# Inflammatory Illo masks insightful argument. Link **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 9, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651 "2009-12-09T22:58:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/1 "2009-12-09T22:58:30Z")
Ignore the outrageous illo–read the article! [http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/conspiracycorner/2485/the\_new\_information\_order.html](http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/conspiracycorner/2485/the_new_information_order.html) > [@](#): > > In the pre-Internet age, our society had an order of information in which knowledge was managed by experts and authorities, as well as representatives of the political, legal, scientific, medical and economic powers-that-be. Academics, scientists, spokespersons for the state and the owners, producers and editors of the major media decided what was real and what was unreal, what was true and what was false. The upside of this was that an awful lot of utter nonsense did not find mainstream distribution. The downside was that some material was misclassified as unreal or false – either by error, or because of interest group pressure, ideology or group-think. > > The Internet threatens all this by speeding up circulation of unofficial data and simply bypassing the official information authorities. Crucially, it enables the creation and distribution of pure speculation or outright lies without significant legal hazard. > > * * * > > Faced with a banning injunction, any media organisation can just slip the story onto the Net. Is the old information order finished? If this is the major breach it appears to be, do we want to go down the American road to a situation in which anyone can write or broadcast anything? For the evidence from America suggests that a large section of the population are unable to tell the shit from the Shinola. And if there is a middle way, what is it? This may belong in Great Debates. Is the author right? Has information validity gone out the window for most of us? ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/2 "2009-12-09T23:11:58Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Ignore the outrageous illo–read the article! > > [http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/conspiracycorner/2485/the\_new\_information\_order.html](http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/conspiracycorner/2485/the_new_information_order.html) > This may belong in Great Debates. > > Is the author right? > Has information validity gone out the window for most of us? What’s an illo? And no, I think the author is incorrect in his assumption. People were just as idiotic before the internet as they are now. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/3 "2009-12-09T23:15:46Z")
> [@valleyofthedolls](#): > > What’s an illo? And no, I think the author is incorrect in his assumption. People were just as idiotic before the internet as they are now. An illo is an illustration. ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/4 "2009-12-09T23:20:12Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > An illo is an illustration. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/5 "2009-12-09T23:24:07Z")
It’s a crackpot idea published by a crackpot magazine, what else would you expect? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/6 "2009-12-09T23:27:45Z")
> [@valleyofthedolls](#): > > Thanks. That’ll be a dollar, as always. ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/7 "2009-12-09T23:30:17Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > That’ll be a dollar, as always. I’ll give you another buck if you tell me why it’s not called an “illu.” Would seem to make more sense. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/8 "2009-12-09T23:32:19Z")
> [@valleyofthedolls](#): > > I’ll give you another buck if you tell me why it’s not called an “illu.” Would seem to make more sense. It’s similar to the reason for the names _Robert_, _William_, and _Richard_ being abbreviated _Bob_, _Bill_, and _Dick_. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/9 "2009-12-09T23:33:05Z")
I dunno. I’ve been saying this for nearly as long as the series of tubes have been around. Back in the day, you swung by the library, went to the nonfiction section, and you could be reasonably sure what was there wasn’t complete crap. Yeah, there was that chance and many details could be white washed, what you needed might not be there…and so on and so on. Now, the “library”, aka the internet, there is tons of shit about everything imaginable. But NOW, the probability of it being remotely accurate IMO is pretty low. If you have a decent BS filter and you know what you are looking for, the internet can be great. Otherwise, not so much IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/10 "2009-12-10T09:56:16Z")
> [@](#): > > In the pre-Internet age, our society had an order of information in which knowledge was managed by experts and authorities, as well as representatives of the political, legal, scientific, medical and economic powers-that-be. Academics, scientists, spokespersons for the state and the owners, producers and editors of the major media decided what was real and what was unreal, what was true and what was false. The upside of this was that an awful lot of utter nonsense did not find mainstream distribution. The downside was that some material was misclassified as unreal or false – either by error, or because of interest group pressure, ideology or group-think. Unspoken premise: TPTB have a level of expertise in managing information the rest of us dumb drones could never hope to achieve, and they have our best interests at heart, therefore whatever they tell us _must_ be true. Missing corollary: Genuinely unreal or false information was classified as true. Take, as one example off the top of my head, the case of the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s. Nine young Black men falsely accused of rape, and yet the mass media blared their guilt as if it were established fact even before the trial was completed. Information validity has not gone out the window. The filters (i.e. critical thinking) are still available and usable by anyone who chooses to. The sheer volume of information available thanks to the Internet may have increased and the signal-to-noise ratio may have declined relatively as a result, but that doesn’t mean we’re no longer able to sift through it, think things over, and determine validity. In fact, I’d argue that critical thinking is _more_ relevant than ever for the masses, considering TPTB will consciously lie in order to attain its goals - the words ‘Iraq war’ should require no further elaboration here. OK, now that I’ve offered my thoughts, I’ll take a peek at the illo… oh, F$CK that guy right in the ear. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inflammatory-illo-masks-insightful-argument-link/520651/11 "2009-12-10T14:12:09Z")
Soooo … the crux of his argument is that tabloids, yellow journalism, widespread rumours, misinformation, propaganda, and the like either didn’t exist or had no statistically significant effect on the public consciousness before the Internet because the “truth” was only allowed to be widely disseminated by the responsible, upstanding, and irreproachable mainstream media, thus resulting in a more sensible, informed and right-thinking society? I’m sure if they were alive today, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst would agree.