Disinformation vs inanity

Hi everyone. I guess I’ll use this as my introduction as well to the posting world at ATS. I have been trolling the forums for some time now and just recently signed up in the last couple of months. I used to get google results for ATS when searching for conspiracies I was interested in. However right around the time I signed up things seemed to go downhill; lots of threads about garbage prophecies, conspiracies etc. Anyways, my first post on this site was me disagreeing with someone and I got called a disinformation agent which made me laugh, but also made me think.
We all know by now the government has the ability to make phony profiles to spread fake information to the masses. We really don’t need to worry about that want to know why? Well frankly the quantity of bogus information that real people feed through the internet on an HOURLY basis. I implore you to go look at twitter and Facebook feeds and see the blandest uninteresting facts in your life. And that’s just day-to-day for some people…
HOWEVER, here’s where it gets bad.
And this was my thesis paper, so I did some research on the subject. When people don’t get the attention they want from posting “I ate a sandwich and it was good” they start making up asinine theories, prophecies etc. (see where I am going with this) I have seen it countless times. It doesn’t have to do with ATS in all regards like I said, Facebook being an example. It seems wherever text can replace voice or human emotion mendacious information and extortion skyrockets. We lose that human element to call people out on their shenanigans.
Is this the disinformation the government wants?
No, I don’t think so. This poses a much bigger problem. Back in the day (like 5 years ago) if I were to turn in a paper quoting Wikipedia I would involuntarily fail due to the major fact that wiki wasn’t a dependable source (and still isn’t in some regards) with that in mind think about a newscast where the anchors used wiki as a source…. See the problem yet?
So what is going to happen in the next fifty years? When books and old school information gets replaced with online data? How long till people start believing half truths and full lies as certainty!?
Conclusion
I really think this problem stems deeper than just the social networks and ATS like I said. However, we can do something as a community to cut down on this waste of not only bandwidth but false prophecies. ATS has a large reach as far as a community goes, and it only takes ONE person outside of ATS to source a bogus prophecy out of fear, ignorance or whatever to start a wildfire of disinformation. In the end, we don’t have to worry about the government sending out dis-info when false information is already readily available…

Hi, good points.

But though information flies around at an unprecedented pace these days, I don't think it has changed in nature. That is, there has always been disinfo, there have always been forgeries and frauds, there have always been snake oil salesmen. We tend to think that if something is printed on paper that it automatically becomes reliable or authoritative, but of course that isn't true. We also tend to believe governments and scientists, in spite of both having been caught lying, falsifying data, engaging in false flag ops, etc.

The problem, IMHO, is not so much the medium or the volume but human nature. The many who are innocent and trusting serve as fodder for the many who are conniving and unscrupulous. Those who crave authority and control are all too happy to "serve" those who shirk responsibility and discipline. Whether an erroneous claim is perpetuated in print or pixels, the problem remains, because human nature is pervasive and timeless. Change the soul and you then can change the world.

I completely agree with you! There will always be the liars and the cheats and what not... and you are right typing and writing in font size 12 Times new roman always seems so legit....

We need to as members of a community deny the ignorance but also stop it!

reply to post by DrNotforhire


Yes, but how? We live in a world of deception and distraction, and not only due to the speed of communication. We have learned not to trust authorities, and yet we also know we can't trust non-authorities either. People can't seem to agree on a standard, because even those we recognize as well-educated can be biased, dishonest, or taken as authorities on topics they have not studied, solely on their reputations in one area of expertise. We never stop to think that a politician is not a climatologist, a bodybuilder is not a politician, or a sincere heart isn't what makes someone a knowledgeable teacher.

What to do...

always a catch 22... I think that education has a lot to do with how we live our lives in regards to what makes us a decent human. Maybe we need to educate more people... BUT then we come around to the false information and the dis trust in the mass media as well as what you were saying...

it seems like a never ending problem and one that will only get worse with time :-/

Would you agree that morality has decreased over the last fifty years? even over the last 10 years? Pre-internet and post internet times are black and white are they not?

Originally posted by DrNotforhire
Would you agree that morality has decreased over the last fifty years? even over the last 10 years? Pre-internet and post internet times are black and white are they not?

Morality is like a roller-coaster or a sine wave, rather than a steady, rising slope. As a student of the Bible I think it's safe to say we haven't yet rivaled the pre-Flood wickedness (well, maybe; we seem pretty close!). Sure, in the western world at least, morality was much stronger and widely accepted. But many historical accounts I've read seem to point back to the time of WWII as a turning point regarding western morality. The 50s saw great materialism, the 60s saw great hedonism, the 70s saw great disillusionment (those were my teen years), etc.

Loss of a moral anchor is a gradual thing and sinks exponentially with each generation, since kids have a natural tendency to push the envelope of their parent's generation. Eventually a society reaches the point of disintegration, and I think we're pretty much there now. What follows is almost guaranteed to be chaos, martial law, and then a totalitarian state, in which people are largely reduced to survival only and strongly discouraged from thinking outside of any box at all. Yet somehow the corrupt regime dies, and then people start to rediscover the spiritual. The cycle builds up again to strong moral fiber, but of course it never lasts.

I hate to agree with you.. but I think I kind of do... HOWEVER...

you are right about morality being a sloping process.. but lets think back a bit. (im in my late 20s so bare with me here). During the Vietnam conflict there was still some segregation. we as a generation now have seem to reduce most racial barriers and it will continue to happen correct? I feel that blind ignorance is all but gone in America (maybe not all but within the next generation)

however thinking about us as center of the world is just silly too.

yeah I guess I do have to agree with you... better brace for it!

thanks for the replies

Originally posted by DrNotforhire
I hate to agree with you.. but I think I kind of do... HOWEVER...

you are right about morality being a sloping process.. but lets think back a bit. (im in my late 20s so bare with me here). During the Vietnam conflict there was still some segregation. we as a generation now have seem to reduce most racial barriers and it will continue to happen correct? I feel that blind ignorance is all but gone in America (maybe not all but within the next generation)

We have indeed achieved as close to racial equality as we're likely to get, but gender equality still lags behind, and I'm seeing it sliding back already. There is a strong push-back going on in the churches, to the point where some views of women are not unlike those of Islam or Mormonism. So who is to say there won't ever be a resurgence of racial inequality? Already there is a "Christian Identity" movement that not only wants a return to patriarchy but also white supremacy. There's some pretty sick stuff going on in "Christendumb"* these days.

* (Atheists, I'm trademarking that word! Not for you!)

however thinking about us as center of the world is just silly too.

yeah I guess I do have to agree with you... better brace for it!

I think most people in any given area of the world have a "center of the world" mentality, truth to tell. They just like to think it's only a fault in the nations that have the most power.

thanks for the replies

You're very welcome.