Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our ongoing examination of this matter, here are Aldar Tamdyn, Igor Koshkendey, and Mongun-ool Ondar, the master Tuvan throat singers known as Chirgilchin, performing Khoomeige Yoreel ¤ at the Rubin Museum of Art, in New York, in 2005 (5:10).
Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.
No, blogs are useful for well-considered reasoning and deliberation when people who are actually knowledgeable about a topic are involved and are not simply shouted down, which doesn’t happen so much in the traditional news-cycle media, and often enough in some combinations of blogs and topics too. We clearly saw the positive information value of blogs in the case of the Rather fiasco, and we’ve seen it in cases of obvious image-falsifing manipulation via a number of sources, et cetera. But I think you are correct to note that people have a tendency to engage in confirmation bias with the media just as they do with everything else, ergo it is that I am noting that we should probably be careful about not making mistakes as a result of that.
In IT industry, if you see packs of smiling Indian guys, going into the meetings with your bosses, you know your job is doomed. Or is it just me being paranoid?..
“when people who are actually knowledgeable about a topic are involved and are not simply shouted down”
Pray tell… where are these places? When I see phrases like “Why do you believe CTV and CBC?” and “Oh, and the Daily Mail. Lovely.” flipped off within the top 10% of of an item’s comments, I see an oft-repeated opening gambit of “if they’re not for us, they’re agin us”, and that’s little better than any other arbitrary taste in music or movies or whatever. “Because I like it.”
Blogs have provided and encouraged a comfy place with a low cost of entry for anyone to fully exercise their biases, and the best we can hope is that the biases we like most, expressed by the people we like most, p*ss us off the least (or the most, if we’re talking for sport here).
Vitruvius – I basically agree with what EBD said @10:54 – it’s the underhanded, unacknowledged editorializing, usually with a left-wing slant, that’s problematic.
Then of course there’s the sometimes sloppy standards of reporting and editing: The Jayson Blair scandal at the NYT being an extreme example.
Also, as Mark Steyn often likes to point out, the major U.S. broadsheets tend to be pompous, boring to read and incurious, above getting their hands dirty. I remember Steyn citing the story of John Edwards’ mistress’ child, concieved while he was cheating on his cancer-stricken wife. The tabloids did all the legwork on that one before the “serious” papers deigned to acknowledge anything.
But when it comes to, say, the CBC quoting the Prime Minister (Daniel M. Ryan @9:29PM), I don’t see any problem using that as a reference. “Outright lying” is probably relatively rare.
Personally I don’t think it’s impossible that competition from the blogosphere will cause some of the MSM to pull its act together.
Many Jews settled in Zambia (formerly northern Rhodesia) seeking economic prosperity. The earliest Jewish settlements in Rhodesia were located
As you can see Zambia’s former president was talking and flag of Israel is in his back when he was talking
now the question whether or not he is Jewish or not?
what is history of Zambia link with Jwish black people there and how many Jewish black live in USA?
Aug 18 – Zambia’s former president was cleared of corruption charges on Monday (Aug 17) in what has been considered to be a landmark case.
Basmah Fahim reports
gang drug in zambia is under question and racism who hate white people? we do not know the truth?
how is level of eduction and income and perle ?
link with christian and Muslim peopel there?
Thanks, Vitruvius, for clarifying your original comments, which had me a little confused.
My sense is that bluetech (on this thread — and whose comment you seemed to be answering) and others aren’t so much “us[ing] reports from said media in order to bolster [their] arguments,” as much as quoting something from the media, or pointing out something that’s in the media, to comment on or counter.
When I quote Giggles Taber or Jim Travesty, for instance, I’m not usually doing so in order to bolster their arguments but, rather, to point out their inanities, their lies, their inconsistencies. On the other hand, sometimes I or others will quote more reliable sources, which become clear over time, in order to bolster an argument. Not everyone writing/reporting in the MSM is unreliable.
It happens that we live in a world permeated by messages from the MSM. It happens that most blogs, Kate’s for sure, have originated because what the blogger has discovered is that relying for facts on many writers/broadcasters in the MSM is a lost cause.
HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean we stop reading/watching what the MSM is up to — and reporting to the community here what we see and what we know. Where we experience reality and reliable facts, we we use them to bolster our arguments. Where we find lies, spin, and more damned lies, we demur and provide the facts as we know them.
We can’t shut out what the MSM are reporting. As I say, if you want to live in a bubble, you do that. That’s one thing we don’t do here. I’ve been enlightened many times at SDA by others reporting what the media is reporting about this or that issue. I’m grateful to know what the G&M, Nat’l. Post, the Star, the CBC, CTV, CNN, Fox News, etc. are reporting, seeing as I am in no position to check them all out every day.
When others provide links, I find out what’s either going on or what’s reported to be going on and then take it from there.
I can’t see any way around looking at and reporting what the MSM are reporting. If someone comments on and leaves a link for a report at the CBC, for example, I can then take a look, see the details, and possibly make a further comment, especially if the issue is one with which I am particularly familiar.
I appreciate most of the comments at SDA, with origins in reports from the MSM. If I know an issue is on the table, I can check it out for myself.
When it comes to questions of trust, Black Mamba, relatively rare is arguably not good enough, and it is the case, I think, that arguing that the resolution to this problem is that someone who agrees with one is trustworthy, whereas someone who disagrees with one is not trustworthy, is often enough a bad idea to remain interesting.
And, WonderDog, this is Reader Tips, it starts with SDA Late Nite Radio, which is my creation, and sometimes I spin some ideas off the listeners in the early comments after a show. I’ve been doing this for years now here, it’s my shtick, old-timers understand that, and now you do too.
And you must admit, I seeded an interesting little discussion, didn’t I? Maybe I should write an essay about this for the main page the next time Kate is away 😉
batb and I would agree on successful media harvesting – just because there are bears in the woods doesn’t mean I won’t go in there to pick tasty mushrooms. Mmmmm – almost the season!
And Mr. V, I selected your quips as indicative of a theme here, in many comments, and stories. A theme not unlike those “over there”, just that the names are different. Replace “CBC” with “Fox” and find your own “Fair and Balanced”.
Is not anti-bias, a bias too? (A thesis topic for you perhaps – gratis.)
Archie’s getting married!
Yes, exactly, WonderDog, anti-bias is a bias too (especially if you get the hem wrong as well). I may be a pathologically optimistic skeptic, yet I always remain pathologically optimistically skeptical about my pathologically optimistic skepticism. That’s the trick: Never stop revisiting your metas, then people can trust you, otherwise all you’ve got is dogma for sale.
But pay attention here, folks, I am not suggesting that people should change their dogma, I’m certainly not changing mine. I just think that maintaining attention to the foundations of one’s intellectual infrastructure is a philosophically undergirding operation.
Unfortunately, I think that assuming that dishonesty is relatively rare, and then using one’s judgement (and yes, trying not to be close-minded or insular), plus sometimes doing a little investigating, is about as good as anything’s going to get in this rotten old world. Epistemology’s a b*tch, as Vitruvius probably wouldn’t put it.
new @3:27 – that’s… wow. (I’m sorry, I honestly don’t know: Is new a troll? E.T.’s said she believes she’s faking but I know I remember Kate mentioning that she’d spoken with her on the phone.) Anyway, darn those Zambian zionists, eh?
Yes! Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a winner in
today’s SDA LNR Guess the Magic Phrase competition,
it’s Black Mamba for noting that Epistemology’s a Bitch.
It’s one of those competitions where the only prize is the warm glow of accomplishment, isn’t it?
Gotcha!
Greenpeace Leader Admits Arctic Ice Exaggeration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC7bE9jopXE
1 min., 38 sec.
“If it goes off, I’ll never feel it,” he said, thinking he would just be a puff of “pink mist” if the bomb did its job.
It’s well after the fact but PO2 Jim Leith is finally getting some recognition, at least locally, for his well earned Star of Courage.
I did my Junior Leader’s course with him back in ’97. He is one of those guys who can stick out in a room full of people dressed exactly alike.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1138279.html
Not at all, Black Mamba. Next time you’re in the neighbourhood
of the SDA LNR studios, we have a cup of tea with your name on
it waiting for you, and we have some lovely fresh lemon cake too.
Or if you arrive later in the day, Port & Stilton.
Premier Dalton McGuinty has just announced a By-Election for St.Pauls in Toronto Sept 17/09.
Liberal candidate Dr. Eric Hoskins will go up against Sue-Ann Levy A Toronto Sun columnist on a leave of absence who is representing Tim Hudaks Conservatives….
Toronto Sun Aug 19/09
So..Vit…did you get a laugh out of the beer story??
No. It was puerile.
Well, thanks! But ah, those SDA LNR studios – I firmly believe them to be bobbing around the high seas, somewhere between French Guiana and the southern tip of Greenland, far beyond the reach of God’s law or man’s… because, after all, as has been noted, LNR does broadcast from the future (usually roughly two hours), and we all know that, no matter how depraved the MSM might become, SDA would never mislead us 😉
If I ever find myself out there, I’ll be needing tea, port and Stilton!
It shall be done.
The problem with much of the MSM,especially our dear tax-payer funded cbc is not the outright lies,but the slant of their coverage,and the deliberate ommission of some stories and background info. The cbc is a terrible ‘real news’ organization. Look at the headline in the ‘seal’ story above. Harper ATTACKS seal hunt critics,a negative connatation. They have been doing this for so long I don’t know if it is deliberate,as in unwritten policy,or the make-up of their staff because of hiring policies. Remember not so long age that Cruikshank (now with the TO Star) in response to Mallick’s over the top attack on Palin,admitted that there were no conservative minded writers on the staff,and this oversight would be corrected.BS. Hell,I bet there is no conservatives on the cbc payroll,from the mailroom to on-air personalities,not even in Alberta.Cbc’s greatest flaw is their denial of the intelligence of Canadians to be capable of rational thought,so they steer us dweebs in the right direction,which is to the left.It is for our own good,just like the social programs that we all need to get through the day. If it wasn’t for the these righteous stewards of our minds and wallets,who knows how many of us would succumb to malnutrition from a diet of warm beer and uncooked popcorn.
Well then Vit…perhaps you would have laughed in your younger days.
Epistemology is link with philosfy or peopel who has knowlege and analyze data are smart people who created so many things in world but not understoon with low level education people
suc as Avicenna (known in Farsi as Abo Ali Sina )he was Iranian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna
For the lunar crater, see Avicenna (crater). For the mountain peak, see Ibn Sina Peak.
Persian scholar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology
Avicenna (known in Farsi as Abo Ali Sina )the great Persian Physician
Name: Alī Sīnā Balkhi (Avicenna)
Title: Sharaf al-Mulk, Hujjat al-Haq, Sheikh al-Rayees
Birth: approximately 980 CE
Death: 1037 CE
Ethnicity: Persian[1]
Region: Central Asia and Persia(Iran)
Main interests: Islamic medicine, alchemy and chemistry in Islam, Islamic astronomy, Islamic ethics, early Islamic philosophy, Islamic studies, logic in Islamic philosophy, geography, mathematics, Islamic psychological thought, physics, Persian poetry, science, Kalam, paleontology
Notable ideas: Father of modern medicine and the concept of momentum, founder of Avicennism and Avicennian logic, forerunner of psychoanalysis, pioneer of aromatherapy and neuropsychiatry, and important contributor to geology.
Works: The Canon of Medicine
The Book of Healing
Influences: Muhammad, Ja’far al-Sadiq, Hippocrates, Sushruta, Charaka, Aristotle, Galen, Plotinus, Neoplatonism, Indian mathematics, Wasil ibn Ata, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi, Abu Rayhan Biruni, Muslim physicians
Influenced: Abu Rayhan Biruni, Omar Khayyám, al-Ghazali, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Abubacer, Averroes, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, Ibn al-Nafis, Scholasticism, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Jean Buridan, Giambattista Benedetti, Galileo Galilei, William Harvey, René Descartes, Spinoza, John Locke
Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā’, known as Abū Alī Sīnā[2][3] (Persian: ابوعلی سینا) or Ibn Sīnā[4] (Arabic: ابن سینا), and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna (Greek: Aβιτζιανός, Abitzianos),[5] (c. 980 – 1037) was a Persian[6] polymath and the foremost[7] physician and philosopher of his time. He was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, logician, paleontologist, mathematician, physicist, poet, psychologist, scientist and teacher. [8]
The work of Avicenna is fairly well known and respected. Averroes too, I believe.
But look at the dates: 980-1037. Who are the Avicennas of today? Or the last few hundred years, for that matter?
Actually, Vito, we may be deaing with what lawyers call “declaration against interest”. When someone says something that goes against his interests and undercuts his position, it can be given credibility, even if the person is otherwise not credible. The idea is that even a shameless liar will not lie against his own interest.
That said, I tend to side with you. A shameless liar will lie only one way, but an idiot might say absolutely anything, and these people are idiots as well as liars. They are best ignored.