Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Renzatic Gear

Quoting: Mountain ManOne of Joe Biden's many whoppers has already been flagged with an "additional context" notice. That would have never happened under the previous leadership.

I'm pretty sure our news sources fact checking our presidents has been a thing since at least the late 18th century.

First, Twitter isn't a news organization. And second, this is, to my knowledge, the first time Twitter has "fact checked" Joe Biden despite his many, many questionable statements.

I agree that Biden makes many questionable statements. Biden usually lies the way politicians always used to lie in the old days--by omission, by half-truth, by implication. And there isn't that much a fact-checker can say about that kind of thing.

There is a contrast here with Trump, who just lies constantly by simply saying the flat out opposite of reality--simple downright factual lies. Indeed, often things that are the opposite of other things he also said. Many Republican figures seem to have decided to emulate him. It's a very different style (and volume) of falsehood. But it's also something fact-checkers can readily check: These people are claiming things are facts which are totally not facts.

(Biden does sometimes outright lie, but it's usually something the media has already popularized, the kind of lie you can't question without being unpatriotic, like "The United States has the best (X) on earth" or "US intentions in 'international leadership' are benevolent" or such like)

Yeah, I don't really buy your rationalization that old Joe is somehow a more virtuous liar than Trump. :grin:

Clearly, you're capable of buying or not buying whatever you want.

But it's also pretty clear that for sheer volume and ready verifiability of lies, Trump is way ahead of any politician in American history, if only due to social media making it easy to say far more stuff to the public. There's an odd genius in it--Trump realized that in the age of Twitter, he no longer needs to even pretend to tell the truth--that rather than say what he thinks people want to hear within the constraints of some degree of realism, he can just say absolutely whatever he thinks people want to hear, no matter how completely and obviously false and even ridiculous, and even if it both can be and is quickly fact-checked and rebutted, even if anyone who just thinks for ten seconds would know half of it can't be true, none of that matters as long as people want it to be true and some substantial online community will repeat it, creating a resource that those who want to be fooled can go to for their "truth". This lets him pander to people far more completely, spinning whatever fantasy they need, even multiple contradictory fantasies, so there's a big upside.

Given the many channels available to him to pump these fantasies up, the downside prospect of conventional media checking his facts and calling him a liar becomes less important . . . and less important still since American conventional media first created a fairly explicitly Republican wing (notably talk radio, then Fox news) which led to a polarization where nearly all American media is now either Republican or Democrat, neither willing to fact check their own side. Truth was much more important in the Walter Cronkite era, when either party could expect to be excoriated if they got too obviously far from reality in their claims.

Biden, and the Democrats in general, are not so much more honest as more traditionalist.

Right, Joe is a "traditional" liar, so that makes it okay. 🤣

I don't believe I actually said that.

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Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Renzatic Gear

Quoting: Mountain ManOne of Joe Biden's many whoppers has already been flagged with an "additional context" notice. That would have never happened under the previous leadership.

I'm pretty sure our news sources fact checking our presidents has been a thing since at least the late 18th century.

First, Twitter isn't a news organization. And second, this is, to my knowledge, the first time Twitter has "fact checked" Joe Biden despite his many, many questionable statements.

I agree that Biden makes many questionable statements. Biden usually lies the way politicians always used to lie in the old days--by omission, by half-truth, by implication. And there isn't that much a fact-checker can say about that kind of thing.

There is a contrast here with Trump, who just lies constantly by simply saying the flat out opposite of reality--simple downright factual lies. Indeed, often things that are the opposite of other things he also said. Many Republican figures seem to have decided to emulate him. It's a very different style (and volume) of falsehood. But it's also something fact-checkers can readily check: These people are claiming things are facts which are totally not facts.

(Biden does sometimes outright lie, but it's usually something the media has already popularized, the kind of lie you can't question without being unpatriotic, like "The United States has the best (X) on earth" or "US intentions in 'international leadership' are benevolent" or such like)

Yeah, I don't really buy your rationalization that old Joe is somehow a more virtuous liar than Trump. :grin:

Clearly, you're capable of buying or not buying whatever you want.

But it's also pretty clear that for sheer volume and ready verifiability of lies, Trump is way ahead of any politician in American history, if only due to social media making it easy to say far more stuff to the public. There's an odd genius in it--Trump realized that in the age of Twitter, he no longer needs to even pretend to tell the truth--that rather than say what he thinks people want to hear within the constraints of some degree of realism, he can just say absolutely whatever he thinks people want to hear, no matter how completely and obviously false and even ridiculous, and even if it both can be and is quickly fact-checked and rebutted, even if anyone who just thinks for ten seconds would know half of it can't be true, none of that matters as long as people want it to be true and some substantial online community will repeat it, creating a resource that those who want to be fooled can go to for their "truth". This lets him pander to people far more completely, spinning whatever fantasy they need, even multiple contradictory fantasies, so there's a big upside.

Given the many channels available to him to pump these fantasies up, the downside prospect of conventional media checking his facts and calling him a liar becomes less important . . . and less important still since American conventional media first created a fairly explicitly Republican wing (notably talk radio, then Fox news) which led to a polarization where nearly all American media is now either Republican or Democrat, neither willing to fact check their own side. Truth was much more important in the Walter Cronkite era, when either party could expect to be excoriated if they got too obviously far from reality in their claims.

Biden, and the Democrats in general, are not so much more honest as more traditionalist.

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Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: Renzatic Gear

Quoting: Mountain ManOne of Joe Biden's many whoppers has already been flagged with an "additional context" notice. That would have never happened under the previous leadership.

I'm pretty sure our news sources fact checking our presidents has been a thing since at least the late 18th century.

First, Twitter isn't a news organization. And second, this is, to my knowledge, the first time Twitter has "fact checked" Joe Biden despite his many, many questionable statements.

I agree that Biden makes many questionable statements. Biden usually lies the way politicians always used to lie in the old days--by omission, by half-truth, by implication. And there isn't that much a fact-checker can say about that kind of thing.

There is a contrast here with Trump, who just lies constantly by simply saying the flat out opposite of reality--simple downright factual lies. Indeed, often things that are the opposite of other things he also said. Many Republican figures seem to have decided to emulate him. It's a very different style (and volume) of falsehood. But it's also something fact-checkers can readily check: These people are claiming things are facts which are totally not facts.

(Biden does sometimes outright lie, but it's usually something the media has already popularized, the kind of lie you can't question without being unpatriotic, like "The United States has the best (X) on earth" or "US intentions in 'international leadership' are benevolent" or such like)

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Quoting: Nezchan

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: psyminEveryone should get on Mastodon or another federated social media system :)

Well, except for those of us curmudgeons who don't do social media at all.

And yet, here you are in a comment section.

I am very intelligent.

Well, yes. This is media, and it is fairly sociable. But I don't do the things that have been artificially set apart as being social media. :grin:

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Quoting: LanzAs for Twitter, it'll be nice to have equal representation of both sides of the political spectrum for a change.

Well, both of what Americans fondly imagine to be sides of the political spectrum. In real life, the American political spectrum runs from far right (and socially reactionary) to only fairly far right (and socially liberal). I expect, yes, Twitter will be allowing that whole spectrum to express itself.

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Quoting: psyminEveryone should get on Mastodon or another federated social media system :)

Well, except for those of us curmudgeons who don't do social media at all.

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Quoting: LanzThe lack of touchpads, especially the one on the right for aiming, makes this a non-starter. The Steam Deck is a success because of the control it gives the player. Good luck playing competitively against someone with a mouse when all you have is a joystick.

Well, perhaps, but these things already exist and already get sold. Adding SteamOS support is hardly going to make them sell fewer devices.

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Nice that Epic gave it their approval too.

Get outta town! Really?

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Quoting: BlackBloodRum

Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: mphuZDeckard? :whistle:

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Gaben is so overweight. At this point, my biggest fear for Linux is not the death of Linus, but the death of Gaben!

In fairness, my understanding is that he has actually lost a fair bit of weight too and is working on losing more!

PS: We deck owners probably paid for the yacht he is on! :unsure:

Wandering off topic, I've never really understood the thing rich people seem to have for yachts. Particularly the whole "bigger the better" thing. Like, if I was rich I might get a little sail boat, because noodling around on little sail boats is fun. Maybe I'd pay someone to do most of the maintenance, because maintaining little sail boats is not so fun. But when you get into yachts where you have to have like a captain and a crew and most of the time you spend on it you might as well just be in your living room at home except it's like there's a frigging captain and crew in your house with you, what's the point?

(I know, I know, the point is dick measuring)

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Funny thing is, I don't think I've ever actually used Big Picture mode. Never seemed like there was anything I wanted/needed to do that Big Picture mode would give me and the normal, um . . . small picture mode :grin:, wouldn't. Is this likely to change that?

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