Wow, that is a truly terrifying example. One certainly can't trust Twitter for news (despite the alarming number of people doing so).

But...

Would it have had a greater or lesser effect, do you think, if all of the mainstream media outlets in the region came out in favour of IS?

The fact is that the mainstream media in most countries is owned by a smaller and smaller number of individuals or corporations, in many countries the government is still one of those.

Your "one person, spending next to nothing, was able to control 10% of all content", is absolutely no different to the position of Rupert Murdoch, or Larry Fink, or Chris Ripley... Only with those guys it's more like 50-70%.

I think what you're conflating is power and extremism. The way social media works gives extremists more power than they had before, but that power still pales into insignificance compared to the power of the tiny cabal of owners responsible for mass media. Their preferred message is not extremist, but that doesn't make it more true. Veracity and non-extremism are not necessarily linked. Imagine if your IS 'influencers' were instead the only group speaking out against the totally mainstream rise in antisemitic nationalism in the 1930s. Wouldn't you be glad they had a tool to artificially amplify their voice?

In terms of power, as has been noted, the reach and influence of social media in terms of extremism is quite small - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau4586 https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/measuring-reach-fake-news-and-online-disinformation-europe

Compare that to the reach of newspaper like the Times.

I think fundamentally there's a error here conflating the tools with the intention. A hammer can help build a house or commit a murder, the key is the intent of the user.

In an ideal world, no one would act in such a way as to artificially misrepresent, but, given that they do, what matters is the power of the tool they use to do so, and it remains true (for the time being at least) that the most powerful tool for those intent on misrepresentation is still mainstream media.

Apposite at the moment (20yr anniversary) is a discussion about the role mainstream media played in easing America and Britain's path to a basically illegal invasion of Iraq. We could have done with a few more alternative voices back then.

”Let a hundred philosophies bloom"
The Hundred Flowers Campaign, also termed the Hundred Flowers Movement, was a period from 1956 to 1957 in the People's Republic of China during which the Chinese Communist Party encouraged citizens to openly express their opinions of the Communist Party. ___Wikipedia — Gnomon

:100: Yes! Definitely! Let the Philosophies bloom, mingle, party, eat and drink, mate, and have many offspring. This also applies to the arts and music, writing, and science (especially the experimental and underfunded varieties. IE those that don’t directly lead to weapons and wealth). — 0 thru 9

If Natural Evolution theory can be applied to Cultural Evolution, a postmodern plethora of optional forms should not matter in the long run. The competition between doctrines & ideologies will grind each other down to a few viable forms & frames. Unfortunately, those of us in the midst of the information explosion may have to find our way through the labyrinth without threads or breadcrumbs. But for me, I find the fundamental foundations of the early Greek philosophers to be a simplifying sifter. :smile:

As far as the interaction between philosophy and experience it may be complicated because although knowledge is not based on experience it may affect interpretation. For example, it was difficult experiences, including 2 friends committing suicide, which led me to question and question religion in a way which I had never done before. Of course, it is possible that I was getting to the point of questioning anyway and that experience simply speeded this up. I know that you got to the point of questioning while you were still at school when you gave up 'God' for lent. But, was the decision based simply on the basis of the rationality alone, or irrationally of the idea of God?

The Sophists definitely saw winning arguments as essential. So, I sometimes think about that when reading some threads on this site, and I am sure that is how it is in many circles of philosophy.

I see what you mean about areas such as metaphysics, logic and epistemology not being political intrinsically. Nevertheless, such ideas may be used politically, especially with metaphysical ideas such as belief in God and life after death being used for political ends. However, it may be that genuine philosophy exploration is able to go beyond underlying political agendas and values.

If someone is being honest, say, a religious person or scholar, they can use metaphysical arguments for political ends and even do this in good faith, that is, being clear about what goals they may have and what motives fuels them to action.

If someone is concerned with using metaphysics or epistemology to try and figure out what there is fundamentally in the universe, let it be fields of energy, miniscule mental entities or moments of perceptions, etc., then I don't see how politics can enter here in any meaningful sense of the word.

This does not make the latter is better than politically motivated ideas, it simply has a different emphasis in terms of what is covered and what is left out.

We have different conceptions of philosophy, it seems; I don't think philosophy is "knowledge" even though it often concerns itself with how we can know and making explicit the (our) limits of knowing.

I know that you got to the point of questioning while you were still at school when you gave up 'God' for lent. But, was the decision based simply on the basis of the rationality alone, or irrationally of the idea of God?

After years of bible study, church history, and the history of the making of the bible as well as its uses in politics for over a millennia, I could not find anymore evidence for Christianity's claims than I could for those of Greco-Roman religious myths, for example, or could not distinguish rationally between "Jesus & Thor" or "Yahweh & Zeus". Perhaps it was, as the Church teaches, I'd simply lacked "grace" and realized that during my Jesuit high school years. :pray: Losing my religion, Jack, was certainly the catalyst for my life-long interest in philosophy (i.e. reflective reasoning & conduct) and not the other way around. :fire:

I am not sure that I really experienced much of a sense of 'grace' when I lived a 'religious life'. I used to go to Christian Union as a student and feel so 'different' from most of those around me. I was a bit taken aback by the way in which people were so opposed to other religious perspectives outside of Christianity and it does sound as you saw parallel ideas of other notions of God. I guess that I just didn't end up 'losing my religion' (great song by REM) in such a clear cut way. I have had many shifts and still experience them, but with more of an interest in comparative religion, but also with the whole area of interaction between spirituality and religion. Philosophy seems to fit into that as a foundation for rational examination of ideas and arguments.

I am not convinced that the distinction between the fields of thought are simple because while people do have contradictions, there may be overlaps. For example, I see a link between the ideas of determinism, Dennett's 'consciousness as an illusion' and a rejection of the importance of 'inner reality'. That is because such ideas may lead to an emphasis on the external world and people being seen almost as machines or robots. Also, such a viewpoint is compatible with some kinds of neo-totalitarianism, with the possibility of people competing for performance.

Even within physics there are different perspectives on religion and on politics. The aspects of the political within science may come down to competing political angles amongst scientists and of funding of projects at higher levels of power structures.

It's interesting that you mention Dennett. I would agree that his views on consciousness being an illusion might lead one to think that he takes a deterministic view. But the opposite is the case. He defends compatibilism.

Yes - the ideas of eliminitavism can lead to the idea of man as machine, yet Dennett is a good liberal, so these things need not be connected. You are correct that such views can lead some to think of human beings as "mere" organisms, but these same people rarely act as if others were disposable insects.

The funding issue is interesting. We are not far from practical limits in terms of experiments we can do, and money is spent on few theories. This is expensive, and popular theories like String Theory or Quantum Gravity, get more funds than others, which are just as promising. Funders should be made aware of this, I don't assume they know this, a lot of the time.

There can be connections of the kind you suggest, but if you follow, say Foucault and his disciples, you will find extremely tenuous, and sometimes imaginary connections all related to obscure notions of "ideology". It's good to perceive structures of power. One should temper this with sober realism: real power structures are often out in the open, as seen in business journals and the like.

Politics is the continuation of religion by other means.

(Paraphrasing / plagiarizing Bataille? Cioran? Rosset? Zapffe?)

In hindsight, it's more apt to say that, in fact @16, I'd existentially decided on freethought – thinking for myself as freely as I can from any anti/non/super-natural frameworks as well as 'appeals to authority, tradition, popularity, ignorance, incredulity, etc' – than to say I'd decided I was an "atheist". Fully articulated and principled weak atheism (& materialism) came later, then several years further on – via much study and some life experience – strong atheism (& naturalism) and (finally?) more than a decade afterwards – easing into my much scarred, bemused middle-age – I'd found my antitheism (& ecstatic naturalism). However, my accompanying irreligion has always been 'spiritual' in the sense of reflectively living, for the most part, in a musically jubiliant (i.e. dionysian, absurdist, bluesy) way. Like the proverbial rollin' stone, Jack, the only 'grace' I've ever known (my gnosis!) is Sisyphusian grace, and, always by philosophical candle light, dining in the dark ruins of my noisy body and our mumbled words.