Politicians lie from time to time. All politicians. Donald Trump lies. Hillary Clinton lies. Even the internet’s great white hope Bernie Sanders lies. They also have bad ideas. They make mistakes. Not all the time. But these things do happen. They’re human and this is just a fact of life. There are plenty of reasons to not trust politicians. There are more than enough reasons to justify not liking any politician or to not vote for them. There’s really no good reason to just make things up.
Similarly, the mainstream news media makes mistakes. Reporters are also human. Sometimes they get things wrong. Sometimes they just miss stuff. It’s 2016. There’s half a dozen 24/7 news outlets on TV in the United States and about a zillion online reporting sites. There are bound to be inaccuracies and there is bound to be bias. But the mainstream news media is not involved in some grand conspiracy to keep the truth from you. MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews, HuffPo and the Drudge Report all have biases. Certainly there are times when they might try (intentionally or subconsciously) to spin a story to better favor or disparage one candidate or another. But none of them are so deeply involved with a candidate so as to have the power to completely bury a story both on their own pages and in all of the other mainstream news sources just keep people from knowing the truth. THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY! And some random blog site that a guy runs in his basement did NOT uncover some piece of news that the big sites are intentionally not reporting and that just so happens to confirm what you have always believed to be true about the evil candidate on the other side… even if he does have words like “real” and “truth” in his url.
I’ve seen several of these on social media lately. Always posted by someone who says something like “why is no one talking about this? If people knew this there’s no way they’d ever vote for ______.” Here’s a hint. If no one is talking about it, then it probably isn’t true. Hell, sometimes when people are talking about it, it isn’t true. But if no one is talking about it and you can’t find confirmation on a news site that has more than a dozen subscribers and doesn’t use headlines like “The Startling Truth About….” then you should think twice about reposting it. Real news doesn’t need click bait. If a headline makes you say “oh my god, that’s unbelievable!” then stop for a moment and say “wow… you know, that IS UNBELIEVABLE!” Do a quick google search and see if you can find corroboration from even one real news site. At the very least go and type the article into Snopes.com and see if anything comes up.
Here are my favorite ones I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks about the major two candidates and Bernie Sanders, since people, both his critics and his supporters, don’t seem to understand that he isn’t actually running anymore. I’ll do Bernie first because his story is probably the dumbest of all.
• Bernie Sanders buys $600,000 vacation home thus proving that he was on the take and helping Hillary fix the election all along or had been embezzling all of his presidential campaign contributions. – NO! This is just dumb. For some reason the internet has convinced themselves that since Bernie is a self-styled champion of the working class that he is working class. He’s not. Bernie Sanders is a United States senator. He has been doing it for almost a decade and before that he was a congressman for fifteen years and before that a mayor. Bernie Sanders is NOT poor. Senators currently make about $200K/year, plus any money he makes from book sales or speaking engagements. So if nothing else, he bought a house that was worth about three years salary (which is pretty reasonable… probably more os than most homebuyers). Plus, his wife works, and it turns out that they sold a home they already owned in order to buy the new one. It’s a house on the beach, in Vermont… where he lives… Frankly $600K is kind of a steal.
• Hillary Clinton knowingly sold arms to ISIS. – NO! This is also just dumb. The story is that Julian Assange has uncovered information that while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton authorized the trade of arms with Qatar and that Qatar is a stronghold for ISIS. The first part is probably true… because Qatar is our ally! They have been fro decades. Being a Middle East country with a lot of muslims in it does not make you a terrorist. We have a massive military base in Qatar. In fact, it’s our largest base in the Middle East. The Obama administration engages in trade with them. As did the Bush administration. As did the Clinton administration. As did the other Bush administration. So what Hillary is guilty of here is doing her job. This one is beyond ridiculous and I can’t believe that people believe that in a week where Donald Trump has directly accused the current president of being in league with ISIS that somehow no mainstream news organization has bothered to mention this very important tidbit. There’s a reason for that! It’s because it’s FUCKING DUMB!!!!
• Donald Trump said that if her were going to run for president he’d do it as a Republican because they are the dumbest voters. – NO! Ok, this one is at least sort of believable, because he does kinda say stuff like this all the time. For instance he did say that he could shoot a man in the middle of New York city and people would still vote for him. The problem is he never actually said this one. I don’t even remotely understand why someone made this one up. At least with other candidates, they try to double speak and not say things that they are afraid might lose them votes. Trump doesn’t do that. He literally says stuff that is divisive and inflammatory ALL THE TIME! Why make something up?
Last night, I saw the all time dumbest one. I was arguing with someone (who I don’t know) about the Hillary Clinton ISIS connection and he posted this proof that Hillary and Obama are trying to destroy the country with communism that they learned from Saul Alinsky:
A close friend researched and shared this, I pass it onto you for your knowledge. She will ruin us if given the opportunity, vote accordingly!!!
Please read.
Hillary’s thesis.The Cloward-Piven aka “Coward Proven” strategy is based on the teachings of Saul Alinsky a communist socialist died about 43 years ago, but his writings have influenced the politicians who control our nation today.
Hillary Clinton did a college thesis on his writings and Barack Hussein Obama writes about him in his books.
Died: June 12, 1972,
Carmel-by-the-Sea, CaEducation: University of Chicago
Spouse: Irene Alinsky.
Books:
Rules for Liberal Radicals
Reveille for RadicalsAnyone think this stuff isn’t happening today in the U.S. ?
All eight rules are currently in play.
There are eight levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a Liberal Socialist state.
The first is the most important.
1) Healthcare: Control healthcare and you control the people.
DONE.2) Poverty: Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
DONE.3) Debt: Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
DONE.4) Gun Control: Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.
WORKING ON IT.5) Welfare: Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).
DONE.6) Education: Take control of what people read and listen to. Take control of what children learn in school.
DONE.7) Religion: Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
DONE.8) Class Warfare: Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.
DONE.Any of this sound like what is happening to the United States?
Alinsky simplified Vladimir Lenin’s original scheme for world conquest by communism, under Russian rule.
Stalin described his converts as “Useful Idiots.”The “Useful” Liberal Idiots have destroyed every nation in which they have seized power and control. It’s presently happening at an alarming rate in the U.S.
If people can read this and still say everything is just fine. They’re the useful idiots. “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”
Wake Up America!
Hillary Clinton a liberal Socialist is running for office! She is backed by
George Soros a Communist Socialist who backs and controls the
Devout Muslim,
“Barack Hussein Obama”…
(I love the quotes around “Barack Hussein Obama” as though that wasn’t his real name. I also love the “Wake up America!” racist rallying cry.)
Of course, those aren’t Saul Alinsky’s rules. First of all, the book isn’t even called Rules for Liberal Radicals. It’s just Rules for Radicals. Second, there are 13 rules. Not 8. And none of those are on the list. Third, he wasn’t a communist. And in fact, actively disavowed the communist movement because he felt that organized ideologies were counter to his entire message. Fourth, Alinsky isn’t Clinton (or Obama) and attributing the thoughts of someone she wrote a paper about to her makes no more sense than claiming that Paul Ryan was a radical objectivist because he happens to be a fan of Atlas Shrugged (and I disagreed with that when the Democrats tried to make that claim 4 years ago). It’d be like saying I was a nazi because I had to do a report on Hitler once when i was a kid. Fifth, those things aren’t really the tenants of communism or Alinsky. If you were to take the simple step of googling any of the rules, you’d find out that it’s a copy of an old anti-communist red scare propaganda piece *supposedly* written in 1919 when Alinsky was 10 years old. It has nothing to do with him… and actually nothing to do with communism! Most people don’t actually know anything about Alinsky. He’s not a common household name. It’s just a bullet point that came up and everyone is supposed to know that it’s “bad.” And if you are a conservative, his ideology is almost certainly bad… You would likely disagree with everything that he stood for. it’s just that that list ISN’T it.
I don’t care who you vote for. I don’t care what your politics are. I don’t even care if you want to vote based on irrational reasons. You can hate Hillary Clinton because she’s not good enough in bed to keep her husband from cheating on her. You can hate Donald Trump because he apparently really wants to fuck his daughter (though honestly, that’s the most relatable thing about him… cuz I totally want to too). Hell, for all I care flip a coin. But if you’re going to try and justify it with “facts” do two seconds of research to find out if they’re real or not.
Something being in a meme does not make it true.
That is how Trump operates. He knows he can say anything and none of his followers will fact check him on it. And when he says he was being sarcastic a couple of days later, those followers will not hear it and only remember the original quote. No matter what you think of him, he knows how to manipulate the media.
“That is how politicians operate. They know they can say anything and none of their followers will fact check them on it. And when they say they were being sarcastic a couple of days later, those followers will not hear it and only remember the original quote. No matter what you think of them, They know how to manipulate the media.”
Fixed that for ya…
Mike: I do agree that Trump is a master of media manipulation. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. Not really.
So Vic’s comment isn’t really the point either. I’m not talking about anything Trump or Clinton actually say that might be inaccurate. That’s at least forgivable.
I’m talking about the stuff they DON’T say that gets passed around the internet like fact.
Nothing needed fixing. When Trump said and then reasserted the next day that Obama founded ISIS that is what his followers heard and that gets spread around the internet as fact. Quickly being fact checked is something they never listen to or believe. * and Chris I read your comment as I was writing mine. Good point.
Mike Wood When Clinton claimed women get paid 77 cents on the dollar as compared to men, that is what her followers heard and that gets spread around the internet as fact.
Politicians present the “facts” as they see them. They use these “facts” to manipulate. And to Chris’s point, their supporters do the same thing to either bolster those they agree with, or to discredit those to whom they are opposed.
People don’t care about the “facts”, people care about what confirms their own beliefs.
Again, not really the same thing. Clinton’s claim was TECHNICALLY “correct” though arguably misleading as it is a gross simplification. But at the very least the claim is consistent with the argument that she is making.
This is very different from the four instances that I cite in the article none of which actually mean anything even remotely related to what they claim they do and two of which (the trump one and the second clinton one) are out right lies.
I just thought, “Hey. When did I write that response?”
I completely agree with not me.
Thanks, Not Me! 🙂 And as for the employment figures, that number is better than here where Statistics Canada – a non partisan government agency, calculates than the average here is 73 cents per dollar for women – and much less for indigenous women.
See, Trump lies. Hilary goy her facts wrong. Big difference
Chris Maverick I see it as manipulation, regardless of any justification you may come up with. Lie, half truth, the out come is the same.
People believe what they want to believe. Confirmation from someone they perceive as legitimizing those beliefs only serves to dig them in deeper.
Vic: It’s not the same thing. It is ABSOLUTELY a manipulation. It’s part of her argument. That’s just rhetoric. What she’s saying is NOT factually inaccurate (in this instance, there certainly are instances where Clinton has lied just like every other politician). It is a simplification of the actual numbers, but the actual numbers are really complicated and and wouldn’t work in a speech. The idea she’s supporting in that argument is correct and it backs up her claim.
What you’re doing now is rejecting her argument as nonsense because she used a simplification of the wage gap. It is certainly NOT the case that there is no wage gap, as you are implying. In actuality the problem is that women on average make less money than men in the same job (not 33% less, but still less) AND on average only get jobs that pay less to begin with. This averages out to women making 77% of what men do on the whole.
Thus, if a woman HAPPENS to get a job as CEO she doesn’t necessarily make 77% of her colleagues salary. It’s more likely she makes about 90% (still a gap) but the chances of a woman being hired as CEO in the first place rather than some lower paying job are drastically diminished vs. a man with similar qualifications.
Again, it’s complicated. Politifact has a nice break down of it. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/jul/15/politifact-sheet-gender-pay-gap/
But again. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about out and out falsehoods. A better example is when Hillary claimed that the FBI said she never lied about her emails in her deposition. That’s completely false. They said she DID lie in her deposition but she didn’t lie to them. There’s a huge difference between the two.
But what I’m talking about is people spreading falsehoods on the internet as justification. Which is basically what you’re doing now (though I will agree more intelligently than the memes I cited). To say that Hillary shouldn’t be president because she lied about the wage gap is false. She didnt. At WORST she wasn’t as clear as she should have been. But honestly, it’s more that she spoke in terms that people would understand and pay attention to. To say that Hillary shouldn’t be president because she lied to the American people about storing classified information on a private server is a completely fair stance. Similarly claiming that Trump shouldn’t be elected because he said republicans are dumb is false. But saying that he shouldn’t be elected because he spread the birther rumor or he claimed he could shoot a man in new york city and still get the votes is completely fair.
The wage gap is a falsehood. Women EARN less over their lifetimes for a variety of reasons. As a rule they do not get PAID less for doing the same work, with the same skills, and working the same hours, just because vagina.
The DOL findings on this are pretty clear. But that is neither here nor there.
“But honestly, it’s more that she spoke in terms that people would understand and pay attention to.”
She misrepresented a problem as a means to push her parties agenda. As many politicians do. To me that actually does disqualify them from being president.
The bottom line is that both our “leaders” and the general populace are willing to present false information as a means if furthering their own message.
The only defense for the common person is to gather information from a variety of sources and to rely on what can be verified as opposed to what validates ones bias.
That was the only point I was making, which is more or less in agreement with the core of your post.
That’s utterly incorrect.
See. You’re doing exactly what you’re accusing her of right now. The wage gap is NOT a falsehood. This is easily verifiable by … You know… Math!
What you really mean is that the discrepancy in pay between gender is justifiable due to other circumstances (like time off for childbirth and social reluctance to stand up for stronger pay). I happen to disagree with you but that’s irrelevant. The position is defendable.
But no one ever says “the pay gap is justifiable” because 1) it sounds mean and sexist. And 2) explaining the idiosyncrasies of why the gap exists takes time that distracts from the greater argument. It’s easier to just say that “the pay gap is a falsehood” even though that’s a gross simplification at best and completely misleading at worst.
The point is you can’t hammer her for making a semantically impure argument but then offer as proof a semantically impure argument in the other direction.
But if he believes it to not exist, then it must not exist…
I have this image in my head of a, like, forty year old dude with his fingers in his ears saying “LA LA LA NOT LISTENING LA LA LA”
What people earn over time is not equivalent to what they get paid for their time. As stated there are a lot of factors that determine how people are compensated.
To promote policy based on a half truth is bad leadership as it does not actually address the issues.
Why do women EARN less? What can be done(if anything), to facilitate any necessary change?
To what extent do personal choices play a role is any perceived or actual discrepancy.
Many people assume the earnings difference is not justifiable by ignoring many of the factors that contribute to the differences while focusing on the one thing that reinforces their assumptions. That serves no one.
Had she focused on career/life choices, the importance of negotiation, hours worked, or any one of a plethora of contributing factors, then her position would be sound.
As such, parroting a number from one DOL study that contradicts an earlier and more comprehensive DOL study is not a sign of truthfulness.
Both studies are available. There is absolutely no need to take my word for any of it. Clinton has access to them just as you do.
And that’s a different argument… Like I said. Now you’re arguing that the pay gap is defensible. I disagree. But that’s irrelevant because that’s not what this post is about. In your most recent comment you may and complete argument of what you actually mean. But that’s not what you said before. You used the massive simplification that “there is no pay gap”. That’s completely untrue. You even described it yourself and gave reasons for it.
Now obviously I knew what you meant by your original statement. But I’m really smart. I also knew exact what Clinton meant by saying women make 77% less.
But you’re both grossly simplifying and being misleading. You just don’t find it offensive when you do it yourself.
Sorry for taking your post off the rails, Chris. Not my intention.
I don’t mind so long as the tangents stay confined to their own threads.
Chris Maverick Chris, I am not misleading anyone.
There are in fact, a multitude of things that contribute to discrepancies in earnings.
The “gender pay gap” is a myth in that it makes the claim that these discrepancies are due to discrimination based primarily on gender. That is provably false. There was a study done in 2009, contracted by the DOL, that claimed a multitude of reasons for the differences.
A later study, that did not address these factors was used to generate the “77 cents on the dollar” figure. If you look at that study, it combines hourly employees with salaried workers, which in and of itself creates problems for achieving an accurate assessment of any perceived issues.
The idea that wages PAID as being equivalent to average EARNINGS, is false. Both Obama and Clinton have used those terms interchangeably to misrepresent the discrepancies.
My original point was that these types of falsehoods are common, and I used Clinton as an example to counter what was said about Trump. Bottom line? They, along with a host of others, including their followers use misinformation to illicit a response. I’m sorry but that is not debatable. There are far too many examples of this in the political discourse for there to be any question.
If you believe the earnings differences between men and women is primarily gender based. OK, fine. I have no interest in debating that. There are many factors, you can focus on whatever you like, if you think it is vajay jay, I am not going to convince you otherwise.
I will close with this.
Bias exists. There is little we can do to eliminate it. So for those interested, the only recourse is to check, then check again, then check again, everything you see/read. Make decisions based on verifiable problems and vote accordingly. Realize you are unlikely to convince others to do the same, and simply hope for the best when it comes the the available information.
So again. The point of this post was not so much to debate the policy points of either side. That’s why i made sure to address falsehoods about every candidate. So the specifics of what you or I or anyone else feels about the wage gap and how it should be addressed are irrelevant. I happen to disagree with your stance. But that’s an argument for another time.
The important thing to this conversation is HOW you are making the statement. Your initial comment was “the wage gap is a falsehood” but then you went on to describe the reasons for there being a gap. So the gap isn’t a falsehood. You just think it’s justifiable. Those are different things.
For an argument ABOUT the wage gap this probably wouldn’t matter. Just like it doesn’t matter how the 77% number is calculated. Because in a conversation about that the nuance would be explored.
However in this case we’re talking about the means in which people are misleading through using simplified language. You are arguing that Clinton was because she simplified the argument into a misleading number (77%). But you are doing so by making a similarly misleading argument(there is no gap). The spirit of your statement is defendable… As is hers. The actual semantic logic of what you’re saying is false… And in fact more false than hers. Yes you are justifying it by leaning on the specifics of the other argument. But so did she. Thats how arguments work.
But even then, as Mike said, this is a complete rabbit hole. It has nothing to do with the actual statement which I went out of my way to be apolitical on. You’re just shoehorning it to the thing that you want to argue about.
“My original point was that these types of falsehoods are common, and I used Clinton as an example to counter what was said about Trump. Bottom line? They, along with a host of others, including their followers use misinformation to illicit a response. I’m sorry but that is not debatable. There are far too many examples of this in the political discourse for there to be any question.”
He made a point implying that Trump was more dishonest. I countered that point with a general statement about politicians and their followers.
The example regarding Clinton and the pay gap is irrelevant, it was simply another example. One that neither of you accepted as equivalent. OK, fine. The core point remains the same. Misinformation is abundant.
“But if you’re going to try and justify it with “facts” do two seconds of research to find out if they’re real or not.
Something being in a meme does not make it true.”
That holds true whether you agree with what is being said or not.
EXCEPT THAT IN REFUTING IT YOU USED ANOTHER VAGUE FALSEHOOD!
Seriously… how do you not see that?
There is nothing vague about attributing the differences to more than simply gender. Nothing.
But saying “X gets paid less that Y” because vagina, is a falsehood, not because I say so, not because I think identity politics are bullshit.
It’s a lie because vagina vs penis is not the only difference between the groups.
So basing policy on gender is basing it on a lie, one refuted by the actual, albeit limited studies available.
Suppose the difference is based on career choices as opposed to discrimination. That changes the solution to the problem. So it is kind of important to start from a place of honesty. UNLESS the goal is not a solution, but rather manipulation.
Which goes directly to the point you made in your post. Holy spaghetti monster who art in the clouds, not sure what you are arguing.
Lies bad, research good, I agree with you.
Let me put it another way. You’re trying to pork barrel the argument. You picked a fact that at the very least you know is disputable and you are presenting that on equal footing as facts.
Take my 4 assertions.
• Bernie sanders is a us senator who make roughly $200k a year so he can afford a home in Vermont. This is a verifiable indisputable fact.
• Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and had dealings with the nation of Qatar which is currently a US ally and has been since 1992. This is a verifiable indisputable fact.
• Donald Trump never did an interview in 1998 with People magazine that includes that quote. This is a verifiable indisputable fact.
• Saul Alinsky wrote a book in 1971 that detailed 13 rules for radicals none of which include the 8 rules of the meme. This is a verifiable indisputable fact.
I intentionally chose the claims I did because I am speaking about people regurgitating information that is easily debunkable.
Your claim on the other hand is about the wage gap and it only makes sense in as much as it reflects your opinions on the justification for it. Best case scenario for you is that your opinion is valid but you know your claim is controversial (and you do. Because you aren’t stupid). Worst case scenario is that you are completely wrong because you don’t understand the numbers. This is also true of Hillary Clinton’s claim, which is why I didn’t use anything like that for my examples.
In either case, whether you are wrong or right this is not an easily verifiable and indisputable fact. It just isn’t. Your trying to shoehorn it into your argument actually makes your argument weaker. It has nothing to do with the argument that I posted or even really the subconversation of the thread. It’s just something that you are trying to show you are right on.
I even acknowledge that you have a defensible position this time. It’s weakened somewhat by our insistence on arguing semantics with a semantically invalid claim but it’s still a defensible argument at heart.
But no matter how defensible it is… Even if you could prove that your stance was somehow best… It just isn’t the same kind of statement as the rest of them and so by insisting on it you weaken your overall point.
Chris Maverick my response was to Mikes comment. I specifically used his words as the basis for my example. That is the only context for my comment. Which is its only relevance to the conversation, which is why I posted a response to mike, not you directly.
In regards to your original post, as I stated earlier, I agree with you.
Except that I also told Mike that his was unimportant to the point and he dropped it. You’re the orb who keeps insisting that your argument about gender gap is the same.
“It’s a lie because vagina vs penis is not the only difference between the groups.”
This is exactly why the point is debatable, not a lie. From Clinton’s position, that is the only difference that would exist between the two groups in an equitable society. Her statement is an explicit assertion that all of those other differences that cause the pay gap are forms if sexism that we need to unwind. In fact many of them are perpetuated by the pay gap because they come from decisions to devalue the career of the partner in a relationship that makes less.
Sure the pay gap disappears when you account for all those factors, but that doesn’t make Clinton’s statement a lie, it makes it a call to action to address those factors so that pay becomes equitable and based purely on merit, not self perpetuating social biases.
You can debate the accuracy of those assumptions, but that’s didn’t make it a lie, it makes it a different position.
Karl: exactly. Which is why I kept saying that it was different from the other cases. It is debatable policy case. We were debating it.
Bernie Sanders’s salary is not debatable. I mean you could argue against it but in doing so you’d have to out and out lie.
Totally different circumstances.
Karl Greenley it is not debatable. The discrepancies are not a result of vagina/penis.
All of you, Clinton, and Obama know this.
To say women get paid less, because they are women, is a lie. Not kind of a lie, not only sometimes a lie. It is a flat out lie. Women earn less on average because of the choices they make in regards to career and the time they are willing to put into their careers.
So unless you are suggesting we force women into specific jobs and to work a set amount of hours, there is nothing to be done about this non issue.
I say non issue, because it only affects those who choose less lucrative paths.
I get that you don’t care if it is true or not. Identity politic bullshit is your bread and butter.
That does not change reality.
If the difference are because of choices and not sex organs, then the difference in pay should only align to choices and choices should no align to sex organs. The fact that choices are being made along the lines of sex organs is evidence of a biased system that needs to be addressed until men and women all feel equally comfortable making choices without regard to what’s in their pants
It’s based on biology. Women and men gravitate towards different fields.
Chris’s point was that you can’t believe everything you are told, regardless of the medium by which it is told. I agree. If we want more women scientists, science needs to be made more interesting to women. There is nothing wrong with that way of thinking.
But you can’t force them to do so just because you perceive inequity. If you want the jobs they gravitate towards to be more lucrative, again, that’s fine, but they can’t be more lucrative just because more women choose them.
Ignoring personal freedom of choice serves no one.
So you’re saying it is a result of what’s in their pants?
I mean you can make that argument, but that’s an opinion, not a fact. You can’t honestly accuse someone that disagrees on that pune of lying because they’re operating on a different interpretation of the facts.
Men and women make different decisions, sure, but that’s because society treats them differently, not for any biological reason. If that’s your baseline then the wage gap is not a lie, it’s evidence of bias that needs to be corrected
Society treats them differently because they are different. Forget men and women, people in general have different interests, abilities, etc.
Lets say someone looks at Chris’s grading of his students over a period of time. And it turns out that women consistently get better grades. And someone makes a meme that shows the average grades of men and women with women scoring 30% higher on average. And at the bottom it says: Professor Mav prefers female students.
Now lets also assume Mav is impartial and the women get better grades because they work harder, and show up to class more, i.e. they have more interest in what he is teaching. And as such male enrollment drops.
Maybe it dropped because male interest really did wane. Maybe it dropped(to chirs’s original point) because the perception is that he is bias. Maybe it drops because his class is not relevant to the majors that men prefer.
Point being, do ANY of those reasons actually make him sexist in his grading policies?
No.
So if he wanted to entice more men to take his class, does the solution involve incentives geared towards men? OK, say he does that, and more men enroll, but the grades still come out with women scoring higher. What then? Level the field? Grant men a base percentage so they are more competitive?
My point, and the reason for my example is that when the premise of a disparity is based on misinformation, the solutions offered do not accurately address the issue.
In the example of Mav, the men need to work harder. In the case of earning disparity, women need to make different choices. And artificially inflating the problem(Chris was not actually grading based on gender), helps no one.
The premise of the meme’s listed as well as my example are based on oversimplification or obfuscation of information. That is a problem. Mike implied that one side is more apt to do that than the other. I refuted that point.
We can debate the validity of social inequality all day. As Chris said, that is not the point. I agree. The need for people to be more vigilant in what they believe is the point.
That’s pretty much it.
Ah, see an now you’re the one actively doing it by making up solutions that you disagree with and then assigning them to other people so you can falsely claim that people are pushing bad solutions. You’re not talking about real things that are in the table but your own made up bad solutions that aren’t real proposals.
What is being discussed?
Publishing pay of all workers so that everyone knows what the employer is willing to pay for a given set of skills/experience.
Standardizing pay schedules and bonus standards so that everyone who puts in the same effort gets the same compensation, and is not based on completely unrelated negotiation skills (never mine the fact that women are punished an more likely to lose a job if they try to negotiate, while men are rewarded)
Providing paid parental leave to men and women, while eliminating the stigma against men who use it and the sigma against women who don’t.
Unwinding hostile cultures at the workplace and in society in general that make women less likely to chose certain fields because they’re driven out and away from them.
If you actually pay attention to what’s being advocated it doesn’t match your assertions at all. But you go one step further than the above, not just working with misinformation instead of doing proper research, but actively making up things that other people are saying, then accusing t them of lying based on the things you’ve made up. That goes from misinformation to active disinformation.
Karl Greenley yes that is some of what is proposed. But not all. Regardless that wasn’t my point.
Making law bases on faulty assumptions is never a good thing.
Which goes to the point of checking the validity of the information we consume.
Arggghh. It’s painful.
Fact checking – what a fascinating concept!
Have you checked out the #ManyPeopleAreSaying over on twitter?Hell, my freshman comp students know they need better evidence than that.
I know what you mean though – the meme that drives me crazy is the one about Clinton and the rapist she defended and supposedly laughed at the victim – one google and snipes article later – it’s all bullshit – but when it’s twisting actual facts, few people bother to check the details.
Exactly. I’ve actually had a student get mad that I didn’t accept his factually incorrect evidence from some random blog as proof that gun regulations are too strict.
Just because it’s on the internet, doesn’t mean it’s true – hard to accept when it validates your beliefs.
there’s a pamphlet handout that i use on the first day of my FYW class about sociocentric and egocentric thinking. It could probably just be replaced with that image.
I’d love to see that pamphlet, though – might be useful. Maybe add this at the end – “So, to sum up:”
IM me an email address and I’ll send you the PDF.
One of the most dangerous things about Trump, though it’s hardly unique to him, is how quickly he is accelerating us into an Orwellian doublespeak world. By de-legitimizing any information source that doesn’t agree with his agenda of the instant, “fact checking” no longer works. The fact checkers are ipso facto part of the evil conspiracy. The only truth is the statement of authority, and not only does that “truth” not have to be consistent with the outside world or observable fact, it doesn’t even have to be internally consistent.
As I was saying in Mike Wood’s thread above, I do agree that Trump is a master of media manipulation. One of his strengths is playing into the fact that he knows people don’t fact check. Like, when he retweeted the Ted Cruz’s father was behind the JFK assassination meme. His excuse was “I like interesting tweets”
So in that respect, he’s just as guilty as the people who I am complaining about here. But I was actually going out of my way to NOT accuse any of the candidates on this one specifically. I’m more interested in when regular people treat meme as fact.
I guess it could be argued that in that specific instance Trump was kind of straddling the line between “candidate” and “regular person”
The problem is more insidious than that; many people clinging to “truths” they badly want to believe will double down on that if you present them with actual facts. Trump actually works that in his tactics. I really can’t figure out if he’s the idiot he seems to be or an evil genius.
This is the other one making the rounds that pisses me off mightily.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/executiveorders.asp
None of it is even *close* to true – but I have had people insist that it is.
Let me amend this: fact-checking is your friend. I don’t trust Snopes. Find the sources you trust and go with it.
What’s the beef with Snopes, just out of curiosity? They typically link to primary sources (for instance, in the “President Obama’s 923 Executive Orders” one above), so you don’t really have to “trust” them — you can verify what they say. Which is sort of the whole point of Mav’s rant. You shouldn’t “trust” sources, you should use critical thinking and cross-verify.
Michael Higgins I’ve seen them make too many logical errors in their analyses of political items. I still respect their effectively open approach, but they aren’t the first place I go.
What’s your go-to place?
I agree with Michael Higgins here. Is Snopes necessarily the BEST source of facts ever. No, but they’re a perfectly fine place to star and since they cite all of their information you can always verify it for yourself.
But really, going to snopes and verifying a claim is basically the LEAST someone should do when they see something that sounds unbelievable. All four of the memes I wrote about are talked about there. If people did that at the very least I would be happy.
Snopes explicitly doesn’t claim to be authoritative on anything, and is a logical collection of sources. Read “more about this page” at the bottom of this article… http://www.snopes.com/lost/sixpence.asp
(Just to be clear, I have no pro-or-anti Snopes axe to grind, I’m just interested in tools for making fact-checking and research easier, so if there are good alternatives to use instead of or in addition to Snopes, I’m interested.)
Snopes is the best. They list sources and make it clear how they reach their conclusion. But they’re not authoritative, they’re an opinion site
Politifact and factcheck tend to be “better” but they are limited to to political discourse. Snopes is nice because you can find out “hey is the Iowa state fair logo a penis?”
http://www.snopes.com/iowa-state-fair-logo/
Snopes articles are full of factual or logical errors. For example, a thirty second glance at the federal archive will disprove their count of Obama’s executive orders. It’s not 923 but it’s 55% higher than what Snopes sourced.
Use it to get you started but definitely do your own sourcing.
Politifact’s liberal bias is so blatantly obvious it borders on propaganda but, again, it can at least get you pointed in the right direction.
I honestly don’t have a single main destination. It really depends on what’s being discussed. In general a combination of general Google search and Wikipedia (being fully cognizant of their own flaws) tend to be my first stops. but it really depends on the specifics being discussed. For example, I have a high degree of trust in the writings of Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com for anything war related. I should note that I will still use Snopes for things that can more or less be called “non-controversial”, and even for tougher issues I’ll read what they have to say if someone says that have good info about a topic.
There is a strategy that has always served me well in trying to suss out the facts: try to find the people who have the greatest incentive to disagree. Play off of people’s biases, because if nothing else, it means that they have the motivation to find the counter-argument you are looking for. Also the more open-source any site is, the better. And in general I stay away from any mainstream news (my rule is that I tend to trust information in inverse proportion to how much the person giving it to me got paid to do so). And I listen to the stuff posted on my friends list more than I let on. Typically, I tend these days to reserve judgement on controversial topics almost to a fault.
Mitchell Pate Didya check the Snopes page recently? Because they wrote it in 2014, but apparently so many people have complained about it being “off” by 55% (from, you know, the passage of time) that they added a parenthetical just to address that.
I <3 Snopes!
Robert Chesnavich You trust a site that is clearly heavily biased, and literally uses the same type of headline grabbing language that Mav was talking about, as a fact checking source?
Bias is unavoidable. It’s better if I know the bias so I can compensate for it. In any case, I stated that I trusted a single person on that site, not the entire site (though there are other specific writers I like on it), and it’s because I’ve read his articles for long enough that he has shown me care for his craft. Justin’s logic is consistently on-point, his level of knowledge on the subject is second-to-none, and his articles are heavily linked to their sources. He also references his previous articles, and will occasionally adjust his positions as new information becomes available. He has earned my trust.
I’ve heard the claim that bias is unavoidable plenty of times, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that claim substantiated.
I Snopes things all the time, myself (my dad somehow hasn’t figured out how to do it, and you wouldn’t believe the emails that get forwarded among 70 year old conservative white men). That being said, I wish there were a better source for mythbusting. Every now and then I’ll see a story determined to be “Mostly True” or “Mostly False” that does have an ax to grind. But, I’m not sure how you’d get anyone to care enough to do all the fact checking if they didn’t have some kind of angle in the first place.
Yeah. As had been said in other comments here, snopes certainly isn’t perfect. My point was mostly that all four of the instances I mentioned would be a two second Google search from finding snopes as the top link saying why it’s bullshit.
oh gawd THANK YOU for writing this.
again, too many look at politicians, or media sources as black and white, good and evil. It’s all GRAY, people. Look at everything with a skeptical eye. That’s cool. But don’t write off anything as 100% good or 100% evil.
Chris Maverick love to see you cover the newest fringe that have deemed all fact checking sites as part of the conspiracy, or at least heavily biased and posting “false” fact-checks. Just….Willfully refusing to believe anything than what they want to believe, often allowing their emotions to dictate what facts they’ll receive and reject. (and of course, say the same thing about all the “lemmings” who fact check on these sources)
They reply to any fact-check link with this sorta crap: http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2012/04/is-snopes-a-disinformation-operation-1975000.html (but the URL says BEFORE it’s news! So it’s REAL!)
you’re welcome. 🙂
This is the 2nd time this week I have heard the name Saul Alinsky used. I suppose he’s one of those political corpses people keep on ice til it’s election season to trot him around, like Ron Paul, and Ralph Nader.
honestly, he’s no where near as notable as either of them to modern politics. At least not to normal every day people.
He’s basically a political activist and community organizers in the 50s. He’s been dead over 40 years.
The only reason he’s even notable at all in the modern political conversation is that he was a community organizer (so therefore linked to Obama) and Hilary happened to do her senior thesis on him back in 1969. People like to use it as proof that she is therefore a communist and trying to destroy the country… because somehow interviewing someone makes you exactly like him… The people who believe this take for granted that Alinsky was a pinko communist scum… but they don’t actually know anything about him.
All the same just seems like one of those names the amateur politico’s trot out every four years when we are electing a president, but forget about the rest of the time. I’m sure once this is over, I guess I’ll be glad to see Chomsky inserted back in his cryo-tube again too. I hear they are reserving cryo-tubes for Bernie, Johnson, and Stein too. LOL
Pretty sure the original source article about Bernie’s vacation home included the fact that it was actually financed by his wife selling a somewhat similar family property in Maine after her parents passed away. But subsequent reporting left that detail out intentionally. So yeah, maybe a little bit of media bias. *sigh*
Most of the articles I’ve seen do legitimate news sites do point it out. I don’t think people really read those though. They just form their opinions based on headlines.
Weirdly, given my views on conspiracism, I’m having a problem the other way round right now.
No, that article on the internet that says Ajuma Baraka has repeatedly been on an internet radio show hosted by a Holocaust denier is not just “some guy on the internet says some stuff, so it must be true.” See where it links to episodes of the radio show with Baraka as a guest? See where it links to the host giving his view on the Holocaust? That stuff is proof regardless of whether it gets posted on CNN.
Of course, the same person responds to a video claiming Clinton is a murderer with “she’s the worst kind of criminal, one who thinks she’s above the law.” So umm, yeah, a YouTube video.
Good post, Chris.
honestly that’s basically the same problem. People don’t seem to like facts that are counter to their beliefs (see the comments about egocentrism. above)
Like, I mean, people deny that Trump was making a vague death threat… and like… they’re watching the footage when they say it.
I agree with the interpretation that he was calling for armed insurrection rather than assassination, which is weirdly somehow more noble. But, yeah.
well, it was vague. He certainly wasn’t calling for voting or “filing amnesty injunctions” (which was my favorite interpretation from one of his supporters).
“… on a news site that has more than a dozen survivors…”
That seems to encapsulate a lot of the social media “reporting” that’s out there these days. There are definitely times I’m just thankful to have survived reading some “article”.
oops. that should be subscribers…. I’m tempted to leave that one just because it’s funny
Nicely done Mav. Made me smile. The confirmation bias is alive and well. What I liked best was that you tried to be neutral to all the parties and sources and went back to first principles. Just the facts. Not to mention – you’re a fine writer!!!
Thanks. I actually don’t usually try to be impartial, but in this case I really wanted to be since the issue isn’t actually political, it’s the way in which people respond to political memes on either side.
http://towcenter.org/research/lies-damn-lies-and-viral-content/
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
I wish I had a count of how many times I’ve pasted the Snopes truth on peoples posts! It’s so easy to find out if what you see is the truth or not CHECK IT OUT BEFORE YOU SPREAD IT!!!
I admit that I haven’t double checked everything I’ve ever posted (and I probably should).
But I think the key is when you’re posting something under the very premise of “how come more people aren’t talking about this” you should ask yourself “hey, is maybe there a reason that no one is talking about this?”