In general, I disagree. It's easier than ever before to get reliable information and to check its reliability. And, as a result, the political left is better informed than ever before. Superficially plausible ideas get much more carefully checked than in the past. The problem is that rightwingers actively prefer to be misinformed, as long as the misinformation puts the left in a bad light. So, the more accurate are our beliefs, the more false are theirs.
You could be right. I see it as more of a mixed bag.
We have these incredible tools to fact check things. There’s a plethora of sources, many of them are pretty trustworthy.
But, as you know, there’s also a history of misinformation--some the purveyors perhaps even genuinely believed, some of involving deception--e.g., to promote certain Vietnam, the Iraq War, the interventions in Central America.
You have to give these sources, e.g., the government, some weight but one cannot take all the information on face value or believe it all.
It’s good that the left uses history, and considers the interests that can color information--but as we see with the war in Ukraine, the left can get pretty confused if it just puts the template of the past over the present.
This adds to the other problem we have now, which is usually called ‘flooding the zone’ where you have to sort through a lot of BS--some organic and some part of various campaigns.
My point is more about sorting of information in this fraught environment--not merely situations where we’re being bullshitted but also ones where the full picture can’t be known so there is a lot of speculation, or there is bias, suspicion, fear and other emotional registers coloring various interpretations in situations of informational uncertainty.
I don’t have the answer but I do think the creation of social suspicion and political distrust makes it harder to sort, and this is more what I’m interested in.
Why would a cold war with China be a disaster? In the 19th century it was possible for a tiny island (UK) to be the mistress of a Global Empire. They have since shrunk. In the 20th it was possible for a continental power (US) to do the same. In the 21st it won't be. Paul Kennedy's forecast of a multipolar world will finally be here. The idea that you can have a globalized economy inhabited by rival powers is silly. The US can either retire graciously from hegemony, as the Dutch did, or resist it to the end as the Spanish did.
In general, I disagree. It's easier than ever before to get reliable information and to check its reliability. And, as a result, the political left is better informed than ever before. Superficially plausible ideas get much more carefully checked than in the past. The problem is that rightwingers actively prefer to be misinformed, as long as the misinformation puts the left in a bad light. So, the more accurate are our beliefs, the more false are theirs.
You could be right. I see it as more of a mixed bag.
We have these incredible tools to fact check things. There’s a plethora of sources, many of them are pretty trustworthy.
But, as you know, there’s also a history of misinformation--some the purveyors perhaps even genuinely believed, some of involving deception--e.g., to promote certain Vietnam, the Iraq War, the interventions in Central America.
You have to give these sources, e.g., the government, some weight but one cannot take all the information on face value or believe it all.
It’s good that the left uses history, and considers the interests that can color information--but as we see with the war in Ukraine, the left can get pretty confused if it just puts the template of the past over the present.
This adds to the other problem we have now, which is usually called ‘flooding the zone’ where you have to sort through a lot of BS--some organic and some part of various campaigns.
My point is more about sorting of information in this fraught environment--not merely situations where we’re being bullshitted but also ones where the full picture can’t be known so there is a lot of speculation, or there is bias, suspicion, fear and other emotional registers coloring various interpretations in situations of informational uncertainty.
I don’t have the answer but I do think the creation of social suspicion and political distrust makes it harder to sort, and this is more what I’m interested in.
Why would a cold war with China be a disaster? In the 19th century it was possible for a tiny island (UK) to be the mistress of a Global Empire. They have since shrunk. In the 20th it was possible for a continental power (US) to do the same. In the 21st it won't be. Paul Kennedy's forecast of a multipolar world will finally be here. The idea that you can have a globalized economy inhabited by rival powers is silly. The US can either retire graciously from hegemony, as the Dutch did, or resist it to the end as the Spanish did.