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I couldn’t help but laugh uproariously when I re-read Ben’s screed from four years ago; particularly when he claimed: “I know how to resist Clinton.” Oh, sure you did, Ben! We the People spent the next 30+ months entangled in NYT, WP and CNN anonymously sourced reports on Russian pee tapes, et al, to include years of Presidential investigations we now know were falsely sourced directly from a woman who made the term Nixonian seem like a lukewarm bath by comparison. Today, we can all thank Twitter and Facebook for blocking on our behalf all those terrible fake news stories to keep us safe in their warm light at long last. Uff da. Hell hath no fury, Ben. Your resistance was a futile as mine.
You read this article and your reaction is whatabout Clinton? C’mon, man.
The phrase ‘fiat news’ has so easily entered our lexicon, who says Latin is a dead language. Time negative news is more objective a description, because it was a waste of my time reading or listening to it, maybe neg-news.
However reading the article was a delight, somehow!
Where I live, few people would know the Latin for let there be. My guess is the fiat descriptor comes from academia, a top down creation of vulgar language by the elite.
Haha, well, you’re not wrong. I’m pretty sure Ben first coined the term to refer to news which “declares” the meaning of a thing, thereby devaluing true news and distinguishing it from “fake” news. And to be fair, Ben is both vulgar AND an academic.
Ben a vulgademic? Enjoyed the piece. Thanks Rusty.
When I want to get at an issue or news item I try and read at least 4 to 5 pieces with at least 1 dissenting view. What I am experiencing is that the “news” cycle transforms so fast that about the time I have been able to locate, read, think about and decide upon a research item it has been become obsolete as a current issue or the way it has morphed makes it almost unrecognizable and I can’t compare it to my previous sources.
There is still personal value in building a foundational understanding of the issue and the ability to move forward knowing the homework was done, however, it feels that I am constantly behind the curve in having an informed opinion on the “news” of the day.
My perception is that the velocity of the news is always increasing and the duration of most news items is constantly diminishing.
Well, not quite, Ben. But Rusty did invite me to review your 2016 piece and I addressed the success of our resistance to the most significant political bag of tricks that ever came our way in our lifetime. Of course, I was then asked to listen while Rusty disinterestedly picked at the Hunter political scab and the gooey political scab of Trump’s taxes. I suppose his point is that we live in an era of brilliant yellow journalism and that trusting the news is futile. Naturally, I agree. Rusty ends with the call to BITFD; and when I follow his argument, I am led to a list of projection rackets. I don’t think I need to go beyond the first IT: Our two-party system. Having voted in every election in my 60+ year lifetime for an alternative party, I can easily say from experience that the two-party system is here to stay. Resistance is futile. Clearly, the call to BITFD will get us nowhere, as well, since IT has already BITFD. I prefer the strategy of BITFU, or build-it-the-fuck-up. I’m looking for a robust way to survive and perhaps even help my people thrive among the fires and ashes the rapidly growing number of BITFD people are blowing my way. I am still hoping for some help in that regard from you two guys.
What I particularly like about these articles from Ben and Rusty is that they consistently “open my eyes” to the inherent biases I have.
They often have me scurrying back to my well thumbed “Thinking Fast and Slow” Daniel Kahneman’s great book on how the mind works.
Yet in the quietest moments ( where my most accurate thoughts tend to originate) I agree with some of “underyourhat “ .i too am in my 60+ year and I too have had a varied and anti-establishment voting past.
He makes good points, I’d like Rusty and Ben to address them fairly ( like I know they can).
Perhaps we can all learn from their rebuttal.
But the vulgate {common language} might last a generation or more.
Ancient roman latin/ old english hybrid phrases will probably not survive long on Twitter etc.