Poll: Do you read terb threads whose subject is the Israel-Palestine conflict? Why?

[Aardvark154]

Please see my comment to Fuji.

I mean you clearly invented that part where I supposedly claim "the vast majority of the public are informed". It's nowhere in there, it's not implied or suggested.

Really?

You wrote:

In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that if somebody wanders by and reads those blatantly false comments, if they are at all informed they would see right through them

Again with all apologies to my fellow TERBites, what on earth makes you think that all that many people are "informed?" OR are you really saying that few people are informed, which rather knocks your larger argument on the head?

There is a reason why H.L. Mencken's famous remark: “No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby” lives on the way it does.

To cite an example currently in the news do you believe Dennis Rodman is "informed?

 

[slidebone]

Really?

You wrote:

Again with all apologies to my fellow TERBites, what on earth makes you think that all that many people are "informed?" OR are you really saying that few people are informed, which rather knocks your larger argument on the head?

There is a reason why H.L. Mencken's famous remark: “No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby” lives on the way it does.

To cite an example currently in the news do you believe Dennis Rodman is "informed?

Nope, I wrote "if they are at all informed" the second time too. Do you know what "if" means?

 

[Aardvark154]

Nope, I wrote "if they are at all informed" the second time too. Do you know what "if" means?

So you are saying that few people are informed, otherwise you would not be so insistent upon "if [supposing that] they are informed"

But if few people are informed, why shouldn't incorrect statements be corrected?

This certainly does seem contradictory.

 

[fuji]

This is really the heart of what you think: you are desperate to dismiss their actual opinions, regardless of the evidence.

Nice try but that's BS. It's a fact that the lounge has 10 or 20 times as many viewers, and that most of them aren't interested in the political threads -- otherwise, they would be viewing the politics forum. It's clear your sample is just nonsense--poll on ANY political topic in the lounge, and you will get a similar result.

There is a smaller but real population of people who read the politics forum, and they are much more likely to be interested in the Israeli/Palestinian topic--or any other political topic. That's why they are in the politics forum!

You can't escape this. It was a screw up for you to put your poll in the lounge, it's hard to imagine why you would, and it made your result utterly meaningless.

You invent speculative generalizations about "people in the lounge" such as "people responding to the emotional tone of your biased rhetoric".

Sorry but I provided direct evidence: It is easy to view on terb how many people view the lounge versus the politics forum. There are overwhelmingly more people in the lounge, people who choose not to view political threads. That is evidence whether or not you like it, and it utterly destroys your poll.

And while you are right--I have no way of knowing whether people were swept up by your emotional language--you have no way of knowing that they weren't. That is why your poll is tainted. Nobody knows what the result means, because of the various ways you screwed it up. First, you polled an irrelevant population of people. Which is no offense to the lounge--it's obvious that most people are here to discuss pay for play sex and not politics and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Second, you tainted your poll by inserting your own argument into the poll questions.

We only got a handful of people answering your poll out of the HUGE number of people viewing the lounge -- why weren't the rest of those people interested in answering your poll? What effect did your biased, loaded questions have on the result? Why did those 23 who voted no self select into the poll? Well we know why one of them did -- yung d00d -- and we know he lied in his poll answer! Not looking good.

And further proof is in your illogical conclusions. You say that people in the lounge "have no interest in politics threads at all". Yet, those 23 didn't choose "I don't care enough to bother" reading the IP threads. They freely chose a much harsher conclusion. Deal with it.

Oh come on please don't be innumerate as well, it's bad for you that you screwed the poll up, but you don't have to throw gas on the fire by appealing to innumeracy.

23 people is a tiny, tiny fraction of the people viewing the lounge, it is hardly anyone. It means that overwhelmingly people in the lounge opted to ignore your poll. Right now AT THIS MOMENT there are 151 people viewing the lounge, and only 10 people viewing the politics forum. 151 at this moment. Your poll was up well over day, the thread would have been seen by thousands of people, and only 23 voted? I think even you can do the math on that.

And that data also shows that there are typically 15 times more people in the lounge than in the politics forum. That means there's around 140 people online right now who are interested in viewing lounge threads, but for whatever reason, are not interested in viewing political threads. And it could go the other way too--it's possible we have a few people around here who never view the lounge, but who are interested in the politics forum. They may only read, say, the incall forum and politics, skipping the lounge. Doubtful I agree--but you don't know.

I'm afraid we're done here. You had a few opportunities to reply, but you had no credible response to the fundamental flaws in your poll.

 

[fuji]

I wrote "if they are all informed." I did not say "most people" are or do anything. It is not necessary to my argument that "most people" do anything. My argument addresses three groups of potential readers.

Perhaps if you tried to construct an argument next time, you would not so obviously fail.

I am happy to agree with you that IF they took the time to check, like perhaps you do, and like I do, then they could inform themselves fairly easily. Especially when some of the claims are so blatantly false, and so easy to check. But, you know, it does take some time to check. It typically takes me five or ten minutes of googling and searching to blow one of Gryfin's hate threads out of the water, and sometimes it takes a much more extensive amount of time searching and reading documents. It took someone else probably a similar amount of time to find the story that knocked yung d00d out of the forum, revealing that his claimed dams don't even exist.

You and I are agreeing here that the average person is NOT going to do that, only savvy or motivated people will do that, not most people. Thus, to the extent that anyone does come along and view these threads, there is a valuable service performed by those of us who do go out and find the actual facts.

But so far, you have completely missed the real value of this forum. It hasn't even occurred to you.

 

[slidebone]

So you are saying that few people are informed, otherwise you would not be so insistent upon "if [supposing that] they are informed"

But if few people are informed, why shouldn't incorrect statements be corrected?

This certainly does seem contradictory.

Nope. I wrote a series of conditional statements that do not presuppose any one particular state of affairs. Those conditional statements do not presuppose anything about whether "the vast majority of the public are informed" [which you were sure is what I meant a few minutes ago] or whether "few people" are informed [which you now insist is what I think].

You are simply trying, somewhat inconsistently, to knock down a straw-man.

 

[blackrock13]

Nope. I wrote a series of conditional statements that do not presuppose any one particular state of affairs. Those conditional statements do not presuppose anything about whether "the vast majority of the public are informed" [which you were sure is what I meant a few minutes ago] or whether "few people" are informed [which you now insist is what I think].

You are simply trying, somewhat inconsistently, to knock down a straw-man.

Then why the editorial conditions in your questions. It's because you have a built in bias and wanted the answer to reflect that. That's why almost everyone who has posted in this thread has called you on it.

 

[Aardvark154]

Nope. I wrote a series of conditional statements that do not presuppose any one particular state of affairs.

No, what you are now doing is known as shucking and jiving or zigzaging.

There are really only two options: either many people are informed (which is what I originally stated I do not believe to be true) or that many/most people are uninformed which goes counter to what you previously have argued. Arguing that some are informed and some are not defaults back to many people are are uniformed.

I entirely agree with Fuji that you and he have agreed

that the average person is NOT going to do that, only savvy or motivated people will do that, not most people.

 

[basketcase]

Oh please. Nobody is paying any attention.
...

Yet I feel that calling out hateful racists is important in a moral society and yung's post is clearly racist. You can pay attention or not but some of feel a moral obligation to fight hatred with truth.

As I said before, you are beating a dead horse by telling people they shouldn't beat a dead horse. Until Fred says no more political discussions, people can post if they choose and ignore them if they don't.


The more you post, the more you seem like you just want to argue.

 

[slidebone]

I am happy to agree with you that IF they took the time to check, like perhaps you do, and like I do, then they could inform themselves fairly easily. Especially when some of the claims are so blatantly false, and so easy to check. But, you know, it does take some time to check. It typically takes me five or ten minutes of googling and searching to blow one of Gryfin's hate threads out of the water, and sometimes it takes a much more extensive amount of time searching and reading documents. It took someone else probably a similar amount of time to find the story that knocked yung d00d out of the forum, revealing that his claimed dams don't even exist.

You and I are agreeing here that the average person is NOT going to do that, only savvy or motivated people will do that, not most people. Thus, to the extent that anyone does come along and view these threads, there is a valuable service performed by those of us who do go out and find the actual facts.

But so far, you have completely missed the real value of this forum. It hasn't even occurred to you.

Let me emphasize, my argument describes groups of potential readers: it doesn't matter how many people belong in each group for my argument to hold up. There could be zero people in some of the groups and it wouldn't undermine my argument. If nobody fits any of my groups, then there are no readers, which would indeed make posting futile, which supports my argument.

So, believe me, when you talk about "many people" or "a few people" or "a lot of people" you are definitely getting my argument wrong.

I'll demonstrate by working it through a bit:

If people exist who are at all informed, they will dismiss "blatant lies". Just to add, I also think that the "at all informed" group wouldn't trust more typical lies. These people can protect themselves without you guys. It doesn't matter how many of them there are. There could be zero or a million. The point is, if informed people exist, they don't need your help. If they don't exist, they also don't need your help, meaning you are wasting your time no matter how many of these people may or may not exist.

Next we have our hypothetical group of people who aren't informed, but are open to finding the truth. Now, as far as I can tell, you think that these people who are "open to finding the truth" won't bother to find the truth because it's too hard, it takes too much time, it's work, and as a result will simply believe what they have been told without your intervention.

This argument is fallacious. If there exists in this world a group of people who are "open to finding the truth", then they are, by definition, not going to hold to something for which they never saw cogent evidence. A person "open to finding the truth" would either research until they found the truth, and devote the appropriate amount of time to that, or -- and you never consider this simple possibility -- reserve judgment until they have more complete information.

It is self-contradictory to say that our hypothetical person who is "open to the truth" makes up his or her mind without considering alternatives or without looking up some good sources. So these people who were "open to finding the truth" but were too busy or lazy to do right away, don't need your help because they will simply reserve judgment until they can get to a good source. The only possibilities are that they go to reliable sources or reserve judgment, so they don't need you for that. Again, doesn't matter if there a million of these people or zero, they don't need your help.

Now, you may counter that you are directing people to these good resources and saving them time. But this is absurd. Have you seen the IP threads? The person would have to read through the IP thread, which can go on for dozens of pages, and which is full of tangents, read through the posts [many of which are just back-and-forth insults], figure out whom to trust and whom not to through all the name calling, and then follow your links. This would add time and effort if anything.

And what are these links you so helpfully provide? Wikipedia, Aljazeera, the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz are pretty common. Wikipedia is very common. I'm going to suggest that people who are "open to finding the truth" may have heard of Wikipedia and do not need your direction to go there.

I'm also going to suggest that it would be easier to get to those sources through a google search, rather than wade through the IP thread first. If you simply do a google search on any number of IP issues, those common sources are going to be the very first ones. So you are not making it faster and easier to arrive at sources.

But this next point is even more crucial: the person still has to evaluate the sources, whether you link to them or not. And even reputable sources have their leanings, which the person is going to have to figure out for themselves to get at the truth. There are other more obscure links, but then the person has to figure out for themselves if these are trustworthy sources or not. So that is also going to take up a lot of time. The problem with your argument is that there are no shortcuts to becoming truly informed. Again, another problem is that you don't consider that open-minded people will simply reserve judgment.

The only types of people that I can think of who remain that might read the threads are people who make up their minds without doing research, and get their views from anonymous posters on the internet. And as I said, there is no point in trying to reach those people, because they are gullible, naive, deeply biased, weak-willed, or any number of traits that leave them open to being deceived. You cannot help these people, because you can never be sure that tomorrow somewhere else, the person has heard the lie again from some other anonymous source and starts to change their mind again. And once again, it doesn't matter if there are no gullible people, or if all the people are gullible. You can't reach them.

I can't emphasize this enough: If you think this argument has anything to do with "most people" or "many people" or "some people" you have completely misunderstood my argument. My actual point is that it is hard to even conceive of a type of person who could be logically benefited by the IP threads.

 

[fuji]

Here`s some more data, just to put a few more nails into slidebone`s self-made coffin:

There are 26 posters on one single recent Israel/Arab thread, counting ONLY people who posted--who knows how many actually read it beyond that. On the "Why no post by the Anti-Israel Crowd" thread they were: Aardvark, basketcase, yung d00d, me, thirdcup, nottyboi, perry mason, Phil C McNasty, George The Curious, blackrock13, DB123, LoveHobby, canada-man, Samurai Joe, red, shack, MattRoxx, rld, slowandeasy, toguy5252, OddSox, shapeup1, Amarcord, gryfin, slidebone, and bishop.

So, only 4 people voted yes, but 26 actually take the time to post? It`s pretty clear there is something deeply wrong with that poll number. Seems like most of the people interested in these threads avoided your poll, and it`s likely the no votes overwhelmingly represent people from the lounge who aren`t interested in politics threads at all.

And another data point - here is what a popular poll in the lounge looks like: https://terb.cc/vbulletin/showthread.php?148561-Tits/

"Tits: For or against?" got 275 votes, of which 23 people actually voted "no". Assuming that nobody actually dislikes tits, what that really tells you is that there are people who vote "no" on polls just for the heck of it. It also illustrates the very obvious, that on a pay for play sex forum, more people are interested in tits than in politics.

So your poll got 54 votes, the Tits poll got 275 votes, five times more. I think what that says is that overwhelmingly the lounge wasn`t interested in your poll, and the people who WERE interested in your poll, weren`t interested in politics.

Nail. Coffin. Shut.

 

[fuji]

Let me emphasize, my argument describes groups of potential readers: it doesn't matter how many people belong in each group for my argument to hold up.

The only potential readers are people who opts to read the politics forum, which is the overwhelming minority of people. All you are doing now is slapping the water, you may think you are treading water, but you are sinking.

If people exist who are at all informed, they will dismiss "blatant lies". Just to add, I also think that the "at all informed" group wouldn't trust more typical lies. These people can protect themselves without you guys.

I disagree. If people who are at all informed see claims being made that nobody responds to, they will assume quite naturally that those claims aren't being refuted because they are true. They will conclude that Israel probably did flood Gaza intentionally to divert water away from Jewish areas during a major storm. If you buy into a few myths about Israel, that will probably seem like quite a plausible thing to you, and you will believe it -- unless you take the time to go and check, and find out that the river doesn't even have a single dam on it!

People who are at all informed rely on heuristics in evaluating information. How reliable is the source? Is it being disputed? Does it fit with what I know?

This is why propaganda is effective: Because a good propagandist picks a story that to you seems plausible, but is damaging to the target. Sometimes it's partly true, but important information is left out -- "Israel shot a 15 year old boy", hey it's true, let's just not mention that he was engaged in an assault on a military position at the time he was shot.

So no, people who are "at all informed" aren't somehow magically protected from being influenced by propaganda, unless they see it being regularly opposed. Then they will conclude EITHER that the propaganda is bullshit, which is my hope, or they will conclude that they don't know and would have to dig into it to find out whether it's true. That is actually the real objective of Palestinian propaganda -- to create the illusion that this is a 50/50 debate, that people should assume both sides are equally guilty. Because that sort of assumption puts Israel on a level playing field with terrorists, and from the point of view of the terrorists, that's a win.

Really this means that people who are shooting down this propaganda have to be EVEN MORE VIGILANT, because "at all informed" people will reach an erroneous conclusion that it's an "equal" conflict where both sides are "equally to blame". This is the same tactic that is used against global warming, for example -- find one or two lonely souls who are willing to claim that global warming is a myth, put them up against hundreds of scientists who disagree, but get them equal time in the press so that the public thinks there is a debate.

If not countered, this sort of propaganda is surprisingly effective.

 

[slidebone]

Yet I feel that calling out hateful racists is important in a moral society and yung's post is clearly racist. You can pay attention or not but some of feel a moral obligation to fight hatred with truth.

As I said before, you are beating a dead horse by telling people they shouldn't beat a dead horse. Until Fred says no more political discussions, people can post if they choose and ignore them if they don't.


The more you post, the more you seem like you just want to argue.

I don't tell them they shouldn't do it. I've said this repeatedly. I tell them it's futile, only if they believe they are providing a public service of some kind or if they believe it is anything much more than a mental exercise.

Oh, and simply apply the rule "The more you post, the more you seem like you just want to argue" to yourself: perhaps it's evidence that you, after 8+ years, are here to argue, rather than "fighting hatred with truth". Glass houses...as they say...

 

[slidebone]

The only potential readers are people who opts to read the politics forum, which is the overwhelming minority of people. All you are doing now is slapping the water, you may think you are treading water, but you are sinking.



I disagree. If people who are at all informed see claims being made that nobody responds to, they will assume quite naturally that those claims aren't being refuted because they are true. They will conclude that Israel probably did flood Gaza intentionally to divert water away from Jewish areas during a major storm. If you buy into a few myths about Israel, that will probably seem like quite a plausible thing to you, and you will believe it -- unless you take the time to go and check, and find out that the river doesn't even have a single dam on it!

People who are at all informed rely on heuristics in evaluating information. How reliable is the source? Is it being disputed? Does it fit with what I know?

This is why propaganda is effective: Because a good propagandist picks a story that to you seems plausible, but is damaging to the target. Sometimes it's partly true, but important information is left out -- "Israel shot a 15 year old boy", hey it's true, let's just not mention that he was engaged in an assault on a military position at the time he was shot.

So no, people who are "at all informed" aren't somehow magically protected from being influenced by propaganda, unless they see it being regularly opposed. Then they will conclude EITHER that the propaganda is bullshit, which is my hope, or they will conclude that they don't know and would have to dig into it to find out whether it's true. That is actually the real objective of Palestinian propaganda -- to create the illusion that this is a 50/50 debate, that people should assume both sides are equally guilty. Because that sort of assumption puts Israel on a level playing field with terrorists, and from the point of view of the terrorists, that's a win.

Really this means that people who are shooting down this propaganda have to be EVEN MORE VIGILANT, because "at all informed" people will reach an erroneous conclusion that it's an "equal" conflict where both sides are "equally to blame". This is the same tactic that is used against global warming, for example -- find one or two lonely souls who are willing to claim that global warming is a myth, put them up against hundreds of scientists who disagree, but get them equal time in the press so that the public thinks there is a debate.

If not countered, this sort of propaganda is surprisingly effective.

I honestly don't even think you read all the way through what I wrote before you started posting. It seems like you read the first four paragraphs, and then flew into a rage and started typing away. This is obvious because you quote my early paragraphs but that's not where my main arguments are. Hint: they are written in bold and italics.

Again, when I give you something that requires a bit of time to read, you don't even really respond to my argument. You take whatever you glean from the first part. You take fragments. This is rich since you are talking about how you are this careful researcher who is there to guide people. Absurd. You don't even know what was said a minute ago.

 

[Aardvark154]

You know Slidebone it is amazing how you can engage in psychological analysis from afar.

 

[fuji]

I honestly don't even think you read all the way through what I wrote before you started posting. It seems like you read the first four paragraphs, and then flew into a rage and started typing away. This is obvious because you quote my early paragraphs but that's not where my main arguments are. Hint: they are written in bold and italics.

Again, when I give you something that requires a bit of time to read, you don't even really respond to my argument. You take whatever you glean from the first part. You take fragments. This is rich since you are talking about how you are this careful researcher who is there to guide people. Absurd. You don't even know what was said a minute ago.

I attacked the core premise of your entire argument, although your "argument" is just a long rambling collection of fallacies of the excluded middle.

You basically claim that there is no value in exposing blatant lies, because either people are already informed and can see that they are lies, or if not, they are willing to go and do the leg work themselves. That is just an absurd argument for several reasons. Your argument is the fallacy of the excluded middle because you try and neatly divide people into ludicrous categories. You make this bizarre argument that people are always all or nothing. Either someone is already informed and isn't helped by being further informed, or they have an open mind and they're willing to go and dig through all the information themselves so no need to provide it.

The reality is much more fluid, with no sharp divides, and -- a point you really fail to get -- much more collaborative. Forums are collaborative and deliberative.

Here's what really happens: Someone, let's say a reasonably intelligent person, comes to the forum. They already have a bunch of information of their own, some of which may be new information that others aren't yet aware of. In other cases, they harbour misinformation from some prior propaganda campaign that suckered them. They also come with a set of academic skills, some better, some worse. In addition, they have some degree of motivation, that will range from not motivated at all, to highly motivated, to go and do any fact checking. These things will vary by the day, even for the same individual -- on a busy day at work when they lack enough sleep they may forget what they know and have no patience for following links. On another day, with a lot of free time, and a clear head, they may be willing to spend a bit more time checking into facts. Or not. It'll depend on their interest, which also varies by degree, and doesn't divide them into neat little boxes.

So this fluid, rational, incompletely informed individual arrives and witnesses an argument between, say, basketcase and yung d00d. At first, he feels both sides are making good points - YD has linked an article claiming that Israel has flooded out Gaza in order to save Jews at the expense of Palestinians in a flood. This incompletely informed individual thinks hmm, yes, I have heard that there's discrimination in Israel against Arabs. Maybe they really did that. Then he sees BC's reply, pointing to an article illustrating very clearly that there are no dams on that river. Hmm he says, that seems like quite the acquittal!

Well, what happens next? This individual will assess the whole story and first off make some sort of value judgement about who seems to be making the stronger point. He'll incorporate this information into his existing knowledge, he may find that he has something to contribute that was unknown to others based on his experience. He may go check a couple of the posts - maybe he doesn't have time to check them all, so he looks at just a link or two. BC's links, the few he checked, go to recognized historians and well known publications. YD's go to odd blogs he's never heard of before. He will not need to check every one of BC's posts to decide that BC is usually credible. He does not need to check every one of YD's posts to decide that YD isn't very trustworthy. He just needs to check a few, and then he will decide that when BC posts something, it's probably true, and that when YD posts something, it is suspect.

You claim that there's no point in posting this information because either somehow people already know it, or because they could just go find it themselves. You think that because Wikipedia is a popular website that everyone has access to, that there's no use in pointing to a particular article that has some relevant information.

Well, there is a lot of use in it. Yeah, in theory, you could go and find all the information yourself on your own in isolation without others. But that's a fuckload of work, and most of us here have real jobs. What we actually do is collaborate in building up our knowlege together. I become aware of specific useful Wikipedia articles because BC posted them, and then I point out one somewhere else. It gets incorporated into his posts, and his material into mine. In fact, Gryfin's material gets incorporated into my posts too -- even when he posts misinformation, it often helps me to understand where he's going on another thread with some other propaganda to have heard his nonsense before.

Anyone reading these forums to a varying degree--and it's different for each individual--is aware of who is making arguments based on facts, and who is resorting to propaganda websites. They don't have to check every single link, they can sample a few. They can see what sorts of criticisms of Israel are hard to answer because they're true, and what sorts of criticisms are just wholesale propaganda. This is in the blatant cases like YD's.

There's a myriad of other things going on, and none of it fits your silly little excluded middle categories.

 

[basketcase]

I don't tell them they shouldn't do it. .....

Fine. You tell us it is futile to continue posting. Wasting our time. Sounds pretty much like you are calling us stupid for doing it.

...Oh, and simply apply the rule "The more you post, the more you seem like you just want to argue" to yourself:...

And I freely admit it I enjoy the arguments. That doesn't take away from the need I feel to combat hatred.

I also don't deign to make futile posts telling people not to make futile posts.

 

[blackrock13]

Fine. You tell us it is futile to continue posting. Wasting our time. Sounds pretty much like you are calling us stupid for doing it.



And I freely admit it I enjoy the arguments. That doesn't take away from the need I feel to combat hatred.

I also don't 'deign' to make futile posts telling people not to make futile posts.

That would be futile.

 

[slidebone]

I attacked the core premise of your entire argument, although your "argument" is just a long rambling collection of fallacies of the excluded middle.

You basically claim that there is no value in exposing blatant lies, because either people are already informed and can see that they are lies, or if not, they are willing to go and do the leg work themselves. That is just an absurd argument for several reasons. Your argument is the fallacy of the excluded middle because you try and neatly divide people into ludicrous categories. You make this bizarre argument that people are always all or nothing. Either someone is already informed and isn't helped by being further informed, or they have an open mind and they're willing to go and dig through all the information themselves so no need to provide it.

The reality is much more fluid, with no sharp divides, and -- a point you really fail to get -- much more collaborative. Forums are collaborative and deliberative.

Here's what really happens: Someone, let's say a reasonably intelligent person, comes to the forum. They already have a bunch of information of their own, some of which may be new information that others aren't yet aware of. In other cases, they harbour misinformation from some prior propaganda campaign that suckered them. They also come with a set of academic skills, some better, some worse. In addition, they have some degree of motivation, that will range from not motivated at all, to highly motivated, to go and do any fact checking. These things will vary by the day, even for the same individual -- on a busy day at work when they lack enough sleep they may forget what they know and have no patience for following links. On another day, with a lot of free time, and a clear head, they may be willing to spend a bit more time checking into facts. Or not. It'll depend on their interest, which also varies by degree, and doesn't divide them into neat little boxes.

So this fluid, rational, incompletely informed individual arrives and witnesses an argument between, say, basketcase and yung d00d. At first, he feels both sides are making good points - YD has linked an article claiming that Israel has flooded out Gaza in order to save Jews at the expense of Palestinians in a flood. This incompletely informed individual thinks hmm, yes, I have heard that there's discrimination in Israel against Arabs. Maybe they really did that. Then he sees BC's reply, pointing to an article illustrating very clearly that there are no dams on that river. Hmm he says, that seems like quite the acquittal!

Well, what happens next? This individual will assess the whole story and first off make some sort of value judgement about who seems to be making the stronger point. He'll incorporate this information into his existing knowledge, he may find that he has something to contribute that was unknown to others based on his experience. He may go check a couple of the posts - maybe he doesn't have time to check them all, so he looks at just a link or two. BC's links, the few he checked, go to recognized historians and well known publications. YD's go to odd blogs he's never heard of before. He will not need to check every one of BC's posts to decide that BC is usually credible. He does not need to check every one of YD's posts to decide that YD isn't very trustworthy. He just needs to check a few, and then he will decide that when BC posts something, it's probably true, and that when YD posts something, it is suspect.

You claim that there's no point in posting this information because either somehow people already know it, or because they could just go find it themselves. You think that because Wikipedia is a popular website that everyone has access to, that there's no use in pointing to a particular article that has some relevant information.

Well, there is a lot of use in it. Yeah, in theory, you could go and find all the information yourself on your own in isolation without others. But that's a fuckload of work, and most of us here have real jobs. What we actually do is collaborate in building up our knowlege together. I become aware of specific useful Wikipedia articles because BC posted them, and then I point out one somewhere else. It gets incorporated into his posts, and his material into mine. In fact, Gryfin's material gets incorporated into my posts too -- even when he posts misinformation, it often helps me to understand where he's going on another thread with some other propaganda to have heard his nonsense before.

Anyone reading these forums to a varying degree--and it's different for each individual--is aware of who is making arguments based on facts, and who is resorting to propaganda websites. They don't have to check every single link, they can sample a few. They can see what sorts of criticisms of Israel are hard to answer because they're true, and what sorts of criticisms are just wholesale propaganda. This is in the blatant cases like YD's.

There's a myriad of other things going on, and none of it fits your silly little excluded middle categories.

I'm just not convinced.

It seems so much easier, if someone wants to find some answers, to just do a google search or look on Wikipedia right from the beginning, rather than to first waste time sorting through page after page of IP threads full of name calling and figuring out who a bunch of anonymous posters are and whether they can be trusted, especially when you'd probably just do a google search or look on Wikipedia yourself anyway if you really cared. It's easier to just get rid of the middle step.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[fuji]

I'm just not convinced.

That's fine if you're not convinced. You're one person. You made your argument, and it seems not many have bought into it.

You tried to put up a poll to compensate for having failed to convince everyone, but your poll was so deeply flawed that it's become the topic rather than your original discussion.

It seems so much easier, if someone wants to find some answers, to just do a google search or look on Wikipedia right from the beginning

So what are you going to search for? Here's the modern problem - it's not a lack of information, it's a lack of structure. It's a lack of knowledge. The internet has made every possible bit of information on every possible subject available to you somewhere out there. All you have to do is search for just the right thing, and read about it! But, what's just the right search? Where would you start? I mean, if you have decided, "I want to know all about what happened at Deir Yassin" I am sure you would find that. But what would motivate you to search for that? How would you know that it's one of the important historical reference points in the conflict? Unless you engage some sort of structured deliberative process with other people, you won't know that people consider it a key event.

Certainly there a variety of ways that society has come up with for structuring information to make it something you can process into knowledge. The lecture is the classic format, with the professor thundering from behind his lectern, in all his authority, pointing out what he believes are the key topics and insights, and assigning reading. Or you can pick up a book -- if you can find out what a good one is. Or hey, you can participate in an online discussion. It's not authoritative or as formally structured as a book or lecture--quite the opposite--but it will engage in you in topics in a semi-structured way, and it will provide you with an exchange where you hear from others what they think they key topics are.

And yes, it's a feature of any good online discussion that the participants are spending at least some time "offline" researching topics so that they can come back to the discussion with something to justify their point. Sometimes, just a read through wiki on the topic being discussed. Sometimes they'll come up with a book citation, and when things are going well they'll have actually read it. I've bought several Kindle books as a result of discussions on terb over the years.

If you don't like discussions with other people--well, by all means, sign yourself up for a class, or just go read a book in your mom's basement. But don't sit there and think your way of structuring information is the only way, and by God don't bullshit us all with the idea that just because every bit of data is somewhere out there on the internet, you don't need any discourse with other humans to educate yourself. We're social creatures, we do much better in deliberative situations, whether they are formal like a lecture, or informal like a discussion board.