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Memories of the 28th Century

Miscellaneous thoughts about miscellaneous matters

  1. Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Religious Truth

    by , 01-14-2015 at 08:20 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    I may be flogging a dead horse, but there is a difference between actual fact and fiction or religious truth. For something to be an actual fact there must be objective evidence for it; that means that the evidence is tangible or otherwise available to most people. I am not including all people there, because those who are lacking one or more of the senses might not be able to perceive the thing. But I want to make it clear that supernatural visions and similar events are usually not public events ...
  2. Half-Truths, Plausible Lies, and Big Lies

    by , 10-06-2014 at 07:55 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    After writing my post on Restoring the Age of Reason I started thinking more about how the principals of the Age of Reason have been put into disrepute. The general methods used have been typical propaganda techniques. And then I started thinking about propaganda even more. I don't think enough attention is paid to propaganda these days, at least not in the U.S.A., and probably not in Western Europe either. There's a lot of propaganda going around these days, and maybe we have become too accustomed ...

    Updated 10-06-2014 at 08:24 PM by PeterL

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  3. Detecting Propaganda for Fun and Profit

    by , 04-29-2014 at 04:10 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    On another forum to which I belong there recently was a question about propaganda. A request was made for information about how to write propaganda. After some initial comments about advertising and ordinary public relations writing. People started suggesting real world examples, such as the jingoism and appeals to greatness that Hitler and others have used. And it was pointed out the heavy-handed propaganda that some have used isn’t as effective as the subtle propaganda that has become popular ...
  4. Public Policy Lies

    by , 03-07-2014 at 09:50 AM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    Today I was reminded, yet again, how much of the information that the general news media provide is wrong. I would prefer to use a milder word for the incorrectness, because reporters often just report things that they don’t understand, and many facts are dropped, because they don’t fit, or the reporter doesn’t understand what is being said. Then there are the things that are deliberately misreported; much deliberate misreporting is done, because public policy or editorial policy says that certain ...

    Updated 03-07-2014 at 10:31 AM by PeterL

    Tags: ignorance, lies, media
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  5. Fact And Fiction

    by , 10-26-2013 at 01:55 PM (Memories of the 28th Century)
    Fact and fiction are often presented as opposites. Fiction is made up, fabrication, lie, etc., but the real difference is in the attitude of the teller. Many things have been presented as fact that are far from being actual fact. It might actually be that the majority of things presented as fact are not factual, but it is difficult to tell the difference. It is interesting that I just watched the truly strange video “Massachusetts” by Ylvis, a Norwegian band; it is a satirical praise of Massachusetts, ...
    Tags: fact, fiction, lies
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