It’s a sunny Valentine’s Day here in Chicago, and despite the cloudless sky my head is foggy in a way coffee just wouldn’t clear. We’ll see how this goes.
That’s all we can do.
First, a very happy Valentine’s Day to everyone who wades through my nonsense, post after post, whether you do it occasionally, most days or every day. I appreciate you, I notice you.
As we move into the election season, which requires critical thinking, I’m going to ask you to keep one specific factor in mind. Proportion.
For example, watch what media uses to try to weigh Pres. Biden against trump. Right now, it’s mainly his age. That’s easily dismissed, however, as it’s not like trump is 20 years younger or 15 years younger or even 10 years younger. Not even 5.
He’s three years younger. They’re effectively the same age.
But they don’t compare age to age, they do things like compare age to trump inviting Russia to do whatever it wants and saying he will pull out of NATO.
Clearly those two things aren’t even in the same galaxy, let alone equivalent “issues.” Do not accept the framing of people trying to normalize one of the most evil, corrupt people in the history of the United States ever to have an official role. Do not allow any of his outrageous promises–and that’s what they are, he’s telling us what he plans to do–to be casually minimized.
The same lack of proportion is present in the coverage of the Spoutible “breach,” in which no actual user data was obtained, apparently, aside from that taken by the person who ran to Troy Hunt and not Spoutible. When I said last week there would be worse breaches from other places I wasn’t kidding; Bank of America just informed users of a hack LAST YEAR that exposed actually sensitive data, including social security numbers and financial data.
Last year. So that information was out there and people were not notified until now.
It seems to be a lost skill, weighing information in relation to other information. Unlike animals, all information is not equal, some is definitely more equal than others (thank you Orwell, triple points to all who got the reference). Don’t trust other people to tell you whether something is a big deal.
Parse it out for yourself.
I’m now starting to see the question asked if there is a double standard on age, from the very people who perpetuate and create the double standard on age, while minimizing the past harm and future destruction of trump. It’s so easy to fall into the rhythm of listening and not thinking.
But that’s how we lose everything.
Have a great Wednesday.
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