Tag Archives: persuasion

See that full stop at the end of the last sentence there [in The Atlantic quote of Wikileaks]? That’s journalistic malpractice. Selective editing in one way spin and disinformation get created. Another is selective reporting that omits relevant facts. This is how propaganda works to create faked news. The author of the Atlantic article, Julia Ioffe, put a period rather than a comma at the end of the text about not wanting to appear pro-Trump or pro-Russia, and completely omitted WikiLeaks’...

Epistemology rather than economics. Epistemological absolutism holds that there are absolute criteria and methods available for applying them to gain certain knowledge. Epistemological relativism holds that there are neither. Without getting into the weeds about this, suffice it to say that this epistemological distinction is not particularly relevant to the point that Professor Ruccio makes in the post, which revolves around mistaking ideology for fact. Here he is spot on and can be...

In the past, America has witnessed “McCarthyism” from the Right and even complaints from the Right about “McCarthyism of the Left.” But what we are witnessing now amid the Russia-gate frenzy is what might be called “Establishment McCarthyism,” traditional media/political powers demonizing and silencing dissent that questions mainstream narratives.... It's about Establishment control of the narrative that establishes consensus reality. Consortium NewsRussia-gate Breeds ‘Establishment...

The Master Persuader redux. Scott Adams' BlogI Explain the Persuasion Techniques President Trump is using on The Wall and DACAScott Adams

The epistemological  and logic problems are not due to either models or their assumptions but rather misinterpreting what a model says about the world realisitically. Models are necessarily simplifications, since their purpose is to encapsulate as well as explain. The probems arise typically in assumptions about the application of models as accounts of real events.  A major issue is over-generalizing by taking a model that illustrates a special cases and extending its scope to other...

The topic we are focusing on is monologism, the practice of presenting one’s voice as pure and singular, unquestionably true, and, in the case of groups, unified. Monologism is a common feature of religious and political projects The categorical versus the dialectical approach. OUPblogInfrequently asked questions: The Monologic Imagination Julian Millie and Matt Tomlinson

Books. JSTOR Daily  America’s Unlikely Cold War WeaponErin Blakemore

In The role of literary fiction in perpetuating neo-liberal economic myths – Part 1, I noted introduced the idea that fictional literature plays a significant role in framing false economic concepts and, thus, can promotes neo-liberal biases among the readership, even when the plot of the narrative is ostensibly about something other than economics. In other words, what parades as fiction becomes a powerful tool for spreading ideological propaganda, often in a very subliminal or subtle way....

Algorithms are opinions embedded in code. It’s really different from what you think most people think of algorithms. They think algorithms are objective and true and scientific. That’s a marketing trick. It’s also a marketing trick to intimidate you with algorithms, to make you trust and fear algorithms because you trust and fear mathematics. A lot can go wrong when we put blind faith in big data. Naked CapitalismData Scientist Cathy O’Neil: “Algorithms Are Opinions Embedded in Code” Cathy...