The Internet War.

What I'm referring to here is the ridiculous acts of people going on to Google, YouTube, Twitter, etc. to find material to back up their ideology. We see it all the time here on ATS. It's not constructive, it's divisive and counterproductive to critical thinking. If you have to look for something you are starting with a preconceived notion, rather than a thought or theory.

You may ask, "What brought this to light intrepid?" Glad you asked. I stumbled upon an article in Maclean's that wasn't even really about this but it struck a nerve:

And, because this is a multimedia era, that reality show isn’t just restricted to Twitter. After he “researched” health care, Kutcher appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher to discuss what he’d learned, and wound up exclaiming that “I don’t want to pay for the guy who’s getting a triple-bypass because he’s eating fast food all day and deep-fried Snickers bars.” The outburst was bizarre considering that he had just appeared in a widely publicized YouTube video where he asked people to “serve” President Obama, but it got him plenty of attention on blogs, and YouTube, and of course on Twitter, where right wing followers came to his defence and liberal followers felt betrayed.

www2.macleans.ca...

OK, he says something that isn't backed by what some obviously thought wasn't his ideology. An Obama supporter that doesn't want health care reform. What's wrong with that? Why do his liberal fans feel betrayed and his conservatives come to his defense? Why the battle on Twitter? Why did this spill over into other blogs? Obvious really. People look for things to back up their ideology rather than do what Ashton did. He RESEARCHED something, used his mental faculties and made a decision on an issue.

Like I said, if you have to look for something, you've got the cart so in front of the horse that it has nothing to propel it.

I just received this video. he talked about how Obama czars want to regulate the internet.

reply to post by ugie1028


You'ld be sorely mistaken if you don't think the RNC doesn't do this as well. Thus this topic. Research a topic and use some critical thought.

reply to post by intrepid


This one is a little deep, Intrepid, or I am just a little dense.

Your complaint is that someone will:

1. form an opinion
2. make an argument about it and
3. THEN find the material to support it?

So essentially, it's just the placement of the steps right?

I HAVE found that it's possible to find just about anything you are trying to find, no matter how outlandish it may be, to support an argument, and have probably even done that myself.

I don't know if it is unusual or not, but honestly, I have an opinion about just about everything. My actual KNOWLEDGE of all of those things I have an opinion about is certainly lagging WAY behind my opinions, but I think it's pretty human to have an opinion....even one without any basis in fact.

Do you not feel that the argument itself, even when followed by the finding and spewing of retarded information, is a step in the right direction, if the goal all along is understanding?

It would seem that sometimes we don't give ourselves the opportunity, or have the discipline to learn about things that we have an opinion of, until we are called on it, or even schooled by someone pointing out the holes in our supportive data. I've had this happen to me here on ATS and it has changed my opinion.

What's the fix, Intrepid? Should we keep our mouths shut until we have done some research, or is it ok to use 'getting schooled' as a learning experience and 'research' in and of itself?

I know for me, probably more 'typical' than I would like to believe, if I kept my mouth shut until I had all the 'facts' I wouldn't learn anything.

reply to post by intrepid


I don't get it? What is politically maddening about this? And how is it isolated to the US?

I mean the internet is international so the idea of an internet war kinda includes other nations? Internationally speaking.

Anyways people go to twitter and google to find material to back up their ideology because they have an ideology. It is a self circling thought line. Folk already subscribe to the Cnn Liberal or Fox Conservative thought lines so they seek out stories and statistics that back up their way of thinking.

Sometimes folks are willing and open to a change of mind.... We call them folks open minded people. They are not strictly liberal or card carrying conservatives they are just people just to get by in this crazy world.

As for Kutcher though...... Bad example. Most of us can not relate to a wealthy man child with Demi Moore for a wife. We can idolize him and follow his twitter but we can not "truly" relate to that kind of wealth an fame.

Now the Husband and Wife team of Snoops.com Their are folks we can realate too.... Average joes' who got more credibility than they deserved simply because they sounded cool and correct.

OR Wiki, the Encyclopedia anyone can edit. Sure anarchy reigns their so when going to get your facts from it you can invent your own facts to support your POV...But more often than not just a quick check of the history of a wiki page or some search work based off the info provided will prove whether or not it was a worthy reference.



.......

We have thoughts, opinions, Ideology....We are human. If we could not use the net then we would turn back the clock and go back to the 80s and rely on time magazine and the WSJ, Mother Jones,CNN, Etc etc.

The internet just gives us all a new medium to communicate and that communication includes Idealization.

[edit on 14-10-2009 by titorite]

Thanks for the replies guys. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I put this in USpol Mad. because this is where I see this mindless war being played out the most. Google up something on any given person that isn't from your ideology and then slam them, whether there is credence to it or not. Justification can come later. Or your mighty Google can find you an obscure tidbit of information to debunk a plethora of evidence. MINDLESS. Ideology is not a bad thing, ideology without thought is beyond pathetic.

Edit to add: Ashton wasn't what I was referring to, it was the reaction of his fans.

[edit on 14-10-2009 by intrepid]

Originally posted by intrepid
I put this in USpol Mad. because this is where I see this mindless war being played out the most. Google up something on any given person that isn't from your ideology and then slam them, whether there is credence to it or not. .... Or your mighty Google can find you an obscure tidbit of information to debunk a plethora of evidence. MINDLESS. Ideology is not a bad thing, ideology without thought is beyond pathetic.

Edit to add: Ashton wasn't what I was referring to, it was the reaction of his fans.

[edit on 14-10-2009 by intrepid]

Ok but I still find issue with the USpol Mad placement. I mean your Canadian, So is my wife. Both of yall see US politics due to your locality to the US but this internet thing.... It is worldwide... Just look at all our folks on the ATS 911 forums from Australia. I have no idea why some (not all) of the best 911 researchers come from Australia but that seems to be the case. And then we have other researchers from the US too... They use google to support their ideas....but online they work with the world....


Now when you say "Or your mighty Google can find you an obscure tidbit of information to debunk a plethora of evidence. "

My word...how I have seen that exact thing play out by folks like the FOX brothers on those 911 forums....

Yes, ideology without thought is beyond pathetic, it is an automaton, a slave bot designed to find its own propaganda to sustain itself, A subject that WANTS to be subjugated.

But where is the war in all this?

Take my own 911 example.... I tried to get back into the mix of 911 conspiracy here on ATS... I could not do it. To much mindless Ideology. Rather than wage war I just stopped participating their as much. The real battles for that issue to be resolved will be fought off screen anyways. With actions not words.

I am with you on this one Intrepid and I agree. The problem with ‘interactive’ media is it’s not really interactive.

Most YouTube presentations are connect the dots exercises of leading the viewer from point A to point B to point C to draw a firm conclusion that is often made all the firmer with the help of a musical score and special sound or video effects designed to create a ‘mood’ as much as it is to impart ‘factual’ information.

They of course omit any pertinent information that makes drawing an absolute conclusion harder. They rarely provide the source material to backup where the information being utilized in the video originally came from.

When I am researching a subject in encyclopedias, newspaper archives or books and I run across a part that begs a deeper look or creates another question I can branch from there seamlessly to search out the additional background information to better establish a broader and more solid context to further understand what it is I am learning as I resume and move forward. YouTube videos don’t really allow for that far more in depth and solid and thorough approach.

As I research through more traditional sources and then want to incorporate them into a solid argument I have external genuine sources to post so other interested people can see where I came by the information, how credible a source it is, and how I arrived at my conclusions.

That’s a big difference as opposed to people who will just post a YouTube video as an external source even though the YouTube video itself rarely provides the external sources for the information it is broadcasting.

The long and the short of it is that YouTube videos are almost always designed to be ‘entertainment’ first, a ‘mood’ enhancer or modifier second, and then a credible source of information last, if there is actually any credible information in them.

Typically the only thing such presentations do is make people angry or frightened with a condensed and incomplete rendering on a subject that sometimes spans hundreds if not thousands of years of information into a 2 minute and 58 second snippet.

It’s an easy, cheap and convenient on demand dose of anger or fear for a populace that seems to have an insatiable appetite for both!

I think the issue is even bigger than the OP shows. The entire BLOGosphere and Internet-World is having a detrimental effect on how reality is viewed and politics are treated.

Google merely turns up what one intends to find, not what the whole-sided truth of something is.

Originally posted by KSPigpen
This one is a little deep, Intrepid, or I am just a little dense.

Your complaint is that someone will:

1. form an opinion
2. make an argument about it and
3. THEN find the material to support it?

So essentially, it's just the placement of the steps right?

OP, I am with KS on this one.

People "looking things up" is the same as people "researching" things.

People learn this way. People have no other way to learn.

I'm sorry but you don't understand what the internet is if you feel like it shouldn't be used for learning. And if that is not what you meant, then I don't understand this topic.

I think what you want is people to stop fighting over US politics. They will not. They are too divided, deliberately, and each day more so.

reply to post by Skyfloating

Originally posted by Skyfloating
I think the issue is even bigger than the OP shows. The entire BLOGosphere and Internet-World is having a detrimental effect on how reality is viewed and politics are treated.

Google merely turns up what one intends to find, not what the whole-sided truth of something is.

It depends what you search.

If you search "Obama's birth certificate proven fake," then yes, you had a preconcieved idea to search for (which I still see nothing wrong with specifically.)

But if you search "Barack Obama," then what preconcieved notion did you have?

I think this argument is invalid to be honest, not that I am saying we can't or shouldn't discuss it, but that is just my personal opinion.

Anyway, I don't form an opinion based on ONE thing I read from ONE source generally. I generally and a "New Tab" kind of guy, and I will make 15 tabs about a single subject while reading a single thread.

I think the problem is, people who read one source based on a preconcieved notion to begin with, and believe it wholeheartedly, and spread it everywhere.

But that is not specifically what the OP is saying.

And to be honest, those are just the dumber people of the world who don't know or care to look deeper. There is no cure for being dumb, I know because I'm pretty dumb myself and nothing has worked so far

[edit on 14-10-2009 by BaronVonGodzilla]

Think we've been through this once or twice before. I do know ATS encouraged linking to supporting information of a subject or member point of view in any given thread. I do it all the time.

Certainly there's supporting garbage to a written interpretation, but I'd think that is where member debate and discussion opens up all the doors.
I look a google as a wealth of instant information, but that information can be and often is suspect.

Decoy

Well I guess I don't understand the bulk of your actual point here. I do apologize that I cannot add anything constructive, but, the best way to back opinions is to find correlative information.

Scholarly information is obviously the best and most ideal. Many people carelessly google information and find sites that post nothing more than glorified opinions which is the reason why that sort of thing can be dangerous.

If one really wants to come up with scholarly facts, you should use factiva, google scholar, Ebesco, J-Stor etc. Most of the stuff that is floating around in the internet is nothing more than information posted by people with their own slant, if not just downright fabricated fodder. Therefore, its really impossible to find objective information that is well researched.

[edit on 14-10-2009 by EvolvedMinistry]

reply to post by BaronVonGodzilla


You`re right about Google, but it doesnt end there. This is also about the fact that every idiot with an opinion is now also a news-outlet / publisher.

I love the internet and I think that all in all its the best thing thats ever happened to us...but there is a dark side too.

[edit on 14-10-2009 by Skyfloating]

Not sure what the OP is talking about here....

Sounds like he doesn't like people that use resources on the internet to back up what they are saying...but then uses internet resources to back up what he's saying??? I am cornfused about that....

To that I would say, it's better to assert an opinion and find something credible to back you up, rather than people that post an idea with nothing to back it up.

However, if he is saying that people use faulty sources on the internet, yeah, that's not good, I with him on that. If that's what is being said, yeah, let's tar and feather all of the lousy snots!

An example of what Intrepid is pointing out here:

Imagine that Ashton Kutcher had heard that Obama support comprehensive healthcare reform with a strong public option. Feeling that he should "serve" his president, he hits the interwebs looking to back up his belief.

What Intrepid is pointing out here is that he could easily have taken the path that so many others do: listening to only those sources that support his worldview. Think of the right wingers who listen only to FauxNews or the lefties who still mourn the demise of Air America.

There is enough material out there in the world to support ANY view you can think of. If people only seek out the supporting facts without a willingness to be contradicted and proven wrong, then all the "research" is for nothing. It's nothing more than shouting in the echo chamber.

I am hopeful that the OP can expand on his point cause I am not sure whether I am guilty or not of doing what he is describing. I hear something mentioned and I find as much info about it that I can. While searching for this info, I may use Bing, Yahoo, Google or any other internet source. No way would I backtrack and pull out the encyclopedia.... [shivers] I don't believe I am searching with a known bias as I am just searching a topic to MAKE my decision, not confirm it.

...I think.....

[edit on 14-10-2009 by Roadblockx]

Originally posted by RobertAntonWeishaupt
An example of what Intrepid is pointing out here:

Imagine that Ashton Kutcher had heard that Obama support comprehensive healthcare reform with a strong public option. Feeling that he should "serve" his president, he hits the interwebs looking to back up his belief.

What Intrepid is pointing out here is that he could easily have taken the path that so many others do: listening to only those sources that support his worldview. Think of the right wingers who listen only to FauxNews or the lefties who still mourn the demise of Air America.

There is enough material out there in the world to support ANY view you can think of. If people only seek out the supporting facts without a willingness to be contradicted and proven wrong, then all the "research" is for nothing. It's nothing more than shouting in the echo chamber.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Thanks for putting it better than I did. Check out the second line in my siggy. Challenge your beliefs. If they stand, with ALL the facts, then you're there. I've had to change some deep seated beliefs because of the members. I'm thankful of that.

Originally posted by intrepid
Thanks for the replies guys. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I put this in USpol Mad. because this is where I see this mindless war being played out the most. Google up something on any given person that isn't from your ideology and then slam them, whether there is credence to it or not. Justification can come later. Or your mighty Google can find you an obscure tidbit of information to debunk a plethora of evidence. MINDLESS. Ideology is not a bad thing, ideology without thought is beyond pathetic.

Edit to add: Ashton wasn't what I was referring to, it was the reaction of his fans.

[edit on 14-10-2009 by intrepid]

I have been saying somewhat the same thing for quite some time as well. The way in which I word it is a bit different, normally referring to the absoluteness people use.

Like you said, people will find one negative thing and will believe it proves all their points on whatever subject. Many people today are failing to see the context of many subjects and also are missing the various factors that are not so easily seen.

An example would be someone claiming that McDonald's will kill you sooner if you eat it 3 times a week. But who knows what they get from there? Who knows the type of metabolism/body chemistry certain people have? Who knows how much this person exercises? Who knows all of the other factors as well that I did not mention?

Some people do not care about all of that. They will look at the generalization and make specific attacks that are not entirely supported by the "facts" they find.

My biggest issue with this (and I've mentioned it before), is how some folks support some pretty radical theories, and they purport an expert opinion based on their copypasta abilites. Grab a bunch of things from the 'Net.. paste them here.. instant-expert!

And even more ironic is when someone actually goes out and does the footwork, they are ridiculed. For example, the recent post about a guy who went and took pictures of the same traincars listed as "FEMA prisoner cars," being loaded with cars, as many claimed they were actually for by many. So... those who copy and pasted gibberish from all sorts of websites told this guy he HAD NO PROOF. And that this meant nothing and had accomplished nothing. While in turn, these people did much, much less, but had the arrogance to claim this guy was full of bunk.

So I see exactly where you are coming from, myself.