Predicting Future-Divination-Story Lines-Prophecy-Warning-Podcast 701

First of all, it’s been a theme in my podcasts to discuss bad information spread by media. Most noteworthy are what the mainstream media likes to call ‘narratives’. Yet there is plenty of out and out nonsense in new media too. We’ll talk about it in Predicting Future-Divination-Story Lines-Prophecy-Warning-Podcast 701.

Are We Sane and Rational?

We like to think of ourselves as sane and rational in this country, but I am starting to wonder. Are we reversing in our progress, going back in time to become a more superstitious people?

Pseudo Science To The Rescue

People now use divination, prophecy and pseudo science to predict the future. These kinds of videos on You Tube have hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of subscribers. Moreover it’s becoming harder to argue You Tube videos have less credibility than mainstream outlets.

We Don’t Need Facts Anymore

It is especially relevant that rather than focusing on facts most of the mainstream news outlets focus on opinion to keep people watching. As a result we’re not using facts to make judgements about our world.

Anything Makes Sense When We Know Nothing

Hence, we might believe the US is about to attack North Korea. Why not accept story lines suggesting there is a planetary system hiding behind the sun and our government is keeping proof of its existence from us? Why wouldn’t we believe pseudo science stories about people who channel aliens?

Your Child Is A Genius

Because it’s easy to accept the idea that our children are geniuses and have evolved DNA and that a benevolent alien race is about to change the energy level on earth, allowing us to live disease free, and promoting love.

Welcome To A Tribal Way of Life

I think it might be easy to accept outrageous stories, when you’re fed opinion disguised as facts on the real stories? Are we well on our way to becoming a tribal rather than rational culture?

Self Reliant People Don’t Believe In Fairy Tales

In conclusion we have all been taught Americans descend from ruggedly self reliant people therefore, we are self reliant. Are we? Can we be strong and self reliant if we believe fairy tales?

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul

Predicting Future-Divination-Story Lines-Prophecy-Warning-Podcast 701

 

 

 

Getting Your News Groove Back-Podcast 621

Social Media Rules

More of us get our news from social media these days. Problem is most of the ‘news’ on social media doesn’t adhere to standards. Might feel better informed, but it’s hard to tell the difference between writing to a standard and propaganda. In Getting Your News Groove Back-Podcast 621.

Internet Never Lies

People are in the habit of posting, sharing, liking and commenting on stories that support their point of view. People apparently believe anything published on the Internet that looks credible and comes from a site they visit often. We are floating on a sea of bad information.

Garbage In Garbage Out

News stories not written to standard assert things that turn out to be false. What’s worse, this kind of information poisons the discourse. Thoughts, insights and ideas based on bad information form into concrete assumptions and conclusions. Those conclusions drive people’s ideas about the world.

Propaganda and Manipulation

In Getting Your News Groove Back-Podcast 621 I’ll provide some examples of story-lines that have not been proven. Most of the time these stories reinforce the right versus left thinking that ruins friendships and family ties. It’s what makes social media so angry and vitriolic.

There are standards. When you know the standards you can determine whether a writer lives up to those standards. Without standards we’re susceptible to a steady stream of propaganda and manipulation. It’s up to us to learn the standards and choose what we post, share, like and comment on accordingly.

Context and Perspective

A steady diet of Social Media, 24 Hour Cable News and Talk Radio is like junk food for the mind. This ruins a person’s ability to discern whether assertions are true or just opinion. When all we do is read stuff online, watch You Tube videos and listen to cable news and talk radio we lose the context of major stories. We don’t get the details to be able to master the issues. Getting Your News Groove Back-Podcast 621  explains how to do that.

Getting Your News Groove Back-Podcast 621

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Podcast 596-Our Values

Journalism’s new norm is reaction. It is called News. In Podcast 596-Values, news coverage today is a reaction to something someone said or wrote. News is reaction to a new initiative by some government entity. Donald Trump hasn’t been president for a month yet. Already it seems like a year. Trump’s pace of executive orders, executive actions, tweets and initiatives allows him to dominate the media battle space while he cooks up another controversy stew to cauterize yesterday’s controversy.

In Podcast 596-Values, where is the media battle ground? It’s not the Internet. It’s some some battlefield in Europe or Virginia where armies clashed. It’s not a battlefield with stories of élan, bravery or great deeds. The media battle space is our brain. This battlefield is as small or as expansive as it needs to be. As the media storm rages and the wind blows, how do we know our tent is securely fastened and isn’t going to blow away? It call comes down to something called values.

In Podcast 596-Our Values, time to take a pause in this daily insanity of back and forth partisan media coverage. A break from ‘journalists’ who call two or three people, get some quotes, write it up and call it a day. Time to take a look at what we believe as individuals and as a people. Democrat, Republican, Populist, Populist Nationalist, Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, Moderate, Partisan, and Extreme alike. We’re all on a journey together in our lifetime on this planet.

What do we believe? What are the Values we hold dear? Where do those values come from? How do those values anchor us when the gales of change blow up even when those gales are generated from the hot air of politicians in Washington? Politicians who cry and grandstand secure in the knowledge the things they say and do won’t be investigated for any length of time or to any real conclusion?

Reporters determine our values by looking at the latest poll or driving to a shopping center and asking people in the parking lot a few questions. The result is a few hundred words taking the ‘temperature’ of regular everyday ‘folk’. Don’t have any supporters of the president in your state to talk to? Just drive across the state line to the first town and sit in the parking lot of a Safeway or Piggly Wiggly until mom and the kids show up, or chat up and write up what old uncle Frank thinks, while he sits in his 1997 Lincoln waiting for Aunt June. The headline? “Middle America Supports Trump”. Boom.

Work on a national TV show? Find that article about middle america. Get that pollster on the show. Find that Congressmen who says that crazy stuff. Get that woman on from that foundation. Say some stuff. Get some calls. Move on to the next ‘story’. Clicks. Listens. Comments. Calls. Ratings!

The battlefield is the mind. How do you avoid becoming a casualty in the partisan political war? It’s increasingly a battlefield filled with threats. More and more it’s a battlefield better characterized as a moonscape no man’s land, where the shell shocked wander, dazed and confused. Survival in this environment depends on what we believe. Why we believe it. Where we learned it. Who taught us. Where we get our information. How we check our information. What anchors us in the storm, or what kind of ground we have pounded our tent pegs into.

Sponsored by X Government Cars and Hydrus Performance.