Want Unity? You have only 2 options to achieve it

[JustGeorge]

People should not be reaching 2 different conclusions if there is only 1 truth. Teaching critical thinking will reduce the amount of people falling for false narratives. So it's a positive development that helps the country as a whole.
People are discontent and angry because of their media choices. You've listed emotions, so the people you're referring to are the products of propaganda intake.

I think media is making it worse, for sure, but I don't think its only media that makes a person discontent. Some people consume little or no media are are still unhappy with the way things are. Perhaps not angry enough to storm the Capitol, but still weary of the system.

I do find the less media a person consumes, the less dedicated they are to one party or the other. Maybe we should all consume less media? Turn off the TV/put away the phone/get off the computer for awhile and talk to each other face to face? Perhaps part of why we're so divided is... we really are. Physically, emotionally, mentally, we keep our distance(even before Covid).

I think another thing that breeds distrust is the untouchability of our politicians. They lead pretty blessed lives most of the time(financially), while many struggle. Its easy to feel bitter about this, and then turn around and believe silly stories like QAnon was spreading. Getting money out of politics would probably help heal this(though I'm not sure how that's to be done).

Critical thinking is important, yes, but emotions are too, as people of all different intelligence levels seem to be driven by them. Much of society's ills can show us this...

The discussion is about the political division in America and how to unite it. The division is solely based on media intake.
Alternative-facts = lies.
If you want to discuss something, give me an example of this "things can be proven true or untrue." That sounds like something straying off the political course.

It would help me to know specifically which alternative facts we were discussing. I'm somewhat out of touch, and am not sure what all this category entails anymore.

 

[Heyo]

Of course, this all started around 2008-2010. With the Tea Party movement, funded and started by the Koch oligarchs.
Since then, social media has been flourishing as well as propaganda mills on the web/tv, etc.
Prior to that, we had radio. But that isn't as effective as today's media sources and ways to get information.
The Tea Party was the recent fuse that was lit by Capitalist's to further their mission of lowering taxes on the elitists, corporations and the 1%. (Taxed Enough Already)

1. The only thing to do about it is bring back the Fairness Doctrine that republicans eliminated to further their corporate agenda.
2. Teach critical thinking skills.
3. Find a way to show people who believe in alternative-facts to do more research and learn how to fact-check.

It started in 2003 with the "alternative fact" Bush jr. started a war on - and got re-elected for it. Otherwise, spot on.

 

[ecco]

The division will remain until the people who believe alternative-facts start accepting the truth.

There is no such thing as "alternative-facts".

There are facts and there are lies.
There are facts and there are untruths.
There are facts and there is bull****.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

There is no such thing as "alternative-facts".

There are facts and there are lies.
There are facts and there are untruths.
There are facts and there is bull****.

And there are morality, useful, aesthetic and metaphysics.

 

[ecco]

It started in 2003 with the "alternative fact" Bush jr. started a war on - and got re-elected for it. Otherwise, spot on.

I'll see your 2003 and raise you a 1988.

Bush Made Willie Horton an Issue in 1988, and the Racial Scars Are Still Fresh (Published 2018)

Bush Made Willie Horton an Issue in 1988, and the Racial Scars Are Still Fresh​

 

[ecco]

And there are morality, useful, aesthetic and metaphysics.

Morality is useful. Metaphysics, not really.

 

[ecco]

I think media is making it worse, for sure, but I don't think its only media that makes a person discontent.

If the media didn't show the 2016 candidate debates, we would never have seen how nasty Trump was toward his fellow candidates.
If the media didn't show Trump showing utter disdain for John McCain, we would never have seen how nasty Trump was toward his fellow humans.
If the media didn't show Trump ranting about a stolen election, we would never have known how treasonous Trump is.

I guess you're right, the media is a big part of the problem.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Morality is useful. Metaphysics, not really.

Both are subjective.

 

[ecco]

Both are subjective.

Yes, but Morality is useful. Metaphysics, not really.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, but Morality is useful. Metaphysics, not really.

No, metaphysics is useful to me. But not useful to you. That is what is going on. Learn to describe the world in correct terms.

 

[JustGeorge]

If the media didn't show the 2016 candidate debates, we would never have seen how nasty Trump was toward his fellow candidates.
If the media didn't show Trump showing utter disdain for John McCain, we would never have seen how nasty Trump was toward his fellow humans.
If the media didn't show Trump ranting about a stolen election, we would never have known how treasonous Trump is.

I guess you're right, the media is a big part of the problem.

I wasn't meaning we should never consume media at all, I just think we get a little glued to it.

Its important to be informed of who you're voting for(and that goes for more than just the presidential vote). But I see a lot of people get riled up about the news, and feel its imperative they form an opinion. But then what do they do with the opinion?

If they can use it to get off their butt and create some change, good for them.

 

[tytlyf]

Social, cultural and psychological aspects. And that is a fact.

That is my answer.
Now if you like we can go into how there are at least 4 kinds of different categories of facts and how they each work differently.

Ok, show me the 4 sets of facts concerning the following statement.

"Hillary got 3 million illegal votes in the 2016 election."

 

[Friend of Mara]

How do you know what is a fact?

Facts are typically agreed upon. People who have motives, usually financially driven ones, often muddy the waters in an attempt to push facts that will aid them.

As a society for the post part there are facts that are easily comprehended. People who say they are using "alternative facts" know those facts are wrong. But they have been successful in making other people believe them.

facts
We landed on the moon.
Trump committed crimes as president of the united states.
Global warming exists and is accelerated by humans.

 

[Rival]

Facts are typically agreed upon.

Then Christianity must be a fact?

 

[SomeRandom]

Then Christianity must be a fact?

 

[Heyo]

I'll see your 2003 and raise you a 1988.

Bush Made Willie Horton an Issue in 1988, and the Racial Scars Are Still Fresh (Published 2018)

Bush Made Willie Horton an Issue in 1988, and the Racial Scars Are Still Fresh​

I don't think that counts. Yes, it was racist, yes, it was a misrepresentation but that was all on the normal level of campaign lies.
2003 was a brazen lie by an acting president and it had no political consequences. That's why I think that was the moment when facts didn't matter any more.
5 years earlier, when Clinton lied about a blow job, he got impeached.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Ok, show me the 4 sets of facts concerning the following statement.

"Hillary got 3 million illegal votes in the 2016 election."

You don't understand. It is not true, but what makes it so that some people believe in it, is the supernatural. It is evidence of the supernatural because it can't be natural that some people believe in it. It is evidence of the supernatural, right?

Well, no. It is as natural as gravity. Now before we go further, no funny business of that it is not real, that some people believe in it. So here is the corner stone of some science, which can explain it:
The Thomas Theorem:
"A concept formulated by the American sociologist William Isaac Thomas (1863–1967) that ‘“*facts” do not have a uniform existence apart from the persons who observe and interpret them. Rather, the “real” facts are the ways in which different people come into and define situations’. Famously, as he and his research assistant and wife Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1899–1977) put it in 1928, ‘If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences’. Such a ‘subjective’ definition of the situation by a social actor, group, or subculture is what Merton came to call a self-fulfilling prophecy (as in cases of ‘mind over matter’). It is at the heart of symbolic interactionism. See also constructionism; frame of reference; framing; perspectivism."
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803104247382

So either you accept that belief in it, not the fact itself, is real, natural and so on. Or you believe in an alternative fact, namely, that it is not a fact, that there are people, who believe in that.

If we agree on that we can go on with unity, or you are a believer in alternative facts.

 

[Heyo]

Then Christianity must be a fact?

Christians exist, that's a fact as well as that flat earthers exist. It says nothing about the truth of their beliefs.

 

[Rival]

Christians exist, that's a fact as well as that flat earthers exist. It says nothing about the truth of their beliefs.

Exactly. So we need more than mass agreement to know what is a fact.

 

[Friend of Mara]

Then Christianity must be a fact?

I mean that facts are typically agreed upon. Not that something being agreed upon makes it fact. There isn't some big mystery of what is and what isn't facts. That is a pushed narrative that can easily be overcome with some critical thinking skills.

My views on religions and what they are differ from the conventional. Is Christianity a fact? It is a fact that it exists and it serves a function in our society. Does it make the metaphysical claims facts? Sadly it does not.