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[G-Flex]

There's an absolute difference between Fox and any rational cause

A cause ceases to be rational when people believe in it for irrational reasons, or based on lies. How exactly can you call a cause "rational" when it's no longer even based on the truth?

If you made a 100% truthful documentary about how fucking horrible we are for using slave labor to build our little toys, no one would fucking watch it. They don't care.

Er... then why was this man's story at all effective? Most of what he said was at least sort of based in truth, and could have been effectively researched and made into a story that was both effective and truthful. It just would have required a bit more journalistic/investigative legwork.

People like that are not worthy of the truth, they don't fucking deserve it, because when presented with it and the inescapable conclusion that if they paid a few dollars more for their Ipad, then they could drastically improve slave level labor conditions, they don't care. They just don't care.

... And what about the rest of us? What about the people who do have the potential to care? Do they deserve to be lied to and manipulated as well in order to serve your own version of the truth? Do you deserve that? Not to mention that this story being effective on a person means that person isn't totally apathetic in the first place, so the people you're saying "deserve" this are the very same people who won't react to it meaningfully in the first place.

What makes you think that, apparently, you're the only person who should be making decisions based on what the actual truth is? Yes, there are causes worth lying for, but here the cause starts with making people aware of what the truth is. Do you really think it's at all rational, logical, or ethical to inform people of the truth by lying to them? That doesn't even make sense. At that point, it's not even about the truth, it's just about who can lie more effectively, and you're no better than a Fox News contributor telling lies about, say, Planned Parenthood. You might say "but it's okay if I do it, because I'm the one who's correct" but the entire meaning of "correct" or "true" goes out the window when what is seen as "true" is not even based in truth to begin with, which is exactly what happens when you further an opinion, a cause, or a perspective based on lies and other irrational behavior.

Fox News, on the other hand, is not only in it for their own gain, but also for the suffering of others to get that gain. Moreover, Fox News LOVES an uninformed public and does everything it can to keep the truth from said public, again for its own gain. Meanwhile this guy's lies actually managed to get people talking about an important factual, true issue, that if we actually gave a fuck about it would help millions of disadvantaged people we exploit for cheap material wealth.

That's sort of a point, but what about the hardcore conservatives who do legitimately believe that they're right and that their viewpoint is correct and should be encouraged for the good of the country/people/world? Is it okay for them to lie in order to do that? Is intent really enough to justify that?

Not to mention that propaganda has its own terrible way of shooting itself in the foot. Here, TAL's reputation probably took a hit, or at least would have if they hadn't retracted the story, Mike Daisy looks like a total ass, and everything he said gets called into question. Yes, he dredged up some support for the cause by doing this, but it didn't have to be done that way. It could have been done honestly.

Lie more. Just lie better next time, because the lie wasn't the problem. The lie was good, the lie made a couple overprivileged morons think about the consequences of their actions for once. The problem was that he got caught lying and didn't do a good job being convincing and thus ended up hurting the cause he was promoting.

If you need to lie to someone in order to convince them of something, then that's not something they should be convinced of. Making people think about things is great, but causing their opinions to be partially based on erroneous information is not, can be harmful in the long term to the cause itself, and is just goddamn unnecessary in addition to being unethical.

Lying is a tool like anything else. It's how you use it, why, and to what end. Lying is often the only thing that works, because people can't handle the truth, don't want the truth, and won't listen to the truth.

It's pretty ironic you keep saying things like this, even though the entire point of this lie was to expose people to what the truth is, and the actual truth of the matter is very, very similar to the lie that was told anyway; the untrue parts were mostly for dramatic effect. Evidently, the people who responded to this story did respond to the truth, or at least some rough facsimile thereof, and would have also responded to a well-told story that also happened to be grounded more in reality. What makes you think people "can't handle" the truth or "don't want it", yet do want the story that was told, which is even more heartbreaking and dramatic than what actually happened? Hell, that's exactly why it was effective; because it was very much what people don't like to hear. A real journalist, or even that same guy, with a little more effort, could have done some reporting and constructed a narrative that was just as compelling without requiring lies or embellishment.

Good lies, white lies, large or small, are how we deal with the fact that the world is fucked up and many of its people are evil. Lies aren't the problem; lies are sometimes the solution. The problem is bad motives and doing things for the wrong reasons. Lie. Lie your fucking head off, but do it for the right reasons and be damn good and sure about that before you do it.

I never meant to imply that lying is wrong, and a lot of your strangely personal rambling here is pretty out of place. I'm aware that lying can sometimes be okay. What I don't believe is that using lies and propaganda in order to promote one's version of the truth is okay. It's not. That is, historically speaking, how some incredibly bad trends have started socially and politically, and it's completely averse to the concept of truth in the first place.

[fqllve]

and everything he said gets called into question.

This is what I see as the biggest problem with what Daisey did. By suggesting that his embellished monologue was journalism he traded immediate benefit toward his cause for later potential damage to that same thing. Hopefully TAL's retraction has mitigated that but it doesn't change the fact that there are assuredly some people out there who feel so betrayed and alienated by the whole escapade that they either no longer believe anything he said is true or they no longer care if it is. Not only that, but Daisey has provided more ammunition for people who didn't care in the first place.

What he did was extremely short-sighted, damaging, and as has been said, completely unnecessary anyway.

[Capntastic]

G-Flex I'm not gonna bother quoting your last post or replying line by line but you're trying really hard to provoke an argument of moral superiority by trying to say I 'approve' of Daisy's actions and 'encourage' them, when I have said and continue to say what he did was wrong and dumb and hurts his own cause.  I'm not saying everyone needs to agree on all things forever, but you're sort of being aggressive as heck, to the point of misconstruing things I've said multiple times for clarity, because of people not having the same reaction to the same degree as you.

Truean's case here is that most of the lies Daisy told about poisoned, injured, or underaged workers, as well as squalid living conditions, actually do happen- just not to him.  So, while Daisy's account isn't factual by any means, there is a lot of 'truth' in it, from an informational standpoint.  For your sake G-Flex, I'll say for maybe the second or third time that it does not excuse his lack of being upfront about his level of veracity. 

So in the name of moving on amicably, Daisy is literally Satan the Great Deceiver, case closed.

[Truean]

^^^^

This.

Also, [sigh] I just spent roughly [looks at watch] 20 minutes composing a reply to that which is 7 pages long in microsoft word, but I noticed Capntastic's post while I was previewing it. It had Santa and office thermostats, a hypothetical about convincing people littering would cause some make believe disease in order to make them pick up their stupid trash instead of leaving it all over the park, and lots of other stuff, about how it's perfectly OK to satire a bit like in my last post.

Capn's right though, there's only one way this line can go from here: down. So I'm gonna save it on my hard drive and move on.

We tell kids to brush their teeth because if they don't, "they will all fall out." Maybe they won't all fall out, but dental problems are real.... Try explaining that to a 5 year old with a wall of factual text approach and it doesn't work.

[G-Flex]

G-Flex I'm not gonna bother quoting your last post or replying line by line but you're trying really hard to provoke an argument of moral superiority by trying to say I 'approve' of Daisy's actions and 'encourage' them, when I have said and continue to say what he did was wrong and dumb and hurts his own cause.  I'm not saying everyone needs to agree on all things forever, but you're sort of being aggressive as heck, to the point of misconstruing things I've said multiple times for clarity, because of people not having the same reaction to the same degree as you.

I'm looking at the last post I made in response to you, and I honestly don't see any of that. I was just explaining why I reacted to it strongly (even though worse lies happen on a daily basis) and why it mattered to me. I don't think you were trying to "approve of" or "encourage" it.

Truean's case here is that most of the lies Daisy told about poisoned, injured, or underaged workers, as well as squalid living conditions, actually do happen- just not to him.  So, while Daisy's account isn't factual by any means, there is a lot of 'truth' in it, from an informational standpoint.  For your sake G-Flex, I'll say for maybe the second or third time that it does not excuse his lack of being upfront about his level of veracity.

I understand that, but in my response to Truean, that portion I bolded is what I was trying to say. Truean is excusing Daisy's lack of being upfront.


Also: I don't think Mike Daisy is some incredibly awful demonic being. I listened to TAL's retraction episode, and I felt bad for the guy. I was a little surprised he came back to the show, and that he apologized at all, even if he tried to cover his own ass a bit. It was obviously an incredibly awkward situation, and I'm inclined to believe his explanation for why he wasn't very up-front with TAL's producers, although I can't assume it.

[alway]

Yeah, after listening to that, I would not want to be on the receiving end of a PO'ed Ira Glass.

In unrelated news, Utah's governor vetoed the bill from this post I made a few days ago:

http://thedailywh.at/2012/03/06/abstinence-only-bill-of-the-day/

Abstinence-Only Bill of the Day: With the nation’s attention trained on the media’s breathless coverage of Super Tuesday, Utah’s legislature this evening quietly passed a bill requiring schools to teach abstinence-only sex education, or else skip the classes altogether.

Additionally, both teachers and students would be prohibited from discussing contraception and homosexuality in the classroom.

Senator Stuart Reid (R-Ogden) said the legislation takes sex ed out of the hands of teachers “who we have no idea what their morals are” and turns it over to parents.

ಠ_ಠ

Though with an odd quote from the bill's supporter:

The legislation’s co-sponsor, Sen. Margaret Dayton (R), expressed her disappointment at the governor’s decision, saying she found teaching students about contraception akin to telling them to avoid drugs while showing them how to “mainline” heroin.

[Darvi]

Somebody tell me that man's name so I can spare him from my plots.

[Truean]

So in the name of moving on amicably, Daisy is literally Satan the Great Deceiver, case closed.

I understand that, but in my response to Truean, that portion I bolded is what I was trying to say. Truean is excusing Daisy's lack of being upfront.

I thought we were moving on from this? No? I've repeatedly said satire is ok. Swift wasn't really saying we should eat the babies in "A Modest Proposal." Done please?

[Heron TSG]

I guess... someone could sign into her account, change the password, and then email the new one to her?

GlyphGryph is a girl? I could have sworn that [pronoun?] was a he.

I'm glad that the governor of Utah realized the errors inherent in that bill's "plan".

[kaijyuu]

Anyone with a brain and not stuck in some fantasy world would.


Utah occasionally brushes with sanity. I think we just have different baggage than the other heavily conservative states, though.

[Reelya]

Considering the fact that parents have to opt in, in writing, to the current sex ed classes, which most do, really drives home how silly this new Utah law was. You're not just saying teachers don't know their own morals, you're saying the government knows better than the parents.

I for one was really turned on learning about venereal diseases and condoms [/sarcasm]

[RedKing]

So my insane Tea Party fundamentalist co-worker (who doesn't have a clue as to my political leanings) breathlessly regales me this morning with stories of how Obama has passed a new executive order that makes him God-Emperor for Life. Quick scan of the Googlesphere shows a lot of furor over it on the right-wing blogs and such, but no coverage in anything that I'd call a credible or mainstream source. Anybody heard anything about this order?

[scriver]

...I... What?

[Frumple]

I guess RK's referring to this. The order itself, anyway. Haven't read it, because I'm both too sleepy to think straight and probably have no idea what the wording entails even without that. Someone else can dissect it

[RedKing]

Yeah, that's the one. I've glossed over it a couple of times, and it doesn't seem that wild to me. Basically "if the shit hits the fan, the government has the power to step in and redirect resources as needed to address war priorities/disaster response". I keep seeing all this talk about how it gives Obama dictatorial powers in peacetime, but I'll be damned if I can see where they're pulling that from.

The Paulites have already concocted a conspiracy theory that this is in advance of Israel launching airstrikes against Iran, and that Obama is preparing for a long multi-year war with Iran as a result and is going to use this to ensure American compliance without Congressional approval. So...yeah.