Unsubstantiated premise, naive view of entrepreneurship and your ideas about what a philosopher is cannot be characterised as "what philosophers claim".

I think freedom of the press is important, when you look at a country like China, they have their own set of problems due to a lack of freedom in their press. It seems we're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The trend is clear, we probably haven't seen things as bad as they will get, polarisation will accelerate due to the biased reporting.

That doesn't mean I want to trust the government to handle things though, the news is one of the most powerful forces in keeping the government honest.

I think that when it comes to issues like manipulative news reporting, it does come down to what one thinks about the average listener. Many times when it comes to issues like this, I meet people who think very highly of the average citizen, that they are worldly and intelligent while I tend to think that the average citizen is maybe good at a few things but has extremely limited knowledge of even basic things.

If one of the articles I listed, polling suggested that 40% of news listeners trust the news and another said over 50% of viewers trusted Fox news and around 75% of republicans trusted FOX news. When we look at the current political polarisation as well, I do not really believe that we can assume that the major news reporting biases are being identified and deftly bypassed by viewers. Rather, it seems more appropriate to view them as being highly successful in their manipulative practices.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/fox-news-lashes-out-at-cnn-with-new-ad-2010-2

The pollster was Public Pollicy Polling, I looked for information on them and apparently they even have a democrat bias.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

I get what you mean, honestly, to some extent that's actually what is needed in some cases. The correct understanding of the Vietnam war as one example can only be attained after a lot of secret details became public. At least, all I meant was that things become clearer with time and easier to digest, so waiting a little while for more to come out can be a good way to go.


Well, it's certainly easy to draw parallels between Trump's success and his media coverage, it's free advertising and it doesn't appear to matter if it's negative.

I think it's fair to say that news reporting can be and has been influenced by big companies due to advertising rights. It can be argued that from the perspective of increasing viewership, choices will be made that take the focus away from objective news reporting or simply toss out objectivity because it isn't as interesting to viewers.

On top of that, for many, there may never have been a real attempt at objectivity to begin with and the news reporting was always intended to be either manipulative or overtly biased.

I think it is economic, there's a financial incentive to comment on Trump, negatively or positively, because it sells. Political biases exist but if it wasn't doing well financially then I think we would see changes. Just as CNN have changed to compete with their competition from more objective to more opinionated, it would have happened in the opposite way if the financial incentive led towards objective reporting.

It's a supply-demand issue, people prefer opinionated reporting because it's entertaining, I don't know if there's any way of financing reporting that doesn't react to the demand for opinionated reporting. I really don't know what the solution might be. I don't know the reporting we see currently is a symptom of the current political climate or part of what created it but I do think it will be a factor in its continuation.

I mean that the content creator gets ads on their channel without creating a contract with the company paying for the ad because their contract is through youtube. As opposed to a direct relationship with greater influence for the companies over the image and reporting of the news company. I am pretty much at a point now where I don't think this idea will improve anything because of discussions in this thread and my own research.

Also, I am not interested in an actually objective news station but whether one tries to be objective or not. Whether or not that's the primary objective or if they have a political agenda. I am not sure that being objective is best, what's the worst is where they brand themselves as objective but have a clear political agenda because that's highly manipulative.


Yeah, agree.

I completely agree with your sentiments about the daily news.

I'm really into documentaries rather than news, though I do get news in my youtube feed that I occasionally watch but that's mostly from the television news youtube channels. There are some news commentators on youtube in the past that I listened to but at some point I started to feel like the news is an unfinished story. Here's an example:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42493918

This is a summary of the Trump-Russia election investigation that was reported on for years, I hear about it but I don't want to hear about it every night. I prefer to keep up to date this way, slightly delayed but convenient, I don't even want to form an opinion until all the facts are out anyway.

Yeah, I did read that after you mentioned it, it's interesting. I would have thought that was the solution but I am becoming more convinced that the issue is viewership and the fact that people aren't entertained by the hard facts. Would a government support a news service that wasn't getting viewership? Anyway, I'll look into Al Jazeera a bit more and formulate an opinion.

Well the matter of intelligence agencies is definitely interesting because by their nature, they need secrecy but that means doing it behind the backs of the people who are supposed to be your boss. I think much of what agencies have done that has been released such as staging coups and arming radical militants in foreign lands, would not have been supported by the public. The people of the US were never given a chance to have an opinion on these actions.

Also for military secrecy, from Vietnam to Afghanistan has the US in modern times fought a war without also fighting to withhold and control the information the public has access to? Later on, when the details come out, wars that seemed controversial just appear to be utterly foolish. If the American people had full knowledge of what the government knew, the wars would have been viewed even less favourably than they already were.

What has been done that the next president will think twice to control the information to manipulate the public? Or to have agencies perform controversial operations that the public wouldn't agree with? Nothing, it seems to me. If you want to call the government out on it, then you may lose your freedom. I'm not sure what the answer is though.

What point were you bringing up about Al Jazeera? I hadn't heard of them.

Assange has more to do with how Western governments withhold information from the public that they really shouldn't. The US commits war crimes, they perform covert operations and they don't answer to the public on these matters because they hide the occurrence. On some issues, it seems the US was wrong to withhold the information on others, it seems Assange has jeopardized military and intelligence agencies by releasing sensitive material.

I don't know anything about Al Jazeera.

That is an interesting perspective, I think you might be right. I was reading an article that described the battle between FOX and CNN led CNN to change from its more objective news reporting approach.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/fox-news-cnn-change-evolution-2010-2019-11?r=US&IR=T

One thing that wasn't explained is why CNN was only trusted by 40% of viewers compared to FOX's 50%+, in 2010 may have to try to dig for that. Certainly though, if CNN is forced to change its approach like this, it may be true that youtube news reporting/commentary will follow the same logic. Since this article makes it seem like at least for CNN, the change was the result of being unable to compete with their flashier, more entertaining competition.

The bottom line is that no step in ending racism or systemic racism requires identity politics.

Identity politics just distracts from the real issues such as poverty, police brutality, the mass incarceration and so on. I think fighting racism is a bit of a game of wack-a-mole, you see it and you give it a whack.

Otherwise, most problems that affect black Americans can simply be characterised as bad policy and poverty, as you say.

Well, I don't enjoy characterising groups, it's tedious. I don't like identity politics and I don't agree with violence. Racial histories, giving racial groups undue significance or irrational objectives and emotions, identity politics, so silly.

However, what is BLM guilty of? BLM is too big now, it means too many different things to many different people. Should anyone under the umbrella of BLM be judged for the actions of a few? When there's barely any formal structure?

I think I said too much in my initial post, I will just leave it at that.

I watched a lecture like that, probably the same, done by Dr. Kanojia.

I think when it comes to matters of identity and self-creation, there is nothing to be discovered, it's about creating a working system based on what you want to achieve. That system is rooted in capabilities as much as it is in interpretation. For something like social ineptitude, the process to overcoming that is difficult and requires you to step out of your comfort zone. However, the "problem" is self-defined, even self-created.

How does one characterise the failure up until now to overcome the "problem", what opportunities have been squandered due to the "problem", what does the "problem" say about you and your abilities? Should we evaluate the answers to these questions by whether or not these views are "true" or should we evaluate them by whether or not these views are costing the individual comfort, confidence, progress and so on?

Even in overcoming the "problem", the negative interpretations become an obstacle and the example with Dr. Kanojia is like that. Living with it and overcoming it can both be hard because of how the problem is viewed.

I think of myself as complicated, I am influenced by so many internal and external variables and I have no control over it. I am contradictory, inconsistent, impossible to understand and that's just what it means to be human. Instead of concerning myself about whether my inner voice is truthful, I ask whether it is productive. Self-analysis is focused on whether how I think is helping or hurting me and that isn't always an easy question to answer. I believe the focus on truth in these contexts can be detrimental, there's no problem with self-deception, provided the self-deception is responsible for things that make your life better and not worse. That requires awareness of the possibility for self-deception, which I think I have.

I think the truth is dependant upon how you feel, think, your perspective and interpretations and the kind of person you are. When you believe in the truth, you reinforce the "you" that sees that truth and you reinforce the problem. That's even more evident when the views of others are ignored when they disagree with your belief. So belief in the truth that depends upon you being the way you are is the same as committing to the way you are irrespective of the consequences.

Also, intellectually understanding something is insufficient, is there anything one can say to themselves to overcome the fear of public speaking? Or nervousness, etc? Almost always the answer is no. You need to train yourself, you need to show yourself that there's nothing to be afraid of. So it is insufficient to "know" that you're doing something, you can only overcome these types of things with exposure and repetition.

I don't really know what your OP is about, I just picked parts of it and commented on them. I am extraordinarily introverted and I used to see this negatively when I was younger, I hated feeling that way. Instead of changing, I changed my perspective, nowadays, I am something like an elitist on the matter of introversion, it's an identity and source of pride, something which brings me happiness even though beneath the surface I won't let how I feel take me down the wrong path because as I said, I am interested in the pragmatic benefits of my views as opposed to faith in their superiority or validity.

Many philosophers propose that ways of thinking and being will lead to desirable outcomes or even worse, we just need to strive towards the ideals of the philosophers and they will provide their reasoning for why. Finding a way to live well is about examining the way we cause ourselves happiness and misery. What are we focused on and how do we interpret what we're focused on and what does it say about us or the world. How can one be sad if they see themselves in a dazzlingly positive light? How can one be happy if they only talk about themselves in disparaging and depressing terms? My priorities are always focused in this area.

Your attitude is simple, mostly everyone is powerless and want the powerful to be kind, however, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. One powerful man can reign over millions and millions, they can all be at his mercy. There's really no animal who does not abuse his power, power creates tyranny. It is the nature of power that corrupts systems, there can only be attempts to design systems carefully so that power can be kept in check. The perfect system is where power could never be abused.

Yeah, a privately owned company has to make a profit but there's not much of a chance for shareholders caring about the ideals of journalism and democracy, their motivation can only be financial. Either way, criticism is just noise if it's not hurting their bottom line.

For the CEOs of the organisations, their financial rewards and job security depend on financial success, so the figures may show that financial success does not require trust in the reporting. Alternatively, you just need a loyal base even if larger percentages of the public are becoming sceptical. So yeah, it may be the case that people are there to be entertained rather than be informed. I think this could be fine as long as the news doesn't try to appear objective when it's not because that is manipulative.

When it comes to democracy, we know politicians lie and lie about really important things. The white house can't be trusted to tell the truth, their political opponents can't be trusted and the news is not only being described as "fake news" by the president but faith in the news has been declining even before Trump.

Huge money in politics, huge money in news reporting and where are the incentives or checks and balances for informing the public about the truth? I don't really see these issues being resolved any time soon.

In summary, doing what is best for yourself and others is in fact what is best for yourself and others. Well, the topic of OP is so huge that nothing intelligent can be said but in general, I think many opportunities are lost when you only serve yourself and no opportunities gained.

The right thing to do is what is best for yourself as well as what is best for your pals. Or what is good for yourself and not harmful to others or better adds value to the lives of others.

I think that we can't avoid having the news media being involved in the democratic process and that's not something we want to avoid but I think it could be good to do an investigation on how the news makes it money and whether that incentivises practices that help inform the public fairly or not.

https://tinyurl.com/yaxsa5pz

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/375368-cable-news-ad-revenue-up-25-percent-over-2017-with-msnbcs-rising-62-percent

Distrust of the news is increasing but profits are soaring.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/267047/americans-trust-mass-media-edges-down.aspx

Are the business aspects of increasing viewership and ad revenue at odds with fair reporting? One of the things that really stood out to me was the 2016 election. Mostly, how much more coverage Trump got than other candidates.

https://shorensteincenter.org/research-media-coverage-2016-election/

The reporting can be measured by positive versus negative reports, who decides how much they do of each and what is their reasoning?

https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/

Another consideration is that some news outlets are publicly listed companies, they're tasked with providing value for their shareholders. Jobs are kept and lost based on the same metrics any business would use, the ideals of journalism aren't part of that. I'm sure sometimes it's good to be seen as doing a good job but equally sometimes doing a good job may lose on the business metrics of $$$.

I don't think the answer is to remove them but to restructure how succeeding on the business side of things isn't at odds with our ideals about their role but what are our ideals about their role? Is it possible for the news to be objectively reported in the first place? Is it bad for the news to be politically motivated and if we expect them to comment on politics then how can we draw a line between that and intent to manipulate the viewer into voting a particular way? Is it wrong for them to do that in the first place?

The worst thing one can do philosophically speaking in my view is to view themselves through the lens of the immense. You become an ant this way, you are a little spec that cannot even be seen. This perspective is unliving, mostly its conceptual, originality might be an example of that. From the perspective of "who is original" you can be seen as nothing, it's looking at millions or billions of people and you're one of them.

That's not how life really is though, you can easily and quite effortlessly make a huge difference from any living perspective. Whether it's owning a dog or making a friend, from their perspective, you are you, irreplaceable, absolute, uniquely existing physically and emotionally. Even going further, from your perspective, you are everything. Someone else can die and you won't even notice but if you die then that's the end of everything and from that perspective, you are everything.

Through the advent of nihilism, the self is an unrivalled dispenser of justice, conveyer of meaning, the ultimate narrator. Knowledge is an epistemological position, truth is determined by prerequisites that you layout. As opposed to seeing yourself as a cog in a great machine, see yourself as the seer of all that is seen, the epicentre of existence as you know it.

The prerequisites for objective truth are subjective, you've just made your case. Where does that leave us when it comes to the truth about the truth?

I don't like BLM to be clear, they engage in racial histories, identity politics, they want to institute laws with race-specific language, I don't agree with many of their proposals, depending on who you think represents BLM things get even worse. Violence, vandalism, racism can all be tied to the movement.

Police reform does need to go beyond racism, the war on drugs hurts people of all races, the practices which constitute police brutality and the culture which excuses it hurts all people.

There's certainly room for less racially charged fixes to problems that irrefutably affect all races, I would prefer that in some cases. However, there is a very strong case for how US law enforcement is not treating the races the same. The statistics, experiences and history paint a clear picture, the reason that some of these cases blow up isn't just because they're horrific but because they become symbolic.

I think it goes without saying that if a movement is trying to end police brutality against blacks, that they're going to push for changes which end police brutality against all races. I think you more or less agree with most of this.

It just seems you're stuck on a literal interpretation of "black lives matter" whereas I see it as a reprimand of the government which acts like they don't. If you have sources which suggest that they're literally concerned with saving as many black people as possible then show but it sounds ridiculous.

If the state has an active role in discriminating against blacks then it's a race issue. I'd argue that "black on black crime" is an unhelpful framing. It's just crime and of course, nobody likes crime but it's not a race issue.

BLM don't need to address every issue for black Americans under the sun. It's fine for them to stand for a particular issue with whatever strong slogan they want and there's no problem. This criticism is just superficial, of course, the majority that supports BLM is going to be against crime that hurt people (and black people) but they're separate issues.

Er, yeah, nvm about that, what I meant was that BLM is focusing on state-related offences, you made no mention of any "all lives matter" and idk what made me think you did. Crime is obviously a problem but it doesn't need to be the only problem that gets addressed... why frame it like we need to pick one or the other?

I don't like BLM but your line of argumentation about this "why only black lives" is pretty weak. BLM is a group that is focused on how the state treats black people. That doesn't mean that they don't care about every other issue that's remotely related to being black in America.

The whole "all lives matter" counterargument misses the point, it's like saying to a feminist "don't all rights matter?" Yeah, they do, but a feminist is focused on women's rights, generally.

Hahaha

See, I would actually agree that that interpretation is nonsensical and the reason I can do that is because I didn't say "the disparities are necessarily the result of racism and no other factor". What's nonsensical is your response. The statistics are just one part of the picture. They just validate the sentiments that have been at the forefront of the American consciousness for decades.

You can admit that the statistics demonstrate disproportionality, you can admit the widespread and sustained sentiment held in predominantly black communities of distrust and fear of the police, you can admit that different drugs are penalised differently and that the most harshly penalised drugs affected predominantly coloured people. I can give you examples of government officials who admitted that their policies were racist, we can talk about individual cities who have in modern times admitted that their police forces had issues with racism.

You should have a think about what "proof" means in this context. The real world isn't a controlled experiment where you can carefully test the variables and demonstrate things with 100% certainty. What it seems you are asking for, is for someone like a president to commit political suicide by admitting their racist intentions. I can give you mayors, I can give you senators but as far as I know, no president has done that.

In the real world, we have to make decisions based on statistics and evidence like this, you can't always just sit on the fence because nobody can give you concrete assurances. It doesn't work that way in medicine, law, business, politics, philosophy, psychology and many other things. If I've got you wrong and you can make a strong argument against the statistics, the history, the decisions that have been made. Offer an alternative explanation to everything, then go ahead. But otherwise, why don't you tell me what kind of proof you'd need. Btw, guessing you're going to take the second option and I look forward to an entertaining response.

I'm not exactly sure how you've spent so much time arguing in this thread and others without being able to answer that question. It never stopped is the answer.

1950s and 1960s shouldn't need much explanation, the black civil rights movement is in full effect.
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement#section_1

Now, my understanding about systemic racism and law enforcement from the 1980s on has to be understood through the lens of the "tough on crime" mantra and the war on drugs that we see being pushed by Nixon, Reagan, Bush senior and Clinton.

The situation is that the black civil rights movement has won, the language of the law no longer discriminates against skin colour. It is no longer politically tenable for a candidate to talk about instituting explicitly racist policies. However, if there's a need for a civil rights movement in 1959-1968, do you think 1980s US is racism free?

Anecdotally, there has never been a time period in the US since then where there hasn't been a substantial backlash against police brutality against black Americans. Cities across America have a rich history of protests against this, it is verging on conspiracy theory to argue that all of these experiences don't add up to a larger picture.

There are many high profile cases surrounding law and race and the reason that they blow up is because there's a great deal of frustration surrounding this topic that is felt around the country. When you consider that only some decades prior you have the black civil rights movement, fighting against literal segregation, it becomes even more implausible that there wouldn't be issues between law enforcement and black Americans.

Statistics show that the war on crime has taken prison populations from around 200k in 1970 to 2.3 million now. It's important to understand exactly how the process around getting a conviction works. Firstly, let's deal with the idea of the "fair trial", cases generally don't go to trial.

https://tinyurl.com/ycmwzas6

That is important to remember when hearing about the statistics of the results of the war on drugs. Which is that there is extreme racial disproportionately in incarceration rates with black Americans constituting over 35% of the prison population while only being 12% of the population. There's a supposedly a 1/3 chance for a black male to have served time in prison but 1/5 have already served time. That's happening without trials for the most part.

When you get out of prison, you are something like a second class citizen. Not only did you lose years of your life but it's going to be harder to get residency, a job, social benefits, you may not be able to vote and so on.

Police brutality is a phenomenon that goes beyond racism but the US approach to crime exacerbates the issue. Again, I don't want to give narratives, anyone can give narratives but the war on drugs and petty crime ends up manifesting as a war on poverty. From the way police treat you that leads to the arrest and the way the state attorneys treat you in what kind of deal they offer or whether they are willing to drop charges or you can afford to go to trial or not.

That's just dealing with the statistics where we got to that stage, if 1/5 black males have been to prison, then how many black males are having unfavourable experiences with police? What is the impact on the affected communities?

When you combine the prevailing attitudes in the states with the statistics and the history, it paints the picture of systemic racism.

Now as for whether you can argue that this is just a huge mistake and that the US government never intended to treat the races differently, it is pretty much ridiculous perspective. Honestly, the results speak for themselves but there's a lot of evidence to support the racist undertones of the war on drugs and its origins. The way that the various drug epidemics were handled i.e compare oxycontin with heroin or cocaine vs crack demonstrate inconsistencies. When you look at the statistics, it paints a picture as well.

On top of that, you have infamous admissions those involved in campaigns for Nixon and Reagan being explicit in the intentions but there is some controversy surrounding that. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman and I forget the name of the other guy but you can do your own research into this.

I think that one can reasonably prove that the US government has purposefully constructed the relevant laws in ways that they knew would disproportionately affect the races. You need to look at how the US governments handle politics, the major goal is getting the party re-elected and everything done takes this into account. The policies appeal to the racial undertones that have been present in the US and still are. Nonetheless, the result can't be argued to be racially neutral.

There's a lot of room for interpretation here but there's a level of inexcusable simplicity in thinking that because the government doesn't use language that targets race, they can't be racist. That laws that don't mention race can't be part of systemic racism. I encourage you to further your education on this vast topic, if you're going to be as involved as you have been in this discussion.

But you are very specific about what type of change we are talking about so you need to prove that with much better scrutiny. — Christoffer

Am I? I don't think I have been very specific and my argument isn't very specific. Currently, the requirements to run for office are age, nationality etc and you want to add something very substantial to that. You have unsurprisingly, absurdly, taken my example to be utilising the shock value of communism. Communism is just a big, easily identifiable example of how university culture influenced future politicians. It just proves that I'm not baselessly speculating, we have examples. You say you want proof but I'm not sure that exists, it's a nearly impossible thing to prove. We don't record what your political positions were before and after taking a course at a university. We can only note that universities are not apolitical.

You ask "what evidence do you have that it can produce ideological shifts" but within communism you have clear examples of world-famous communist leaders who picked up their ideological leanings at university. It did produce ideological shifts in those people, if you forced future leaders to go to universities which debate political theories such as communism then it increases the likelihood of them being influenced by those theories. That's assuming the course itself is entirely apolitical which hasn't been established. If you won't accept that without some kind of concrete evidence then go look for it yourself, don't need to rely on me. I am not really sure what you'd be hoping to find.

It is not the nail in the coffin for your suggestions and honestly, I am not really trying to prove anything. I asked how things would work, pointed out problems I saw and I'm not looking for any particular resolution. It makes no difference for you whether I agree or not and that's how I view things too.

You just continually put words in my mouth like "

The old rise of communism was because communism in universities] > [Universities are not good for learning] — Christoffer

. Really, that's my "line of logic"? But I never said anything like that. Isn't that what we call a strawman?

Still, you sum up my premise about education to be bad because it produces indoctrinated politicians because communism started in universities — Christoffer

More of the same strawman, that is absolutely not what I said, not even close to what I said. It's an outrageous interpretation of my argument. I'm not fearmongering communism and I even went out of my way to specify as such.

Fair enough though, I will stop asking you to not reply, you can have your final word but I don't think this conversation is going anywhere. The fact that we're waist-deep in accusations of fallacies at this point really highlights where my concerns came from to begin with. There's a lot left unaddressed between us but I do not feel that I can trust you to interpret my arguments in a fair manner. You choose instead to put words in my mouth and interpret my arguments in ways that undermine them, so I will not respond to whatever you may comment further.

You bring up fallacy arguments so much lol. Most of your responses are really just you theorising about the ways in which you think my arguments might go without actually finding that out first.

Disregarding the fact that people don't get a politician license after learning a political ideology, but instead, already have a foundational ideology. The education isn't there to reprogram and even if there was a political imbalance at the university, that doesn't change the education taught in these areas of knowledge — Christoffer

Was this my argument? That fact is only important to you, why should I care?

Students can today absolutely call out if the knowledge taught has a political bias instead of neutrality and if they have a specific political ideology, the education won't interfere with that. — Christoffer

It's not even just about the "knowledge taught", even if the classes were totally apolitical. When you say political candidates must spend 3-6 years at a university and universities aren't apolitical places, it has an impact on the candidates. The spread of communism and its relationship with universities is extensive, that's half of the story of the 20th-century spread of communism. Look at Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Lenin and many others. The point here isn't to say "US will become communist if political licence" but that you cannot treat universities as being apolitical.

By saying it's barley different you effectively straw man the entire idea or ignore portions of my argument, like the Dual Process effect on parliamentary members. And the problems you raise are still too weak and closer to slippery slope ideas of the consequences. — Christoffer

STRAW MAN? I've written like 2k words on your thread, you know what I think about the individual components which have all been addressed. I haven't made any slippery slope arguments.

I am done, please stop replying to me.

For this objection to be valid you need to prove that universities today produce biased educated people and that they are in fact acting with those imprinted biases after education is over. The objection that universities are politically impartial is often used in a fallacious way to argue that education is broken and nothing good can come out of it or at least nothing that fits your biases about the world is taught within them. So this objection is pretty weak for arguing against the need for politics based-education of politicians. — Christoffer

Universities don't try to ensure equal representation in their courses or of their lecturers in political persuasions, why wouldn't there be an imbalance? Universities have always been involved in politics and university students have always been interested in politics. Especially in the arts where people are encouraged to think about these kinds of ideas. I don't want to respond to your obsession with fallacies that have nothing to do with what I said.

Is this system fairer than how regular representative democracy system is now in most parts of the world? — Christoffer

It's barely different, barely addresses any of the problems and you don't take any of the potential problems it could cause seriously. Populism works not because of politicians but because of voters, I don't know how much of an issue populism is. Populism comes about because people feel disenfranchised and failed by democracy in the first place.

In what way would a fact-checker be biased or have fallacies? — Christoffer

Aren't you just being silly at this point? Your following counterarguments are, who are you even talking to? I never made a slippery slope argument but I'm sure your biases have nothing to do with your conclusion that I did.

As for your objections about the fact-checker, I never made any assumptions, I have simply not received an adequate explanation around the specifics of how the fact-checker system would operate. I have given different scenarios and questioned how they might work. I never assumed what kind of authority the fact-checker might have, I have always said "if he has this level of authority then.." and so on.

I think you're just being silly, you have regularly argued that my arguments are fallacious but you don't see the topic as being controversial. You don't see the potential for abuse or bias. You've put me in a quite a difficult position. I don't really want to debate this topic anymore, let's end things here.

I think it isn't unreasonable to bring up establishment opposition to black civil rights leaders in comparison. Reagon/Bush "tough on crime" racist dog-whistling, the entire war on drugs with Clinton, this really wasn't that long ago. These aren't interpretations of crazy far-leftists, we have admissions by those campaigns that they knew exactly what they were doing. Speakers against the practice get called disruptors and get assassinated or locked up. It's hard to not draw parallels between these practices and how Trump reacts to BLM.

Many individuals and groups who spoke out against clear racism had absolutely no business being killed or locked up in a democratic country. It is more of the same in this regard, now I don't like BLM for many reasons but if BLM weren't a racist, leftist, destructive group would it matter? Maybe not, any disruptors fighting against racist policies, who favour justice over order, maybe they'd receive the same opposition.

However, as I already said, BLM are far from the ideal group from my perspective. Anyone who opposes identity politics is going to have a hard time liking BLM, anyone who hates the way racial groups get characterised and prejudiced against is going to struggle. BLM is responsible for some pretty terrible things and the list is growing. There are many reasons for those who know US history and hate racism to NOT support BLM.

I just don't know whether if the group wasn't BLM but instead a moderate group that said enough's enough and laid down the facts in a way that I'd 100% support. Would that group be accepted or would people still complain about how "all lives matter" and say that the US should still be tough on crime and while the system isn't perfect, it's not that bad either.

US law/justice needs a total and complete overhaul, the situation is absolutely absurd but I wonder how many people are willing to accept that. US exceptionalism is quite astounding.

The truth is that if the whole world went off meat, animals raised to be livestock absolutely cannot be released into the wild because it would destroy ecosystems. Those populations would get massively reduced and that's it. It's simply a lie to say that veganism/vegetarianism saves lives, it would stop livestock from being produced and killed as commodities, which can still be a valid moral position.

1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s? You have no idea when police brutality against black-skinned Americans was last an unquestionable reality?

Err no, capitalism bad because uhh, capitalists and consumers being fattened up and slavery for our pleasure. Resources could run out in 5-10 years and talk about the bigger picture is needed now and we need to be mature and talk about resolutions? Please do not respond with evidence, are you siding with the capitalists?

Same as most moral issues, it's not about the end result, it's about how the prominent interpretations move us to action. Of course, people are less likely to be passionate about helping people that they see in a negative light.

I also don't think that we should overstate public understanding of mental illness either. It's easier to empathise with a biological illness even if you don't understand it but empathising with mental health issues actually has a reverse effect on opinion. People think "I wouldn't allow myself to become depressed like that" and offer philosophical solutions, fitness solutions, healthy eating solutions and basically suggest that the fault lies in the affected for not taking better care of themselves.

There's very little understanding of the actual science behind mental health problems. Biological health issues are miles simpler by comparison.

I did warn you not to ask for evidence.

You're living in a dream world, typical fairly land philosopher who has no understanding of the scientific, political, economic or practical side to their argument. You don't make streetlightx look reasonable but you come awfully close. Your interpretations are overdramatic, unreasonable and really just argue factually incorrect nonsense.

Please stick to areas of philosophy where just describing your feelings is sufficient and your absurd interpretations can be forgiven... like morality about saving the whales or something.

You don't name names, you don't give figures, you don't show data, if you really can make a better argument then go ahead but please give your sad poetry a rest.

Would you be able to give a brief explanation of the last time period where you would agree that police in many areas across the US treated the races differently? Surely you at least acknowledge that this was a problem in the past yes?

So you see what someone means without understanding what they mean? That's quite interesting.

No, the forum is not even close to a reflection of the world. The people it attracts are highly specific. I also think that making generalised forum thread is more likely to get posts. You can make some crazy obscure and unique thread but nobody will respond and you'll stop doing it pretty fast.