Toxic Media

[GT]

Is it just me or after every contentious election that a Democrat wins do I immediately have to hear the mainstream press and celebrities rattle on about “coming together and putting aside our differences”? But yet I never heard that when Bush or Trump won.

Yes it's obnoxious.....both sides.

You know, Doodle, virtually everything you post--and I mean everything--demands that somebody else change to accommodate your view of how the world should be. Not only does that type of self-referential thinking ignore the fact that we live in a pluralistic society, it conveys a certain abhorrence for the idea that other people have values and ideals of their own. Your solution to every societal ill is to simply impose the "right" answer on everybody else.

Well said. I think this is called an "authoritarian impulse".

I don't agree. I'm not telling anyone how or what to think. My suggestions with regards to this topic do not say what you must think about anything but are merely making the argument that in order to make decisions you must be provided with accurate information or facts.

Say for example you were trying to eat a prescribed diet and there were nutrition labels on the food packages saying what was in the food...whether printed by the company itself or some third party. Consumers would use that information to make decisions. Let's say those labels claimed to provide accurate information (They were 'Fair and Balanced' labels!) but in fact were totally false and intentionally contained wrong or misleading information in order to manipulate your health for some end goal. That would make it very difficult to follow the diet that you wanted and make informed decisions.

I'm sure you would have an issue if a food product said it was pork but it was really donkey, right? Or do you think that consumers should have to set up food labs in their house and do DNA analysis on any meat that they buy to see if the label is accurate?

I'm saying this information problem exists throughout our news networks. I'm advocating for a way to provide more accurate information for consumers so that they can make better decisions.....Im NOT telling them what to think!

Comparing food labeling to the News is apples to oranges. Are you really suggesting we need an FDA for the news?

Do we need an FDA? Let's stay away from the news media for a minute...should a company be able to label their food however they like? Should a company be able to say something is organic gras fed beef when it is really feedlot beef pumped full of antibiotics?

When talking about all of this you also have to remember that when something seems obvious to you...or they can just figure something out....everyone on this forum is probably close to the top 10% of the bell curve in intelligence. That matters. Also, you all seem to have a lot of time on your hands to research shit...you aren't struggling single moms with three jobs trying to make sure you are just putting healthy food on table for kids.

I suspect that less than 10% of people ever look at the food labels. People look at me funny when I do it. Most people just trust that the FDA won't allow products on the shelf that aren't good for us.

Is that the way you want the news to work? Sounds like you do.

Agree on food labels versus the marketing on the box. - People will read the marketing on the front side but fail to read the actual details on the side of the box - Reduced fat - just means 10% less fat then the nonreduced item - people eat reduced fat items all the time thinking they eating a healthy alternative - "oh I only eat the reduced fat bacon" - instead of 10 grams of fat in the two strips of bacon you are only having 9 grams.

The sad truth is the FDA can never keep up or will not keep up with the marketers - Free range chickens is a prime example - Free range to the average person is outside on a range for the majority of the time - Free range to the chicken industry, and FDA, is access to the outside - amount of time outside and what is considered a range is not defined - a few minutes a day outside on a concrete slab is still free range.

sorry if I took this a little off topic

[Tortoise]

Here's an interesting editorial that makes some suggestions similar to doodle's (e.g., news programs using banner to clearly signal to their viewers what parts of their programming are "news" and what parts are "opinion/analysis").

I also thought the following point from the editorial was a good one (boldface added):

Yes, Americans are divided — but outside of die-hard partisans, most Americans are divided within themselves. Few check every ideological menu item assigned to red or blue, but those colors allow the national media to stereotype people into different corners of some political boxing ring.

You don’t get much bluer than my state of California. Joe Biden won more than 65 percent of the vote here. And, sure enough, Californians last week passed propositions to expand consumer privacy rights and fund medical research. But we also voted against bringing back a form of affirmative action, against eliminating cash bail, and against expanding rent control. How “blue” is any of that?

Look at deeply red Mississippi. The state, not surprisingly, went 60-40 for President Trump. But 74 percent of voters there also endorsed a medical marijuana initiative, and nearly 70 percent approved a new state flag that replaces the old Confederate stars-and-bars. The flag ballot measure was formulated as part of a racial re-examination following the death of George Floyd. That doesn’t seem to square with national media boiler-plate about red states and red voters.

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/ ... crossroads

[pp4me]

Is it just me or after every contentious election that a Democrat wins do I immediately have to hear the mainstream press and celebrities rattle on about “coming together and putting aside our differences”? But yet I never heard that when Bush or Trump won.

Yes it's obnoxious.....both sides.

You know, Doodle, virtually everything you post--and I mean everything--demands that somebody else change to accommodate your view of how the world should be. Not only does that type of self-referential thinking ignore the fact that we live in a pluralistic society, it conveys a certain abhorrence for the idea that other people have values and ideals of their own. Your solution to every societal ill is to simply impose the "right" answer on everybody else.

Well said. I think this is called an "authoritarian impulse".

I don't agree. I'm not telling anyone how or what to think. My suggestions with regards to this topic do not say what you must think about anything but are merely making the argument that in order to make decisions you must be provided with accurate information or facts.

Say for example you were trying to eat a prescribed diet and there were nutrition labels on the food packages saying what was in the food...whether printed by the company itself or some third party. Consumers would use that information to make decisions. Let's say those labels claimed to provide accurate information (They were 'Fair and Balanced' labels!) but in fact were totally false and intentionally contained wrong or misleading information in order to manipulate your health for some end goal. That would make it very difficult to follow the diet that you wanted and make informed decisions.

I'm sure you would have an issue if a food product said it was pork but it was really donkey, right? Or do you think that consumers should have to set up food labs in their house and do DNA analysis on any meat that they buy to see if the label is accurate?

I'm saying this information problem exists throughout our news networks. I'm advocating for a way to provide more accurate information for consumers so that they can make better decisions.....Im NOT telling them what to think!

Comparing food labeling to the News is apples to oranges. Are you really suggesting we need an FDA for the news?

Do we need an FDA? Let's stay away from the news media for a minute...should a company be able to label their food however they like? Should a company be able to say something is organic gras fed beef when it is really feedlot beef pumped full of antibiotics?

When talking about all of this you also have to remember that when something seems obvious to you...or they can just figure something out....everyone on this forum is probably close to the top 10% of the bell curve in intelligence. That matters. Also, you all seem to have a lot of time on your hands to research shit...you aren't struggling single moms with three jobs trying to make sure you are just putting healthy food on table for kids.

I suspect that less than 10% of people ever look at the food labels. People look at me funny when I do it. Most people just trust that the FDA won't allow products on the shelf that aren't good for us.

Is that the way you want the news to work? Sounds like you do.

Agree on food labels versus the marketing on the box. - People will read the marketing on the front side but fail to read the actual details on the side of the box - Reduced fat - just means 10% less fat then the nonreduced item - people eat reduced fat items all the time thinking they eating a healthy alternative - "oh I only eat the reduced fat bacon" - instead of 10 grams of fat in the two strips of bacon you are only having 9 grams.

The sad truth is the FDA can never keep up or will not keep up with the marketers - Free range chickens is a prime example - Free range to the average person is outside on a range for the majority of the time - Free range to the chicken industry, and FDA, is access to the outside - amount of time outside and what is considered a range is not defined - a few minutes a day outside on a concrete slab is still free range.

sorry if I took this a little off topic

I do Keto so I actually look for high fat/low carb. What really gets me is when you see things labeled as "healthy alternatives" and when you look at the label it has 20 grams of sugar.

Yes, we're veering off topic. Supposed to be Toxic Media not Toxic food but the OP brought up the FDA.

[boglerdude]

Milton Friedman on Libertarianism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSumJxQ5oy4

[doodle]

Is it just me or after every contentious election that a Democrat wins do I immediately have to hear the mainstream press and celebrities rattle on about “coming together and putting aside our differences”? But yet I never heard that when Bush or Trump won.

Yes it's obnoxious.....both sides.

You know, Doodle, virtually everything you post--and I mean everything--demands that somebody else change to accommodate your view of how the world should be. Not only does that type of self-referential thinking ignore the fact that we live in a pluralistic society, it conveys a certain abhorrence for the idea that other people have values and ideals of their own. Your solution to every societal ill is to simply impose the "right" answer on everybody else.

Well said. I think this is called an "authoritarian impulse".

I don't agree. I'm not telling anyone how or what to think. My suggestions with regards to this topic do not say what you must think about anything but are merely making the argument that in order to make decisions you must be provided with accurate information or facts.

Say for example you were trying to eat a prescribed diet and there were nutrition labels on the food packages saying what was in the food...whether printed by the company itself or some third party. Consumers would use that information to make decisions. Let's say those labels claimed to provide accurate information (They were 'Fair and Balanced' labels!) but in fact were totally false and intentionally contained wrong or misleading information in order to manipulate your health for some end goal. That would make it very difficult to follow the diet that you wanted and make informed decisions.

I'm sure you would have an issue if a food product said it was pork but it was really donkey, right? Or do you think that consumers should have to set up food labs in their house and do DNA analysis on any meat that they buy to see if the label is accurate?

I'm saying this information problem exists throughout our news networks. I'm advocating for a way to provide more accurate information for consumers so that they can make better decisions.....Im NOT telling them what to think!

Comparing food labeling to the News is apples to oranges. Are you really suggesting we need an FDA for the news?

Do we need an FDA? Let's stay away from the news media for a minute...should a company be able to label their food however they like? Should a company be able to say something is organic gras fed beef when it is really feedlot beef pumped full of antibiotics?

When talking about all of this you also have to remember that when something seems obvious to you...or they can just figure something out....everyone on this forum is probably close to the top 10% of the bell curve in intelligence. That matters. Also, you all seem to have a lot of time on your hands to research shit...you aren't struggling single moms with three jobs trying to make sure you are just putting healthy food on table for kids.

I suspect that less than 10% of people ever look at the food labels. People look at me funny when I do it. Most people just trust that the FDA won't allow products on the shelf that aren't good for us.

Is that the way you want the news to work? Sounds like you do.

No, I want the nutrition labels to be accurate. If something contains 100 grams of sugar it can't be labeled as having only 20 grams. That's what I expect. Honesty in labeling.

I don't think the "News" should have programming where "Anchors" can say any opinion they may have that has no basis in reality or evidence backing it up as if it were fact.

I really don't know how to deal with this issue. It seems that the modern age of the internet has given platforms to a lot of voices...including the Russians and Chinese that want to sew seeds of chaos in our country by manipulating us through our first amendment rights. They are so far succeeding at destroying us from within. The war they are waging will have us shortly killing each other.

[I Shrugged]

Today on the local noon news was a mention that senate candidate A (D) looks to have beaten candidate B (R). But B is still refusing to concede. The reason was not provided. Instead they Zoomed with a psych person to discuss what does it say about a person’s personality when they won’t concede.

My wife and I just can’t take it. Instead of being able to watch what used to be reasonably unbiased news at lunch and dinner, we turn it off or watch Big Bang reruns. I really miss watching a decent news show that could be watched by everyone.

[GT]

Today on the local noon news was a mention that senate candidate A (D) looks to have beaten candidate B (R). But B is still refusing to concede. The reason was not provided. Instead they Zoomed with a psych person to discuss what does it say about a person’s personality when they won’t concede.

My wife and I just can’t take it. Instead of being able to watch what used to be reasonably unbiased news at lunch and dinner, we turn it off or watch Big Bang reruns. I really miss watching a decent news show that could be watched by everyone.

That is the funny part - if the D would not concede - MSM would have a different spin.

Did Stacy Abrams ever concede her race? Was it bad she didn't - Yahoo didn't think so - She's fighting racisms
https://news.yahoo.com/stacey-abrams-de ... 32285.html
https://news.yahoo.com/why-stacey-abram ... 48579.html

Was Hillary telling Biden not to concede bad? NBC didn't think so... The Dems would be "focused and relentless"
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-e ... r-n1238156