Thread: Good article on why americans will believe anything

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

I have a big problem with our affinity for flavors of the week. Like someone mentioned, all you heard about was Steve Fosset for a week, now you don't hear anything about him. It's all just flashy atrocity- what's the newest mishap in the world we can focus on?

Yeah I know what you mean --- I also have a problem with everything being an "Alert"- "Alert: Michael Jackson is leaving the court room" ---- "Alert: O.J. is back in Florida" ---- good God : when I was a kid the only thing that got Alert Status was a President getting assassinated or something serious .

And you find things being covered regularly that would be better fitted for a local news channel --- like covering a fire in a building that really has so no influence on the majority of the country

Justin

Personally I have hardly watched any t.v. in over a year. Only occasionally I'll watch the news. Mainly because the roommates programming of entertainment and mine are two different ideas all together. Now I have my own place again and am debating if I really need to spend the money on the new high defintion tv or continue to go without.

It's nice not being bombarded by the political crap around an election year. It's amazing how your perception and outlook can change just by not watching the boob tube.

the few times I have watched the news I was amazed at how the different stations portrayed the same story. It was allways a political split with almost absolutly no information given to support or disprove anyone. Just I'm right your wrong, or liar, liar. Thanks I could have gotten the same information from a kindergartener.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but after reading through the article, and thinking that it does have some good points, it seems obvious to me that Mr. O'Shea has his own agenda. I would certainly question his motives for some of the things he wrote about in an ostensibly objective fashion, not to mention his own research into the article itself seemed to be lacking. I agree with many of the members of the forum that we simply should not believe everything we read (or watch), no matter if it agrees with our own principles or not. However, there does seem to be a misunderstanding here in the article of Occam's razor. Granted, that's what he speaks against a lot, but I am speaking in a slightly different sense than Mr. O'Shea. Anyways, still a good read, enjoyable, and somewhat enlightening. Mr. O'Shea, at the very least, has enough courage to question the status quo, but I wish he had been a little more objective about it.

EDIT: I am not trying to attack anyone in the forum with my opinion, nor am I saying the author is a fraud or anything like that, lest someone misunderstand me. Nor am I attacking anyone's personal beliefs or political views. Nor am I attempting to start an argument or a flame-war, as mentioned earlier in the thread.

Unfortunately, the article posseses many of the liberal B.S. oriented hypnotizing comments that the media possesses. So it makes the article hypocritical in the least.

The author should have put it on the internet and called it a conspiracy theory so that atleast all the members on this forum would believe it without question. That makes reading these threads so much more exciting.

It loses a lot of its excitement if you just make it a "new age" looking article. I need to Email this guy and tell him he needs a video or something.

As just another attack on Americans I suppose, academically, it would pose a good question. "Do countries without "free" speech have this problem?"

How exactly is the media supposed to get the correct facts for a story and present it accurately? Tough job. And the more we forget that invading Iraq was about non-compliance with the U.N. inspectors and not the presence of WMD the more I can see that even historical documentation won't present the true facts as even I lived them.

Its timely, with Dan Rather, suing CBS for firing him when he presented falsified documentation to prove his news story. What was that movie, Wag the Dog where the media is used to create a war?

I can tell you that in my prior work, U.S. intelligence, that there was often "influence" over analysis. The authors mention of scientific principles are very important towards obtaining the truth.

For example, I wonder if all the "scientists" that think that heat won't weaken steel ever got past 8th grade. They should have sat with me and Mr. Fry while we were easily able to prove this theory.

Originally Posted by azjoe

I skimmed the article. I agree with much of what's stated there, but I doubt they are exclusive to Americans... I'd say most of the industrialized world suffers from similar issues.

Offcourse not. America is simply used as an example. Every culture has it's myths that are self propagating,.

Originally Posted by jimmyman

Not to put too fine a point on it, but after reading through the article, and thinking that it does have some good points, it seems obvious to me that Mr. O'Shea has his own agenda. I would certainly question his motives for some of the things he wrote about in an ostensibly objective fashion, not to mention his own research into the article itself seemed to be lacking. I agree with many of the members of the forum that we simply should not believe everything we read (or watch), no matter if it agrees with our own principles or not. However, there does seem to be a misunderstanding here in the article of Occam's razor. Granted, that's what he speaks against a lot, but I am speaking in a slightly different sense than Mr. O'Shea. Anyways, still a good read, enjoyable, and somewhat enlightening. Mr. O'Shea, at the very least, has enough courage to question the status quo, but I wish he had been a little more objective about it.

EDIT: I am not trying to attack anyone in the forum with my opinion, nor am I saying the author is a fraud or anything like that, lest someone misunderstand me. Nor am I attacking anyone's personal beliefs or political views. Nor am I attempting to start an argument or a flame-war, as mentioned earlier in the thread.

Well put.

I found it difficult to read or to take seriously because the author's obvious biases were so apparent. It would have been much better if he had been able to divorce himself from his own opinions while he was pointing out the flaws of others. Not saying there isn't a lot of good stuff in this article but it is definitely seen from only one perspective.

Also take a look at the site from which this article is taken. Not to bash anyone or any organization but....taking donations via PayPal at the bottom of every page kind of takes away from the message, know what I mean.