"We're in an age of manufactured nihilism.
The issue for many people isn't exactly a denial of truth as such. It's more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable.
I call this "manufactured" because it's the consequence of a deliberate strategy. It was distilled almost perfectly by Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News and chief strategist for Donald Trump. "The Democrats don't matter," Bannon reportedly said in 2018. "The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit."
This idea isn't new, but Bannon articulated it about as well as anyone can. The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media's ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process.

What we're facing is a new form of propaganda that wasn't really possible until the digital age. And it works not by creating a consensus around any particular narrative but by muddying the waters so that consensus isn't achievable.
Bannon's political objective is clear. As he explained in a 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference talk, he sees Trump as a stick of dynamite with which to blow up the status quo. So "flooding the zone" is a means to that end. But more generally, creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it erodes the very foundation of democracy. And the strategy is working.
For most of recent history, the goal of propaganda was to reinforce a consistent narrative. But zone-flooding takes a different approach: It seeks to disorient audiences with an avalanche of competing stories.

And it produces a certain nihilism in which people are so skeptical about the possibility of finding the truth that they give up the search. The fact that 60 percent of Americans say they encounter conflicting reports about the same event is an example of what I mean. In the face of such confusion, it's not surprising that less than half the country trusts what they read in the press.

Bannon articulated the zone-flooding philosophy well, but he did not invent it. In our time, it was pioneered by Vladimir Putin in post-Soviet Russia. Putin uses the media to engineer a fog of disinformation, producing just enough distrust to ensure that the public can never mobilize around a coherent narrative.

In October, I spoke to Peter Pomerantsev, a Soviet-born reality TV producer turned academic who wrote a book about Putin's propaganda strategy. The goal, he told me, wasn't to sell an ideology or a vision of the future; instead, it was to convince people that "the truth is unknowable" and that the only sensible choice is "to follow a strong leader."
You see this dynamic at work daily on cable news. Trump White House adviser Kellyanne Conway lies. She lies a lot. Yet CNN and MSNBC have shown zero hesitation in giving her a platform to lie because they see their job as giving government officials - even ones who lie - a platform.
Even if CNN or MSNBC debunk Conway's lies, the damage will be done. Fox and right-wing media will amplify her and other falsehoods; armies on social media, bot and real, will, too (@realDonaldTrump will no doubt chime in). The mainstream press will be a step behind in debunking - and even the act of debunking will serve to amplify the lies.

UC Berkeley linguist George Lakoff calls this the "framing effect." As Lakoff puts it, if you say "don't think of an elephant," you can't help but think of an elephant. In other words, even if you reject an argument, merely repeating it cements the frame in people's minds. Debunking it is still useful, of course, but there's a cost to dignifying it in the first place.
But democracy cannot function without a shared understanding of reality. As long as the zone is flooded with shit, that shared understanding is impossible. "

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It's a democratic hoax

Edited: 04/29/2020 at 01:41 PM by nukeh2o

Flood the zone with shit is a perfect description of your posts. Nasty, confused, rambling screeds of basically foul word salad.

Perfect for NSR. Keep up the good work.

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".

Huh? Rambling?

It's spot on. If he wrote that, he needs to switch to a career in journalism.

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I was right.

Quoting Sean Illing of vox, great writer.
Not quite fitting in with krusty's weak narrative as a wannabe cell leader in the coming yuteful boinie bozos and bimbos rebelution. But, he's bonding on the same page with the mitey magat emperor piggpoo, so that puts that in proper perspective .
Has some good thought to convey to actual american patriots though.

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It's a democratic hoax

Loosestool2o

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".

5/5 . not sure who her intended audience is but the schtick got old quik

Baffle 'em with pigshit. If chump lies all the time, every time, then says something true...
The flood the zone technique has an ardent devotee. Right here on (this forum).
Ol' Swish Killer can clog the drains of a post for pages at a time! How many flushes will it take this time on these newfangled digital toilets

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It's a democratic hoax

yer only bafflin yerselfbro. continue,

How many flushes will it take this time on these newfangled digital toilets


Heard that...

Trump lies at will and his 40 percent don't care in the least.

I mean, are they dumb and believe him or have they just forsaken reality? How many contradictions does one have to endure until enough is enough?

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I was right.

keep askin those tough questions, cole-rona!