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by djsumdog 3381 days ago
I'm sick of this "fake news" crap. It's just called "news" and it hasn't been fair or objective in any western country for over a century.

I actually have a lot of respect for Scott Adams, and I feel that he, and others, who supported the unpopular side of the Americans Next Best President reality show that was on last year, have been unjustly labelled for what was a set of equally terribly choices.

Scott Adams constantly uses "Cognitive Dissonance" (so does Bill Nye and the vSauce guy Michael .. it's the buzz word of the year) and says in his blog that you can't tell when you're in it, even though he claims he's not in a state of Cognitive Dissonance himself!

I have an unpopular view myself, I think the game is rigged, the parties are the same, the points don't matter and that no matter which president gets elected, we'll go to more wars (Obama started bombing 5 countries. Clinton would have done the same. So will Trump. America's industry is dependent on war).

While I respect Scott Adams and don't think he should face the unjust criticism he has gotten, I still don't agree with his outlook. I don't think he's an idiot or racist or deceived. I think that all of America is simply on the losing side of the false left right divide, and have said as much:

http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-fallout-of-american-a...

I could be wrong though. Maybe there is a difference between the two parties? I might have fallen into nihilism; accepting only the sources that feed my world view that America's political system is hopelessly corrupt and broken. I wouldn't mind being wrong, but I don't think that is the reality.

It's important to doubt your axioms and to constantly challenge your world view. Beware of nationalism or standing behind a person or idea because you feel you have to. Cognitive dissonance is giving the electric shock to the other person in the Milgram experiments because you didn't see that there were other options, and the reality is you won't know for sure what you'd do until you are in that situation.

2 comments

> I might have fallen into nihilism...

You have fallen into nihilism.

"What does it matter? Republican? Democrat? The Earth will be consumed by the sun in a few billion years anyway."

Thank you Marvin.

He was my favourite character in those books. :-P
It is testament to Trump's art that you have forgotten the term "fake news" was more specific when it first appeared.