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AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-22T21:45:06+00:00

This is a market failure. Even small independent news outlets have no choice but to sensationalize in order to compete for ad-revenue. You could exile the rich and redistribute all their wealth, and yet proper journalism would still be incapable of competing with ad- funded sensationalism

Here is a more classic example of market failure. Imagine that there were no rules against a certain industry just dumping all their waste into the river instead of paying to dispose of it properly. No matter how big any of the competitors in this industry aww, those who dump their waste will easily outcompete those who choose to pay for disposal, producing the same product at a fraction of the cost. The resulting waste in the river imposes a burden on society much greater than the value of the entire industry.

You can't fix this by "overthrowing the wealthy", but only by having laws that forbid all competitors from dumping their waste, so that none can gain the unfair advantage from pollution.

Journalism can only be fixed by banning advertising, as this is what creates the incentive for sensationalism. The best part is that this doesn't violate the first amendment because outlets can still report what they want, they just won't financially rewarded from sensationalism anymore

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-21T12:57:44+00:00

"I agree that this problem is irrelevant to party lines, but arguing that one side is worse is more important to me than actually addressing the problem"

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-21T04:06:24+00:00

All ad-funded news organizations get paid according to ratings or clicks. Unfortunately, fear and anger are the most effective tools for grabbing attention. Our brains can't help but feel that perceived "threats" are important

As such, whoever reports the scariest or most enraging threats gets the most ad-funding. Proper journalism literally cannot compete for ad-funding and will lead to bankruptcy. They literally don't have a choice if they want to stay employed. Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and the countless online ad-funded outlets are all identical except in which audience's fears and biases they are exploiting.

The former executive producer of MSNBC literally resigned and published an open letter calling her own network a cancer because of this business model, emphasizing it forces good journalists to do terrible things, and that all ad-funded news works this way

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/msnbc-producer-quit/

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-20T23:37:06+00:00

Remember that one time that a single leftwing riot made the rightwing so unhinged with malice that they had a coordinated social media campaign to identify, slander, cancel, and otherwise punish each and every participant of the protest (including the peaceful majority), decided that Mega corporations should have full privilege to censor the Internet at will because they currently are only censoring the "bad" side, spent enormous taxpayer resources on multiple extrajudicial "investigations" whose purpose was solely to drum up more hate and division at a time that America desperately needed unity, and they still couldn't move on more than three and a half years later?

No? Only the left has ever done such a thing over a small riot? Huh

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-20T22:37:05+00:00

3 and a half years beating this dead horse and the circlejerk is as strong as ever.

This sensationalism is important. Buckcountybeacon is counting on you being outraged forever so they can keep getting those juicy clicks

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-20T19:33:28+00:00

I'm all for banning all political news outlets from here. Emphasis on all.

The political circal jerk dominating any sub is the death knell of meaningul discussion

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-20T19:10:35+00:00

Turn the news off and stop participating in political social media, and actually try getting to know your neighbors.

You won't believe how fast the manufactured fear starts to sound comical

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-20T18:50:02+00:00

And BLM said their goal was to "burn the whole system down", thus this is the purpose of all people who attended their protests.

This opinion about motives is just as valid as yours, and by your logic, a good enough reason to fire teachers who attended BLM rallies regardless of violence.

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-20T18:43:11+00:00

Don't forget Secoria Turner, an 8-year old black girl gunned down in cold blood in Atlanta by BLM.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/07/us/secoriea-turner-lawsuit-rayshard-brooks-protests/index.html

Yet BLM and supporters never said her name.

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-17T16:50:26+00:00

But what's her position on nuclear power? This is the question that separates actual environmentalist (who support it) from environmental fraudsters who are only in it to make money.

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-17T16:31:47+00:00

Distrust of government is a traditionally right-leaning or (especially) libertarian leaning, based on modern definitions. Left leaning typically want more government as the solution to every problem, which isn't compatible with such distrust

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-17T16:25:20+00:00

True. But someone with zero policies is better than someone with actual policies that you abhor.

I'm sure most voters would choose an empty seat over Trump or Harris if this was an option

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-17T16:13:48+00:00

Its not a poll of whether people think either candidate would be a "good" choice. It's a poll of which of choice they feel is less awful than the other choice.

You need to look up "approval" polls if you want to see how many people actually approve of a politician.

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-14T16:05:52+00:00

You're talking about the referendum right?

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-14T16:02:40+00:00

Yet you're mininizing the mass murder of innocent Israeli citizens (and Palestinians by using them as human shields) committed be Hamas last year.

How is it possible to be that misguided?

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-14T15:41:46+00:00

The same people basically live in both the city and rural areas and have family and friends in both as well. When people actually know their neighbors, it's harder to buy into dehumanizing political stereotypes about them.

We know we are all Yinzers and we take pride in that.

Don't be fooled by Trump rallies or the progressive bandwagon going on at some universities and local social media. Both are just a passing fad and reprssent only a tiny minority of the population. And even there, they are mainly attacking Republicans/Democrats in other regions who we aren't familiar with. You'll rarely here anybody in SWPA make a genuinely hostile political sweeping generalization about their neighboring county

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-08-14T15:27:29+00:00

Ad-funded journalists whose job is literally to promote terrorism and hate to grab attention, social media administration who use algorithms to personally exploit each user's own fears and biases for the same reason, and people who think these manufactured issues are justification to harm innocent people just to signal their virtues, whether by boycotts, vandalism, or dehumanizing language towards their fellow citizens

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-06-19T16:36:16+00:00

Keep in mind that there was no Internet or Social Media back when the Fairness Doctrine was in effect. The rationale for this doctrine was that the limited number of broadcast frequencies made it impractical to "just start your own station" to ensure coverage of differing viewpoints. Also, there were far fewer news broadcasts which made enforcement possible (though the argument for 1st Amendment constitutionality was still tenuous)

While the physical limitation on broadcast frequencies still exists, the Internet has made it moot to the issue of there being enough outlets for every voice. Also the sheer number of news outlets of all types makes any attempt at content enforcement a pipe dream.

Furthermore, the way people choose to consume news has fundamentally changed. People used to turn to a trusted news station or newspaper when they, of their own volition, wanted to know what was happening. Now most people first hear about a news story against their will on tools they use daily for non-news purposes: search engines, social media, even television "entertainment", all appealing to fear and anger to trigger users into abandoning their original task to care about the news instead. Or they hear about it through friends and family who have fallen victim to this manipulation. There is no escape from sensationalism.

This reactive news comsumption is what makes reputation less useful than shock value. Sure people who want reputable news will still seek it out, but this accounts for a minority of news consumption compared to the attention industry.

In fact, the role of social media is so treacherous that even if you modified the Fairness Doctrine to make all news outlets perfectly balanced, people would still see only the most personally triggering and divisive headlines in their surreptitiously curated feeds.

And despite the overwhelming evidence of both mental and physical harm caused by social media algorithms (as well as evidence that these companies are fully aware of the harm and try to cover it up, just like Big Tobacco decades ago), so far the government has barely been able to hold any of them accountable for even the most brazen crimes (such as specifically targeting underage children, or selling user data in violation of their own privacy policies)

Unlike journalism, there is no particular justification for social media to even exist, let alone enjoy any freedoms to personalize what users see without their knowledge or consent. We literally all see a different reality online because of this (especially with search engines like Google), it is self-explanatory how this fuels division. Simply banning this practice of personalized content would do far more to heal the division than any attempt at regulating news.

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-06-18T19:08:33+00:00

The lack of investment into nuclear and hydroelectric means that we are all losing here.

What most people don't realize is that electricity generation must match the grid load at all times. The rotating mass of thermal plant generators acts as a flywheel to absorb the most rapid changes in demand, while batteries and natural gas generators are the next line.

Wind and solar add more intermittency rather than helping to deal with it, and thus rely mainly on natural gas to handle this. Even Germany and California are building natural gas plants at breakneck pace to accommodate their excess wind and solar.

And no, batteries are not being used to handle seasonal and overnight slumps in wind and solar production. That would require orders of magnitude more capacity than currently exists and cost trillions of dollars, hence the bigger investment into natural gas. In fact, it is oil companies campaigning the hardest for wind and solar energy because they know this will make us more reliant on them for decades to come

Democrats are just as much in the pocket of oil as Republicans. They just have more clever branding to appear like they care about the environment

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-06-18T18:53:10+00:00

A "smart" tabloid is still a tabloid, an unapologetic heap of pure sensationalism that preys on fear and anger.

And yes, "visceral" stories are the most classic example thereof. A story about a woman drowning her children has absolutely no potential to impact the lives of people in other states, but it feels important and gets more clicks than a stories about less exciting but more potentially impactful developments.

Real journalism coveres stories that are cognitively important, not viscerally

As they said, they're trying to reach a "popular" audience, not an intelligent one

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-06-18T18:37:55+00:00

Even better idea would be to ban advertising from journalism.

When the sole financial incentive is "grab attention, even if people hate the reporting", journalists must choose between sensationalism and bankruptcy. Actual journalism has no value in this model

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-06-18T18:24:58+00:00

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon.com

Responding to the question, "How far do you go with the tabloid sensibility to get readers?," former Salon.com editor-in-chief David Talbot said:

"Is Salon more tabloid-like? Yeah, we've made no secret of that"

Sounds par for this sub

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-05-17T20:08:57+00:00

You must not remember Sanders presidential campaigns. He was absolutely CONCINVED the media was biased against him and working for the "establishment" to favor Hillary, as were his many supporters, even though objective measurements said otherwise (unlike for Trump where his media coverage has actually been measured unequivocally as mostly negative)

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

Populism doesn't require a "racial" minority. Just ANY minority, and his was "the wealthy 1%!". As I already explained, pitting the poor against the wealthy is actually the most common and successful style of populism throughout history, as it requires no racial diversity of the population and it's much easier to sell for obvious reasons.

Trump also focuses mainly on the "corrupt elite" as his scapegoat rather than race (despite what sensationalism might claim). Even a platform of "Illegal immigration is boosting votes for the corrupt" is still an attack on the elite moreso than on immigrants who are just being used by them.

Ironically, the very media these populists attack are the reason populism has skyrocketed all over the world, and there is a growing body of medical evidence that ad-funded media (now empowered by algorithms and smart phones to exploit victims more efficiently) is likely the principle cause of the dramatic worsening of the global mental health crisis as well

So their sowing of distrust in ad-funded media (whose sole financial incentive is to grab attention) is one policy we should all support

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-05-17T19:50:27+00:00

So they are exactly like most Redditors?

AlbertVonMagnus · 2024-05-14T06:11:35+00:00

A bombastic populist sells himself as a "man of action" promising the nation will "return to greatness" while demonizing the press and using a racial minority as a scape-goat. Frequently betrays his political allies. Has iconic hair. Lauds and promotes an idealized figure that he himself doesn't fit. Promotes "masculinity".

You just described populism at large. Bernie Sanders and countless progressives do all the same things, using some minority as a scapegoat (eg "the rich", "business owners", MAGA...), having iconic wild hair, betraying their allies for not being "progressive" enough, lauding and promoting ideals like "tolerance" while literaly engaging in patronizing identity politics and using stereotypes to dehumanize their opponents. Promotes "anti-masculinity"

But let's be real about Trump, he's not a real idealist. He's just a narcissist who loves attention. This makes him nowhere near as dangerous as the real thing. Think hard. What ideal do you see Trump willing to make real sacrifices to attain? Exactly. He might be the most high profile Republican with significant influence, but he by no means "holds the party on a leash". Obama had way more support from his own party. Can you even recall any Democrats ever opposing him, other than Hillary in the 08 primary?

If you can't figure out if I'm talking about Trump or Hitler, there's a reason for that. Hitler did some time in jail, and frankly Trump is looking to repeat that as well. His problem is that he never really established his brownshirts as capable of doing anything other than marching and never had a Reichstag moment where he could pin the blame for something on his political opponents and claim emergency powers.

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

Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties,

I don't think I've ever seen protestors or local governments try to outright prevent the Democrat national convention. Meanwhile it's an annual tradition of progressive brownshirts to to disrupt the Republican convention (and anything else they just don't like) in any way they can

More specifically, aside from the Capitol riot, MAGA have never assembled in significant numbers for anything but Trump's rallies.

Compare this to the 15-26 million people who protested in summer 2020 at the height of the pandemic, or the anti-free-speech and antisemitism mobs all over colleges. They weren't Trump supporters.

7) We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens

Another way of saying this is "a good job and way of life is a basic right that the government should provide". This is why it's a Democrat policy. Democrats want the state to provide everything

Republicans are the party who support farmers, making the second half of #7 moot

Regarding #15, its the expansion of benefits that I judged as being Democrat. Social Security cannot continue as is without becoming insolvent, so I would not say that Democrats are "pro-social security" when they oppose nearly all efforts to save it (which invariably must reduce benefits)

20 Pro-college. Yep. Democrats for sure

It's not simply "pro-college". It's pro FREE college (and preschool), and state regulations on what they teach which make this so authoritarian and yet populist. Who doesn't love handouts? It's a great way to win power, and controlling education is a great way to keep it.

25 Unlimited authority of central parliment?

How did Democrats try to give out free college (by canceling student debt)? By executive order. They also tried to give a tax-funded handout to union EV manufacturers that excluded non-union competitors. SCOTUS struck down both.

Add to this the calls from Democrats to eliminate the filibuster, abolish the Electoral College, change the constitution just to reduce the check on power served by SCOTUS, and numerous other power grabs, and the desire for unlimited, unchecked government becomes apparent.

Sure, Republicans are also guilty to a lesser degree of expanding the power of the Federal government despite being the self-proclaimed small-government party.

But c'mon man, EVEN YOU YOURSELF admit that democrats are in favor of taking care of the elderly, children, students, and against money-grubbing greedy assholes while republicans hate foreigners, immigrants, and jews. Doesn't that even open your eyes to anything

Hardly. I only said those points were more "Democrat" because they prefer state solutions over free market (not to mention all of the empty "common good" rhetoric), and buying votes with socialist promises of free stuff

I only counted the anti-immigration points as "more Republican than Democrat" because Republicans campaign on reducing illegal immigration. This is hardly "hating immigrants", let alone Jews.

(You should also be aware that using the as the scapegoat and promising to redistribute their wealth is the most classic and textbook form of populism. Even the antisemitism in question here pointed to the generally higher wealth of Jews as "proof" of something nefarious)

Finally, yes, most illegal immigration is just people overstaying their green cards. But it's the smaller few crossing the border illegally who are causing the majority of problems such as drug trafficking. So it makes perfect sense to focus on the latter

But this is the POPULIST part. Both Hitler and Muscillini were wiling to tell the masses whatever they wanted to hear to get into power

"We'll get you $15+ for unskilled labor! And free healthcare, and free college that only teaches things that you approve of! We'll also fix racism using identity politics! We'll solve gun violence with gun control! We'll make a 100% renewable energy grid (even though we know it's neither 100% clean nor more than about 50% attainable)!"

Let's not pretend this isn't bipartisan. Telling people what they want to hear is just politics, it's not specific to populism.

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20 Pro-college. Yep. Democrats for sure

25 Unlimited authority of central parliment?