# It just sunk in for me tonight how screwed we all are (RE: Politics in general) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 17, 2017, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-just-sunk-in-for-me-tonight-how-screwed-we-all-are-re-politics-in-general/801841 "2017-11-17T04:11:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-just-sunk-in-for-me-tonight-how-screwed-we-all-are-re-politics-in-general/801841/1 "2017-11-17T04:11:36Z")
It’s not like I haven’t been observing a slow snowballing of worrisome incidents over recent time which all seem to point in a really unfortunate direction – I have. But everybody has a tipping point; a point in time where the preponderance of data achieves a certain critical mass and it hits you for real, a sudden clear and certain realization of the gestalt. After that, it’s mostly just about damage control, cause it’s a done deal. I’m sort of an incurable optimist – but really, how depressing. Someone posing as a reporter from the Washington Post – “Bernie Bernstein” – has been calling Alabama voters via a recording, claiming to be offering $5,000 to 7,000 (or is that 5000 to 7000$, a la Doug Lewis?) for anyone willing to pretend to accuse Roy Moore of sexual assault. The recording leaves a fake WaPo email address. (FakeReporter FakeReporterstein @wapo.etc) The sole and only purpose of this cheap ploy is to convince people who just pick up the phone, listen, and hang up, that Mr. Moore is indeed the victim of an elaborate setup. After all, it didn’t just happen to some anonymous person quoted thirdhand – it happened to you! This is, to date, one of the most cynical and disingenuous acts I’ve heard about, undertaken not by petty swindlers nor corporate bad actors but a judge in a political race. I know stuff like this probably went on before now, but somehow this particular thing seems especially egregious and, well, just cynical. Blatant. There’s not even an attempt to cover it up or create a premise. To me, this means from now on we are going to have to, not just second-guess, but third- and fourth- and fifth-guess every statement; and not just statements, but acts; and not just in press releases and political ads, but in every walk of life. We will be spending that much more time trying to convince gullible people that they have been hoodwinked; as time goes on, this stuff will get more and more sophisticated, and we will get hoodwinked ourselves. It will be exhausting, and we will be tempted to just wave dismissively at it all and say, “I’m done. There’s no way to know what the truth is, and I’m tired of trying to figure it all out.” But we can’t do that! That’s the whole goal of this kind of deceitful crap, to either fool us or wear us out. We have to start thinking of ways to verify truth-tellers, as definitively as possible. Maybe we can have a board of impartial fact-checkers monitor news outlets for lies, and institute a system for verifying consistent veracity, like a combination of Twitter’s blue check and Verisign. News sources that report conspiracy theories as fact will not be verified. News sources that grossly misrepresent facts and figures, or make things up, or repeat things that are made up without saying, “There is not evidence whatsoever of this,” will not be verified. Opinion sources will be labeled as such. There can be a cross-linked ongoing database of events and topics so you can look up, say, “Bernie Bernstein” and find out that the whole thing was a sad little ploy perpetrated by those who try to cheat, because they can’t be right the regular way. I’m sure there are lots of people who can shoot that idea down in a heartbeat. it’s okay; I’m not emotionally attached to that particular idea. But we need to get the conversation started. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-just-sunk-in-for-me-tonight-how-screwed-we-all-are-re-politics-in-general/801841/2 "2017-11-17T04:52:33Z")
Here’s the heartbeat. Where do you find truly impartial fact-checkers? Who checks _them_ and the facts they find? What we’re seeing is really the way it’s always been. It’s just that, thanks to the Internet, we now realize it. “Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true—except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge.” –Knoll’s Law of Media Accuracy (Erwin Knoll, editor, “The Progressive”) “The fat Russian agent was cornering all the foreign refugees in turn and explaining plausibly that this whole affair was an Anarchist plot. I watched him with some interest, for it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies—unless one counts journalists.” –George Orwell, “Homage to Catalonia” (1938) “It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Norvell (June 11, 1807) ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-just-sunk-in-for-me-tonight-how-screwed-we-all-are-re-politics-in-general/801841/3 "2017-11-17T05:01:44Z")
Michael Crichton said something similar, he called it the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect after his physicist friend Murray Gell-Mann. Apparently the effect is wearing off these days. > [@](#): > > “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. > In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. > > That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. > > But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia. > > ― Michael Crichton > **[The Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2011/08/the-murray-gell-mann-amnesia-effect/)** > > Joe Carter, via a string of other blogs, quotes the late Michael Crichton’s 2002 essay “Why Speculate?”: Media carries with it a credibility that is ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-just-sunk-in-for-me-tonight-how-screwed-we-all-are-re-politics-in-general/801841/4 "2017-11-17T09:33:22Z")
It’'s a lot simpler than that, folks. They publish only the truth. But they leave out some truths, too, carefully chosen to leave the reader with the desired impression. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-just-sunk-in-for-me-tonight-how-screwed-we-all-are-re-politics-in-general/801841/5 "2017-11-17T09:45:56Z")
Re: Politics in general, as a non-American looking in from the outside I think that the state of politics in your country is pathetic. And by politics I mean everything, all the government stuff, the health, guns, social welfare, pretty much the lot of it. The state of it all is pathetic and reflects so badly upon you all. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-just-sunk-in-for-me-tonight-how-screwed-we-all-are-re-politics-in-general/801841/6 "2017-11-17T10:43:30Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > Re: Politics in general, as a non-American looking in from the outside I think that the state of politics in your country is pathetic. > > And by politics I mean everything, all the government stuff, the health, guns, social welfare, pretty much the lot of it. The state of it all is pathetic and reflects so badly upon you all. I am fairly certain that most Americans think that too. It is coming close to a tipping point. The polarization can even be felt in daily life now. I love the U.S. in general but I hate the fact that politics are treated like an extreme sport these days. A key factor is the exponential rise of social media and selective political bubbles for everyone. It tends to polarize and jeopardize the whole process. Don’t think Ireland is going to be immune to it either. It takes exceptional leadership to break the trend. We don’t have any right now and you also may not in the near future. Reactionary, fragmented politics is an ugly thing. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-just-sunk-in-for-me-tonight-how-screwed-we-all-are-re-politics-in-general/801841/7 "2017-11-17T11:56:55Z")
> [@](#): > > A key factor is the exponential rise of social media and selective political bubbles for everyone. That would only be true if social media were the only form of socialization people had. Everyone’s social media is a bubble, but only half the country lives in a bubble in their face-to-face interactions. It’s true that most conservatives interact with fewer liberals than liberals do, but it’s also true that most conservatives interact with fewer conservatives than liberals do. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-just-sunk-in-for-me-tonight-how-screwed-we-all-are-re-politics-in-general/801841/8 "2017-11-17T13:46:08Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I am fairly certain that most Americans think that too. It is coming close to a tipping point. The polarization can even be felt in daily life now. I love the U.S. in general but I hate the fact that politics are treated like an extreme sport these days. A key factor is the exponential rise of social media and selective political bubbles for everyone. It tends to polarize and jeopardize the whole process. Don’t think Ireland is going to be immune to it either. It takes exceptional leadership to break the trend. We don’t have any right now and you also may not in the near future. Reactionary, fragmented politics is an ugly thing. A big issue, at root, is that America’s deep seated class and racial tensions make it easier for tribalism to take hold here. I don’t know if nations like Ireland have those deep seated class and racial divisions that we have. Having said that as far as op what truly matters is if voters want to be lied to. That’s the problem. The problem isn’t that someone is making up lies via crank calls. It is that a huge segment of Moore supporters want to hear comforting lies rather than confusing and scary truths. Even if you ban the lying, his supporters will find some other way to lie to themselves.