we and everyone we love will be tortured to death by this inhumanity.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember as a child having a very firmly defined sense of right and wrong, truth and non-truth. It was binary and relatively uninformed, however as I began to...

As in:

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." - Donald Rumsfeld

The unsaid bit:
There are things we know but obscure with things we know we don't know but suffice as evidence to blow others off the map. (Oh, wait, that sounds like a CONSPIRACY!)

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm that's a really good point, and I have a brother who will be very good at it and absolutely love doing it. If he doesn't do it on his own, I'll ask him to do it.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[david_thornley]

Would you care to name a time when the masses were better educated about philosophy and culture? There's always been some people at the top who are, but I fear you're expecting too much here.

Perhaps if we as a society paid for college as well as K-12 we could get more philosophy and culture into the general public. Then again, perhaps not.

The people in control of education are a very dispersed group. Some care about education. Some care about keeping student stupid for religious reasons. Some care about other things. Don't confuse them with the media.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[david_thornley]

People no longer value their own two eyes

Would you care to specify a time when they did? It certainly wasn't any time religion dominated.

We need to destroy this society

No, we don't. We're doing pretty well at getting rid of overarching authority telling people what to believe, which is more than most past societies have managed.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[slashdotiscompromisd]

Yeah they are so dispersed....except for that little thing called the U.S. Department of Education....which enables the funding for the masses to go to school....yeah that's a really decentralized influence not open to corruption.
No child left behind (if you don't submit to central authority you are abandoning the poor little children to starve and die!).
Common core (hey this stuff is common sense, the core of all wisdom, oh yeah, and some cultural/political propaganda from the federal government).

The masses are further from ever than philosophy. Our schooling system does not work. It was purposely designed to make people stupid and docile. The media does most of the work. People are overstimulated and this literally makes most of their mental function disappear. Their brain huddles around the sources of narrow stimulation like a naked man by a fire in winter tundra. Only shadows of reality reach them. They are too anxious and insecure to ask questions because they're overcrowded and abused.

There are many points of evidence in the changes in school policy and results. But the best way to look at this is in the big picture: the mental division in the population and the sudden turn to perpetual hatefulness. You can look at just one topic: Trump. This society is schizophrenic. It's a result of their "education".

Anyone who actively hates Trump is a brainwashed subhuman. At least his supporters have the excuse of clinging to a tribal leader. They have the out of just being dumb instead of being profoundly mentally ill.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[david_thornley]

The Department of Education has been getting more aggressive about standardizing education lately. I know that my son had better educational opportunities in the public school system than I had, but I haven't been following the quality of the local school system since 2012. Aside from that, each state has its own educational system, all similar, usually with a good deal of local control.

I'm not going to address the rest of your post, because I don't know how to approach it.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[BrookHarty]

Exactly, He didn't even need to be born in Hawaii, born to 1 American Parent is all it takes. Obama could have been born in Kenya but it wouldn't have mattered.

What made it weird was people didn't know what a short form birth certificate was, why it took weeks to be verified, should have been an open and shut news article.

People who believe in conspiracies

[Opportunist]

When you look at the "conspiracy nuts" you will notice a pattern. It is usually people who feel that they are "left out", that they're not in an "in" circle in whatever way that may be defined. Usually, it means that they're left out of being one of the "knowing ones", the ones that share a secret or at least something that elevates them above the others, something that gives them an "edge", if only a perceived one.

And a conspiracy theory allows them to feel that they belong to the "knowing ones" for a change. Because they now know something, something "secret", that everyone else doesn't know. And they knew it first!

Funny enough, whether that's true or even possible doesn't really matter. What matters is that they know it, and they knew it before the "smart" people did.

This is a powerful motivator. Because it lets you feel superior. You "get" it, you understand, you are one of the knowing ones, and the others, those sheeple, they don't. They are clueless, they don't understand, they don't know.

If you're usually the clueless one who neither knows nor understands, this can motivate quite a bit. And it can motivate you to cling to it, no matter what. Because letting go would require you to admit that you've, as usual, been the clueless idiot.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[TimHunter]

Case in point: The Apple-hater crowd on Slashdot. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they persist in believing that all iPhone owners are fanbois who just want the latest shiny, that Apple hasn't been able to innovate since Steve Jobs died, and that the next Samsung/Nokia/Motorola/whatever Android phone will be the "iPhone-killer."

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Opportunist]

Android and iPhone is a bit like Democrat or Republican. Everyone's taking sides and everyone's trying to convince everyone that their side is right and the other is the spawn of the devil when essentially both sides are just out to fleece you, don't really care about you but only care about the well being of their shareholders.

The main difference is that with Android and iPhone, that's basically the idea behind it. With Dems and Reps, it's mostly sad.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[gweihir]

Oh yes. Fuckups trying very hard to convince themselves they are not fuckups, but without actually doing anything to change their actual status as fuckups. These people are hugely dangerous and responsible for the majority of the evil in the world, because it is them that support and bring to power the ones that should never have gotten power in the first place.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[gweihir]

Well, from where I stand, Android and iPhone are both pretty bad and an utter disgrace. All expensive phones are targeted at ripping of the buyer. The only thing here is that there are no cheap (new) iPhones, which tells you something about Apple or rather their cult followers.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[TimHunter]

A new iPhone SE starts at $349. Cheap enough for you? BTW, calling Apple product owners "cult followers" identifies you as a member of the conspiracy.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Rockoon]

Numerous Android phones are under $100, leading everyone to conclude that the cult is real as you have flagged yourself a vocal member that dishonestly hand waves that $349 is "cheap."

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[allcoolnameswheretak]

As a "neutral" non US-citizen observing from the outside, I think me and the rest of the world agree that it is not quite fair to compare Democrats with Republicans one to one.

The Republican party has a much greater affinity for science-denial, spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation among its supporters. Something like the Tea Party movement or an unqualified millionaire real-estate mogul like Donald Trump being president is only possible in an environment that the Republican party fosters.
If I listen to a right-wing commentator on Fox News and compare it to a left-wing commentator on, say, MS-NBC, both might use hyperbolic and emotionally loaded language, but while what the left-wing guy will say is mostly based on -real- facts and a healthy dose of critical thinking, the right-wing talk is based mostly on warped facts using cherry-picked information and their all-time favorite: suggestive questions. Suggestive questions that spread uncertainty and propagate what the audience is supposed to believe while giving plausible deniability when confronted, because you didn't state any facts - "it was just a question after all".
Questions like:
"Is Obama really not a muslim?"
"Is Obama's birth certificate actually real?"

It's so obvious to me as an observer of US politics and society, and its just baffling how naive most conservatives are and how resistant to criticism when confronted with how backhanded and manipulative the conservative media is.

This leads to outcomes like what is mentioned in this article. The abundance of Republicans is shockingly uninformed about some basic facts such as Obama's religion or climate change.

The irony of it all is that the Republican party has its greatest followers among the lower-income classes - exactly those people who would benefit the most from more social policies. It's the textbook example of the super-rich controlling the hearts and minds of the serfs so that the super-rich can stay in power. Because make no mistake - conservative policies are mostly designed to benefit the top 2%.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[gweihir]

$349 is not "cheap" for a person with an average salary. But being out of touch with reality is one of the signs of a cult membership....

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Anonymous Coward]

What conspiracy? It's yet another company that preys on the ignorant with enticement of being part of an exclusive club, just like any other high-end fashion company. The product is no better than stuff half its price, but people pay the premium anyhow because they get to feel special in doing so. It's a sad abuse of people's weaknesses and shouldn't be praised, it should be called out.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! My Android phone cost me $30, shipped. Yes it was used, but it looks like new to me.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[slashdotiscompromisd]

When you look at everyone, you see the same things. People believe what most everyone else believes because it elevates them above the ones who don't believe. They refer to people who don't believe as 'mentally ill' or 'conspiracy theorists' or 'stupid'. This gives them a reward and it is validated by others who believe similarly.

You haven't distinguished anything between the two cases. The fact that you ignored the main case speaks to the cloudedness of your thought. You haven't even addressed how you know what a "conspiracy theory" is. You don't even know how to identify it. You have zero self perception.

You basically outline everything you desire to be able to say "people who go against consensus are always just looking to tell themselves they are better than the majority".
You are really self ignorant and have absolutely no insight to the matter.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[tinkerton]

This is too easy. The description 'conspiracy nut' already gives away the whole point of view.

The pattern with conspiracy nuts is that conspiracies by definition have a large component which happens in the dark and this make verification difficult. So roughly you can say conspiracy thinking is unscientific, and scientific thinking evolved to get a grip on the unreliability of convictions.

In practice this part which happens in the dark can be leaky and some things come out, but it remains a difficult area to work in and often a reasonable reply is 'I can't work with this theory, it's too unscientific'. It doesn't mean the theory is wrong but that you don't have a way to make it solid. So you get discussions about whether the details that came out are sufficiently solid. Are the science arguments about controlled demolition of the twin towers sufficiently solid?

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Opportunist]

There are actually three positions. One is to believe everything you're told because some authority says so. One is to reject everything you're told because you resent said authority. And one is to fact check what you're told because you don't give a fuck about whether or not something claims to have authority.

It is neither right to believe everything without proof nor to reject everything and believe the opposite without proof. If your reason to reject something is only that you don't want to believe it and instead wish to believe something else, you're essentially just pulling the lever of the stupidity machine in Zak McCracken.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Opportunist]

If it's unscientific, then how is it a theory?

Concerning the towers and how they collapsed I cannot make a well founded argument. I'm neither a chemist, nor a structural engineer, nor a demolition expert. I'd first of all ask at least one of each group about their opinion. I'd ask them whether the stress from the impact and the fire can be enough to cause it. I'd ask them what alternative hypotheses they could think of. I'd propose that hypotheses to the others and ask them if this was possible from their point of view. And THEN I'd start digging, possibly involving more people who can offer more information.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[tinkerton]

The requirements for a theory aren't exactly high. There are plenty theories which are not science. The science part of the theory is to what extent it can be proven wrong. If there is no clear test which could prove a theory wrong then it's not scientific. A common word for it is falsifiability. The whole debate is a bit complex especially when people discuss it on principles. My cheap version of it sidesteps the science part and replaces it by healthy science: 'In a healthy scientific endeavour you make sure bad ideas fail quickly'. Of course in that case even lack of money means you don't have a healthy scientific endeavour. A lot of High energy theoretical physics is unhealthy science because a lot of the predictions cannot be verified with any reasonable budget in a reasonable close future. But as a branch of mathematics it's ok.

So a situation where secret scheming is expected (lack of trust) you easily end up with theorie that cannot be proven wrong which makes it very easy to get stuck with them. I'm not fond of 'conspiracy nut'. As soon as there is distrust it's a hard environment to good thinking in. Maybe you can question the distrust.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[tinkerton]

The controlled demolition theory is commonly called a conspiracy theory. So are the people who take it serious a bunch of nuts? I doubt it very much and I am also not inclined to call it unscientific. Wrong probably, and messy (very difficult to draw conclusions) but not unscientific. Since it's so messy in practice a lot of people will not be convinced if proven wrong.
The main reason for calling it a conspiracy theory is it's coupled with deep distrust of the government and this is considered unfounded.I consider that distrust well founded but I think it's a bad theory so there you go.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Opportunist]

Ok, I'm talking about scientific theories which are, by definition, scientific. I'm so sick of some idiots coming along with "oh, but it's only a theory" when they confuse having a hunch with it.

Maybe they should walk off a cliff to test the theory of gravity.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Opportunist]

Here is a pretty good definition of what constitutes a scientific theory.

Please fit that controlled demolition "theory" in it. Then we'll talk about it's scientific value.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[david_thornley]

People with average salaries often piss away a lot of money, when you look at it on an annual basis. Spending $349 every few years isn't going to break them. (This is one reason many people blame the poor for pissing away the money they never had in the first place.)

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[david_thornley]

Apple doesn't do the low end. They never have as far back as I can remember. You want to spend less than $100 on a smartphone, buy an Android. If you want a high-end phone, the iPhone is roughly as expensive as its Android equivalents, so it's pay your money and take your choice.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[david_thornley]

Quote from someone: "She'll do everything to do X except listen."

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[david_thornley]

If you think that beliefs supported by evidence are not distinguished from beliefs not supported by evidence, you're missing the entire point.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[david_thornley]

The pattern with conspiracy nuts is that they're so sure of what they believe that they have to find reasons, however far-fetched, why anyone disagreeing with them is wrong or corrupt or something. Say I were a global warming denier. I'd have to find ways to discredit anyone who disagreed with me and any evidence I found inconvenient. Since scientists almost universally agree that AGW is happening and that it will be bad, I have to find reasons why the scientists are necessarily wrong, and this varies from accusing them of total incompetence to accusing them of being in a vast conspiracy. Since there's lots of evidence that the temperatures are generally going up, I have to find ways to discredit the evidence. Since I'm a denier, I have the choice of staying a denier or actually considering evidence.

There have been conspiracies, and there has been evidence of conspiracy even when there wasn't one. It's entirely possible to believe in a conspiracy without being a conspiracy nut

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[aaarrrgggh]

From an analytical perspective it is pretty easy to identify how a fire would cause fairly uniform temperature rise within a floor, how the building’s fire protection features (steel coatings and sprinklers) would be compromised by the impact of a large plane, and that the natural failure mode of each floor is pankaking (especially with a perimeter column and central core configuration). Likewise, as multiple floors pankake down the process would continue as the magnitude of forces of the falling floors is significantly higher than wind or any eccentric factors.

This doesn’t take much outside consultation, just a simple analysis. But, it is based on the fact/hypothosis that one or more floors pankake to start the reaction.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[wallsg]

$349 for a Science Fiction hand-held computer that can access information anywhere on the planet, or talk to anyone in the US and many foreign countries for basically free, or find directions from wherever you happen to be (and it can be unknown to you) to wherever you want to go. For a device that totally changed society (for the good or the bad). For less than the price of four Phoenix Comicon Full Event passes.

I used to look books up in a card catalog. I used to pay Long Distance. I used to buy maps (AAA Triptik anyone?).

Yeah, that sounds pretty cheap to me.

You can get a damn good $199 Moto G5 Plus from Amazon or Newegg if it isn't. I use a One Plus 3T myself.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[gweihir]

Stay in your filter-bubble. You would be lost outside.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[gweihir]

And now you add prejudice along the lines of racism ("poorism"?), basically saying that the poor do it to themselves. That is pretty despicable.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[wallsg]

Let me rephrase for you:

"I disagree with what you said so your point of view is invalid."

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[slashdotiscompromisd]

Okay and what is a fact? What is proof? How do you know?
If you can't trace things to what you've seen with your own eyes and lived, how do you know parts of the fact/proof aren't fabricated?
If you go around calling things "facts" and "proofs", how long does it take your definition to be clouded by the context in which other people who you trust and are intellectually and emotionally off guard with using those labels in an inconsistent way?

The point here may be that things are too complicated to generalize and that by generalizing them at all we are bowing to authority blindly.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[gweihir]

Thanks for demonstrating my point again.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[tinkerton]

I read that part of the issues are engineering questions: how hot till it buckles? The conditions aren't exactly laboratory but maybe close enough: some aspects can be argued decisively. Scientific enough for me. The science label doesn' t make any of it right and it doesn't have to apply to all of the claims.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Opportunist]

Then it's time to take a step back and reevaluate your system.

Authority is simply nothing to base a qualified opinion on. Never has been, never will be. "Because I say so" has never been a sensible way to explain anything.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[Anonymous Coward]

$349 is only cheap by Apple standards. Making comments like that isn't going to help you shake the image of being a cultist that can't look beyond what Apple sells.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[david_thornley]

I didn't think I was being that unclear.

People with average incomes can be somewhat careless with their money, such as spending lots of it at Starbucks without realizing it adds up. Poor people tend to be very aware of what they're spending their money on, and don't in general spend more money when less would do the job. (They may buy a luxury or two, but generally are aware of what they're doing.)

We tend to judge others by our own experiences and our own situation. If a person with an average income is normally short on money, and has an expensive and unnecessary habit, that person is likely to figure that other people are short on money because they have expensive and unnecessary habits. This is a pernicious myth that has done a great deal of harm in the US.

Yeah Except

[Anonymous Coward]

Some news agencies reported on that whole Obama birth certificate fiasco. Sorry, too many lies in MSM for me to believe a single thing they say. Also I don't believe the earth is flat not because news tells me (they actually never report on it) but because so much evidence points to it being a globe. This story attempts to group people who believe news is propaganda with flat earthers. Nice try.

Re:Yeah Except

[Anonymous Coward]

So in your mind the stories you see in your facebook feed, or from infowars or another unaccredited website is more accurate than the MSM?

I am not asking if the MSM is always correct, just if it is correct more often than basically random rumors you hear? The MSM does generally make some attempt to validate their stories are at least not factually wrong.

Re:Yeah Except

[RightwingNutjob]

Diversity of information sources is the key. Count up the number of news organizations there are. You'll probably come up with a dozen or two names in TV, newspaper, and online-only. That means the roughly two dozen people in charge of those operations are gate-keepers to everything you read out of them. Pay close attention and you occasionally see them copying from each other or sharing stories. That means there's less than two dozen or so people playing gatekeeper.

Shape of the Earth? Hundreds if not thousands of independent sources, both prominent and obscure, telling you it's round and telling you how you can see with your own eyes that it's round. And guess what, when you look...it's round.

Contrast that with the outright propaganda pumped out by a like-minded clique of a few dozen news editors telling you things that you see with your own eyes are false, and now you see the problem. I'll give an example. Last summer, Atlantic, NPR, NYT, and a few more came out with a fluff piece on Antifa. All of them used nearly the exact same wording to tell us that Antifa traces its roots to partisans fighting Nazis in occupied Poland. That's *not* a diversity of sources telling you something you can see with your own eyes to be true. It's the exact same PR copy coming at you from three different directions trying to guilt you into overlooking the fact that thugs are rioting in the streets over statues by using the exact same PR copy to imply to you heavily that they're what's really happening, what you're too dumb to see, is that the Emperor is decked out in his finest riot gear and is manning the barricades against the oncoming SS death squads.

See the difference? I didn't even have to bring up the JournoList, but what the heck: there are, in fact, documented cases of MSM journalists conspiring with each other to push a political agenda. And it's not an outlandish world-spanning conspiracy. It's a couple dozen people.

Re:Yeah Except

[Tenebrousedge]

Antifa mostly only exists in right wing scare propaganda, but nice try. Maybe if you don't like anti-fascists, you shouldn't be a fascist.

Re: Yeah Except

[Anonymous Coward]

Your name is well chosen.

Re: Yeah Except

[Anonymous Coward]

OP to whom you replied. I don't have a Facebook account. I like to get news from variety of sources. So far aljazeera has been more credible than every single US news source. They have their bias though so I like to contrast them with others. Kudos on jumping to conclusions without any evidence though. You're almost as bad as CNN.

Re:Yeah Except

[tbannist]

Pro-tip: The Associated Press is a thing that exists. News organizations will often buy stories from the AP when they need filler.

Now that you know a little bit more about how the press works, maybe you too can be a little less of a conspiracy nut.

Re:Yeah Except

[RightwingNutjob]

Uh huh. Filler. For unimportant stuff. Like race riots in the streets. With body counts. Right down there with the fluff about getting a good deal on cars at the end of the model year.

Re:Yeah Except

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because well documented and acknowledged history proves that antifa started as a resistance to fascist Germany. All those stories you hear about people sneaking babies out in tool bags were literally members of antifa. Just because you're not happy with that fact doesn't make it not a fact.

Re:Yeah Except

[RightwingNutjob]

See. Perfect example. Changing definitions and playing word games. By this reasoning, the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union were 'antifa.' What's it go to do with street thugs trashing cars and mailboxes in DC last January? Absolutely nothing. It's a lie. Every breath of it.

Re: Yeah Except

[RightwingNutjob]

Oh noes! Ya got me!

informed electorate

[fahrbot-bot]

If we're seeking to have an informed electorate, then this poses a bit of a problem.

Some people may want an informed electorate, but it's definitely not politicians, the political parties or their high-dollar supporters. They have a vested interested in keeping the masses ignorant, partisan, riled up and easily swayed by slogans and rhetoric.

Examples: Look at the masses of people at Trump rallies chanting "Lock her up!" about someone who has not been convicted of any crimes*. Or that, even as of December 2017, people still believe Obama was born in Kenya

Survey results released by YouGov Friday show that 51 percent of Republicans said they think former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, compared to just 14 percent of Democrats. Perhaps unsurprisingly, respondents who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election were especially convinced of Obama's African origins: Fully 57 percent said it was "definitely true" or "probably true" that the 44th president came from Kenya.

[ * deferring any debate about whether she should be convicted ]

Re:informed electorate

[cascadingstylesheet]

Examples: Look at the masses of people at Trump rallies chanting "Lock her up!" about someone who has not been convicted of any crimes*.

She committed a crime; it's illegal for her to do what she did running confidential information through her private email server.

Yes, people don't like it when high profile people commit crimes and get away with it. That's "conspiracy theory"?

Re:informed electorate

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the issue is that you can't make up the crimes. Just look at Benghazi probes and what not. They came back with the same result. You can't have someone "be guilty" just because you want them to be guilty. That's not how it works, especially in a free country.

The law was applied accordingly. You have a problem with the current laws and how they are written.

Re:informed electorate

[tbannist]

All the best information I can get, says that the "crime" that she committed isn't really. As I understand it, the usual result for someone who made a similar error would be a lecture and maybe a weekend refresher course on the proper handling of classified materials, which is why the FBI did not recommend charges be laid. Because the harshest penalty they could realistically hope for would be a minor fine.

Re:informed electorate

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why the FBI had to edit the report to take out damning references to legal terms like "grossly negligent" when they were attempting to get her off the hook.

Other people are sitting in a jail cell for so much as taking a selfie of themselves in a restricted area, but Hillary has special access documents on a server in her bathroom and useful idiots like yourself defend it as not being a crime.

You're full of shit and you know it. The only reason you are defending her is because of your partisan beliefs. Ask yourself "If Donald Trump did this exact same thing, how would I react?"

Re:informed electorate

[Anonymous Coward]

It is sad that you believe a top bureaucrat using private email server with classified material is not a crime. Sorrow, but it is. But politics and power are apparently beyond your grasp.

Re:informed electorate

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but she was an Original Classification Authority - she could have at the time, LEGALLY, made many things unclassified just because she wanted to. It happens daily in both directions. She also did what was accepted of all previous SOS since email was invented and the rules were changed after her case blew up. Every democratic and republican SOS have done it. Period.

Re:informed electorate

[Anonymous Coward]

But surely the position she held meant she needed to uphold a higher standard than run of the mill fbi grunts.

Re:informed electorate

[david_thornley]

That's why the FBI had to edit the report

Found the conspiracy nut.

Other people are sitting in a jail cell for so much as taking a selfie of themselves in a restricted area,

Which was a deliberate act. Having classified documents on an unclassified server is likely not a deliberate act. As far as I can tell, that's where the line is.

Re:informed electorate

[smugfunt]

Found the conspiracy nut.

CNN
Fox
For some reason CNN softpedals the way the report was toned down.

likely not a deliberate act. As far as I can tell, that's where the line is.

Nope. Gross negligence = jail time.

Re:informed electorate

[cascadingstylesheet]

Which was a deliberate act. Having classified documents on an unclassified server is likely not a deliberate act. As far as I can tell, that's where the line is.

Setting up an email server in your bathroom and then routing all your official email through it is not an accident.

Re:informed electorate

[david_thornley]

At that time, the email server was legal. It isn't any more. I've seen no evidence that Clinton deliberately put classified material on it.

Re:informed electorate

[david_thornley]

I see that you recognize that the CNN cite doesn't support your case. The Fox one says that an early draft had "gross negligence" which turned into "extremely careless". It describes some apparent odd happenings, but doesn't tell why the FBI had to edit the report to like the AC said.

Do you have evidence that gross negligence has been prosecuted? I found no cases of prison time without clear intent. The general practice has been to not prosecute without criminal intent (which means "intent to commit an act that is criminal" not "intent to commit a crime"). I'd be interested in a case to look up.

Re:informed electorate

[smugfunt]

doesn't tell why

Knowing why someone does something is always tricky but this might offer a clue.

evidence that gross negligence has been prosecuted?

This offers four examples.

As I understand it, it is not normal for the FBI to make recommendations, nor for the DOJ to request them. The FBI presents the evidence and the DOJ decides. In this case Loretta Lynch handed the hot potato to James Comey, who found a way to drop it. It seems pretty clear to me that a prosecution could have been brought if the desire was there.

Re:informed electorate

[david_thornley]

Without doing further research, and just going by your cite,

Deutch was not in fact prosecuted. Berger stuffed classified material into his clothes, a clear indication of intent. He was not imprisoned. Nishimura? Your cite says "The investigation did not reveal evidence that [he] intended to distribute classified information to unauthorized personnel.”, which is not the same thing as saying he had no intent to mishandle classified documents. Intent to distribute is not the same as intent to mishandle classified documents, and Clinton had neither. Saucier deliberately took photos in a classified place, and therefore had intent to mishandle.

You've provided two examples that clearly had intent to mishandle, which Clinton didn't, one that doesn't address that question, and one that wasn't in fact prosecuted. In other words, I'm still looking for an example of someone who did what Clinton did and was prosecuted.

In this case, Lynch did not want to get involved in what would have been a political decision, and delegated to the head of an at least theoretically nonpartisan organization. Obviously, Comey was anti-Clinton, because of his late October statement about emails that in fact provided nothing new.

Correlations

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that the rates of ice cream consumption and murder both rise at almost the same rate? That's because people get irritable when it is too hot for their comfort.

The entire basis for this article is meaningless, "While the study doesn't identify how the two are connected, its authors suggest that an understanding of the media landscape helps foster a healthy skepticism." Correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation. The study basically discovered nothing at all.

Re:Correlations

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow!
Stops killing people to lose weight

Re:Correlations

[Anonymous Coward]

Correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation. The study basically discovered nothing at all.

Correlation CAN Imply Causation!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUti6vGctQM

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[fahrbot-bot]

There is lots of evidence he was born in HI, and no evidence he wasn't.

Noting that (sigh), even as of December 2017, people still believe Obama was born in Kenya

Survey results released by YouGov Friday show that 51 percent of Republicans said they think former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, compared to just 14 percent of Democrats. Perhaps unsurprisingly, respondents who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election were especially convinced of Obama's African origins: Fully 57 percent said it was "definitely true" or "probably true" that the 44th president came from Kenya.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[gurps_npc]

How to tell if someone is trustworthy:

1) When they make a statement, for example that parts of a birth certificate were clearly modified, they back it up with specifics, ideally a copy of the evidence and another, comparison copy to show the difference between modified and not-modified.

The shmucks that don't provide this proof are either a) Morons, or b) paid to lie

2) They spend more time establishing their own trustworthiness, rather than simply claiming that other sources - such at 'the media' are not trustworthy. When they not only refuse to do this, but insist on their anonymity, then they are either: a) Totally paranoid or b) paid to lie. In either case, they are not trustworthy.

3) Being a citizen is fairly easy for most people to prove. It happens all the time in courts of law. Able to run for President is not supposed to be a harder to prove, it should be easier (otherwise the Constitution would have discussed it further). Genetic tests, established records, even newspaper announcements etc. are all considered proof. People reject them only if they are a) Morons b) being paid to lie.

Given these simple fact, there is the possibility that you are being paid to lie. But I don't think so. Frankly you did such a poor job of it, I can't think of anyone so desperate as to pay you to lie. If they did, they should get their money back.

That kind of leaves only one explanation for your post. Most states offer guaranteed employment for people like you, though usually they don't pay minimum wage.

Establishment media

[Tailhook]

This "journal" is a McCune operation; the ultra wealthy widow of a banker that funds all manner of establishment approved non-profits and academics. In addition to being the ultimate paymaster of no end of well connected non-profits they fund lots of (D) campaigns in the North East [1,2].

1. https://www.followthemoney.org...
2. https://www.followthemoney.org...

Enjoy your establishment kool-aid. It's telling you want you want to hear so I'm sure the fact that it's 1% "bankster " funded "research" won't be an issue as it ricochets around the liberal echo chamber.

Re:Establishment media

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for proving the point of the article.

Re:Establishment media

[slashdotiscompromisd]

Okay now can we take into account all the world-reknowned universities that operate the same way?

Whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList

There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at wo

[SuperKendall]

They make much of (supposedly) a quarter of Republicans "willing to state" that Obama was born in the U.S. (citation needed).

However in the meantime 100% of Democrats seem to STILL think Trump has some kind of magical tie to Russia, even though it turns out Hillary paid for the report the FBI used to make that claim. Even though Trump keeps doing things Russia does not like at all.

Someone still has a long ways to go before they shed "conspiratorial thinking", but it's apparently not the people who "know how the news is MADE" (Freudian slip emphasized).

Some conspiracy theories aren't conspiratorial too

[kivig]

A phenomena emerging from something being mutually beneficial to certain groups of people and followed as an unwritten rule may look like and for all intents and purposes be referred to as a "conspiracy". But there always is that someone... taking it literally... revealing the "truth" to the world... And a good metaphor becomes a vulgarity.

Critical Thinking

[mentil]

Sounds like in a roundabout way they're describing metacognition, or critical thinking. The latter can find the flaws in a conspiracy theory.
I think what happens is that the more you understand how the news media is made of flawed individuals who get it wrong sometimes, the less you take 'the news' as gospel handed down from upon high by the omniscient.

Re:Critical Thinking

[grep -v '.*' *]

... the less you take 'the news' as gospel handed down from upon high by the omniscient.

But without someone feeding me exactly what's going on in the world leading me to think as I should, then what am I supposed to do? Start looking around in the world and begin to think for myself?

There's a reason we've evolved to become more and more specialized as we've grown a more complex society. Most people have trouble enough breathing and sitting, and now you want them to get up and walk and start thinking? 3 independent operations occurring ALL AT THE SAME TIME?

Madness. If our betters weren't actually better, they wouldn't be there to begin with. Just ask Kim Kardashian.

Russians conspired with Trump

[tomhath]

It must be true, just ask any Democrat.

Re:Russians conspired with Trump

[DigiShaman]

Fusion GPS, and what they provided was the basis by which the FBI went after Trump. Golden fucking showers!! Yeah, it's all bullshit. And yes, absolutely there is a "Deep State".

Trumps biggest mistake was the moment he mentioned "draining the swap". For one, it's an ocean and just as deep. Secondly, he's an outsider. If he manages to pull out of this, he's a messenger from God almighty himself!

Re:Russians conspired with Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an important example actually.
But the story is how this conspiracy theory became so important is by itself also a bit of a a conspiracy theory.

So the criterium of 'conspiracy thinking' is problematic.

Re:Russians conspired with Trump

[Xyrus]

Or any federal grand jury issuing indictments against high ranking members of the Trump campaign.

Re:Russians conspired with Trump

[Tenebrousedge]

You're retarded, there is no God, and Trump is one of the least capable leaders to which history has been witness.

Re: Russians conspired with Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is the Kraken, an agent of chaos on a mission to utterly annihilate the NWO globalist (neo-feudalist). AKA, liberal elite.

Re:Russians conspired with Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do as I say, not as I do." -every Republican in office.

Re: Russians conspired with Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

He sucks at his mission then, especially because it's not the liberal elite that he's dragging down.

God damn but you all are a lot of stupid fucks.

Re: Russians conspired with Trump

[DigiShaman]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...

But ministers, officials and analysts in much of the rest of the world have said it could create an uneven playing field and set off a race among countries to cut corporate taxes. Because the United States already offers a large and wealthy domestic market, relatively light workplace regulation and large amounts of venture capital, lower tax rates had been one lever that other countries had used in an effort to lure companies.

Asian and European officials have speculated that some of the measures in the revamped tax code could help encourage United States companies produce goods domestically for exporting. European leaders, for their part, have raised the specter of a trade battle and implied they may challenge the overhaul before the World Trade Organization.

NWO is freaking the fuck out because Trump is making America winning. We're no longer the bitch-ass serfs of the NWO globalists! We Americans set our own destiny, we NEVER FOLLOW that of others; specifically on a path to misery (communism/socialism)!

Re: Russians conspired with Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

NWO is freaking the fuck out because Trump is making America winning. We're no longer the bitch-ass serfs of the NWO globalists! We Americans set our own destiny, we NEVER FOLLOW that of others; specifically on a path to misery (communism/socialism)!

You are testing the limits of Poe's Law.

Re:Russians conspired with Trump

[Billly Gates]

It must be true, just ask any Democrat.

Or any intelligence official

Re: Russians conspired with Trump

[Tenebrousedge]

It's like you're a markov chain text generator set to extra stupid.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Hognoxious]

Parts of it were very clearly manipulated, which honestly made me wonder about it more than I had before it was released.

Have you seen a few shops, and some of the pixels look wrong?

How to verify news

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know that news are subjective, usually reporters try to give you their point of views by emphasizing on part of the news while neglecting other parts. The best way of getting the truth is by reading the same news from different resources. One of the good sites that lists good news from different resources is
Ottawa Korner http://www.ottawakorner.com

Re:How to verify news

[Hognoxious]

We all know that news are subjective

Some of us know that ending in s doesn't automatically make a word plural.

and...

[Anonymous Coward]

people who are in denial also resist conspiratorial thinking.

Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

This story is crazy talk. Everybody knows it's the Russians who are spreading conspiratorial thinking.

Re:Ridiculous

[RightwingNutjob]

When Romney said it at a debate against Obama in '12, the same leftist media practically laughed him off the stage.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

When Romney said it at a debate against Obama in '12, the same leftist media practically laughed him off the stage.

It wasn't the "leftist media" it was the democrats. Obviously a nutjob can't distinguish between the two, but trust me.

And they were right to because at the time Russia wasn't so hyper about fucking with the US. Putin didn't start to go into overdrive until after he was 're-elected' in December of 2011 because he thought the protests against him were coordinated by Clinton.

It was only in 2014 that Putin really started to get his social-media-fuckery troll farms into gear.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[rogoshen1]

That's not how conspiracy theories work. Conspiracy theories exist outside the realm of facts. You cannot use facts, reason, or logic to refute them -- because if someone has performed the requisite mental gymnastics to believe in one in the first place, any additional facts that come their way will be dealt with in similar fashion. Further, the more facts/arguments that are piled on, the more entrenched they become (because after all, if there wasn't something to the conspiracy, why would people expend so much energy to refute it?)

  So, you can either argue till you're blue in the face (and get no where) or simply ignore them, and they'll fade away on their own.

Facts Don't Matter

[segedunum]

Once you realise that everything makes sense.

Translation

[slashdotiscompromisd]

But a recent study suggests a very simple solution helps limit the appeal of conspiracy theories: news media literacy.

=

But a recent study suggests a very simple solution helps limit the appeal of free thinking: more brainwashing.

This story is the kind of brainless authoritarian feel-good piece that the chosen people of Slashdot lap up

Conspiracy?

[kqc7011]

Journalist.

Re:Conspiracy?

[AmiMoJo]

Brietbart.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/josep...

Correlation does not imply causation

[timmee]

Teaching people about media companies will fix our problems? You can lead a horse to water...
I honestly think most of the Obama haters do not want facts to interfere with their beliefs. It is much more satisfying to continue thinking he is a foreign born Muslim.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[CanHasDIY]

I think the idea is that if more people were aware that the majority of "news pieces" are actually paid advertisements, they wouldn't be so apt to jump on the mainstream media bandwagon.

Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[SlaveToTheGrind]

People who have actually run a business (or at least been involved in the higher-level management of one) are a lot less likely to believe that typical corporations make money hand over fist for doing next to nothing, are deliberately looking for ways to screw over their customers, and so on.

Re:Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[vix86]

deliberately looking for ways to screw over their customers

Considering how many crazy cases we've seen over the years; it's hard to believe anyone wouldn't think a lot of multinational companies are doing this.

Just some examples off the top of my head. General planned obsolescence, Verizion getting caught nickel and diming people in lots of weird hidden fees, ISPs doing all kinds of throttling and misrepresenting speeds, Apple recently admitting they slow phones, computer breaking DRM, and probably some more that I just can't think of. This isn't a "capitalism conspiracy theory" since a lot of these kind of things have resulted in class action lawsuits or very public apologies after the backlash was so great, and this is all just direct action stuff. You could probably include lobbying efforts in DC to change laws around to make it easier to do the 'screwing' legally, such as using the DMCA to make it harder to repair stuff you bought or even own the actual things you paid money for.

Re:Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[SlaveToTheGrind]

You're just proving my point. "Stuff I the customer don't like and I think looks bad" need not remotely be driven by a company deliberately trying to do bad by its customers, and the closer you are to the actual tough decisions that companies have to make on a day to day basis, the closer you are to understanding that.

Re:Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[serviscope_minor]

less likely to believe that typical corporations [...] are deliberately looking for ways to screw over their customers,

Typical corporations? No. Sony? they relish the opportunity.

Re:Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[Brulath]

Nearly any decision made by a sane person can be justified reasonably, from their point of view, with enough context, but very few of those decisions and very little of that context makes it to the consumer (for various reasons). I tend to take the stance that any sufficiently large organisation cannot communicate internally effectively enough to create a unified understanding of the challenges their customers face and how to solve them; this lack of unified understanding seems to lead to bold moves aimed at decreasing the difficulty of the business problems whilst increasing inconvenience for customers (DRM is a decent example).

Understanding that, it's reasonable to assume that a large corporation won't have the customer-first focus that a small business might. Businesses with natural monopolies are less likely to make concessions for a customer, as their business performance requirements and lack of growth path (since they already have it all) lead to only two ways to increase profits: simplify interactions with customers and products or increase prices. Those in higher-level decision-making positions seem unlikely to have much insight into the lives of significantly less wealthy people, and so don't have enough context to fully understand the impacts their decisions may have.

I guess my point is that you don't have to be a capitalist conspiracy theorist to have a default lack of trust in the generosity of large corporations, just scepticism for their internal communication abilities.

Re:Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[Anonymous Coward]

The same applies to police forces. They aren't out to oppress minority communities.

Of course, in both cases, there are bad situations/actors (*cought* h-1b visas).

Re:Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[Anonymous Coward]

What??? I'm a business owner, and from the outset, it has been obvious that the giant corps rip off their customers and treat their employees like total shit and are totally incompentent and never innovate. It's great too! I use it to my advantage to do well in the marketplace. The thing is, if small businesses banded together, collectively they would kick the shit out of large businesses simply by having a superior product, superior service, happier employees, etc.

Re:Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, the crazies are out in force today.

    There are numerous documented instances of corporations looking very hard to deliberately screw customers so it is no conspiracy theory. Telcos suing small towns arguing that it is unfair competition then leaving the small town with crap dialup for high prices after winning via attrition. Edison giving away light bulbs that permanently hosed their competitors socket and locked suckers(customers) in to Edison's bulbs. Chrysler saving 50 cents on each door hinge resulting in fatal 25-30 mph accidents (fender benders where parents turn around to see their kids dead on the street DOCUMENTED).

It would take several lifetimes to list all the instances of corporations screwing people and seeking to avoid competition and increase market capture so they can rake in cash with less effort. Your assertions are so utterly ridiculous that anyone making such assertions is due a health checkup to see if these feelings of persecution and delusions of grandeur have some organic basis.

What's nest? Pedophiles give candy to kids because they are generous?

Re:Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[Anonymous Coward]

So what angelic characteristic makes corporate decision makers different from anyone else? And you are just using the word "tough" as a synonym for immoral, abusive and unethical. The fact that Chrysler used cheap hinges in order to give a few cents less cost of production KNOWING that these hinges would fail and cost lives is documented. Is this not screwing over people when people turn around to check their kids after a low speed fender bender to see their kids are dead on the street? Is it not trying to make more cash knowing it would result in huge cost to some customers?

When ADM colluded to set prices of farm supplements with those meetings recorded was this not conspiring to screw customers and rake in more cash? Is this the type of action you call "tough" decisions?

You are asserting that once corporate, all base behaviors of humans suddenly disappear. You assert that Adam Smith was wrong. You assert that the US founders were wrong. You assert that the US courts have been wrong thousands of times. You assert that melamine was never placed into products to make more cash. You assert that there isn't a region in China that prides itself on producing fake goods that only last enough to fool the customer. You assert that Standard Oil never bullied railroads to charge competitors an extra fee that was then sent to Standard Oil. You assert that Teddy Roosevelt was wrong and nuts. You assert that addictive patent medicines were never distributed. Essentially you assert that all behavioral science is wrong once corporate is applied. You assert that basically all of human history and human events are false. Just because "corporate" and "tough" are mentioned.

You sir/madam are completely INSANE. And it you think you are going to convince others of corporate sainthood by use of the word "tough" while acting blind, deaf, dumb, ignorant and stupid then you are completely out of you flippin mind.

Re:Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[Anonymous Coward]

The key word people are missing here is "believe". Anyone who deals with people like that realize that a lot of them are sociopaths to some degree. They act like opportunistic rent-seeking assholes who will screw over their customers any way they can to make a buck. But as sociopaths a lot of them seem to honestly believe that they are acting ethically and their actions are to the benefit of the customers. It's actually a bit unnerving and kind of scary to see, actually.

People who know

[bwd777]

People who know how sausage is made - don't eat sausage.

Re:People who know

[ScentCone]

If you've ever actually made some sausage yourself (say, with some venison and pork fat, or turkey or whatever recipe you prefer) you'd know that the real problem is people who make overly broad platitudinous generalizations.

HEADLINE JUST ON TIME

[slashdotiscompromisd]

Just on time to logically and scientifically refute the people noticing the "Bitcoin is for nazis" that is being pushed in every mainstream outlet.

What a coincidence. I guess they all detected at the same exact time that this is what all their readers really want to read and that they have to run this story to make money.

"Conspiracy theories" are clearly of no use here. There is clearly no coordination between power entities and if there is it's for the sole purpose to help YOU. Now let's all laugh at the "conspiracy theory" mentally ill social rejects, and reward ourselves for all thinking the same thing for absolutely no reason.

Re:HEADLINE JUST ON TIME

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that the entire basis of the article is that they found a correlation but no actual connection they could find. Freaking Ice Cream and Murder have a very high correlation... people get upset AND want ice cream when it gets hot. LOL!

How is the news made?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIzO-Hk2i3I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ABqRT-QKc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTWY14eyMFg

I don't recall this much effort to debunk...

[argStyopa]

...the famed "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" in 1998?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Conspiracy?

[kqc7011]

JournoList. Now without the autocorrect for journalist.

Re:Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worriso

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it very amusing that the example they use for a conspiracy is Obama's Birth Certificate while at the same time buying into the whole Trump/Russian collusion conspiracy..

Whereas Republicans buy into the Obama's Birth Certificate thing and say that the whole Trump/Russian collusion is a wackjob conspiracy theory.

Lefts are fucking morons.

Americans are fucking morons.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

People saying that there was no justification for that belief are misguided what with that book and all. It's was also dumb to claim that it was "racism", especially when Ted Cruz got the same treatment; worse in his case, born in Canada to non-American (at the time) parents.

No one could admit the book was just a bunch of typical PR bullshit that gets thrown around all the time.

But the Moon is Flat

[WillAffleckUW]

We all know it was faked by Donald Trump, when he arrived here on a spaceship from Uranus.

Russia, Russia, Russia!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!!! ;-)

Yet those same self-aggrandizing "experts" swallow the ridiculous an ever-changing Russia conspiracy crap hook, line, and sinker. Every week a new conspiracy theory.

Even top brass at the Intelligence Agencies swallowed it whole after Clinton through the Democratic Party paid a firm millions to create a fake dossier that included a 4Chan porn story about Trump pissing on prostitutes.

Funny thing is these fake laughable stories came from Russians paid to lie so in essence Hillary colluded with Russians to create a fake dossier to doom Trump's chances. Hell, based on this fake crap the Intelligence Agencies put phone taps on Trumps team and tried to get taps on Trump himself while he was running for President. Talk about a threat to Democracy!

Everyone who wants something to be true bad enough will fall for a conspiracy theory. Except for me, of course. I'm way too experienced in life to do so (again).

Re:Russia, Russia, Russia!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And you swallowed hook, line, and sinker, everything the Master Conman said during his campain, a man that has made an entire carreer out of conning and screwing over people like you.

So now what ? I guess that makes us ALL idiots. Human beings are not genetically programmed to use their intelligence to learn the truth and understand reality. That makes them fundamentaly flawed, a failed experiment, and error of nature, an evolutionary dead-end.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[phantomfive]

It always entertains me that one of the candidates actually wasn't born in the US (John McCain) and no one complained about that.

Best summary of how journalism works

[Hal_Porter]

Is this

" My [disgust] for modern journalism is huge. [Almost] everything they do are hit pieces or playing defense for the side with money.ï "

Another one I liked was a Cold War era Russian remarking cynically "We know how to read Pravda. Do you know how to read the New York Times?". I.e. Pravda was a pack of lies but once you knew how to dissect it you could get some useful information. The US is effectively two one party states superimposed on each other. The Democrat media says only positive things about Democrats and only negative things about Republicans. And the Republican media does the opposite. The problem is people assume that what they read in the media has something to do with truth rather than, like Pravda, being designed to push a narrative helpful to the party which owns the paper. Or the tech company which gives the paper free shit.

Re:Best summary of how journalism works

[Dread_ed]

Great post. +1 for not being an idiot like the rest of us.

Oh Please

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what they WANT you to think!

Re:Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worriso

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it very amusing that the example they use for a conspiracy is Obama's Birth Certificate while at the same time buying into the whole Trump/Russian collusion conspiracy.

Lefts are fucking morons.

Feeling triggered? The Trump campaign's collusion with Russia is being investigated by the FBI. Obama not being an American citizens was made up by Donald Trump. But please, do go on about "lefts" being "fucking morons" when rightists voted for Donald Trump of their own free will, as if that could possibly have gone any way but terribly.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[nasch]

Sure took him a long time to spit out that forged document. If it was legit, it would have been immediately released.

Is that how you know it's forged, or is there some other way you've been able to discern this?

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[nasch]

Huh, what difference could possibly explain the different reactions? I just can't think of anything...

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[CanHasDIY]

Noting that (sigh), even as of December 2017, people still believe Obama was born in Kenya

You know, the really sad part is that since his mother is a known American citizen, none of that "where was he born" nonsense ever mattered in the slightest; yet, socially, we allowed the mass media to convince us that it did.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not magical, they just own millions of dollars of his debt.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

It had nothing to do with being born in the US or not, it has to do with being born a US citizen, and McCain was born to two US citizen parents on what is considered US sovereign land. McCain was without a doubt born a US citizen.

Note that I believe Obama to be a US citizen too, I'm just stating WHY there was doubt. Obama's citizenship may have been in question if he was born outside the US to only 1 parent with US citizenship (though I don't know if it was legitimate concern or not since his mother WAS a US citizen at his birth, and there are some very specific rules on the heritability of citizenship on foreign soil.)

Also, make lots of friends

[Solandri]

And not just friends who think like you do. Get out of your comfort zone, away from your echo chamber. Find something in common with people who are different from you. Play racquetball at the gym with that liberal hippie neighbor. Go on camping trips with the conservative guy from work. Go rock climbing with your old roommate's gay cousin. Talk with them, get to know them, become friends with them.

Once you do that, you start to learn that we all have more in common with each other than differences. A lot of the propaganda will then become transparent - the usual MO is to dehumanize the "enemy" prior to tearing them down. But if you see, no, if you know those people are human, it's impossible to dehumanize them.

Re:Also, make lots of friends

[gweihir]

Anybody that tries this is already a critical thinker. A vast majority of Republicans do want a simple truth and they do not care whether it is faked or wrong as long as they can believe in it. Incidentally, a lot of Democrats are not much better.

The problem with this type of advice is that it does not reach the people that need it.

Re:Also, make lots of friends

[Hal_Porter]

Also you can probably wreck that hippie fuck at squash.

Re:Also, make lots of friends

[Solandri]

The problem with this type of advice is that it does not reach the people that need it.

The situation is symmetric. For the white supremacist to befriend his black neighbor, the black neighbor has to befriend his white supremacist neighbor.

Re:Also, make lots of friends

[Bearhouse]

Go on camping trips with the conservative guy from work.

Right with you until this part; sharing a tent or a boat cabin tends to be fairly binary - after a day or two you're either bonding or just want to kill each other. Not the best option if you're in a storm on a mountain or 100 miles from port.

Re:Also, make lots of friends

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't gone camping that much, have you?

Re:Also, make lots of friends

[david_thornley]

The situation is not symmetric. You're saying that the oppressor is basically the same as the oppressed. The black neighbor probably wants to get along with his or her life peacefully and effectively, and the white supremacist is against that. Heck, Machiavelli made that distinction. The people are more honest than the nobles because they seek to avoid oppression, while the nobility wants to oppress the people.

Re:Also, make lots of friends

[aaarrrgggh]

Most PEOPLE want simple answers in black and white terms. Politics, like most things, does not lend itself to absolute truths. Socialism: good or bad? is a dumb mindset; it is both good and bad. George W Bush: Man or Monkey? is likewise an ineffective distinction.

The people that benefit from a highly polarized environment are the ones making matters worse, and the birther scam is one of the most egregious. A percentage of people are will always respond to that kind of tripe, but pushing the essence of the debate down to that level is just sad.

Many kids have that earlier in childhood.

[Anonymous Coward]

But get told by their parents, extended family, teachers, etc that they are WRONG and they will understand why when they grow up. Eventually they begin to grow up and realize those ideals they had when they were little were not so farfetched and that adults had been lying to them 'because that is how it has always been' and like other potential stockholm syndrome victims they have to choose between keeping their rational psyche intact and turning on their captors, or drinking the koolaid and becoming one of their captors.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

Dailymail references are actually worse than no proof.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[nasch]

They make much of (supposedly) a quarter of Republicans "willing to state" that Obama was born in the U.S. (citation needed).

However in the meantime 100% of Democrats seem to STILL think Trump has some kind of magical tie to Russia

No citation needed for that one though?

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

even though it turns out Hillary paid for the report the FBI used to make that claim.

You mean the report that Trump paid hookers to pee on him? That one?

PS - That's not the report that people care about when it comes to Trump's ties with Russia. Republicans apparently just like to bring up the "false" pee story because...they're sick?

How news is made

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Rich powerful person/group decides to create some propaganda
2. Get a bunch of interns researching across the world looking for facts to back up your story, only facts that back up the propaganda, ignore opposing facts and/or create an answer to each "wrong fact" for quick rebuttal
3. Get the stories pushed out by the AP/NYT using your rich and powerful connections
4, Stories end up in every local newspaper, every local radio news, every local TV station and MSM networks all at the same time

This has worked for decades to totally control "facts" and public opinion. Who is loved and who is hated. The rich and powerful that have controlled this process are currently having a meltdown because peer to peer media, twitter, etc, has proven to be more powerful. They have lost control of the herd and can no longer control public opinion. They don't give a shit that Trump is president they are just freaking out that they were not able to destroy him.

Very much like you are talking out of your ass

[Anonymous Coward]

People who have actually run a business and got screwed over by a typical corporation, don't need to "believe" the things they know firsthand.

Re:Very much like you are talking out of your ass

[ScentCone]

You're just proving his point. You failed to compete or carve out a niche in which to succeed, and so you've adopted the "businesses are evil" narrative so you can turn to some Elizabeth-Warren-type savior who will make you prosperous again by tearing down other businesses. Because, the only reason you're not prosperous is because other people are, right?

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[fahrbot-bot]

Noting that (sigh), even as of December 2017, people still believe Obama was born in Kenya

You know, the really sad part is that since his mother is a known American citizen, none of that "where was he born" nonsense ever mattered in the slightest; yet, socially, we allowed the mass media to convince us that it did.

True and I imagine the whole "he was born in Kenya" thing was/is actually code for "he's black" - which, if so, is, quite frankly, stupid - but let's not overestimate people...

Hardly

[nospam007]

"a very simple solution helps limit the appeal of conspiracy theories: news media literacy. "

Literacy.Period! would already help.

Re:Hardly

[mentil]

Improve your news media literacy with this one weird trick media moguls don't want you to know!

An amusing blurb

[Anonymous Coward]

"Conspiracy theories, like the world being flat or the Moon landings faked, have proven notoriously difficult to stomp out."
>> No they have not! Seriously you want to do a poll on the earth being flat?

Add a partisan twist to the issue, and the challenge becomes even harder.
>>This is code, it means he is a political hack.

Even near the end of his second term, barely a quarter of Republicans were willing to state that President Obama was born in the U.S. If we're seeking to have an informed electorate, then this poses a bit of a problem.
>>Republicans eh?

But a recent study suggests a very simple solution helps limit the appeal of conspiracy theories: news media literacy.
>> Ok thats funny but it goes on...

This isn't knowledge of the news, per se, but knowledge of the companies and processes that help create the news. While the study doesn't identify how the two are connected, its authors suggest that an understanding of the media landscape helps foster a healthy skepticism.
>>Skeptism of the highly integrated media? One that has been found in bed with politicians. One that has been infiltrated by secret services.

[...] "Despite popular conceptions," the authors point out, "[conspiratorial thinking] is not the sole province of the proverbial nut-job."
>>Most important line - "You are crazy if you don't believe me."

When mixed in with the sort of motivated reasoning that ideology can, well, motivate, crazed ideas can become relatively mainstream. Witness the number of polls that indicated the majority of Republicans thought Obama wasn't born in the U.S., even after he shared his birth certificate.
>> This guy goes to church for sure. I mean i don't really care if Obama was born on Mars but it could be a forgery! I mean its not beyond the realms of possibility by a long way.

While something that induces a healthy skepticism of information sources might be expected to help with this, it's certainly not guaranteed, as motivated reasoning has been shown to be capable of overriding education and knowledge on relevant topics.
>>Yes this is why i can tell you are full of shit.
   

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Journalist admits his anonymous source in the FBI was Soviet agent.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/fake-news-russian-mole-robert-hanssen/

Re:In other news...

[david_thornley]

Ah, another right-wing site I've never heard of, which must of course be completely accurate.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[ScentCone]

what difference could possibly explain the different reactions?

Parental citizenship. But I know, you'd rather race-bait.

Re: Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worris

[Anonymous Coward]

The birther arguement was started by aides within the Hillary campaign in 2008.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[ScentCone]

No, not that. You're the one focused on that detail, because you're fascinated by it. You might want to talk that out with a grown up.

The rational people, though, ARE focused on the web of connections between Fusion GPS, Clinton-machine money, employees at DoJ/FBI (and their spouses), and messages involving some of those folks who are on the record as partisan Clinton supporters and who are plainly talking about what they can do to prevent Trump from becoming president. Your own obsession with fabricated hooker stories is your own thing.

Overthinking

[petes_PoV]

If we're seeking to have an informed electorate, then this poses a bit of a problem

Most adults are not ignorant due to a lack of ability - the amount of intelligence needed to read a birth certificate is minimal - even less than the amount needed to send a tweet.

The reason most adults are ignorant is because they want to be. They prefer it. Being uninformed makes life a lot easier. There are no weighty considerations to make - just vote for the candidate with the nicest hair, or the tallest, or the best ..... body.

And the same applies to most other choices. Grab the pizza with the brightest coloured package. Buy the shampoo with the most attractive model on the bottle. Choose the clothes that some celebrity wears, or the beer they drink, or the cigarettes they smoke. And while you're at it - why not vote for the candidate they suggest, too?

Re:Overthinking

[CanHasDIY]

If we're seeking to have an informed electorate, then this poses a bit of a problem

Most adults are not ignorant due to a lack of ability - the amount of intelligence needed to read a birth certificate is minimal - even less than the amount needed to send a tweet.

The reason most adults are ignorant is because they want to be. They prefer it. Being uninformed makes life a lot easier. There are no weighty considerations to make - just vote for the candidate with the nicest hair, or the tallest, or the best ..... body.

Actually, it's the dopamine rush - repeated studies have been conducted which strongly indicate that the human brain reacts the same way to defending a strongly held belief as it does when the body snorts a big fat line of cocaine.

So, really, the reason most adults prefer to stay in their personal belief bubbles isn't comfort, it's because they're getting high off it.

Re:Overthinking

[mentil]

IOW, tribalism and basking in reflected glory.

Re: Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worri

[Anonymous Coward]

https://mobile.twitter.com/MoElleithee/status/776808154621444096

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like what Obama had (apart from actual citizenship)

Re: Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worris

[Anonymous Coward]

And it was disowned by Hillary and a number of Republican politicians. But the far far right of the Republican party kept it going.

And let's be clear, ultimately Trump disowned it too. Because it was always dumb. The odds of Obama not being an American citizen were always laughably low. And I say that as a Republican who never particularly liked Obama.

There are people on both sides who look for ANY excuse to hate on someone. ALL of these people need to be shut down. Because they keep the stupidity rolling.

Made or reported

[Anonymous Coward]

Made:Plane crashes at 12:40 in Nebraska

Reported: investigators are looking into the possibility that terrorism brought down a plane today

Reported: a plane once used by a former US president crashed today. Is there a connection? News at 11

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

>If it was legit, it would have been immediately released
Obama was a troll. I think he was laughing his ass off about the whole birther thing the whole time, simply because the more the republican base focused on that, the bigger idiots they looked like when he smacked them down (which he did perfectly). It's the basic rule of "Don't interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake".

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[SuperKendall]

No citation needed for that one though?

No because everyone has the countless cycle of Democrats claiming there is a Russia collusion on the news.

I have helpfully provided many links for you as you appear too be too stupid to have ever followed the news, or to use Google. You poor bastard. Can't keep helping you though so you are on your own from here.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Noamin]

If you're trying to take a swing at partisan bias, using the Daily Mail as a citation is pretty self-defeating. Also, there isn't just a single report used to make a claim that Trump has ties to Russia. The significant financial links between the Russian government and not just Trump himself but also much of his cabinet are well-documented by a large number of sources. You're either shoveling nothing but partisan bias yourself or you're too ignorant of this subject to discuss it.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not that. You're the one focused on that detail, because you're fascinated by it. You might want to talk that out with a grown up.

I guess most Republicans aren't grown-ups then. The article the GGP linked to specifically mentions the detail about "golden showers". It's clear the whole point is to note one thing, the claim about a pee tape, being ludicrous in the minds of most people and then by extension trying to conflate that with any or all other evidence that implicates Trump or his campaign team. The icing on the cake, of course, is if such a tape actually exists and were released to the public, it'd be like Trump admitting to some sort of crime.
    Knowing Trump, though, I'd imagine he'd blow it off and complain about "Crooked Hillary".

The rational people, though, ARE focused on the web of connections between Fusion GPS, Clinton-machine money, employees at DoJ/FBI (and their spouses), and messages involving some of those folks who are on the record as partisan Clinton supporters and who are plainly talking about what they can do to prevent Trump from becoming president. Your own obsession with fabricated hooker stories is your own thing.

So, what you're saying is that Clinton did precisely the same thing Trump did? So, she should share a cell with Trump? Because nothing I'm hearing discredits the actual evidence against at least some of "Trump-machine money" and their plainly talking about what they can do to prevent Clinton from becoming President or their actual words confirming those actions in emails.

PS - I very much doubt that a golden shower tape exists. I won't claim one way or another if Trump (or Clinton, for that matter) ever engaged in kinky sex games with hookers. I will note that every time the dossier gets brought up in an attempt to discredit it, all people hear is "Trump paid hookers to pee on him". That's precisely the same tactic that Trump (and most other good politicians) used to trash his opponent. It was the same with Obama and his birth certificate. It's just amusing to me that right-wing media keeps bringing it up (because it's click bait and all the media really cares about is ad revenue).

It is all true though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most conspiracies turn on to be true wether they where true conspiracies or just truth being hidden. The false ones are there to discredit the truth. Take flat earth; it's such an outragages claim that it can discredit any conspiracy or coverup... like 9/11. To believe that in 9/11; two plans demolished three building in which all three building fell in a free fall fashion like in a controlled demolished seem foolish. To deny the truth of 9/11 isn't being covered; well.... However, if you can connect flat earth with 9/11 then both seem foolish. Lets not forget who created the term "Conspiracy Theorist" -- it was the CIA and it was designed to discredit people.

And in peace and war -- false flags are the norm and are well documented in history.

Re:It is all true though.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Believing that everything's a lie is no way to live, son.

Re: Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worris

[Anonymous Coward]

The birther arguement was started by aides within the Hillary campaign in 2008.

(a) Not relevant, the FBI never investigated obama's birth certificate because only idiots cared
(b) false

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[CanHasDIY]

You mean other than the 2 sources he already cited, one of which being CNN.com?

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey, this horrible thing happened!"

"You mean, this other horrible thing?"

"No, I mean this horrible thing. Why are you derailing the conversation with nonsense?"

"Because I'm a fucking douchebag."

Re:Liberal conspiracies

[Dread_ed]

The bigger conspiracy is that of political partisanship. All of that bickering is based on the actions of people who aren't you, and aren't the person you argue with. You make politics mean something about yourself, when it doesn't, and are trapped into defending something that means nothing. Your ego tricks you into carrying water for a bunch of rich elitists that do not care one single whit about your life and/or your death. They only care for your money and your support so they can continue to ride herd on you without recourse.

You poor simple bastards. If you only knew how much power you give up when you divide yourselves and fight yourselves.

Of course, I am wrong and just a conspiracy theorist. Partisanship is as natural as sexual preference. You're born a democrat or a republican. No cultural indoctrination is necessary, no grooming is needed, no reinforcement is required. No politicians ever spent hundreds of millions of dollars on focus groups, wedge issues, decoding the American electorate's psyche, for the ultimate purpose of fracturing the natural coalitions and commonalities between our American brothers and sisters. Nope, doesn't happen. Ever.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, its like you two were made for each other. Literally. Everyone knows that ken dolls have no "cones" so together you two make a full person. Wonder twin powers activate - invincible motivated reasoning!

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar stuff happened in previous elections as well. In 2000, people were calling George Bush, "Junior", even though the only Jr. in that election was his opponent.

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Fusion GPS, and what they provided was the basis by which the FBI went after Trump.

Er, no. In fact, exactly the reverse, Steele believed a cabal within the FBI sat on the file preventing it from reaching the top.

There were two FISA warrants on Manafort (2014 and 2015) that predated the dossier.

Getting a FISA warrant requires a woods procedura which essentially means that every claim used to justify the warrant must be independently verified so if the dossier were used to justify a FISA warrant that means the relevant facts were verified by at least one other source.

Furthermore, renewing a FISA warrant on a US person after 90 days requires proof that the warrant is actively yielding relevant intelligence.

So even if the Steele Dossier had been used to justify the investigation, the fact that FISA warrants were issued and then renewed shows that there was independent confirmation of the claims therein. That's not a a good road to go down for someone who wants to say the dossier is fake.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Dread_ed]

Every partisan individual in the US is a conspiracy nutter. They have been hoodwinked into thinking that every person of the "other party" is out to get them.

In reality, the only people out to get them are the ones running the parties.

Let Them Eat Cake!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Stuff I the customer don't like and I think looks bad" need not remotely be driven by a company deliberately trying to do bad by its customers,

You are right though. Its more about not giving a damn. For example, bugs in an billing system that produce errors in favor of customers will get fixed ASAP. Bugs that produce errors in favor of the company aren't nearly so urgent.

Whether it is malignant neglect or just malevolence, the end result is the same though. Customers getting the short end of the stick. And that is the only point that really matters to a customer. Dismissing their complaints as just not knowing how hard it is to run a company is like telling them to eat cake.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, you'd rather race-bait.

No matter how hard your personal identity is linked to the party, republican is not a race.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[nasch]

Wow, are you always so rude, or just to strangers on the internet?

The fake birth certificate didn't do much to help

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where Obama was born but why make a fake birth certificate? You open it up in the pdf and things are in separate layers. How does that happen?

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[gweihir]

Indeed. Or rather the ones running the parties already have them and have managed to compromise any rationality they may have had completely. So these people are right about being victims, they are just completely delusional of who they are victims of.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Xyrus]

Hey you know what's funny? That dossier was funded by Republicans first! Ha ha!

So those 4 grand jury indictments so far are just what? Imaginary? The emails? The meetings with known Russian operatives? I guess all that is just imaginary as well?

And let's not forget that Trump refuses to divest himself from his business and won't divulge his tax returns. I wonder what one would find. Maybe Mueller will shed some light after taking most of the Trump cabinet to the cleaners after digging through Deutsche Bank.

But sure, it's all just a big conspiracy.

Obama not being American was a conspiracy. Clinton running a child sex ring under a DC area pizzeria (and then, on Mars) was a conspiracy. People don't get indicted by a grand jury based on conspiracy.

A dumb plague of dumbass telepaths

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to shatter your nice projection, but one can learn to do business with liars and thieves without getting robbed blind. What one can not, is retain any nice illusions about the character of the esteemed business partners.

Obama's birth

[OneHundredAndTen]

It is not that some do not believe that Obama was born in the USA. Rather, for purely existential reasons, they decided that a man like Obama couldn't possibly be the president of the USA. Not without forcing them to change their perception of life on this planet in ways that they could not countenance. Therefore, Obama had to be a foreigner. Had to. No amount of evidence, argumentation or proof will convince them otherwise. Ever.

Media Blackouts and Distractions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Create situations where people float conspiracies because what is seen doesn't add up.

If we didn't have a media oligopoly of 4 corps in the US, then conspiracies would be ridiculous things indeed because they'd be floated all the time, and you'd need to find trustworthy news sources. News literacy and a sense of healthy skepticism would be something you'd pick up over time, rather than the affinity teachers misguidedly hand kids in school by forcing them to file their reports from "real news" (e.g. the people they like the most, academics and college graduates). Today tabloids like the inquirer are more reliable than the mainstream news.

Instead, what we have is mis-information as the standard, and nobody has a clue as to what is going on. Which is utterly terrifying.

Re:Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worriso

[Anonymous Coward]

But only one of those wacko conspiracy theories produced indictments.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Rockoon]

Maybe you deserve it. No, actually, you absolutely deserve it.

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[gurps_npc]

Really? Then why was I Modded' up and you were modded down?

Maybe you were paid to lie. Idiots like short things that say what they want without evidence.

Normal people like longer statements that make sense, rather than insults.

Re: Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worris

[Anonymous Coward]

-Squawk- Its Hillary's Fault! -Squawk-

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[dinfinity]

and they'll fade away on their own

Or they elect the president of the United States of America.
Because Pizzagate. And Benghazi. And Kenya. And communism.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[nasch]

That gave me a chuckle, thanks.

how news about companies is actually created

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with a founder of a marketing conpany. With the funding cuts in the press, "reporters" expect whole articles to be submitted, including info graphics, etc. This is the sad truth about "reporting" today. Sadly, Trump the buffoon is correct: it is fake news, a lot of the time.

The reason, from what I can tell, why the press missed Trump winning the primary and general, is they didn't have the funds, or willingness to get out and talk to people. They replayed Trump tweets, and people responding to Trump tweets. the irony is, that had they gotten out there, they'd have raised a louder alarm. Go look at Shattered (great reporting btw) , Hillary spent all her time on her victory speech, and zero on her concession. She didn't get out, and her peeps were too busy infighting to do so. The press was busy talking to Hillary and team, replaying what they said. Not doing investigation.

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[ScentCone]

His father was not a citizen. The constitution requires a "natural born citizen" to be president. The debate surrounds whether or not (as it plainly did, once) require both parents to be natural citizens. It was intended to reduce the prospects of foreign influence/loyalty. The framers recognized how often European leadership was influenced by family ties to foreign governments.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[ScentCone]

Hmmm. You also seem strangely obsessed with male genitalia. Does that actually impact how you think about politics? Strange.

Re:Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worriso

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup the left has gone to the cultural Marxists - completely devoid of sanity or logic. They believe the mass media is like gospel, and considering that 90% of journalism graduates are women, it is increasingly moved towards the left. In fact the only actual evidence of collusion that's verified is by Hillary and Russia, and those legal issues are never talked about. Therefore trust in mass media is at an all time low, and rightly so.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[gnick]

The Earth being flat is easy to disprove.

If the Earth is round, which way is down?

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

What is scary? The Russian thing AND the birth certificate thing? Both lies made up by the same people, the Clintons. We have the confirmation from their own emails and speeches. Note they do not talk about how the emails are fake anymore? They only attack who may have 'stolen them'. Not the wonky ass shit they were doing in there.

I am sure I could tie to one of the rules for radicals but I am being lazy today.

As for the news they seemed to think FoxNews was amazingly run and what a nifty way to do things. They dialed it up to 11 and said lets do that too. If you had told me 10 years ago that CNN would be this bad I would have laughed so hard I probably would have shit myself. Yet here we are.

Also watch. In about 3 hours everything in this board that is against the clintons orn the DNC will be marked -1. I watched it in realtime yesterday with a different story.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

What evidence is prestented in your link? A quote of a biographical blurb that fictitiously played up his non-American birth for sympathy? Or was the biography simply in error? I've had multiple errors about my life make it into print, and I've never authored anything.

Also note the source, Breitbart had "exclusive" possession of an old bio with errors. How many bios were written about him in his life? That one has an error isn't "evidence" of anything.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

Sure took him a long time to spit out that forged document. If it was legit, it would have been immediately released.

The short form was released in a timely manner. After complaints, and failed lawsuits, he released the long form.

When will Trump release his tax returns? When will Trump release his long-form birth certificate? One year in office, and neither was released.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[cascadingstylesheet]

True and I imagine the whole "he was born in Kenya" thing was/is actually code for "he's black" - which, if so, is, quite frankly, stupid - but let's not overestimate people...

What if it's just "code" for "he had a really strange upbringing"?

Anyway, he's not black; he's half black. And half white. It seems to be you guys who are obsessed with the black half.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[dcollins117]

Clinton running a child sex ring under a DC area pizzeria (and then, on Mars) was a conspiracy.

No, the one on Mars is absolutey true.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

Toward the center?

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what fails to get mentioned when this Fusion Research topic comes up? That a Republican initially financed it. Also, investigating any ties between Trump and Russia do not HINGE on that stupid document. Flynn and Manafort are enough to warrant an investigation. Pushing to give Flynn a pass cements the need to look into it.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[gnick]

Toward the center?

That's just fine if you buy into the notion that things are magically pulled toward each other across space just because they're heavy. The obvious explanation for "gravity" is that our disc is accelerating through space at 9.81 m/s/s.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[mmdurrant]

I'm pretty sure you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the definition of "evidence". Ignoring that it's the Daily Mail and ignoring the speciousness of their "evidence", we still don't have much.

A long time ago, in a galaxy not too far away, someone made a mistake and said, "Meh, no one's gonna know who this guy is anyway." So they made 2 mistakes, one of which was easily correctable.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[gnick]

What made it weird...

What made it weird was its major proponent masterfully voicing misinformation in the political arena foreshadowing things to come.

But there is a libera media conspiracy

[slashdotiscompromisd]

Did you miss the 2016 election? Oh sorry that wasn't across the board coordinated lying, that was the public secretly hiding who they were going to vote for for the first time in history and/or some honest polling mistakes.

Anyone who doesn't realize the "liberal" conspiracy at this point has passed the critical point for evolutionary divergence - they've decided to become something less than human. They've trashed their instincts and have submitted to pluto/technocrat authority. They've decided to become less than alive. They want to be cogs in a machine. They are like a fire - they are not alive but they consume and produce, and when their fuel is taken away they blow away in the wind.

Re:But there is a libera media conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's called "Attempts to foretell the future can be wrong", a mistaken prediction is *not* the same as telling a falsehood, and attempts to equate the two are fine examples of the reasoning ability one normally expects from a 6-year-old. Grow the fuck up already.

Re:Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worriso

[Anonymous Coward]

People uninformed about basic civics, and drilling down things to a simplistic left-right single axis are morons.

I wave my hand and shuffle sideways...

[Anonymous Coward]

I point my finger at the other guy and swear, It wasn't me!

All news orgs being partisan hacks doesnt help.

[brainchill]

Whether you're talking about swinging left or swinging right it's very difficult for people to believe their news sources when they have proven over and over again to be partisan hacks. As an example, while there was looting and rioting in St Louis earlier this year to the point that the national guard was deployed for several days to keep the peace it never made the front page of cnn.com because they were too laser focused on destroying Trump by making front page news out of every single tweet that he wrote. If we want to get to a place where the news organizations are trusted by people gain, whether left or right, we have to get to a point where they objectively report facts rather than where our news organizations are subscribed to one set of political ideologies and use that to influence what comes out of their news broadcasts.

Re:All news orgs being partisan hacks doesnt help.

[Baron_Yam]

There is a difference between lies and poor focus. You want lies, you can watch Fox. You want poor focus, you can watch CNN.

I may not trust CNN to cover all the news, but I generally trust them to cover it honestly. And yes, that includes cleaning house when they find they haven't covered something honestly.

Mostly, though, you need to occasionally have a look at what your enemies and allies are reporting about your issues; sometimes the domestic sources have been standing in the local shit for so long they can't smell it any longer.

Re:All news orgs being partisan hacks doesnt help.

[brainchill]

It's all a bunch of lies and it isn't poor focus, it's laser focused. Jon Stewart said it best with his visit to "crossfire" CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC are all brutally and blatantly liberally slanted. Fox news and it's associated BS networks and radio are blatantly conservative slanted ... I am not a trump voter, and have never been a supporter of his, but it's not too far to call it all fake news.

Re:All news orgs being partisan hacks doesnt help.

[brainchill]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:All news orgs being partisan hacks doesnt help.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Right. It's so much easier to assume that everyone is lying, all the time. *eyeroll*

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Uberbah]

You know what fails to get mentioned when this Fusion Research topic comes up? That a Republican initially financed it.

Because it's irrelevant. It does nothing to change the fact that the Clinton campaign did themsleves of what they accused Trump of doing - conspiring with foreign intelligence agents to swing an election. And the paid for it.

Also, investigating any ties between Trump and Russia do not HINGE on that stupid document.

The positively Biblical levels of hypocrisy on the part of Democrats certainly hinges on it. The hacking narrative is dependent on the idea that Russia hacked the DNC servers - which the FBI has never been allowed to examine. And yet people continue to eat up Russiagate sundays with a spoon.

Flynn and Manafort are enough to warrant an investigation.

Vanilla, everyday corruption. Not "election meddling". And John Podesta, Hillary's campaign manager, was up to his eyeballs with the same deals as Manafort.

Re:Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worriso

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that is what I said, Americans are fucking morons.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AlanBDee]

I have long believed that some people find a game in seeing how many people they can deceive. Points for every person convinced and extra points if it's especially ridiculous; e.g. the flat earth society.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

That report was the BASIS for the investigation.

But of course, now that it's been proven to be fabricated bullshit, time to shift the goal-posts. That's what you subversive clowns tend to do.

Yet, when there's a REAL smoking gun, like the Uranium one scandal, you pathetic shills will attempt to claim it's a "nothingburger" and that it doesn't mean anything, and shouldn't be investigated.

I've seen better lies come from 4 year olds.

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[The Evil Atheist]

Yeah, so lets buy into all these conspiracies while voting for someone with actual ties to the Russians! Never let real world events get in the way of imaginary problems.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

Toward the center?

That's just fine if you buy into the notion that things are magically pulled toward each other across space just because they're heavy. The obvious explanation for "gravity" is that our disc is accelerating through space at 9.81 m/s/s.

Accelerating... in what direction? Relative to what? If everything is accelerating, what is accelerating it? Why don't we make a perpetual motion machine from it by throwing a bungie cord and weight off the edge?

Moving on the the everything's expanding universe twaddle, if "everything" is expanding, why don't the Moon and Earth collide? Is the space between them expanding at exactly double the rate they are? That math seems to get less simple.

How about the sun, the other 7 or 8 planets, their moons... That math seems to get convoluted as hell. How about the billions of asteroids? Are they all expanding at integral multiples of each other such that they haven't all overlapped in recorded human star gazing history, much less since the Universe began.

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

The debate surrounds whether or not (as it plainly did, once) require both parents to be natural citizens

No, that's wasn't "the debate". The debate was whether or not he was actually born in Hawaii, whether his birth certificate was falsified, and other nonsense. Heroes like Arpaio were supposed to be hot on that case. So don't gaslight us with this shit about what "the debate" was all about. I think the folks around remember what people said when the topic was debated, and it wasn't this pseudo-intellectual hand-wavery about what legal guidelines USED to be followed for citizenship.

There wasn't a "debate" over the citizenship of his father, and there wasn't a "debate" over whether his father's lack of citizenship meant Obama wasn't a citizen. These weren't part of the narrative because they are all part of settled law.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[David_Hart]

The Earth being flat is easy to disprove.

If the Earth is round, which way is down?

Up and down are relativistic terms based on perspective and have no bearing on defining other properties.

Re:Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worriso

[Anonymous Coward]

My reaction to the whole Trump/Russia stuff is. So you're telling me that Russia decided to play the game the way it's played in the US and people on the losing side of that are upset?

Okay. Whatever.

An easier way...

[Zontar The Mindless]

They could have just asked anyone who's ever actually worked in the news media, as this has been patently obvious to those of us who have.

Typical Liberal Conflation

[LeftCoastThinker]

I don't know any conservatives (and I know quite a few) who think that the liberal media is engaging in a conspiracy, but this is a conflation of terms on the part of the liberal media. They know damn well what they are doing, and now thanks to talk radio and the internet, so does anyone else who is not slurping up their liberal pap. The MSM do not engage in cloak and dagger meetings or phone calls, AKA conspiracy. Anyone who says they do is a kook.

What they do is carry to varying degrees liberal bias in their soft and hard news. They also often take talking points verbatim from democratic strategists, democrat politicians etc. and report it as gospel with no investigation or factual context either about the topic or the source. OTOH, anything conservative is suspect, and even when all the facts support a conservative position, it is reported with something between vague skepticism and open hostility, often citing unnamed sources (which is often the reporter or producer and no one with any actual knowledge or expertise in the topic) to counter or cast doubt on the issue. This has been going on for decades, and we are sick of it.

I am not a big Trump fan, the guy is Joe six pack with a billion dollar check book who got elected president, but that said, he is not Hitler or the Antichrist (if you think he is, just stop reading, you are too far gone to even grasp the basics of this post). Just look at the coverage of Trump's presidency:
- Almost 2 years of investigation and zero evidence of any wrong doing or collusion by the president with Russia, but 98% of reporting on Trump is still negative.
- Never mind that ISIS in Syria is nearly wiped out,
- The economy is going gangbusters,
- Employment is up,
- Abuse of H1B visas is being cracked down on,
- illegal aliens who were stealing American jobs, benefits and driving down US wages are being deported and driven off in hoards, etc.

All great news for the average American, but if you listen to the MSM you would think that the third Reich has been reincarnated, meanwhile Trump is busy re-instating and protecting the 2nd amendment gun ownership, freedom of religion that was trampled by Barak Hussein Obama and as far as I know has yet to be bitch slapped by the supreme court for violating the constitution (BHO was bitch slapped a record number of times for exactly that, never mind he supposedly taught constitutional law).

The bottom line: is Trump perfect? not by a long shot. Has he done some good things for average Americans? Yes. Have those been fairly and consistently reported on? Absolutely not.

Re:Typical Liberal Conflation

[david_thornley]

- Almost 2 years of investigation and zero evidence of any wrong doing or collusion by the president with Russia, but 98% of reporting on Trump is still negative.

It's not zero evidence. Lying about dealings with Russians is evidence. Also, to change this slightly, many years of investigation and no finding of any crime Clinton was guilty of, but you wouldn't know that from the right wing, which still seems not to have realized that Trump won and Clinton is mostly irrelevant.

And, of course, Trump has been violating the Article II emoluments clause right and left, which is not something I typically see in the news.

Not to mention that lots and lots of people have other reasons to be disgusted with Trump besides involvement with Russia.

- Never mind that ISIS in Syria is nearly wiped out,

From the same side that didn't seem to care about Osama bin Laden being killed and al-Qaida operations thoroughly disrupted.

- The economy is going gangbusters, - Employment is up,

Of course. Trump's accomplished very little, so the economy is still running the way Obama had it. It's far too soon for Trump to claim any economic benefits.

- Abuse of H1B visas is being cracked down on,

This is something I do like. See, I can agree with Trump.

- illegal aliens who were stealing American jobs, benefits and driving down US wages are being deported and driven off in hoards, etc.

Another Obama policy. It wasn't like Obama wasn't cracking down on illegal immigrants. I note that neither party has tried to solve the problem by serious penalties for individuals and companies that illegally employ illegal immigrants, which seems to me to be a very effective action.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Plus1Entropy]

So what you're saying is... there is a conspiracy of conspiracy theories?

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[drsquare]

What's the weather like on Planet Trump?

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

The Birth Certificate was verified by the Republican Governor of Hawaii personally

True.

The inconsistencies didn't exist.

Agreed.

And more than one site proving them was proven to have introduced them themselves, just to point them out.

I'm tempted to ask you to support that claim, but I think it's a distraction. Let's accept it as true.

There is lots of evidence he was born in HI, and no evidence he wasn't.

True.

Even if he wasn't born in HI, the law today would have granted him citizenship at birth

True.

And yes, you can retroactively apply that to a birth before a law change

Again, distraction. But that's an awfully bold claim to make without support.

So, he was born in HI. All the evidence says he was. No evidence exists that he wasn't.

Agreed.

And even if he wasn't, he'd still have been eligible to be president.

Sure, let's go with that.

So... that still doesn't explain why he never released his original unaltered birth certificate. It's really fucking weird that there are anti-aliasing artifacts and, on the long form, a fake "security paper" background. It's kind of weird that it's a certified true copy, rather than a photograph of the original.

Maybe the paper original was lost or destroyed somehow. Maybe the security paper background image is always added, in Hawaii's software system, and maybe it always incurs anti-aliasing artifacts. But none of that was explained or even asserted by the campaign or the Administration.

I fully believe that Obama was born in Hawaii, that he was a U.S. natural born citizen, and that he was legitimately sworn into office. But the "birth certificate" (which is to say, the certified true copy of an ostensible electronic database record of a birth certificate) does indeed raise more questions than it answers. This is far more convincing than this and it isn't clear to me what the campaign thought they were doing when they altered the scan so heavily.

Do I think it's a scam and Obama perpetrated a fraud on the American people? Not in the slightest.

Do I cringe at the incompetence of a campaign being so manifestly inauthentic in the midst of trying to prove authenticity? Absofuckinlutely.

Proverbial nut job?

[drinkypoo]

I must have missed that proverb. Could you tell me which one it is?

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[slashdotiscompromisd]

and this in the liberal brain is comparable to denying the roundness of the earth or insisting that lizard men rule the world. Because authority is such an integral part of their reality they distinguish nothing between nature itself and governmental authority.

Subhumans.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[slashdotiscompromisd]

yes this is the liberal dream, to equate political dissidence with denial of the laws of physics

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[slashdotiscompromisd]

See this is where you get just a little too crazy to just let be.

Who decides what is fact, why, and how?
Everyone who calls this into question (and makes you feel stupid for not being able to trace what you believe from basic facts of life that no one denies) is a conspiracy theorist?

See, you're crazy because you believe in 'facts' as the basis of your reality. In your hands the word 'fact' devolves from "objective aspect of reality" to "something some guy with a special title said is true".
You don't distinguish between the two things in your brain. You lump them all together. You don't even keep track of what you know first hand, you value things you heard from 'experts' and have no first hand knowledge of above things you've found out for yourself and can explain to yourself in detail.

The fact that you use terms like 'conspiracy theories' unqualified betrays a lot of your mind. You're a brainless authoritarian who operates on social-value-signalled symbols rather than first-hand knowledge whenever possible. You honestly believe that everything contrary can be lumped into one category. Flat earth and liberal cultural sabotage all add up to the same for you.

You are not human.

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[slashdotiscompromisd]

Hey stop talking sense the liberal media drones are trying to twist reality into a game they have a chance at winning

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[slashdotiscompromisd]

when so much is at stake, authority becomes untrustworthy

you are comparing low-key cases with the vetting of the President of the United States.

moron

Re: There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" a

[Anonymous Coward]

With 4 of his staff charged or pleading guilty to lying about acting as foreign agents, I'd say the democrats are right.

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do better than using a logical fallacy to point out how correct you are. A group consensus on a topic doesn't necessarily make you correct.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

that still doesn't explain why he never released his original unaltered birth certificate.

My child has no "unaltered" birth certificate. Never had one. The hospital filed a report of live birth, which is sent to the government (no copy to the parents) and digitized and destroyed. A birth certificate issued that day, or 60 years later would be the same. Short form reproductions, or long form reproductions.

This is closer to HI's situation. He had a birth certificate. The "original" lost over the years, though it may have not met your standards anyway. The reproduction is the official government document.

But the "birth certificate" (which is to say, the certified true copy of an ostensible electronic database record of a birth certificate) does indeed raise more questions than it answers.

It raised no questions. The Republican Governor swears it's accurate. So what is the claim? That the Republicans committed a conspiracy to deliver an edited birth certificate to Obama to make him look bad? That the Republicans conspired to simultaneously claim it was real and that it was fake at the same time? As far as law was concerned, he is a Natural Born American. So the "birth certificate" issue never existed, except for some Nazis who needed to convince themselves that they didn't have a Negro in the White's only House.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

Didn't seem to bother the people when a Canadian-Cuban was running, though Eddie Munster didn't win the nomination.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

In the US, 1/32 Black is "all Black". It used to be by law, but still is by custom, to many people.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[tinkerton]

Russiagate exists outside the realm of facts? Whichever side you pick on the Russiagate narrative there is conspiracy involved. Since conspiracy theories can cover everything where parties are scheming against others the scope of the theories can go from outrageous to credible, but scheming is part and parcel of political reality.
It is true is that since conspirators are rarely conspiring openly the unverifiable bit in the dark gives a huge amount of freedom to fantasize things up. So I'd say that conspiracy theories are notoriously bad because they work in a conspiracy prone area.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

It raised no questions. The Republican Governor swears it's accurate. So what is the claim?

Come back when you learn the difference between a "question" and a "claim."

Your factoids are wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

There WAS no Republican governor of Hawaii to verify the certificate.

Democrat Hawaiian Health Director Loretta Fuddy who approved the questionable certificate was the only person to die in a plane crash after she supposedly verified the birth certificate. Interesting, and fuel for conspiracies, but no actual proof of anything.

Democrat congressman Neil Abercrombie was outraged by the birtherism and while campaigning for Governor of Hawaii made it an issue in the campaign - He promised to, if elected, get the original Obama birth certificate out of Hawaii's records and display it to the public to end the birther stuff. After he was elected and became governor, Abercrombie was questioned about the matter and he had a series of excuses for why he could not produce the document, and he never did.

Incidentally, I am no "birther" and I despise most conspiratorial nonesense, but it's junk like this that gives the suspicious and conspiratorially-inclined the ammunition they need to go over the edge. My attitudes towards this sort of nonsense does not, however, override my inclination to oppose the posting of dishonest and/or ill-informed fake "facts" like what you posted.

Re:Your factoids are wrong

[AK Marc]

There WAS no Republican governor of Hawaii to verify the certificate.

Linda Lingle wasn't a Governor? She wasn't in HI? She didn't certify Obama's short form (the first released, and the only one needed to satisfy all the court cases, and the one that survived all the court challenges?

Linda Lingle doesn't exist? Then who was governor of HI in 2008 when the election was, and Obama's short form was certified?

Democrat congressman Neil Abercrombie was outraged by the birtherism and while campaigning for Governor of Hawaii made it an issue in the campaign - He promised to, if elected, get the original Obama birth certificate out of Hawaii's records and display it to the public to end the birther stuff. After he was elected and became governor, Abercrombie was questioned about the matter and he had a series of excuses for why he could not produce the document, and he never did.

For one, it would be a felony for him to do so, for another, there is no "birth certificate", for anyone. Birth records these days are sent to the authority (state capitol, or whatever), digitized, then destroyed. There's nothing to "show" except a printed copy of the birth certificate, with a state seal on it. That's been provided by Obama, multiple times, certified more than any certificate in the history of the country has been certified, and is still rejected. So it's never been about the birth certificate. It's only ever been about denying the legitimacy of a Negro President.

Only because you are ill-informed

[Anonymous Coward]

According to both US law and international law, certain government facilities of one nation are considered part of that nation's terriroty even if on the other side of the world and even if in a hostile country. The land upon which the German embassy in the US is located, for example, is considered a tiny bit of Germany for as long as that embassy is active.

John McCain was born at the Coco Solo US Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal zone (a US Military facility) which means that under both US and International law he was born on US soil. His father was a US Navy officer who was outside the physical country on official business, and his mother was also a US citizen married to that US Navy officer, thus he would also be a US citizen by virtue of having not just one, but BOTH of his parents as a American citizens.

It's sadly NOT entertaining that people who think themselves smart and well-informed are so easily shown to be ill-informed idiots on such a basic thing as this. Simply put: nobody with a brain complains about it because it is such an obvious and extremely well documented nothingburger.

so....

[Anonymous Coward]

you're telling me that obviously biased media outlets like MSNBC (which ABC ranks as less honest than even Fox News!!!!!) are trustworthy.

Hell, it sounds like you are telling me that FOX is trustworthy!

WTF?

Sounds like this is another editorialist claiming to be a Journalist.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

> They make much of (supposedly) a quarter of Republicans "willing to state" that Obama was born in the U.S. (citation needed).

Sure thing!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446?cid=sm_tw

> However in the meantime 100% of Democrats seem to STILL think Trump has some kind of magical tie to Russia,

Weird that you didn't need a citation for that one.

> even though it turns out Hillary paid for the report the FBI used [dailymail.co.uk] to make that claim.

First, the memos started at the request of the McCain campaign. Second, even if Clinton paid for oppo research (you know, a normal part of every fucking campaign) that doesn't somehow falsify them. That's just the genetic fallacy striking again.

And it's pretty obvious that Trump and company had some ties to Russia. I mean, they signed a letter of intent to build something over in Moscow, Manafort had a history of supporting pro-Russian political parties, and literally the only thing that the campaign changed in the party platform was to soften language concerning the invasion of Ukraine. And there was the meeting in Trump tower where his kid's own e-mails -- given freely to the public, I might add -- pretty well confirmed that they were seeking dirt on Clinton from the Russians. And those indictments, guilty pleas, firing Comey for looking into the connections...

Right. Just tinfoil hats. Purely coincidence. I'm sure it'll all turn out to be (rolls dice) George Soros (rolls dice) and the lizardmen behind the whole thing because (rolls dice) Trump wants to shut down Dulce base.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you check what those people were indicted over? Or did you just believe the news when they said the magic word "indictment" because it's what you wanted to hear.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the "Born in Kenya" is because the dust-jacket biography for his first book said so.

In the same vein, a majority of Democrats believe Russia actually modified vote totals during the 2016 election, despite there being zero evidence for that - even less evidence than the Birthers ever had.

Basically, extreme political polarization has led idiots (which form the majority base of both major political parties) to believe stupid things. Stupid people gonna stupid.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess he doesn't know how news is made.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

There was Republican research on Trump's finances by Fusion GPS. The dossier was a wholly Democrat thing.

One indictment was for improper lobbying and tax evasion from three decades ago. The indictment is the guy "lying" that the transition team, after the election, didn't meet with Russians. Even though the state department already knew and approved the meetings.

A couple hundred classified emails were willfully and deliberately mishandled, including being on a device that Carlos Danger used.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[gnick]

...why don't the Moon and Earth collide? ...How about the sun, the other 7 or 8 planets, their moons...

The Moon, sun, etc are projections put there by the lizard people long before we had the capability of discussing them. All part of the round Earth conspiracy; you have no idea how far it goes. Wake up sheeple!

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

The debate surrounds whether or not (as it plainly did, once) require both parents to be natural citizens.

So why do all your fellow nutjobs insist he was born in Kenya if that had nothing to do with it?

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

Vanilla, everyday corruption. Not "election meddling". And John Podesta, Hillary's campaign manager, was up to his eyeballs with the same deals as Manafort.

nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because people are bone-crushingly stupid. A good analogy would be if watched one episode of that stupid CSI show and suddenly believed themselves shining experts on "the internet", and then proceeded to run around in the streets with their thumb up their ass while screaming "I DEMAND A GUI INTERFACE IN VISUAL BASIC TO TRACK AN IP ADDRESS"

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like someone pointing out that your hair is on fire, so you shove your thumb up your ass and scream "NO MY UNICORN IS NOT ON FIRE". Your post is the plaintive whine of desperation hoping against hope that everyone else is as simple, slow, and easily-led as you are.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

McCain, Rubio, Cruz all appeared in court to prove their citizenship, even though it was obvious that they were U.S. citizens. Obama, dodged and blamed others (state of Hawaii wouldn't release it) and only proved his when Trump made enough fuss about it.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. The daily mail article only suggests that the Clinton campaign paid for the urination ridiculousness. It does not at all address the various testimonies and admitted meetings between Trump campaigners and Russians. The FBI is investigating for other reasons than the silly urination mess. The AG now saying "ohh you mean that sort of meeting" is not a conspiracy theory. They are facts and suggest that further investigation is warranted.

The ability to read is not synonymous with being a conspiracy theorist. If you actually read the first sentences of the CNN article you would have seen that the bill signed by Trump contains provisions that block Trump from easing the sanctions. So the Republicans don't trust him either. Hardly a conspiracy theory. Just reasonable suspicion.

Fuck Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you fucking slashdot morons shilling for him.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even READ the CNN source? It says the REPUBLICAN legislature included provisions that block Trump from easing the sanctions. In other words, even the REPUBLICANS don't trust Trump. So it entirely refutes the poster's ridiculous position. It also refutes yours. Sources aren't just something that has some vague resemblance to part of an arguing point. An actual source SUPPORTS the point. So all that is proven is there are two Trump fanboys that either can't read or don't bother reading. And it proves that either the Republicans are also afflicted with the conspiracy theory bug or that there is some reasonable suspicion of Trump with respect to Russia.

Oh. The Daily mail source didn't support the poster's point either. It only addressed peeing nonsense that really didn't make much difference regarding the investigations. Plus it's ...well...The Daily Mail. So either the poster was intentionally lying or there is some cognitive dysfunction.
Or both.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[ilsaloving]

And I'm guessing that it probably never occurred to you that the person that wrote that blurb was either wrong, or intentionally wrote what they wrote to make it 'pop' more?

I mean, sure, why use Occam's Razor when a retarded conspiracy theory is so much more fun?

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course, no conspiratorial rant is complete without a link to actual, proven fake news. Keep doing God's Work, we're all having a laugh at your expense kiddo.

Best solution

[Geekbot]

Who cares. It doesn't matter who is lying and why. And they all are. Politicians and big business are going to screw you over either way and there's nothing you can do about it. Be a good person in your community and hope it trickles up because despite Reagan and Trump I don't believe anything trickles down.
And that's not exactly a slam on Trump, I hate all politicians equally regardless of party affiliation. My understanding is the top 2 bribers/campaign contributors were in for almost a 100 mil each. There is no way the rest of us can compete with that level of influence.

What do you mean by "conspiracy theory"?

[Eldaar]

Most people seem to think "crazy idea with no backing" when they hear "conspiracy" or "conspiracy theory." This is unfortunate, because what a conspiracy theory is (by literal definition) is a theory that some group of individuals or other actors are working together to achieve something, likely in secret.

While common "conspiracy theories" like Pizzagate may be nonsense, the idea that literal conspiracy theories (as described above) are inherently wrong/crazy/nonsense is itself wrong. On the contrary - OF COURSE wealthy and powerful people work together in secret to achieve many of their goals. And yes, some of these are nefarious goals in which these people are working to consolidate their power or wealth by taking it from someone else.

How else do we explain the numerous attempts my US intelligence agencies to influence foreign elections, or straight-up depose leaders of other countries? How do we explain what corporations do to lobby Congress? These are examples of groups of people working together (conspiring) to achieve goals - goals which the public would often find reprehensible.

Of course we should be skeptical of what we take in, and work to confirm and validate it with as much first-hand evidence as possible. But to dismiss all conspiracy theories as nonsense is the wrong way to go - it's clear that there are powerful people in this world, and some of these people work together to consolidate their power. Watergate, anyone?

Manufacturing Consent

[hernol]

Just read Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky and Edward Said.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't be! Everyone knows Mars is flat...

Propaganda crap from globalist libtards

[fourfaces]

We don't believe you.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[david_thornley]

You can provide cites that show that a lot of Democrats think Trump colluded with Russia. It's going to be real hard to come up with cites that 100% of Democrats do.

It's clear to me that Trump is a lot closer to the Russians than I like, and he has pushed pro-Russia policies more than most. Whether this amounts to collusion is something I'm waiting for the end of the Mueller investigation to decide.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[david_thornley]

You know, people like you have argued that it's not wrong to have business dealings and meetings with Russians. I therefore find it ironic that you seem to be arguing that it was wrong to try to prevent Trump from becoming President. Certainly the FBI should have stayed out of it (in specific, Comey should not have done that fake "more emails" flap in October that may have cost Clinton the election), but you're including "Clinton-machine money" which it seems to me should naturally be partisan towards Clinton.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[david_thornley]

What uranium ore scandal? Clinton was one of several government officials who signed off on the sale of some of a Canadian company to Russians. That means some of the profits would go to Russia. I haven't heard anything about Clinton being involved in uranium ore.

"CONSPIRATORIAL" THINKING

[Anonymous Coward]

LISTEN TO ME WELL:

1st The term was coined and has been pushed by the CIA and their useful idiot media and political drones to control narratives and thinking--and you can look that up

2nd Humans are by nature deep in their bones CONSPIRATORIAL. A lot of conspiracies are absolutely real. To conspire, and also to recognize when someone has conspired, IS QUINTESSENTIALLY HUMAN. It is what separates us from the other animals. So stuff that in your pipe and AWAKEN. We are not paranoids.

Dennis Morrisseau
USArmy Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR

LIBERTY UNION founder
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FireCongress.org
Second Vermont Republic, VFM
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT 05775
dmorso1@netzero.net
802 645 9727

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[david_thornley]

Well, we've got lots of prominent Republicans who deny the laws of physics, so you have to admit there's some justification.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[david_thornley]

Quiet...they don't want us to know that.

Failing Condé Nast struggling for air

[Anonymous Coward]

Condé Nast, the parent company of Ars, is sinking into the abyss; just look at the financials. These people cannot even keep their own company afloat.

I voted for Obama and think his BC was a forgery

[Anonymous Coward]

There is plenty of evidence his birth certificate is forged. Some of it is even persuasive.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/birther-conspiracy-theorists-seize-death-hawaii-official-fuel-birther-conspiracy-theory/356080/
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2016/12/15/sheriff-joe-arpaio-5-year-investigation-proves-obama-birth-certificate-fake/95444730/

There's a lot of comfort to be found in conspiracy theories. It suggests that the people running the world are infallible, competent, and never make mistakes. The alternative is terrifying: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/julian-tan/the-unspoken-malaysian-tr_b_5065111.html

Would you rather live in a world where the people responsible for protecting you from terrorists and nuclear war can lose a 777, or one where they can make one disappear without a trace and convincingly pretend to look for it for over a year?

Science vs Conspiracy

[minstrelmike]

News flash: people who understand how things we read and buy in real life actually work are more resistant to conspiracy theories than those who think everything is mystical and non-understandable.

By the way, for all the folks who think fake news is new, The National Enquirer (of batboy and living Elvis fame) has always been more popular than the NY Times of the Washington Post. Racism, tribalism and idiocy aren't new this millinium.

Re:Liberal conspiracies

[david_thornley]

Except that politics does mean something to me. The actions of politicians directly affect me and everyone I know.

There have been years when I followed the local Major League Baseball team very closely, and years when I completely ignored it (except to check on my brother's schedule, as he's one of the official scorers). It was fun to have them win the World Series, but the only life-changing thing about it was additional hearing damage. That's what following sports teams is about. The local highways don't get more or less maintenance if the local NFL team is in the Superbowl. The performance of the basketball team isn't going to start a war. The hockey team's success will have only a very minor effect on the crime rate.

I am aware of ways in which I lack power. There are several structural changes that could increase the political power of a single voter, and they're not likely to happen any time soon. It would be good to abolish the Electoral College and have some sort of ranked-choice voting for government offices. It might well work better to have each party (not just the major two) submit a slate of candidates for the House of Representatives and send them to Congress according to party votes. (It doesn't look like that would violate the Constitution.) However, I have to spend at least some time in the real world, paying attention to real world problems. And, in the real world, the US voting system will tend towards two major party and an occasional third party getting some support, so I have to deal with that.

The fact is that things would have gone considerably differently this year if the Democrats had taken the House, the Senate, and the White House. Differently in ways that affect me and the people I care about. Either I participate in the two-party system, or I leave all this up to other people.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Billly Gates]

Um that is because we have proof and overwhelming evidence including the CIA and even Russia itself. Russia boasted their intelligence service is superior to the CIA as you saw with the latest election!

The only people who don't believe watch biased entertainment sources like Fox News

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Billly Gates]

Not really. Liberals are into facts. It's part of the philosophy. Conservatives just ideology. Facts are fiction and fiction is fact and are based on ones owns truths. Conservatism is very dangerous in it's current form as a result.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Billly Gates]

That's different. He has an R next to his name. Only Democrats need to be scrutinized

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Dread_ed]

Democrats and Republicans are political parties. There is no liberal party, just as there is no conservative party.

Your other wild musings are really quite funny. I like learning new and interesting ways people can be completely wrongheaded and still express 100% confidence in themselves. Keep it up!

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not correct. It takes more than just one parent if born outside the US. The requirements to be a natural born citizen are found here:

https://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html

I'm not a birther nut at all, but we should be correct in our statements when criticizing the nutters.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary did not pay for the report.
She contributed to a POOL for research,nothing more

The left does it too, and yes it's a problem.

[Shane_Optima]

The American right is much, much worse about ignorance (and valuing non-ignorance) than the left. This is very old news. And yeah, there's a ton of hard data supporting it.

But leftists really need to understand that "better than the Republicans" simply isn't good enough. If the average Democrat utters unique 3 political lies per week and the Republicans utters 30... that's not enough to translate into a political advantage! Those three lies are not only more than enough material for Fox News and talk radio to have a field day to embolden their base, but they're also enough to disillusion the centrists, fence-sitters, and "politics are just too depressing" folks.

You have to try to set the bar higher. Relative honesty isn't good enough; relative sanity isn't good enough.

Example? Well, just yesterday I replied to drinkypoo who more or less was denying that Obama had ever "took the side of black people before facts came out". And he did, of course. He didn't do it remotely to the degree that Fox News says he did; he's an infinitely more insightful and reasonable person than the current POTUS, etc. etc., but that isn't good enough.

Ring wingers never want give up on nonsense like Benghazi or the birth certificate thing or WMDs or a 9/11 connection in the Iraq War. And leftists don't want to give up their own deceitful shibboleths like the shooting Treyvon Martin, or that Trump supposedly "confessed to sexual assault on tape" (and of course he didn't even come close to it. His entire cringey macho thesis was that women "let you" touch them, with no hint whatsoever that he was using some sort of coercion), or that conservative Islam is somehow much less dangerous than conservative Christianity.

Some people misinterpret this all as saying that left should be more passive... no, nothing could be further from the truth. The American left is anemic as hell, woefully centrist and compromise-ready also unwilling to fight important nuts-and-bolts battles like the electoral college and campaign finance reform. The left NEEDS to be bold and stubborn, but it can take the high road while it does so. It can't sling mud the way the Republicans do and get away with it. It can't beat the right at its own game. It just makes people shrug and give up.

Which is exactly what happened last year. The numbers don't lie. It wasn't a spike in the pro-Trump right, it was the anemic response of the anti-Trump vote that allowed the unthinkable to happen. This really shouldn't be a controversial thing to say any more, and yet somehow it is.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[ebvwfbw]

Sometimes you can have fun with them. For example the stupid people that think the the plane couldn't take down the WTC. Just mention they probably had the chem trail mixture on board and who knows what that stuff burns at. Then they're in trouble. Do they believe the chem trail BS or that a plane couldn't take down the WTC BS.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[cascadingstylesheet]

In the US, 1/32 Black is "all Black". It used to be by law, but still is by custom, to many people.

To the Left, apparently.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

The 1/32 rule was set by the right. The only reason the right made an issue of it with Obama was to not have to recognize a Black president.

Re:Slashdot's increasingly leftist bias is worriso

[famebait]

If you consider environmentalism categorically leftist, maybe you should reconsider your own bias.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[Anonymous Coward]

However in the meantime 100% of Democrats seem to STILL think Trump has some kind of magical tie to Russia

Where did you get that figure from? No need to answer, it is clear you pulled it out of your arse. Why even bother trying to argue, if you are going to make shit up?

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[cascadingstylesheet]

The 1/32 rule was set by the right. The only reason the right made an issue of it with Obama was to not have to recognize a Black president.

Southern Democrats are "the right"?

Smart people Resist media distraction

[sursurrus]

The media never mention the impact of zero information content stories on distracting attention away from serious issues. They also never mention how on the order of 10 entities own every major news media outlet in the country. And of course, they go out of the way to deny and minimize allegations that top-level ownership controls content.

Instead they go out of their way to create inherently loaded terms like 'Conspiracy Theory' (with the unspoken 'nutjob') and then use that to label anyone who disagrees with them in any way. Whether you're a birther, truther, flat-earther, hollow-earther or simply think the media are controlled shills of profascist oligarchs, banks, and multinational corporations -- you get lumped under the same label... which then gets broadcast to the hundreds of millions of captive viewers.

The KGB did interesting experiments in the 1960s that showed that a television program put viewers into a suggestible, near hypnotic state where mental filters failed and they believed what they saw. The widely publicized failures of subliminal advertising distract and mislead away from the success of 'barely liminal' advertising.

With all this, how can one NOT believe the 'conspiracy' that the media would act in underhanded ways and then act out of self interest to cover up their actions by attacking their critics?

TL;DR: The repeal of Net Neutrality is the media and government saying they don't like you thinking anything they don't tell you to think.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

Yes. In the 1800s, the Democrats were the right, and the Republicans were the left.

You should go back to the 2nd grade, before you make a bigger fool of yourself.

Types of news stories: how the sausage is made

[eric_harris_76]

Rewrite of news release. Might be heavily edited -- possibly even fact-checked! -- or slightly paraphrased or truncated, or published verbatim. That's why news release rookies are advised to write in a "journalistic" style -- to make it as easy as possible for a journalist to publish something about your news release's topic -- and ideally, what you want them to publish.

Precognition. A news story about an event scheduled to happen later in the day. Often includes phrases like "it is expected". Nobody in particular ever seems to be doing the expecting, though occasionally they are vaguely described as "experts" or "insiders" or "the X community". (I once heard the passive voice used twice in the same sentence, one use nested inside the other.) Few or no facts in the story beyond the scheduled time and/or place of the event, yet they somehow manage to make a paragraph or two out of it.

Media event (establishment). The scheduled event occurs -- with photo ops, video news releases, text news release, prepared statements -- and is reported as though it was something. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just the Fed or whatever announcing that it is doing what it said it would do.

Media event (outsider). Planned protest or demonstration or disruption by new or ad hoc group. So: Ferguson residents protesting in Ferguson, yes, Al Sharpton before the cameras in Ferguson, no. (See "Media event (establishment)".)

Investigative journalism. Continues to be an endangered species, because it is labor-intensive and its natural enemies are often in a symbiotic relationship with the journalist's employer. Conception is rare, and it tends to die in the womb or be throttled after birth, or crippled before leaving the nest.

Ads as news. Someone has a new book or (more likely) movie or TV show, and coincidentally has an interesting event or talent peripherally related to that project.

Science as boogeyman/savior/party-pooper. Some research in the physical or social sciences leads to counter-intuitive or controversial conclusions, possibly tentative ones. The research suggests possible products or public policy initiatives. Even if the researchers and commenting experts aren't trying to panic or enrage or gull the general public or some dimwitted or excitable segment of it, by the time the sausage factory turns it into a story, it very possibly have that effect.

Breaking news (expected unexpected event). A specific instance of a typical unscheduled event occurs: inner-city shooting, election went "the wrong way", etc. Reporters interview official sources at or near the site of the accident/election/crime/fire/championship. May also seek out local or national experts (or "experts") for information or bloviating, so the reporter doesn't have to.

Breaking news (unexpected unexpected event). An event that has no story template: politician resumes doing incredibly stupid thing that got him in so much trouble before, person of integrity appears in unlikely place/profession. My personal favorite in this category: the election of Jesse Ventura as Governor of Minnesota. The reporters went all deer-in-the-headlights, as their mental scripts had no contingency plans for a non-duopoly candidate doing the unthinkable: winning. Those pesky voters went off-script. (Insert own cynical "professional wrestling" remark here.) (Maybe there is a template now for that politician-with-self-destructive-compulsion, due to the careers of Marion Berry and Anthony Wiener.)