Re: Facebook Account

On Mon, 04 Nov 2024 20:15:44 -0300, Shadow <Sh@dow.br> wrote:

Our biggest threat to democracy  is the media/social media's
#FAKE_NEWS. That with a very poor public education. The people will
believe anything...

Maybe this will explain how it works.  I don't recall who told me this
story.  Most likely my parents, aunts or uncles.

My ancestors were mostly from Poland and Russia.  Up to the early 19th
century, they didn't travel more than about 80km (50 miles) from home
for their entire lives.  As is common in rural environments, strange
people and strange ideas are treated with suspicion.  That created a
problem when they didn't know whom or what to believe.  Communications
and transportation was sufficiently lacking that "seeing is believing"
was ineffective.  Nobody believed what someone else claimed to have
seen.  Instead, it was replaced by "hearing is believing", which meant
that people believed and trusted the local authority figure.  It could
be a village elder, rabbi, priest, teacher or other recognized
authority.  None of these had personally seen anything, but the weight
of their authority was sufficient to make people listen and believe
their version of reality.

It's not so different today.  Instead of a choice between believing
what one sees and hears, it's now a choice between what we have read
on social media or viewed on YouTube.  The problem of "who to trust"
is also the same.  However, instead of 2 choices, we now have hundreds
of "influencers" bombarding us with their view of reality, which is
typically just propaganda.  The problem isn't that people will believe
"anything" but rather that they'll believe "everything" without any
guidelines, education, reference, sources, authorities, etc that they
can trust to help separate the truth from the propaganda.  Most
politicians have given up on trying to appear honest and simply adjust
their advocacy and promises to conform what their audience considers
acceptable.  The mob no longer follows the leader.  Instead, the
leader follows whatever the mob might want.

Social media and such are not threats to democracy.  They are threats
to the republican form of government, where we elect representatives
to represent our opinions to the government.  The problem is the
representatives don't use the same criteria for judgment that is used
by those who elected them to office.  Politicians favor anything that
will enrich them and their friends through contributions and favors.
I've been involved in meetings with elected officials that make me
suspect that they are very badly informed about the issues that put
them in office and very well informed on the sources of cash and
influence that keep them in office.

Hint:  I can fix anything if I know how it works.  I really believe
that and study how things really work before I try to fix them.  That
also applies to government and the economy.  We're not going to be
able to fix the government or economy until we have a good
understanding of how they work.  The schools are trying, but the
problem has grown faster than the curriculum can keep up.





--
Jeff Liebermann                 jeffl@cruzio.com
PO Box 272      http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann      AE6KS    831-336-2558