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cyberbarf THE AGE OF IGNORANCE COMMENTARY Historians may look back at the first two decades of the 21st Century as the Digital Technology Revolution, but it could also be labeled as the Age of Ignorance. The explosion of the Information Age has overwhelmed individual's methodology of acquiring, understanding, remembering and valuing factual statements. Wikipedia is not the Encyclopedia Britannica. It was never intended to be the authoritative treatise on all subjects. It was created under the original internet principle of groups sharing information to maintain a collective database of information. But since it is not curated by fact checkers but by volunteers, pages and information can be hacked, misstated or misleading. |
cyberbarf VOLUME 18 NO.10 EXAMINE THE NET WAY OF LIFE JUNE, 2019
IN THIS ISSUE:
THE AGE OF IGNORANCE KNOW WHEN TO FOLD EM FOUND BUT NOT LOST ON THE INTERNET iTOONS WHETHER REPORT
©2019 Ski Words, Cartoons & Illustrations All Rights Reserved Worldwide Distributed by pindermedia.com, inc
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When a reddit subgroup can spread a prank about the OK sign being adopted by white supremacy groups as a power sign, the world goes insane when a patron on a live Cubs broadcast uses an OK sign below the waste in an old school yard punching game. The team does not care what the intent of the person in the stands when it banned him for life. The snap judgment and lack of factual investigation now controls over objective standards of due process. Social media trolls have the perfect exosphere to rile up people. There is no responsibility, accountability or liability for lies, slander or bullying on-line targets. President Trump's Twitter account has been called a non-stop, raging dumpster fire of a king troll. People are too sensitive to comments to demand action without context or confirmation of events. But this is not new. In September, 1922, bands of thugs terrorized New York City residents by indiscriminately starting fights with men on the street. Some used nailed bats to hit men. For three days, riots gripped the city. It was finally determined that a band of young men decided to carry out a prank based upon an unwritten, faux pas fashion rule. At the time, it was thought that at the end of summer, September 15th, men should no longer wear straw hats but change to winter felt. The youth decided to attack men wearing straw hats three days ahead of the fashion deadline because there were many men still wearing them. There was no reason for their actions except to cause trouble. In NYC history, it was called the Straw Hat Riots. History books are filled with stupid people doing stupid things. But today, they have an international forum to create mayhem. |
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Why is this happening on a daily basis? Internet culture has (de)evolved into a swamp of questionable decision making processes. First, the myth that all information on the Internet is true. Anyone with two thumbs can post anything on the net. Second, students are being trained at an early age to rely upon “looking it up on the web” as a means of learning important events and information. Instead of going to a library, to read authoritative textbooks on the subject matter, students can get by by cutting and pasting on-line summaries. Third, the average person does not question or ask about the sources of the posted information. Is it written by a Nobel laureate or a housewife in New Jersey? Fourth, as a result of easy web access to information, people are retaining less knowledge. People have access to more information than ever before but have no incentive to memorize important facts. Fifth, without retained knowledge, people have a hard time doing applied knowledge in their everyday lives. Most people would know Walt Disney has theme parks and makes movies. But many people who know about the company may not know how big a conglomerate it is or how it makes money off you. With the Fox merger, Disney is now a huge player in entertainment and information services. Sixth, social engineering has permeated the culture with a “group think” mentality on how to view the world. Political correctness on college campuses has lead to strange censorship of student ideas and opinions. It is easier to go with the flow than to have an independent thought. Seventh, laziness can pay off. People are conditioned to put in the least amount of effort to get a desired result. Some students will study hard to get straight As. Other students will do less work to get Bs and Cs so they have time to do sports, play video games or dream about being a SNS influencer. If the Kardashians can become millionaires for doing nothing and contributing zero to our collective intelligence, why cannot me? Lastly, American society now is filtered through the meat grinder of politics. Everything is judged through a biased political spectrum. There is no public discourse of facts on the issues to come to a common solution. You do not have to do any heavy lifting (research, experiments, analysis) to have a political opinion when the Internet is filled with like-minded people. This is why there is gridlock in Washington D.C. The elected officials do not have to solve anything when they can get re-elected by trashing their opponents for the amusement of their base voters. A politician can even misstate basic facts (“the sky is yellow”) and still get unwavering support for their position. There are still a great number of people who still value factual information. But they are concerned that the general public is becoming more immune from what is true and what is false. Journalism is a profession where reporters seek to inform their readers with the news events of the day. Reporters are trained to gather information by interviewing sources, eyewitnesses, experts; reviewing documents, articles and visual evidence. Their objective is to write truthful stories of public interest. Journalists also follow rules of ethics which give them creditability in what they publish. But the journalism profession is being eroded by the digital world. The print newspaper is dying. The digital newspaper is lost in a sea of other web diversions. A strong local newspaper was the citizens last check-and-balance against government abuse. A strong national newspaper was the country's check on the three branches of federal government. A free press insures freedoms of the nation's citizens. But today's average web surfer has no knowledge of the importance of journalism in the founding of the United States. An average web surfer probably does not know how investigative journalists can bring to light the corruption of a president (Nixon) to the injustice of innocent people on death row. The average web surfer today is more interested in themselves than history. This Me Generation is generational, as the post WWII Baby Boomers have been classified as the most narcissistic demographic. If a headline, a link or a web image does not immediately affect them, they will skip it to find something that they can connect with (and share on their social media page). The average person's consumption of the Internet is more based upon enhancing their feelings than altering their mindset with new, contradictory facts. It does not help that the journalism industry is contracting at an alarming rate. The traditional source of verifiable information has been pared down to barely functioning shells of its former glory. As a result, there are less reporters gathering the news. With less news (especially local in weak chain newspapers), there are less subscribers and readers. With less readers, there is less revenue so companies continue to lay off staff. Media conglomerates have attempted to shift their focus to dilute their principles in order to try to collect more revenue. Writers assigned to do “sponsored content,” which is basically advertising copy thinly veiled in the style of an actual news story. Some publications have gone farther to appeal to the bias of their target audience. The RAND Corporation has found that U.S.-based journalism has gradually shifted away from objective news to offer more opinion based content that appeals to emotion and relies heavily on argumentation and advocacy. Researchers found that the changes occurred over a 28 year-period (1989 to 2017) as journalism expanded beyond traditional media, such as newspapers and broadcast networks, to newer media, such as 24- hour cable channels and digital outlets. The research provided quantitative evidence for what we all can see in the media landscape: Journalism in the U.S.. has become more subjective and consists less of the objective news gathering. A result of this shift in journalism, is the perception against news organizations and journalists. A freelance reporter in San Francisco had his home raided by police who wanted to gather evidence of the reporter's source of a police investigation. The police wanted to find their leaker at the expense of the reporter's legal rights (California has a reporter shield law which states that reporters cannot be compelled to reveal their sources.) But the city tried to claim that since the reporter was not employed by a media company, he was not protected by the law. First Amendment advocates said that was ridiculous. The First Amendment and the Constitution protects all publishers and speakers. The freelancer was performing exactly the same function as any other journalist: he gathered information on an important story and packaged it for publication. Governments are also claiming that “citizen” journalists, locals who run their own web blogs on community news, do not have any journalism protections. These proactive citizens fill the void at many local school and city council meetings where the local media no longer cover. But government officials do not want their meetings covered because they want to control the message to voters. Freedom of Information Requests are coming harder to get because cities and officials would rather not comply and have people go through various appeals processes until they give up. The lack of transparency in how government operates leads to an uninformed electorate. Either citizens are unaware of critical issue or worse, they just do not care. They would be rather ignorant to how their tax dollars are (mis)spent than to read an article or first person blog story. It is probably because people now feel so empowered by their smartphone. It gives them access to a greater world than themselves. It entertains, it kills time, it connects to family and friends but it does not necessarily inform. But to hold a smartphone in your hand gives one the sense of understanding of all knowledge. Everythng is at your finger tips. That is just ignorant.
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cyberbarf KNOW WHEN TO FOLD EM TECHNOLOGY
Samsung is a major electronics firm that wants to be the leader in innovation. It decided that the world needed a hand held smartphone that could turn itself into a small tablet. Despite that smartphones have grown larger than the waistline of an average American office worker, Samsung wants to double the screen space with its new Galaxy Fold. Motorola pioneered the concept of a phone transforming its form and function with its original flip phone. Advances in thin phone screens allowed Samsung to try to fold a screen upon itself. The membrane would be one piece with no seam when the phone is expanded to its full size. Tech reporters and reviewers got advanced phones to test. The results were not good. Many reviewers found that once the Fold is unfolded, there was a crease down the middle of the expanded screen. Others found that taking off the protective screen film was the cause for many surface scratches. Samsung would later say that the protective film was supposed to stay on the phone screen. But really took reviewers and the public was the one question: why? Why do we need a folding phone to increase screen territory? Anyone can buy a small tablet with cell service and wireless service plans that can act as a supersized smart phone (with Internet connectivity). The Galaxy Fold seems to want to be a mini-tablet and a pocket phone. The two appear to be incompatible. Some opine that the seam issue with a single screen is the daunting problem with the Fold. But Samsung claims that it has fixed the issues so it will forge ahead with full launch later this year. A few have remarked that it would be better just to have two separate screens when the device unfolds - - - where you can actually have dual, independent screens. You could then have two separate programs running at the same time (such as an email on one side and your schedule on the other). But Samsung stubbornly wants to be the first to perfect the single folding screen phone. There is also a question whether is a real market for the Galaxy Fold. It is expensive. So much so that a tablet is a real alternative. It is also unproven technology which turns off the casual shopper. Durability is an issue as most consumers are holding on to their smartphones longer. Refresh cycles are getting longer for phone manufacturers to the point where many, like Apple, are pushing new service revenue sources to make up for hardware revenue shortfalls. The Fold may turn into one of those ahead of their time devices like the Apple Newton personal assistant. cyberbarf FOUND BUT NOT LOST ON THE INTERNET
In-N-Out Burger, the famous burger chain from California, opened its first pop-up store in Seoul, South Korea. The store opened for only a one day, three hour event. People traveled for hours to come to the store. The store was scheduled to open at 11 am and close at 2 pm with only 250 burgers to sell. It sold out with a long line of patrons waiting for a taste of one of the three burger styles being sold. The pop-up marketing event has become a staple for some retailers to gauge their brand recognition in a new market before investing great capital. Source: koreaboo
A cable show mentioned a long forgotten soda brand, it becomes a trendy, retro item. In 1993, Coca-Cola tried to launch a new soda, OK, for the next generation of dystopian cool. Like New Coke (which is also going to have a soft re-launch), OK soda was a failure. Having grown up in this era, we do not even remember OK Soda. Source: Neatorama
The Cannes Film Festival is a marketplace where film producers try to sell their films to international distributors. It is a quirky festival with many diverse and unique film genres. Organizers like to make surprise selections, like this year's top prize going to the film, Parasite, the first Korean film to win the honor. But the festival also embraces harsh political statements, including this very crude B-movie whose poster got more coverage than the actual film. It appears to show the decapitated head of the US president, who is not well liked around the world. Source: Hollywood Reporter
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cyberbarf THE WHETHER REPORT |
cyberbarf STATUS |
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Question: Whether professional sports leagues will get state sports book fees? |
* Educated Guess * Possible * Probable * Beyond a Reasonable Doubt * Doubtful * Vapor Dream |
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Question: Whether smart phone inventiveness is waning? |
* Educated Guess * Possible * Probable * Beyond a Reasonable Doubt * Doubtful * Vapor Dream |
| Question: Whether corporate “spying” through I.O.T. devices will cause major changes in privacy laws? |
* Educated Guess * Possible * Probable * Beyond a Reasonable Doubt * Doubtful * Vapor Dream |
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