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Go woke, go broke

HansMustermann said:
Really, there's a reason why we had a "don't feed the trolls" internet wisdom since at least the early 2000's.
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I was happy to mostly abide by that policy, but then they started getting elected to public office.
 
Andy_Ross said:
When was the press every impartial?
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It's one of the big lies people have swallowed since the press started. Nearly all the major, national press has been controlled by singular powerful men, biased as they wanted it to be, coverage slanted in their favour, edited as they wanted it to be. The idea there was ever a time when "press freedom" meant the press printed without editorial and publisher control and pressure exerted by the powerful and well connected is a romantic nonsense.
 
"All the News That's Fit to Print”

Who decides?

Obviously the paper that publishes the stories I like and agree with is the impartial one.
 
bruto said:
I don't much get what the preceding post has to do with Washington Post's decision not to take a stand, unless one is still delusional enough to believe that one must be some kind of radical to oppose Trump. I suppose that's a consequence of his and others' shifting of the center toward the right, but I don't buy it.
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I don't get what it has to do with anything.
 
Andy_Ross said:
When was the press every impartial?
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If you're looking for 100% impartial, no, never. But that's the Nirvana fallacy, where either something is perfect or it doesn't count. It at least tried to appear like it's presenting both points of view on an issue, even when one was dumb, rather than telling the readers what to think. As late as the early 2000's in fact.

But then came the brain-damaged barking puppies on Twitter and the like, taking their reality check just off how many other brain-damaged barking puppies in their pathetic little echo-chamber give them thumbs up and retweets. And suddenly even not being extreme enough compared to their circle-jerk became a mortal offence. Like, suddenly, oh, you're for Linux, but still use Word for compatibility at work, that means you're a Microsoft shill. Or oh, yeah, you're FOR trans-women in the women's bathroom, but think it shouldn't be front-and-centre for the 2016 election, lest it causes people to vote Republican? Then you're literally the worst human ever. (Actual online "advocacy" examples.)

Every little loser troll in their mom's basement suddenly started getting drunk on the new "online advocacy" or "slacktivism" power they imagined they had, and imagining that their life suddenly has meaning because they gave thumbs up and retweets for the right guys, and barked brainlessly at anyone who isn't that extreme.

And the press started taking a hint and devolving into catering for one group or the other of brainless barking puppies. Duly note, starting with Fox, but ultimately the first or last guy to become a brainless bleating bozo is still a brainless bleating bozo.
 
HansMustermann said:
If you're looking for 100% impartial, no, never. But that's the Nirvana fallacy, where either something is perfect or it doesn't count. It at least tried to appear like it's presenting both points of view on an issue, even when one was dumb, rather than telling the readers what to think. As late as the early 2000's in fact.

...snip...
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And that's a strawman as no one made that claim - the comments were about you talking about a mythical time that never happened. The mainstream press at least in the UK and the USA was always controlled by powerful men, indeed it could be argued that we have truer freedom of press today than at any other time - if the "free market" wants it. Perhaps it was different in Germany after WW2?
 
I do not think the above observation by Hans is correct, at least for US newspapers. Newspapers have endorsed candidates for many years. I might argue that, in fact, in bygone years the attempt to appear impartial in reporting has often had the opposite effect, a situation that still occurs - where the major faults of one candidate are minimized compared to the minor faults of another, in order to fabricate an equality that does not exist. One might, for example, wonder that the press in its choice of what it reports represents the current candidates as mere political rivals, considering that one of them is (or so I truly believe) not only politically undesirable but actually incompetent, demented and insane, and could be considered if not outright treasonous, an enemy of our nation's founding principles, and actual reportable events and statements can be put forward in evidence. But apart from that, and often counter to that, many media have long found it appropriate to endorse points of view and candidates, because it has never been in doubt that editors and editorial boards have points of view independent of their reportage.
 
bruto said:
I do not think the above observation by Hans is correct, at least for US newspapers. Newspapers have endorsed candidates for many years. I might argue that, in fact, in bygone years the attempt to appear impartial in reporting has often had the opposite effect, a situation that still occurs - where the major faults of one candidate are minimized compared to the minor faults of another, in order to fabricate an equality that does not exist. One might, for example, wonder that the press in its choice of what it reports represents the current candidates as mere political rivals, considering that one of them is (or so I truly believe) not only politically undesirable but actually incompetent, demented and insane. But apart from that, and often counter to that, many media have long found it appropriate to endorse points of view and candidates, because it has never been in doubt that editors and editorial boards have points of view independent of their reportage.
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I think the biggest change is that many newspapers (as an example of mainstream press) have to work as a business now when in the past they were vanity projects for the rich and whether they made money or not was a secondary thought.
 
Darat said:
I think the biggest change is that many newspapers (as an example of mainstream press) have to work as a business now when in the past they were vanity projects for the rich and whether they made money or not was a secondary thought.
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I doubt that take, personally. Newspapers have long worked as businesses. Their influence and the industry norms in play have changed over time, though. In particular, the spread of TV impacted their influence and style notably, then the internet and social media struck another sizable blow. Serious journalism became far less profitable than it had been, especially for the investment, and there's less money to spend on such in the first place with declines in readership and loss of advertising. There's a fair bit more that can be poked at along those lines, too, especially the marked decline in locally focused news, which has had quite problematic effects overall.

Trying to dismiss newspapers as always having been vanity projects for the rich before is honestly just weird, in my opinion. With the ongoing decline in newspaper revenues and continued consolidation of media in general into fewer and fewer hands, I'd think that the case is far stronger for much the opposite - that the media is in more danger of increasingly becoming vanity projects of the rich now than before. That's not to say that certain very rich people haven't had such vanity projects, but that that's not even close to the whole story.
 
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Darat said:
I think the biggest change is that many newspapers (as an example of mainstream press) have to work as a business now when in the past they were vanity projects for the rich and whether they made money or not was a secondary thought.
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I somehow forgot to hit the button on this post, so I agree with Aridas retroactively, sort of....

That may depend on region and other issues, but I don't think it's entirely true, and in some cases I suspect the opposite. Newspapers used to be profitable, and essential enough to a community that they did not need at the editorial level to represent the political viewpoint of all their readers as long as they didn't go overboard. A radical departure might alienate advertisers enough to abandon a paper, but once upon a time, a paper like the Hartford Courant or even the little old Rutland Herald, could stand as a business, with a reasonable revenue stream from advertising, including classifieds, which have almost entirely gone out of fashion.
 
Must have made my point badly if a couple of people have misunderstood me. I didn't mean that newspapers didn't used to have to make money or weren't businesses when I said they were vanity projects for the rich, powerful men who owned them. What I was meaning was that these men liked the power owning a national newspaper gave them (and this would trickle down to the small local papers owned by the rich and powerful men in the local community), they liked that people would butter them up, that their favour was sought, that they would be considered "king makers", that they were considered the formers of popular opinion in the country (or local town) and so on.

ETA: Murdoch's business life is a good example of this - yes he is a ruthless businessman constantly looking at the bottom line, but he has still held on to some of his "kingmaker" newspapers through thick and thin, still uses them to open doors for him, to influence the public and so on.
 
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Darat said:
I think the biggest change is that many newspapers (as an example of mainstream press) have to work as a business now when in the past they were vanity projects for the rich and whether they made money or not was a secondary thought.
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Most newspapers are even more of a vanity project now than they ever were. Hence the numerous instances of reporters and editors having to kowtow to the owners personal idiocies or whims.
 
Darat said:
Must have made my point badly if a couple of people have misunderstood me. I didn't mean that newspapers didn't used to have to make money or weren't businesses when I said they were vanity projects for the rich, powerful men who owned them. What I was meaning was that these men liked the power owning a national newspaper gave them (and this would trickle down to the small local papers owned by the rich and powerful men in the local community), they liked that people would butter them up, that their favour was sought, that they would be considered "king makers", that they were considered the formers of popular opinion in the country (or local town) and so on.

ETA: Murdoch's business life is a good example of this - yes he is a ruthless businessman constantly looking at the bottom line, but he has still held on to some of his "kingmaker" newspapers through thick and thin, still uses them to open doors for him, to influence the public and so on.
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i got your point
 
According to the Daily Mail Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

How younger Brits are ditching English classics like ham and mustard in favour of fancy woke fillings

www.dailymail.co.uk

Now Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

Popular bread manufacturer Allinson's launched its Great British Sandwich Study to lift the lids on the nation's lunchboxes and reveal their changing tastes for the beloved snack.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
 
I know it's mostly just mush-brained rhetoric and persiflage and all, but I find this sort of thing infuriating. So maybe there's some demographic overlap, but what the ◊◊◊◊ does the choice of what to put in your ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ sandwich either because you like it or think it's better for you have to do with being WOKE? Soon enough the sumptuary police will be monitoring our socks for wokeness, if they're not already. Will we next have to think about the wokeness quotient of our pipe wrenches and toenail clippers?
 
Andy_Ross said:
According to the Daily Mail Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

How younger Brits are ditching English classics like ham and mustard in favour of fancy woke fillings

www.dailymail.co.uk

Now Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

Popular bread manufacturer Allinson's launched its Great British Sandwich Study to lift the lids on the nation's lunchboxes and reveal their changing tastes for the beloved snack.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
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This may be an example where labeling something "woke" is exaggerating / unnecessary. People just like what they grew up with.
 
bruto said:
I know it's mostly just mush-brained rhetoric and persiflage and all, but I find this sort of thing infuriating. So maybe there's some demographic overlap, but what the ◊◊◊◊ does the choice of what to put in your ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ sandwich either because you like it or think it's better for you have to do with being WOKE? Soon enough the sumptuary police will be monitoring our socks for wokeness, if they're not already. Will we next have to think about the wokeness quotient of our pipe wrenches and toenail clippers?
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Although the Daily Fail won't define "woke", it's patently clear that it means "anything we can get a rise out of our readership with".
 
Andy_Ross said:
According to the Daily Mail Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

How younger Brits are ditching English classics like ham and mustard in favour of fancy woke fillings

www.dailymail.co.uk

Now Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

Popular bread manufacturer Allinson's launched its Great British Sandwich Study to lift the lids on the nation's lunchboxes and reveal their changing tastes for the beloved snack.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
Click to expand...
Amazing the kind of rubbish fillings the Daily Heil can make out of advertising bumpf!
 
Andy_Ross said:
According to the Daily Mail Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

How younger Brits are ditching English classics like ham and mustard in favour of fancy woke fillings

www.dailymail.co.uk

Now Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

Popular bread manufacturer Allinson's launched its Great British Sandwich Study to lift the lids on the nation's lunchboxes and reveal their changing tastes for the beloved snack.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
Click to expand...
Goodness, the Fourth Paragraph Reveal has been moved up to the second paragraph!
 
Given the decline in Jaguar sales it really can't worsen matters. But the "anti-woke" mob will jump on anything that suits their prejudices.
 
Andy_Ross said:
According to the Daily Mail Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

How younger Brits are ditching English classics like ham and mustard in favour of fancy woke fillings

www.dailymail.co.uk

Now Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches!

Popular bread manufacturer Allinson's launched its Great British Sandwich Study to lift the lids on the nation's lunchboxes and reveal their changing tastes for the beloved snack.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
Click to expand...
I found it interesting that apparently slicing a sandwich side-to-side instead of diagonal is a symptom of woke. Pretty sure it would be the opposite in the USA.
 
Orphia Nay said:
Looking like a cybertruck is "woke" now?

And there you have it, this thread has gone past rock bottom for the up-tighty-righties.
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Elon should have put electrically powered fake exhaust smoke generators in them to make them more attractive to MAGA buyers. Should have been easy. Blowing smoke is what he does best.
 
arthwollipot said:
The hallmark of an impartial news media is that it pisses off both sides.
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Nope. That's the hallmark of a news media that stirs people up to get them engaged, which is half the reason we are in this mess (and that's a very conservative estimate). They've always done it, but the increased competition from the internet has made it much worse. It used to be that they just had to get people to subscribe to a newspaper or tune to particular radio or TV station. But now people are watching YouTube and using social media where they are constantly being blasted from all sides in an effort to make them follow links to wherever. Who cares how it effects peoples' perceptions - so long as we get those clicks!

How did this happen? In the early days of the internet it was expected that news and information providers would survive on subscriptions, but this business model didn't work out. People were already paying enough just get on the net at all, and then paying for every byte received. Few were willing to pay even more to access the websites they wanted to visit. This situation was ripe for switching to a format where site access is free but you have to put up with onerous advertising.

Of course this model attracted players who weren't concerned about journalistic integrity, especially since regulation was much more lax than on conventional media. It also suffered from a much a lower cost of entry. Anyone who could rustle up a few hundred bucks for their own domain name and website hosting could become a 'publisher' with worldwide coverage. This was heralded as a great thing for 'hobbyists', and it was. But of course it would be abused. It did exactly what you would expect from giving every hyper-partisan nutcase a printing press more powerful than any newspaper at practically zero cost.

The obvious result was that convential media would struggle to survive in a world where where people could get 'news' for free. Their reaction to this was also totally predictable - every news item became clickbait as they desperately tried to keep people on their sites. To make matters worse they lowered their advertizing standards to the point where most of it now borders on spam if not outright fraud, as space is sold to third parties who can put anything they like on it (and that will be anything that brings in money). Finally, to keep costs low they are making use of algorithms to generate content - ranging from targeted advertising that nobody bothers to check, to targeted news that merely serves to amplify reader's biases, to articles generated by AI that doesn't know or care about the difference between fact and fiction.

I shake my head when seeing what mainstream media allow on their sites these days. Sure I could get rid of those adverts and clickbait 'news' links by subcribing, but if they can't even vet that garbage properly why should I give them my money? I stay off them unless I need a cite for something, and stick to commercial product and publicaly funded news sites who don't need to debase themslves to stay alive. Unfortunately however many people don't. They consume that garbage not realizing the harm it is doing to them.
 
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Norman Alexander said:
Elon should have put electrically powered fake exhaust smoke generators in them to make them more attractive to MAGA buyers. Should have been easy. Blowing smoke is what he does best.
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Right. Actually Elon did put stuff in the Cybertruck to make it more attractive to 'MAGA' buyers. If liberals weren't so blinded by partisanship they would know that.

The silly thing is that liberals are now more critical of the Cybertruck than consrvatives - because Elon. Liberals are constanly claiming that Musk is a cretin who just happens to be 'falling up' due to a combination of incredibly good luck and the even lower IQ of fanboys who don't realize they are being conned (somehow being a supposed genius at conning people doesn't count as intelligence). At what point will they admit that it's not just luck? Never of course. At some time in the future - maybe 10 or 20 years from now - something will happen to Tesla and liberals will cry "See, we told you it was all smoke and mirriors!".

Meanwhile 100,000 Volkswagen workers are on strike after their pay was cut as the company faces bankructcy. Nissan's CEO says if they don't turn the company around by the end of 2025 they are finished, as they lay off 9,000 workers and cut production by 20% (not enough!) after sales slumped by 40% and profits by 95%. Stellantis - manufacturer of many iconic brands including Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Fiat, Peugeot, Opel and Maserati - recently fired their CEO for poor performance, and are probably headed for a similar fate. And what do we hear about those companies (and others who are struggling) from liberals? Not a peep. Because they aren't Elon.

What's funnier is that the superior attitude of liberals has helped push Musk into the hands of conservatives - the group that theoretically should be the hardest to get interested in EVs. So if Musk really was an evil genius he might have deliberately acted like he was 'one of them' simply to increase sales. I don't think he is deliberately doing that, but Musk seems to have that knack of making genius moves 'subconsciously'.
 
what an unhinged take.

conservatives suddenly started loving elon when he jumped in on their side of the culture war, bought twitter and changed the moderation to favor them, and now up to the point where he's spent hundreds of millions getting donald trump elected and now hangs out with him all day. the fact that the cybertruck is a dumpster fire is happenstance, but he is a con man for his various stock market manipulations and crypto scams.

the real mystery here is why you think liberals would have some commentary on nissan or volkswagen. is that ceo over sharing his crazy right wing views on twitter and getting involved with politics?

at some point, roger, you're going to realize elon has moved on from saving the planet into making as much money as he can for himself. he's not the guy you thought he was
 
Trebuchet said:
I found it interesting that apparently slicing a sandwich side-to-side instead of diagonal is a symptom of woke. Pretty sure it would be the opposite in the USA.
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It would be over here as well so you can ignore that silliness. It is only because the sandwiches sold in stores are all now packaged cut into two triangles that triangular cut sandwiches are the norm for many. At home people (at least us older folk) don't cut sandwiches into triangles, unless we are having a bout of Hyacinth Bucket.
 
jt512 said:
Jaguar has apparently decided to commit brand suicide.

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catsmate said:
Given the decline in Jaguar sales it really can't worsen matters. But the "anti-woke" mob will jump on anything that suits their prejudices.
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Yep - one wonders how many of the critics were going to buy a "traditional" Jaguar, obviously hardly any as "traditional" Jaguar is no longer a viable business. (And I'm an ex-Jaguar owner, who is now right smack in the "traditional" Jaguar demographic, and I wouldn't buy any of the current models.) The owners must do something different if they want to keep the badge alive. That aside one wonders what is meant to be woke about the concept design?
 
Roger Ramjets said:
Right. Actually Elon did put stuff in the Cybertruck to make it more attractive to 'MAGA' buyers. If liberals weren't so blinded by partisanship they would know that.

[snipped stuff about liberals and failing car companies, etc.]
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The very best you can say about the Cybertruck is it falls between multiple stools: It's not chunky enough to challenge the looks of the monsters like RAM, it's not off-roady enough to cut it off-road, and it's not cool enough to make other truck-owners jealous. That's the best you can say. Reality is it's a disaster as a realised concept, from the moment Elon threw a rock at it and broke the window. He should have stopped development right there.

I will give props to Tesla for their car ideas and designs they have produced, and becoming the world leader in EV's currently. And props to Elon for driving that. But the Cybertruck is truly Tesla's Edsel.

I'm not going to engage you about "liberals" because you generalised in error. I could pick you over point by point, but that is wasted effort on my part. Here's a question for you: See if you can think of one reason why I am not a "liberal", so your rant does not apply.
 
Darat said:
Yep - one wonders how many of the critics were going to buy a "traditional" Jaguar, obviously hardly any as "traditional" Jaguar is no longer a viable business. (And I'm an ex-Jaguar owner, who is now right smack in the "traditional" Jaguar demographic, and I wouldn't buy any of the current models.) The owners must do something different if they want to keep the badge alive. That aside one wonders what is meant to be woke about the concept design?
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I've driven a "traditional" Jag and fund the experience underwhelming. It'll stick to BMW and Mercedes,
 
catsmate said:
I've driven a "traditional" Jag and fund the experience underwhelming. It'll stick to BMW and Mercedes,
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I have had a number of Jags, several XJSs and a couple of XJ saloons.

There's nothing better than a V12 Jag XJS.

Unless it's an 80s Ford RS, Escort or Sierra, I'm not fussy.
 
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