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PostPosted: 06/27/17 7:55 pm • # 26 
Karolinablue wrote:
sooz06 wrote:
I need to think more on this commentary ~ but my knee-jerk reaction is that what has changed most dramatically is the vast popularity of the internet and social media ~ both give everyone/anyone an enormous platform to spew <whatever> ~ :ey

Sooz


It could be that. People post and find others who agree with them no matter how far out or stupid their posts or comments may be - therefore stupidity becomes validated in their minds. Any opposing views are met with disdain and become negated, put down regardless of merit. I think the more legitimate the retort the more it is met with disdain and mockery - so maybe they can feel superior for once in their lives. (Hanging out my shingle momentarily lol)


Most of them are click bait for advertising revenue or leverage. Some of them are bots. Our former CONservative government in Canada hired 1,500 of them two years before their big 2011 victory. They called them "Media Monitors", whose purpose was to "Set the record straight." and they funded the whole operation with click bait for advertising revenue.


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PostPosted: 06/30/17 1:20 pm • # 27 
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PostPosted: 06/30/17 3:14 pm • # 28 
The scientists are moving north.


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PostPosted: 07/01/17 9:59 am • # 29 
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Most of them are click bait for advertising revenue or leverage. Some of them are bots. Our former CONservative government in Canada hired 1,500 of them two years before their big 2011 victory. They called them "Media Monitors", whose purpose was to "Set the record straight." and they funded the whole operation with click bait for advertising revenue.

I get the impression they are still in operation. When you read the comments to just about any story about Trudeau, the Liberals or anything that smacks of criticism of the Conservatives they are overwhelmed with the most vicious conservative posts. Of course it could be that, with the oil patch so quiet, Albertans have nothing else to do but comment on CBC stories.


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PostPosted: 07/01/17 10:44 am • # 30 
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Sadly, Bill Nye's quote hits close to home. I will say that my one daughter and family temper their religion with science as well with visits to a kid's science museum. However, they are at the present time in Kentucky where they visited the "Ark Encounter" yesterday and are at the "Creation Museum" today. :w
My only hope is that the kids eventually get to an age where they think "one of these things is not like the other" .


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PostPosted: 07/01/17 4:30 pm • # 31 
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roseanne wrote:
Sadly, Bill Nye's quote hits close to home. I will say that my one daughter and family temper their religion with science as well with visits to a kid's science museum. However, they are at the present time in Kentucky where they visited the "Ark Encounter" yesterday and are at the "Creation Museum" today. :w
My only hope is that the kids eventually get to an age where they think "one of these things is not like the other" .


That's got to be confusing for them. Have their parent considered how they are going to explain the conflict when the time comes.....come to think of it, how do they explain it to themselves or do they just outright deny science?


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PostPosted: 07/01/17 5:16 pm • # 32 
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lol jim. They don't deny science at all. Just when it comes to creation and other such bible myths. I don't think they believe the earth is only a few thousand years old or that dinosaurs were on the ark. We don't discuss religion so I'm not sure.
My SIL is a programmer, for goodness sakes. I don't think he believes that some god created the computer or the internet.

I don't think it confuses the kids.........yet. When it does that is when they will begin questioning things. I hope. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the 9 1/2 yr old is already questioning. The rest are still too young to realize the inherent conflicts.


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PostPosted: 07/02/17 7:15 am • # 33 
jimwilliam wrote:
Most of them are click bait for advertising revenue or leverage. Some of them are bots. Our former CONservative government in Canada hired 1,500 of them two years before their big 2011 victory. They called them "Media Monitors", whose purpose was to "Set the record straight." and they funded the whole operation with click bait for advertising revenue.

I get the impression they are still in operation. When you read the comments to just about any story about Trudeau, the Liberals or anything that smacks of criticism of the Conservatives they are overwhelmed with the most vicious conservative posts. Of course it could be that, with the oil patch so quiet, Albertans have nothing else to do but comment on CBC stories.


The CONservatives hired more of them through Craigslist the day after Scheer was "elected" leader of their party.


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PostPosted: 07/02/17 9:32 am • # 34 
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Sidartha wrote:
jimwilliam wrote:
Most of them are click bait for advertising revenue or leverage. Some of them are bots. Our former CONservative government in Canada hired 1,500 of them two years before their big 2011 victory. They called them "Media Monitors", whose purpose was to "Set the record straight." and they funded the whole operation with click bait for advertising revenue.

I get the impression they are still in operation. When you read the comments to just about any story about Trudeau, the Liberals or anything that smacks of criticism of the Conservatives they are overwhelmed with the most vicious conservative posts. Of course it could be that, with the oil patch so quiet, Albertans have nothing else to do but comment on CBC stories.


The CONservatives hired more of them through Craigslist the day after Scheer was "elected" leader of their party.


More time in the wilderness.


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PostPosted: 07/10/17 7:37 pm • # 35 
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This is scary ...

Majority of Republicans Now Believe Colleges and Universities Have a Negative Effect on America

13 Point Drop Among Republicans


Founding Father John Adams famously said, "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

Meanwhile, fast forward a few centuries. In the very popular Hulu series "The Handmaid's Tale," (and book by Margaret Atwood,) women are prohibited from reading. Anything. (There's a lot more to the story, but for our purposes that's what we're focusing on.) In one scene as two of the main characters try to escape to Canada, they're hampered because the new regime has removed all the street and subway signs.

The New York Times reported "Margaret Atwood’s rule for herself when writing 'The Handmaid’s Tale' was that everything had to be based on some real-world antecedent. And she was able to combine disparate historical events in plausible — and horrific — ways."

That belief, that women should be banned from reading, and thus knowledge, stems from religious extremism in Atwood's book, but it feels like it's just come one step closer to reality.

America's conservatives have now reached a new level of prime, willful ignorance. There's really no other way to put this: they are embracing stupidity.

"A majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (58%) now say that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country, up from 45% last year. By contrast, most Democrats and Democratic leaners (72%) say colleges and universities have a positive effect, which is little changed from recent years," the Pew Research Center reports Monday in a just-released survey.

Let's look at that again.

Image

The majority of Republicans "now say that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country."

By a two-to-one margin, 36 percent of Republicans and 72% of Democrats say "say colleges and universities have a positive effect" on the country.

Learning to think, learning about history, politics, art, business, science, agriculture, Shakespeare, the humanities, economics, geometry, theater, biology, law, ethics, and more: these are having "a negative effect on the country," according to the majority of Republicans/conservatives.

That viewpoint jumped a whopping 13 percentage points in just one year.

It's not a stretch to say the 35 to 40 percent of Americans who still give the president a favorable rating and oppose the idea of free college – embraced by several Democrats including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (albeit later) and independent U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders – are responsible for the rapid hatred of higher education.

Some believe education is important only in that it's a path to higher wages. That's inane. Higher education, regardless of a student's major, helps teach them how to think, and how to learn. And that is priceless.

John Adams also said: "The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves."

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.co ... on_america


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PostPosted: 07/10/17 8:00 pm • # 36 
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Shift - I don't even know how to process this and why it has come to pass that so many republicans have become afraid of education and knowledge. Maybe they are just simply afraid of change; with knowledge comes change and for these people they may be comfortable in their narrow vision of the world and their surroundings. Is it fear that motivates them to reject things they do not immediately understand? Rather than expand their thinking they seem to prefer the familiar and easily understandable. . It is almost like they want to remain ignorant, and that truly flabbergasts me. .


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PostPosted: 07/11/17 8:41 am • # 37 
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I've been thinking about #35 above since I first read it yesterday ~

I agree with KB's "I don't even know how to process this and why it has come to pass that so many republicans have become afraid of education and knowledge." ~ but I'm not so sure that "... republicans have become afraid of education and knowledge" as much as the GOP/TPers have figured out that controlling uneducated people is generally easier/faster ... so it serves their purposes ~ :g

I need to think more on this ~

Sooz


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PostPosted: 07/11/17 10:51 am • # 38 
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Not sure how much of this relates to people consciously worrying about control - after all "the masses" aren't the ones doing the controlling but they are the ones being controlled.

I'm sure some part of it is they're convinced that colleges and universities exist to indoctrinate kids with "liberal" thoughts - heaven forbid that they learn to think for themselves and question what the older generation believes.

And then there's the little matter of religion - if those kids learn about all that "science stuff" they might start questioning the bible. Can't have that can we. I suspect that ready access to information (the internet) is a big part of the reason that we're seeing an increase in the number of atheists - it doesn't take long with google to check whether or not that stuff you've been told since you were a little kid is wrong.

I posted this on another board and so far only one person has replied and, despite me pushing back, all he wants to talk about is the ability to get a well paying job (which has nothing to do with the article).


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PostPosted: 07/11/17 10:56 am • # 39 
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PostPosted: 07/11/17 5:39 pm • # 40 
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This belongs under any discussion of conservative attitudes toward college (see point 3)

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PostPosted: 07/11/17 7:51 pm • # 41 
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Roseanne, we drove past the Creation Museum outfit last week, coming home from S Carolina, and I wanted to stop in, just to argue with people. But we drove on. Since then I have read that the place is going belly up, due to atheists praying to God that it would fail. No kidding.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.co ... -ark-park/

Also read In a local Kentucky newspaper that the outfit is on the way out. Has not been a good deal for the local community, apparently. Warms the cockles of my heart, down to the last cockle.


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PostPosted: 07/11/17 10:37 pm • # 42 
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Since then I have read that the place is going belly up, due to atheists praying to God that it would fail.

That's priceless! :rollin


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PostPosted: 07/12/17 5:33 am • # 43 
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True - Ken Ham is busy blaming atheists for the failure of the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum. Everything from concerted efforts to convince people to stay away to a lack of hotels and restaurants in the area.

He's located in the heart of the bible belt and still can't attract enough people to make a go of it??



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PostPosted: 07/12/17 11:18 am • # 44 
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Wonder how many of these Republicans who are so against college tell their kids not to go when they reach the end of high school. "Y'all don't want to be a doctor, sweetie. Flippin' burgers at McD's is a more common sense occupayshun."


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PostPosted: 07/12/17 11:39 am • # 45 
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Don't need no stinkin' hi skool to dig for coal. All's ah need's a pick n' shovel.


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PostPosted: 07/12/17 12:45 pm • # 46 
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From another article on the same topic

Quote:
Among Republicans, the older and poorer they were, the more they looked down upon those institutions.

I’m guessing conservatives will say this is because higher education “brainwashes” students with liberal ideologies and schools are too “politically correct.”

Those are lies. The best colleges teach students to think critically and ask tough questions. They bring together a diverse student body to offer different perspectives. They make it difficult for anyone to remain in an ideological bubble. Sure, there are exceptions to all of that — we often hear examples of liberal students refusing to listen to (and/or outright boycotting or disrupting) conservative speakers — but those are the ideals.

No wonder today’s Republicans don’t like that. They thrive on misinformation, isolation, and Jesus. They can’t handle facts and assume reality is a conspiracy theory. They dislike colleges for the same reason evangelical Christians dislike public schools — they fear exposure to people whose values differ from their own because they know they’ll always lose a battle of ideas. It’s easier to demonize the other side and create a bubble of their own.


http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyat ... e-country/


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PostPosted: 07/12/17 7:18 pm • # 47 
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On stumbled onto a Facebook page (obviously very far-right, Trump supporting) that posed the question; Is Mrs. Trump a better First Lady than Michelle Obama? One person dared to say something like Michelle Obama is a great lady, intelligent, professional, a lawyer.. I was amazed at how many claimed she was disbarred from practicing law - among other more insulting and even racist comments.

Then there was posted a story about Trump praying in the White House. One person posted that "Trump is no Christian" and explained why. What followed was laughable. After the years of claims that Obama wasn't Christian, was a Muslim, etc. these people suddenly claim such things as "it's not for you to judge".

In terms of ignorance in the U.S., there is no shortage of it. It isn't what people know or don't know as much as how their minds work. It isn't knowledge but a lack of logical thinking.

That's why some can see a man that talked of grabbing women and has been married and divorced several times as Christian but not the guy who has had one wife.


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PostPosted: 07/12/17 7:36 pm • # 48 
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I did consider starting a new thread for this but figured it fit here ...

Long article numerous graphs so I'm only posting the first part


Sharp Partisan Divisions in Views of National Institutions
Republicans increasingly say colleges have negative impact on U.S.


Republicans and Democrats offer starkly different assessments of the impact of several of the nation’s leading institutions – including the news media, colleges and universities and churches and religious organizations – and in some cases, the gap in these views is significantly wider today than it was just a year ago.

Image


While a majority of the public (55%) continues to say that colleges and universities have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country these days, Republicans express increasingly negative views.

A majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (58%) now say that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country, up from 45% last year. By contrast, most Democrats and Democratic leaners (72%) say colleges and universities have a positive effect, which is little changed from recent years.

The national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted June 8-18 among 2,504 adults, finds that partisan differences in views of the national news media, already wide, have grown even wider. Democrats’ views of the effect of the national news media have grown more positive over the past year, while Republicans remain overwhelmingly negative.

About as many Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents think the news media has a positive (44%) as negative (46%) impact on the way things are going in the country. The share of Democrats holding a positive view of the news media’s impact has increased 11 percentage points since last August (33%).

Republicans, by about eight-to-one (85% to 10%), say the news media has a negative effect. These views have changed little in the past few years.

Aside from their growing differences over the impact of colleges and the news media, Republicans and Democrats remain far apart in their assessments of the effects of other institutions on the nation. Democrats continue to be more likely than Republicans to view labor unions positively (59% vs. 33%), while larger shares of Republicans have positive views of churches and religious institutions (73% of Republicans vs. 50% of Democrats) and banks and financial institutions (46% vs. 33%).

Yet even as partisan divides in views of some of these institutions have widened in recent years, the public’s overall evaluations are little changed. Majorities of Americans say churches and religious organizations (59%) and colleges and universities (55%) have a positive effect. Nearly half (47%) say labor unions have a positive impact; 32% see their impact negatively.

Image


Views of the impact of banks and other financial institutions are more negative (46%) than positive (39%). And by roughly two-to-one (63% to 28%), more Americans say that the national news media has a negative than positive effect on the way things are going in the country.

The survey finds that Republicans’ attitudes about the effect of colleges and universities have changed dramatically over a relatively short period of time.

Image


As recently as two years ago, most Republicans and Republican leaners held a positive view of the role of colleges and universities. In September 2015, 54% of Republicans said colleges and universities had a positive impact on the way things were going in the country; 37% rated their impact negatively.

By 2016, Republicans’ ratings of colleges and universities were mixed (43% positive, 45% negative). Today, for the first time on a question asked since 2010, a majority (58%) of Republicans say colleges and universities are having a negative effect on the way things are going in the country, while 36% say they have a positive effect.

Among Republicans, there is an ideological gap in views of the impact of colleges and universities and other institutions: Nearly two-thirds of conservative Republicans (65%) say colleges are having a negative impact, compared with just 43% of moderate and liberal Republicans.

The ideological differences are less striking among Democrats. Wide majorities of both liberal Democrats (79%) and conservative and moderate Democrats (67%) say colleges have a positive impact.

Image


However, Democrats are more ideologically divided than are Republicans over the effect of churches and religious organizations.

etc ...

http://www.people-press.org/2017/07/10/ ... titutions/


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PostPosted: 07/12/17 7:41 pm • # 49 
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IMO, the US is suffering the fate of all other empires. It's dying the slow death of unsustainability.


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PostPosted: 07/12/17 7:45 pm • # 50 
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Interesting that, unlike the US, the majority of people in both Canada and the UK say that religion does more harm than good.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/dec ... opstories3

http://globalnews.ca/news/3522802/relig ... psos-poll/


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