I just took the trouble to transcribe a piece of Scott Adams' daily podcast, where he develops the idea of four new types of news in "The Golden Age of No Real News." Says he:
Fake News. "Something that didn't happen; something taken out of context... In this case The New York Times simply denying that an event happened." Adams is talking about John Harwood and Maggie Haberman denying the plain text of the leaked NYT editorial meeting where they said they were going to go after Trump because of his racism.
Hypothetical News. This probably always existed, but now it is more prominent.Hypothetical news is like this:
Mindreading the News. It is "based on what we imagine... other people are thinking. Now, that goes well with taking Trump out of context" and substituting your assumption of what people are thinking.
Reframing History News. This, of course refers to the New York Times "1619 Project" keying on the first year that slaves from Africa arrived in North America. Hey, it's great to get beyond the textbooks and look at history again. But this is not an innocent exploration of the past. The purpose of it is to think differently about the present, i.e., Trump Racist.
It is really not hard to understand what is going on here. It is the liberal educated ruling class thrashing around trying to figure out what to do now that the good old narrative that they inherited from their good old liberal parents is not keeping the rubes quiet and respectful.
And of course the big thing is race. For half a century our liberal friends have ruled us and kept us down on the farm with the accusation of racism. But now, the race card is not working very well any more.
Think about it this way. What would you do if the method you used for keeping the peasants quiet no longer seemed to work, and you started getting reports that the natives were restless? Well, the simple answer is that you wouldn't know what to do because nothing in your life had prepared you for this day.
When you are a ruling class the point is to rule. You think up ideas that you decide are good for people and you enact legislation and write regulations and hand down legal decisions about what people may do and not do, about which group is to be privileged and which group is to be marginalized. I've been reading the history of the Brits in India in The British Conquest and Domination of India by Sir Penderel Moon, and it all comes down to the ruling Brits at the time deciding, well, we are going to issue this proclamation; we are going to formulate that regulation; we are going to cut the salt tax in half; we are going to split Bengal into two halves because right now it is too large for one regional government to handle.
That is what our liberal friends have been doing for the last 50 years. Oh, there aren't enough African American firefighters, so we need Affirmative Action. Whatabout women fighter pilots? We should change the rules to increase the number of female pilots in the Navy. There aren't enough women in STEM, so let's change the rules to increase the number of women in tech. All the money in college sports is going to men's sports and that is wrong, so let's force equality in colllege sports.
But, of course, our lords and masters are not thinking about the lives they are wrecking, the injustice they are creating. They merely think, well, here's a racism, here's an oppression, here's an injustice, so how do we fix it?
And then when the peasants rebel they are genuinely shocked. Hey, all they were trying to do was to creat a more just and equal society! How can anyone be against that? Unless they were racists inspired by Trump's dogwhistles!
Well, I don't suppose any liberal is going to listen to me, but here goes.
The reason our Founding Fathers wrote down in the First Amendment that there should be no "establishment of religion" is because people disagree about things, especially morality. So the idea of limited government is to restrict the agenda of government to those things that nearly everybody can agree upon.
Nearly everyone agrees that murder is bad, theft is bad, rape is bad, and that the perps should be locked up.
But what about education? Education of children, nearly everyone agrees, is a good thing. But what should we teach the kids? That's where people start to disagree. Problem with a government education system is that the government tends to limit the range of educations available to children. And there are activist groups with agendas that want to force all children to be educated in accordance with their agenda.
Of course, when you are the ruling class and, say, the natives get restless about Drag Queen Story Hour at the local elementary school, you are outraged! Who do these homophobes think they are!
Hey Fredo! That's what I think about wind and solar power. Who do these watermelons, red on the inside, green on the outside, think they are! But we have to save the planet! Sez who? The scientists getting government grants? The corporate shills getting green energy subsidies? The little rich kid with a family foundation that wants to "make a difference" with activism? You gonna force me to ride a bike to work?
So my judgement about the four new tpes of news, as described by Scott Adams, is that they represent a flapping around in the liberal bubble. They tell us that our liberal lords and masters don't have a clue.
And the big thing they do not get is that there is really very little the government can do outside of keeping us safe that really benefits us.
And the big question is this. After you have created all your wonderful programs, what happens when the world changes and all the conventional wisdom assumptions you made back in the day no longer apply? Are you chaps going to revise and reform all your programs? Or are you just going to tell the rubes to shut up and take their medicine?
And flap around inventing new types of news to muddy the waters and confuse everyone?
There used to be a time what news was something like: Hey, some events happened; let us tell you about the events. Then we called that news.But now things have changed. So Scott Adams comes up with four new types of news.
Fake News. "Something that didn't happen; something taken out of context... In this case The New York Times simply denying that an event happened." Adams is talking about John Harwood and Maggie Haberman denying the plain text of the leaked NYT editorial meeting where they said they were going to go after Trump because of his racism.
Hypothetical News. This probably always existed, but now it is more prominent.Hypothetical news is like this:
If there is a recession, Trump might not get reelected. If the meteor hits the Earth, we're not prepared.It's like they ran out of real news!
Mindreading the News. It is "based on what we imagine... other people are thinking. Now, that goes well with taking Trump out of context" and substituting your assumption of what people are thinking.
Reframing History News. This, of course refers to the New York Times "1619 Project" keying on the first year that slaves from Africa arrived in North America. Hey, it's great to get beyond the textbooks and look at history again. But this is not an innocent exploration of the past. The purpose of it is to think differently about the present, i.e., Trump Racist.
It is really not hard to understand what is going on here. It is the liberal educated ruling class thrashing around trying to figure out what to do now that the good old narrative that they inherited from their good old liberal parents is not keeping the rubes quiet and respectful.
And of course the big thing is race. For half a century our liberal friends have ruled us and kept us down on the farm with the accusation of racism. But now, the race card is not working very well any more.
Think about it this way. What would you do if the method you used for keeping the peasants quiet no longer seemed to work, and you started getting reports that the natives were restless? Well, the simple answer is that you wouldn't know what to do because nothing in your life had prepared you for this day.
When you are a ruling class the point is to rule. You think up ideas that you decide are good for people and you enact legislation and write regulations and hand down legal decisions about what people may do and not do, about which group is to be privileged and which group is to be marginalized. I've been reading the history of the Brits in India in The British Conquest and Domination of India by Sir Penderel Moon, and it all comes down to the ruling Brits at the time deciding, well, we are going to issue this proclamation; we are going to formulate that regulation; we are going to cut the salt tax in half; we are going to split Bengal into two halves because right now it is too large for one regional government to handle.
That is what our liberal friends have been doing for the last 50 years. Oh, there aren't enough African American firefighters, so we need Affirmative Action. Whatabout women fighter pilots? We should change the rules to increase the number of female pilots in the Navy. There aren't enough women in STEM, so let's change the rules to increase the number of women in tech. All the money in college sports is going to men's sports and that is wrong, so let's force equality in colllege sports.
But, of course, our lords and masters are not thinking about the lives they are wrecking, the injustice they are creating. They merely think, well, here's a racism, here's an oppression, here's an injustice, so how do we fix it?
And then when the peasants rebel they are genuinely shocked. Hey, all they were trying to do was to creat a more just and equal society! How can anyone be against that? Unless they were racists inspired by Trump's dogwhistles!
Well, I don't suppose any liberal is going to listen to me, but here goes.
The reason our Founding Fathers wrote down in the First Amendment that there should be no "establishment of religion" is because people disagree about things, especially morality. So the idea of limited government is to restrict the agenda of government to those things that nearly everybody can agree upon.
Nearly everyone agrees that murder is bad, theft is bad, rape is bad, and that the perps should be locked up.
But what about education? Education of children, nearly everyone agrees, is a good thing. But what should we teach the kids? That's where people start to disagree. Problem with a government education system is that the government tends to limit the range of educations available to children. And there are activist groups with agendas that want to force all children to be educated in accordance with their agenda.
Of course, when you are the ruling class and, say, the natives get restless about Drag Queen Story Hour at the local elementary school, you are outraged! Who do these homophobes think they are!
Hey Fredo! That's what I think about wind and solar power. Who do these watermelons, red on the inside, green on the outside, think they are! But we have to save the planet! Sez who? The scientists getting government grants? The corporate shills getting green energy subsidies? The little rich kid with a family foundation that wants to "make a difference" with activism? You gonna force me to ride a bike to work?
So my judgement about the four new tpes of news, as described by Scott Adams, is that they represent a flapping around in the liberal bubble. They tell us that our liberal lords and masters don't have a clue.
And the big thing they do not get is that there is really very little the government can do outside of keeping us safe that really benefits us.
And the big question is this. After you have created all your wonderful programs, what happens when the world changes and all the conventional wisdom assumptions you made back in the day no longer apply? Are you chaps going to revise and reform all your programs? Or are you just going to tell the rubes to shut up and take their medicine?
And flap around inventing new types of news to muddy the waters and confuse everyone?
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