World News Thread (Politics,whatever)

[JDTAY]

Good news. Biden has the Nintendo vote cornered.

Joe Biden presidential campaign releases signage for use in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

From the GoNintendo Archives

gonintendo.com

And yes, there are adult Animal Crossing players. The series is more than 18 years old.

 

[___]

Desperate Cry from China’s Xinjiang Region Amid Strict Lockdown

www.theepochtimes.com

So much for china having dealt with this virus effectively while not suffering too much economic penalty.

FWIW, this might be better placed in the defined covid-19 thread. I searched 'ccp virus' on wikipedia and it took me to the 'misinformation about covid-19' page. I guess that's a sneaky rewording of 'china virus' designed to get past filters, but it basically means the same thing. Still better a CCP virus than a OCP virus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times#COVID-19_misinformation

Epochtimes... I am sure the information is totally not fake and trustworthy [/sarcasm]
But I guess you people here will believe anything on the internet nowadays... go on, invite some more alt-right/conspiracy-nut assholes to the boards and take their very important "skepticism" serious, what could possibly go wrong?

Everytime I log on, this thread (and the COVID thread) is drifting further from reality. People apparently do not fact check any of the information in here. I wouldn't believe a single word coming from FBnil, λ the β-Redex Reducer Jr. or Robert Taylor.

 

[FBnil]

I wouldn't believe a single word coming from FBnil

ooh.. an ad-hominem attack! So nice from you.

Yes, please fact check the fact that China is (ab)using "lockdown" to control the region of Xinjiang because of growing unrest. And wikipedia... is "trustworthy" to you? Just read the comments on your supposed trustworthy page

Talk:The Epoch Times - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

but wait... there was a video there in my link. you mean... those screams were sound effects superimposed on a nice evening? You know that there is footage of other cities like New York and Melbourne where the streets are empty? So why not a Chinese city? Did you see the drone footage of the rounding up of people (and the interview with the Chinese ambassador trying to NOT answer the question)?
Yes, the "rounded up people" could be actors, the seals on the door (just like in Wuhan for that poor bastard that did not want to stay inside, and they finally took his keys and locked him in) could be fake.
Eating less could be fake. Just staying inside means you have to ration your food. *
In the free world we can see police hitting protesters... but no such videos from China**. It could be the police is very nice there, or that the videos do not get out of the country to be shown to the world.
Sure I give you that calling it CCP Virus is not the correct name, but every news anchor has a spin.


* I was taught how to cook the glue in books. It got no nutrients, but it lowers the hunger. Don't eat the paper, you'll get a belly ache.
** Not from HongKong/Tibet. Just inside China. Only this one: youtu.be 43Hot5n2Evg


ps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_and_dissent_in_China

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times#COVID-19_misinformation

Epochtimes... I am sure the information is totally not fake and trustworthy [/sarcasm]

If your fact checking process consists of just going to Wikipedia and believe whatever they say then I would not believe a single word you say. Wikipedia is just as opinionated and biased as the rest of the internet and news. They're not the ultimate arbiter of truth.

But I guess you people here will believe anything on the internet nowadays

Maybe if it's written on Wikipedia specifically…

 

[ClockworkCoder]

<citation needed>

It's difficult to tell anything that's genuine on the internet.

Except the Pyra news, which I've never known to be distorted or exaggerated. Sometimes painfully so.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Except the Pyra news, which I've never known to be distorted or exaggerated. Sometimes painfully so.

Do you always skip the parts about release dates?

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Do you always skip the parts about release dates?

There's never been a firm release date. Just some vague "hopefully by."

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

There's never been a firm release date. Just some vague "hopefully by."

"Mass production and delivery is planned to happen within this year."

It was planned to happen in 2016 and at best it happens in 2020. ED has been misleadingly optimistic about release dates at least since 2016. It has even become a meme here (2 Months™). Otherwise he's doing great with communication and news.

 

[FBnil]

It's difficult to tell anything that's genuine on the internet.

You are misquoting(*) A. Lincoln, it is:

"You can't believe everything you read on the internet." ~Abe Lincoln, 1868

(Note for none USAyans: this would have been three years after his death)
Source (to muster credibility): https://www.liveabout.com/the-problem-with-quotes-on-the-internet-3970560

* see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

 

[JDTAY]

You guys know how global warming is supposed to give way to another ice age?

It's already happening in Colorado. From ninety degrees Fahrenheit to snow in one day. On the plus side, this will help combat their wildfires.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

90% of statistics that you read on the internet are made up. Scientists have discovered that more people will believe made-up statements if they're prefixed with "scientists have discovered that".

 

[ClockworkCoder]

more people will believe made-up statements if they're prefixed with "scientists have discovered

Unfortunately politicians (ab)use that to the point that the word "science" has little meaning.

 

[ElPoco]

I've recently become very wary of the whole "you can't trust anything/anyone" approach.
Skepticism is a useful tool in science, but at the end of the day you still have to trust (or at least assume) some things to be true if you want to do anything. It's fine that you might want to question the current understanding of gravity, but if you want to do some physics, you'll be better off assuming that gravity exists and that the current understanding is good enough to fit in your work. And unless you're a top scientist with enough understanding of everything to back your thoughts, you're better off trusting the consensus of the scientific community than doing it all alone.

And this extends to social science. It's fine to question the methodology behind some claims, but in the end when there's a scientific consensus over something, rejecting it on the grounds that "you can't trust anything" is probably a bad idea. Even if it might be flawed, it's still the result of some serious work and probably better than what you could personally conclude from anecdotical observations and limited knowledge of the field.

I have the impression that the people spreading the "do not trust anything/anyone" concept, often disguising it as an "anti-authoritarian" approach, actually use it as a way to strip people from any way to criticize whatever these "anti-authoritarian" figures are feeding them. And what's the more disconcerting is that these same "anti-authoritarian" figures actually support the political and economical status quo and consequently the people in power while pretending to be the oppressed minority.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Part of the problem is also related to the vastness of readily-available information on the internet coupled with the Dunning-Kruger effect where, for example, someone reads superficially around some topics/conspiracies and suddenly they are an expert in everything. Even worse, they'll cherry pick any memes that only appear to align with their own moral/socio-political proclivities - they also form into online groups which are self-affirming.

Unfortunately too many people rarely appear dig more deeply and sadly seem to lack rational, critical thinking. The fact that there are still people in 2020 that still believe the earth is flat is testament to that.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Skepticism is a useful tool in science, but at the end of the day you still have to trust (or at least assume) some things to be true if you want to do anything.

That's not true. People can act with uncertainty. They can act according to what they think is most likely while acknowledging what their belief is based on and how likely they think it is to be correct. IMO it's important with every belief to think about what it's based on.
E.g. if you believe that the Earth is spherical, then what is that belief based on? If it's based on NASA photo's, then what is your trust in NASA based on? If it's that many people trust them, then what is your trust in the majority based on? Etc. (Note that that's just an example.) At some point you cannot go any further and then you have your real assumptions. Then you just need to determine for yourself if you're content with those assumptions.

 

[rSl]

meanwhile, eu tries to abuse children to end crypto
argh!

 

[Phlyra]

meanwhile, eu tries to abuse children to end crypto
argh!

Wtf?!

 

[levi]

If you read it, it's only a document for discussion by some reporting team or other, I suspect. And actually if you comprehend it it's reasonably thought through. It doesn't talk about adding backdoors to encryption to detect when someone's sending something they shouldn't. it presents various ways to hash the document in a secondary hash-only channel. At one point they do talk about hashing partial copies of the document, and in that specific instance, I don't think it works like that, but other than that it's got ideas that are worth considering, unlike all of the others talking about backdoors.

 

[FBnil]

that these same "anti-authoritarian" figures actually support the political and economical status quo and

You are assuming people do things consciously, evaluating all pro/cons. But usually it's not. So if we have a philanthropist, say, George Soros, that gives money to a cause he likes, then the ones against that cause say the people are just puppets. Once you get that label, you are classified, and put into a box (not a literal box, I mean an ideology, and a very narrow scope of it) even if people do not belong in that box and were there just by coincidence.

Back to skepticism/trust. I like your broad definition on that. But I think there is also a classification of "good enough". For example: do I trust the ground to not quake or to sinkhole while I'm standing in a field. Do I trust the tapwater today. Do I trust my electrical wiring in the house to not short-cirquit and cause a fire. Do I trust the other drivers to not make me crash. Do I trust my heart to keep on beating. Do I trust the meteors to not crash into my house. Do I trust the sun to not suddenly stop shining. Do I trust that celestial laws do not change while going collectively into a new region in space (say a highspeed blackhole does a driveby at a few hunderd Astronomical Units and slows down time). Do I trust this rope to not break while climbing at high altitudes. Or parachute to open while jumping. Do I trust this-match-in-my-hand to work and not splinter while I strike it.
In al those cases, I can not say 100%, but it's 90-something.
Sometimes the price on trusting is low (I get another match), sometimes it's high (Don't use fishing nylon to climb a wall).
A real danger, as you pointed out, is when you start building a trust system on top of other things. You get into the "may faulty logic undermine your whole philosophy" realm. And that is scary.
We mitigate it, by having plan B's. But sometimes, there is no plan B.

Example: Before going to the moon, there were 3 theories about how the moon was formed. Supporters of each theory pointed out the flaws on the other theories (if we find this on the moon, then it cant be right), and when they went to the moon.... all three got invalidated. And all three still have echo's in todays science books, even though they are invalidated...

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Phosphine gas found in Venus’ skies may be a ‘possible sign of life’ | Science News

Astronomers have detected a stinky, toxic gas in Venus’ clouds that could be a sign of life, or some strange unknown chemistry.

www.sciencenews.org