Stats

Comments Posted By naxos

Displaying 31 To 35 Of 35 Comments

The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers Are The Most Misinformed

You can think of no means to address climate change that do not coincidentally push traditional goals of the Left. Swing 180 degrees. The tax code? Make it profitable to be eco-conscious. Subsidies, tax advantages, government partnerships, for example. “Protections” inhibit and punish. Rewards encourage positive thinking, innovation. Why is this Bizarro?

» Posted By naxos On November 7, 2014 @ 6:07 am

What a lot of work you have done here! Obvious question: It is clearly vitally important to you to believe you are superior to people who may not share your political ideology. Why? It seems so pointless. People who watch THAT news are not as smart as those who watch MY news. If so, so what?

Do you know how democracy works? Everyone must weigh in; people who agree with you, people who disagree with you, people who are informed, people who are not informed. This is why suppression of voting is so anti-American. Everyone counts. Not just people who agree with us.

» Posted By naxos On November 6, 2014 @ 12:17 pm

Will try again. Dems indulge an oft-voiced vanity that they are “smart”. This is the main subject of Murph’s piece. I offered two observations (not “accusations”).

– That all news outlets play to a target demographic is common knowledge. That people are drawn to outlets that “agree” with their predetermined beliefs is common knowledge. Fox, MSNBC, their hosts and guests broadcast millions of bits of information, to millions of viewers. A breakdown of all those millions of bits into more or less factual, and an analysis of which bits the viewers believe, or disregard, is impossible. That viewers of this station or that are smarter or not so smart is complete silliness.

– A problem of great importance exists whose solutions all delight the Right. We can solve it if we lower rates of taxation, reduce government involvement, etc. How do you think the Left will view this? – This is my point on climate issues.

» Posted By naxos On November 6, 2014 @ 11:57 am

Self-serving and self-congratulatory “our tribe smart; other tribe dumb” themes make for really weak pieces. This one is also naive. ALL news outlets serve a chosen demographic because MOST people like to be agreed with; it makes them feel warm and smart. “Opinion” over the airwaves is a parlor game. Whether Matthews, O’Reilly, Maddow, et al, actually believe what they say is irrelevant. All that matters is that their viewers believe in their sincerity.

Further, the surveys cannot detect a central, key element in your we-are-like-so-smart! proposition. Example: All of the currently proposed solutions for climate change coincide with well-known Progressive authoritarian goals; expanded government control, expanded regulation, stronger, larger bureaucracy. A coincidence? So anyone center or right with a spark of brainpoqwer will assume the people forming the climate models are in bed, politically, with the Left. It’s all too convienient. So the attitudes and opinions of Fox viewers regarding climate change have almost nothing to do with science, and everything to do with politics.

Want to test this? Easy. Propose solutions to climate change that couincide with goals of the Right, smaller government, less regulation, reduction of taxes, and see how many Deniers become Believers, overnight.

You should raise the bar back up where you usually have it.

» Posted By naxos On November 6, 2014 @ 7:36 am

Short Posts

I ran into trouble in the first sentence.

First, “intelligent”, like “smart”, is meaningless. What kind of smart? IQ smart? SAT test smart? Makes-a-Good-Speech smart? There may be a kid dealing three card monte on a street corner in Washington who is smarter than all of us. So what?

Next, “caring” about issues earns no points. You are supposed to care; everyone cares. “Caring” gets you just to break even. But how would you know this; who “cares” and who doesn’t? Motivations are not knowable; most people do not know their own motivations, much less someone else’s. Thus, shrinks.

» Posted By naxos On November 6, 2014 @ 7:13 am