BS: Intelligent comments

Subject: BS: Intelligent comments
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 01:18 PM

I HATE it when the Washington Post is this close to reality!



Night of the Opinions

By David Ignatius
Thursday, January 3, 2008; Page A19

If I were writing a horror film about the news business (not so hard to imagine these days), I would invent a diabolical machine called the "Opinion Accelerator."

The Accelerator would take news items and spin them through a network of amplifiers: A story that went in at the emotional level of one decibel would come out at a thousand. The Accelerator would process just one story at a time, but it would be so loud that it drowned out everything else -- until it was replaced by another story, equally deafening. It would be like sitting at a dinner table where there was always only one, shouted conversation.

When the Accelerator really got humming, it would drive people crazy: That would be the hook for my horror movie. It would make a presidential candidate seem unbeatable and then, six months later, make that same candidate look like a loser. It would convince analysts that a faraway war was a cakewalk, then make the identical war seem utterly lost, and then winnable again.

As the Accelerator pumped information around the globe, it would play multiple roles: The amped-up network would be the driver of global capitalism and, at the same time, the command-and-control system for global terrorists. It would convince Muslims that every Western mention of Islam was a profanation -- that calling a teddy bear "Muhammad" was a deadly crime, say. And as an equal-animosity spin machine, it would terrify the West that all Muslims were plotting jihad. It would magnify rage without adding clarity.


Oops, I'm sorry. I think someone already invented my Opinion Accelerator. It's called the Internet.

As the new year begins, we are living in this horror-movie world of supercharged information. News spins so fast on the Web that people seem to have a cocksure opinion about everything, for 15 minutes. Then they have an equally certain opinion about something else. The one sentiment you don't often hear is uncertainty, as in: "I'm not sure what to think" or "I don't know enough to give a good answer."

Looking back over 2007, it's fascinating to see how convinced people were of things that turned out to be wrong. This was an upside-down year: If you were confident of something in June, you were very likely certain of its opposite a few months later.

Iraq was the most obvious example of opinion reversal. Through the middle of the year, Americans seemed to have decided that the war was a disaster. In early summer, Washington politicians in both parties were so rattled they were all but running for the exits. President Bush's surge of 30,000 U.S. combat troops was widely viewed as the act of an isolated leader who had lost touch with reality. Then the numbers began to turn around in Iraq: Violence dropped sharply, and Iraq fell out of the national conversation. What had seemed a lost cause was viewed as so successful it was a bore.

Iran, too, was a land of shattered opinions. That was especially true for U.S. intelligence analysts, who were convinced until midsummer that the Islamic republic was hellbent on building a nuclear weapon and then, by December, judged with "high confidence" that the Iranians had actually halted their bomb-making program in 2003. The Accelerator put these judgments on steroids: We were going to war with Iran one week, declaring surrender the next.

The presidential campaign was equally afflicted by certainties that turned out not to be so certain. Sen. Hillary Clinton appeared invincible midyear, but now, in Iowa and New Hampshire, she's in a near dead heat with Barack Obama. On the Republican side, John McCain looked like a winner, until he was replaced as front-runner by Rudy Giuliani, who was replaced by Mitt Romney, who was replaced by Mike Huckabee. Yikes! No wonder our heads are spinning.

It's not the Opinion Accelerator, you say. Facts change, polls change -- and opinions change along with them. And that's true enough. But what's different now is the way each transitory moment is spun so that it seems immutable.

If 2007 tested our mental compasses, just wait. The one certainty about 2008 is that it will be a year of change. A black man or a woman may be elected president of the United States. A resurgent China will celebrate its new dominance with a showy Olympics. America's war in Iraq, win or lose, will be winding down by year-end.

The Accelerator will be working overtime this year, too. What seems absolutely certain in May may turn out to be totally wrong by November. Just be glad you don't have to make a living expressing opinions.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 01:37 PM

I made 2 graphic pictures of these accelerators, One for elections and the other for news.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 03:01 PM

That is a really excellent piece, BB. We agree completely!! :D



A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 03:28 PM

I agree, too. Well written and quite accurate, imo, for today, at least!**bg**

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: autolycus
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 04:03 PM

Except I'm not sure iwho's that bothered that those whose job is offering opinions keeping saying different things on different days.

I've more than once read an opinion-former make two mutually-contradictory opinions in the same piece!!

I'll take the liberty of repeating "How do you know when you're ill-informed?"

I know I am. One answer can be,"When you're challenged."; another,"When your plans fall flat."

The question then becomes,"How do you know you're ill-informed before either of those things happen?"

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 04:15 PM

A piece of information is just that, a piece. In their rush to astound us, both the media and the blogosphere all too often try to make a piece into a whole story. It's a bit like taking a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and trying to extrapolate what the entire picture is going to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 04:16 PM

What are the tests for complete data?

No internal inconsistencies in your information, for one thing -- as these are often signs of omitted data.

The data you have is not blindly accepted from authority without some sort of reality check.

The data aligns with new information in the area of interest as it is acquired.

The sequences make sense -- the flow of events in time is understandable and consistent with what you know about how things work.

These are a few obviosu checkpoints. People using these often just call it "intuition" but it boils down to some sort of clanging collision of illogical data at some level or other.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 04:36 PM

Journalistic truth is either too expensive or too unpopular to the well heeled to be broadcast or published. It has become customary to have a bevy of pundits exress their "expert" truthiness and call that news...ie opinions that you are expected to believe and or obey.

To become a 2nd tier pundit you must be at least; a Col. or a brigadeer General, a think tank spokesperson, spokesperson for a candidate or Corporation or a media whore for hire to say what ever you are told to say. Cabinate chiefs or the heads of various security branches of the government like Homeland Security all make first tier pundits.
An education at Annapolis or Yale and Harvard used to be prerequisites for punditry but alas...
Punditry classes are now available at Regents University.

The pundits today are speaking the loudest by not saying what we already know. The last engine for our economy, low interest home and property speculation and derivitive sales, has popped like a mega bubble with nothing to take its place.
Engines for the ecomomy historicly have been dotton commodities, the Louisiana Purchase, the Civil War, Manufacturing, WW1&2, Korean war/cold War and the War on Terror which is either going to wind down or go ballistic in 4 years.

America will try to raise taxes but in the end, services and jobs will be eliminated from the towns and cities across this land. A new hobo culture will arise and Mexico will look better in comparison as time goes by.

You have said that many of the pundits close to the white house are behaving like rats on a sinking ship. Bill Crystal, Pearle are seldom heard from while Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have new totally sound proof offices.

Pundits may have crafted carefuly spun 180 degree truth in whispers or at the top of their lungs for a long time now.
Now it kinda makes me nervous to hear what the pundits are not saying anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 05:00 PM

My daddy used to say "he's just talkin' to hear his head rattle."

That's what some of it feels like to me these days. It's so easy to post an opinion that folks decide they need to BE an 'opinion giver' whether they have any credentials, expertise or even sense of the real issues.

   I remember some 'advice to budding authors' many years ago....it said to ask yourself: "Do I have something inside myself that must be said, or do I just 'want to have written a book'?"

Even on TV I see pundits changing their outlook and 'spin' over a period of years...the better to 'fit' into the prevailing set of discussions and thereby keep the attention of boss and audience.....and keep their job, of course.
   Why does the song "The Vicar of Bray" pop into my head?

In the meantime, these people have a position that really CAN affect the mood of the voters, depending on what they choose to emphasize.

It's really a shame....what they need to do is give ME the job.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 05:02 PM

You want to be the Mudcat Opinionator?

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 06:48 PM

I thought I had a lifetime seat on that subcommittee assured already.

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 06:54 PM

Remember that the candidate you think will win in May can be nothing in November.

VOTE RAPAIRE!! If elected he'll resign as soon as possible!

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 07:31 PM

But he will not resign until he's given me the commission to create the 500-place set of dinnerware to be used at official functions! (Each president does get to chose his own chinaware pattern, you know.) But Rapaire is too down to earth for chinaware. He wants stoneware. Big, massive stoneware that would look at home in the castle of some pre-Norman king. $200 per place setting.... 500 settings.... Wow! I better buy another kiln!

VOTE FOR RAPAIRE!

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 09:55 AM

Intelligent comments aside, If we lived in Bizzarro world 2 >>>
what cartoon character, animated or not, would you guys vote for?

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 10:16 AM

Rapaire has a strong chance of leading one of the ...what is that flat area called again?...oh...Idaho caucuses, where eight people show up in a room and go to different corners depending on their preferred candidate. In Pocatello, IDaho, one of the area caucuses will be held at the Pocatello Library, and the break-out there will be five people in Rapaire's corner versus three people and a miniature dog in Mrs. Lapham's corner. Of course, her campaign literature was a small book of recipes from her grandmother printed on her Epson RX80. If she wins the caucus she has a deal in the wings with Kinko's. But it is not likely, because Rapaire has a secret weapon -- screensavers.

Every workstation in the library, both staff and those used for public access, has the same screensaver, showing a smiling Rapaire in a straw hat with red-white-and-blue band, a donkey pin on one lapel and an elephant pin in the other, and the slogan underneath "He'll Resign BEfore You KNow It!!". These screensavers cannot be turned off without a password, which happens to be !skcuAeriapaR (case sensitive).

I am sure someone will notice this and there will be a scandal. After the results are in.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 12:33 PM

All joking aside, the Obama win in Iowa could be a very important harbinger of the American Reformation of the 21st Century, a historic epoch in which decency, intelligent thought, human compassion and fiscal prudence change the landscape of our national identity and our place in the world.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 12:57 PM

Intelligent comments aside, If we lived in Bizzarro world 2 >>>
what cartoon character, animated or not, would you guys vote for?


   Snagglepuss, because he would "Exit, stage right!"

Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: autolycus
Date: 05 Jan 08 - 07:05 AM

i Subject: RE: BS: Intelligent comments
From: Amos - PM
Date: 03 Jan 08 - 04:16 PM

What are the tests for complete data?

No internal inconsistencies in your information, for one thing -- as these are often signs of omitted data.

The data you have is not blindly accepted from authority without some sort of reality check.

The data aligns with new information in the area of interest as it is acquired.

The sequences make sense -- the flow of events in time is understandable and consistent with what you know about how things



makes an interesting comparison with this from bb's original Washington Post quote:-


i The one sentiment you don't often hear is uncertainty, as in: "I'm not sure what to think" or "I don't know enough to give a good answer"



They are,imo, good tests Amos, and I think only all-knowingness (aka omniscience) can have complete data. We people, on de udder hent, are necessarily limited. The tests go a very very long towards the light tho' they are flawed,IMO. (the curse of a little philosophical and other trainings.)


Maybe the moto of the internet, and of print too, might be "I don't know enough but that doesn't stop me going on and on, and believe me, I know what I'm talking about."


Ivor