The War on Information

[tw]

Originally Posted by Pi

We just have a stronger sense of the importance of "truth". Now let's all go down the rabbit hole of psychological meanings of truth...

Truth is rather easy. But most avoid what is necessary to have knowledge.

First a hypothesis must exist based in well proven science. Second, experimental evidence with perspective (numbers) must exist to demonstrate or confirm a hypothesis.

Fake news only says what you must believe. It does not say why. Fake new only uses sound byte reasoning. A reply based in reality must be long - often including repeatedly the examples (perspective; experimental evidence) that confirms a hypothesis.

For example, war is only justified when three things exist. First is a smoking gun - as made obvious even in Art of War some 2500 years ago. East coast US is littered with ships sunk by Germans before the US went to war. Even that was an insufficient smoking gun. A smoking gun was Pearl Harbor.

Gulf of Tonkin was hyped as a smoking gun. We all know it was not. In fact it was a lie. So war in Vietnam was never justified. Therefore that war was a defeat. Such examples are numerous throughout history.

Reality is not explained by a soundbyte. We massacred some 50,000 American servicemen because soundbytes (fake new; emotional reasoning; even McCarthyism) replaced what is required: many paragraphs that include a hypothesis and experimental evidence.

Many have insufficient attention span to even comprehend something this short. So many become victims of fake news or alternative facts.

Spicer's mistake - he tried to provide reasons why. He did not accurately remember (learn) details. Yes, Nazis developed Sarin in the 1930s. They stockpiled Sarin laced artillery shells. Spicer simply used an emotional and generalized soundbyte to explain details he forgot to learn. But his job is not to provide details necessary for knowledge. He forgot his purpose: to tell the naive what to believe. And to not provide details necessary to provide a valid conclusion - as we were all taught in junior high science.

Soundbyte term for what Spicer is supposed to do is 'brainwashing'. That means avoid details - learning them or reciting them.