Reddit is mostly just tabloid junk. It isn't worded with headlines as dumb as THIS ONE FLORDIA MAN FOOLED THE COPS WITH THIS TRICK YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE headlines, but the content it points to is very similar. Lowest common denominator, exaggerated stories with tons of click ads on them. I find myself having to really just pull away from this website these days and stop wasting my time on it.
i see the exact same thing and when you really analyze it, its obvious. Do you think this is just growing older and it has always been this way? Or has the website...changed for you?
Read history from the perspective of multiple persons from other countries than your own. Reading history from the viewpoint of a author who never lived in that time or culture is often a farce.
Really? In my experience my factual responses get down voted into oblivion just because I may not agree with the general theme of the comments. That is the hivemind of reddit.
Just sort by controversial and check the veracity. You'll find that Reddit has an incredible liberal/statist bias. It's what's upvoted and downvoted, it's what's removed, it's what's omitted, it's in the context.
Really dude? If being factual and putting my opinion out there means that I'm a dick, then I'm glad I am one. If you want examples, go look in my comment history. You may have to go pretty far back though, because I have realized commenting on those subs are pointless.
Seems like a winning strategy. Ignore the cancer then.
Meanwhile I'll continue to bash my head against the wall that is the ignorant in hopes that at least a few might see the truth, rather than preaching to a small choir.
Comments are one thing, but the posts themselves are heavily moderated - the very liberal moderators remove anything that they even slightly disagree with.
I mean it's not good, but it's a decent place to get news, way better than watching single seperate sites like bbc or guardian, since it has info from all those sites.
[UFM] You just hate America and find anything to be against it.
[Me] Well I've actually lived there [in Ukraine for over 1.5 years] and lived in both of those cultures and had girlfriends from both of those places and learned a bit of both of those languages. That counts for something. All that you've done is watch television and read articles about it.
While not required, you are requested to use the NP domain of reddit when crossposting. This helps to protect both your account, and the accounts of other users, from administrative shadowbans. The NP domain can be accessed by prefacing your reddit link with np.reddit.com.
Right. The Ukraine thing is a big one. So many people are brainwashed on that. It was all Putin's fault and he stole Crimea, blah blah blah. I got one dude to watch the StormCloudsGathering video on it and he said, "well, even if that's true, I'd rather have 'American style' democracy in Ukraine than Russian."
As if we, as a country, should just be installing political systems in countries around the world. The cognitive dissonance and exceptionalism is bizarre to me.
Yes, it is extremely disturbing how biased and one-sided all of the people/comments are, particularly on this subreddit.
They just downvote anything inconvenient to their "the world is completely black and white and I refuse to see any grey" circlejerk.
Its like a snapshot of ignorance. A kodak-moment of propaganda and how successful it is.
You could actually print out the average thread in r/worldnews and use it to teach a sociology class on disinformation and how gullible and ignorant people are in groups.
Its just a clusterfuck of different opinions crossing eachother. The people your talking about fit souch a small niche. People are seriously fucking confused the countries confused. Coincidence? Idk it is r conspiracy.
With my family it pretty much went in a way where they said a lot of things about Russia and then when I clarify and give background then it turns into a team Russia vs team America conversation. UFM2 even declared that I am a "Putin boot-licker". Additionally, UFM2 tried to disqualify me from the conversation live Twitter battle for being on my second serving of Scotch whiskey. UFM2 was also kind of a dick to me by saying that it was the first intelligent thing that I had said all night when I explained some budding thoughts of his as having to do with the R2P issue.
Also, my post was just linked to on r/thathappened and apparently being over there for 1.5 years and having multiple girlfriends is unbelievable. Personally, I would of liked to of had a girlfriend more of my time there but I guess that apparently compared to some I'm living some legendary unobtainable lifestyle. I've encountered this on the Internet a few times about Ukraine this year that people just can't seem understand that living there is not some huge deal and its just about wanting to go over there and to accept and deal with all of the changes in lifestyle. In the meantime it won't stop people from overextending on their knowledge of an issue. Its been real obvious to me for a number of years that I don't get respect for the things that I've done. In my ideal world I'd like to see UFM1 and UFM2 saying "WOW! You were living in that place that everyone was talking about this last year! Whats going on over there?" Really the disparity of the breadth of our experience on the subject only highlights the fact that I can't get any respect there. I really doubt that I'm the only one in this boat either.
Well, he liked them when he was using them for propaganda against the British crown and said he preferred newspapers without a government to a government without newspapers.
And when he used his Secretary of State position to bankroll Freneau against Washington's administration, and then against Adams'.
He didn't start to dislike them until he was actually in their targets and wielding executive power.
Which kinda brings an interesting twist to the quote. He himself knew that much of what the papers publish is tripe since he was the one feeding it to them.
According to the book "America's Failing Experiment" (first sourced link from searching Google), it was during the election of 1800. I can't find a direct citation, however.
Yeah, I'm doubting the validity of this quote. I study American political thought and to often do the foundung fathers become a mouthpiece for others through the use of spurious quotes. Monticello's website has a good section on bs quotes.
Yeah, that's why I was asking for a source on this. Sources for it seem unreliable, but there's nothing really saying it's untrue.
I could see him saying something like this considering the whole Sally Hemmings thing or the bitter newspaper wars, but the language just doesn't really sound like something he, or anyone besides Franklin, would say. Inquiring on Snopes or Monticello would probably be worthwhile.
It's a paraphrase. He said, "the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them".
With a little more context:
To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, "by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.
Nobody is encouraged to interpret anything in todays media. The journalsit interprets situations for you. They give comments, analyse problems etc. Why should somebody who reads that kind of news even bother thinking for himself? It costs too much energy.
The brain is a muscle and when it has been turned off for so long, it just becomes easier to let it waste away. The equivalent of ordering delivery chinese everyday instead of putting effort into going to the supermarket.
This is such a perfect analogy, and I find while this is surely a broad brush of a statement - but it's the same way I feel every time I try and get back into physical fitness lately (took 1-2 years off when the kid was born), and I hit a wall 2 weeks in and I'm so busy with other things I let it slide.
I can totally understand the mentality of this relative to mental fitness - whereas sometimes I try to have real conversations with my social circle and they have no idea how I know these things and what is really happening lately. Resistance in both situations, both due to laziness.
I remember when my uncle was shot and killed, the newspaper article about him was about half true. They even spelled his name wrong. I learned from that young age not to believe everything in the news.
The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.
(Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787 found in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors), 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04.)
Not that it really matters. Decontextualized quotes are a dime a dozen and you can always find a dead famous person saying something that either supports what you believe or can be twisted to do so.
News isn't the proper approach for getting educated in any way. Try reading some literature. Right now I'm reading Kissinger's On China. Very interesting read.
News is sensationalized, delivered in a way to get views rather than educate/enlighten. Throw in some stunningly attractive anchors and that's a great business model.
I find it curious (and maddening) how many will reject and scrutinize MSM propaganda but will gobble up any competing narrative without a second thought.
I suspect a good chunk of people only care about burning the system / group that's burning them.
I tell people I don't watch the news because I'd rather be uniformed than misinformed because the biggest enemy of knowledge isn't ignorance it's the illusion of knowledge.
How can I think for myself if the media tells me what to think? Roger Ailes saw television as the perfect delivery system of propaganda. People don't think for themselves when they sit down and watch the news, that's why it's so effective for them.
If you read news without any sense of context and common sense, believe everything you're told and mistake plot for information then yes, you won't be helping yourself.
If you read no news at all you're just uninformed. It's nothing to be proud of.
I was inclined to agree with you before I realized that this quote deserves more attention.
As a man, the subject would have most likely already received enough education prior to becoming a man to be able to read.
Jefferson is describing one man who chooses not to read anything at all and another man who only chooses to read newspapers.
Both extremes are unlikely, and only provided to make a point that the choice to read nothing is better (actually more educated) than the choice to only read newspapers.
In other words, he is saying that the education provided by newspapers is detrimental.
Whether you choose to agree with that is another issue, but as u/putin_hates_cats said, the quote has nothing to do with reading ability!
That's a good argument, although what I was trying to express, albeit imprecisely, was the lack of understanding, not literal illiteracy.
Although media such as newspaper is often not of high journalistic standards, and has its own agenda (the owners, such as Murdoch is a good example here), and that government's will apply their own pressures I'd argue that there's still enough factual information contained in it that you can compare it to what you already know, and make your own determinations.
As an aside, I wonder what it would be like if Jefferson had been a contemporary politician and said “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but the internet.”?
Which kinda brings an interesting twist to the quote. He himself knew that much of what the papers publish is tripe since he was the one feeding it to them.
91 comments
86 putin_hates_cats 2015-01-09
“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads
nothing but newspapers.r/news, r/politics, and r/worldnews.”Adjusted for the times.
30 Adoo87 2015-01-09
Huffington Post
FTFY
13 Purpledrank 2015-01-09
Reddit is mostly just tabloid junk. It isn't worded with headlines as dumb as THIS ONE FLORDIA MAN FOOLED THE COPS WITH THIS TRICK YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE headlines, but the content it points to is very similar. Lowest common denominator, exaggerated stories with tons of click ads on them. I find myself having to really just pull away from this website these days and stop wasting my time on it.
1 MightyYetGentle 2015-01-09
i see the exact same thing and when you really analyze it, its obvious. Do you think this is just growing older and it has always been this way? Or has the website...changed for you?
1 Purpledrank 2015-01-09
Both. It's gotten worse with all e VC funding and monetization.
0 WTFppl 2015-01-09
Have you seen /r/conflictofinterest?
6 InternetPropagandist 2015-01-09
Read books. Old, new, weird, books that contradict your beliefs... I like to stay in nonfiction. Read science articles and keep an open mind.
MIT and Berkeley have tons of entire college courses you can take online for free.
1 med267 2015-01-09
Read history from the perspective of multiple persons from other countries than your own. Reading history from the viewpoint of a author who never lived in that time or culture is often a farce.
2 InactiveUser 2015-01-09
Or /r/news
-1 Findout246 2015-01-09
are they really that bad? I've been going to those every day for the past year..
what is a better alternative to an aggregate style news forum?
18 GuapoWithAGun 2015-01-09
These subs omit things and mischaracterize then. There's a poignant joke on r/circlejerk to rename r/politics to d/politics.
0 paidshillhere 2015-01-09
Seems to me that any time that happens somebody will rebut and explain things, along with providing sources.
One of the perks of reddit, really.
12 shabbbbba 2015-01-09
Really? In my experience my factual responses get down voted into oblivion just because I may not agree with the general theme of the comments. That is the hivemind of reddit.
-1 HugeMallett 2015-01-09
examples please?
3 GuapoWithAGun 2015-01-09
Just sort by controversial and check the veracity. You'll find that Reddit has an incredible liberal/statist bias. It's what's upvoted and downvoted, it's what's removed, it's what's omitted, it's in the context.
-2 HugeMallett 2015-01-09
sure i want him to provide an example of him being downvoted to oblivion when making a factual comment.
i think its most likely he was being a dick in all those comments
3 thekeemoman 2015-01-09
Anything about Pro-Islam or Pro-Palestine will be down voted to shit.
0 g00dis0n 2015-01-09
And rightly so tee hee
1 thekeemoman 2015-01-09
?
1 shabbbbba 2015-01-09
Point proven.
1 shabbbbba 2015-01-09
Really dude? If being factual and putting my opinion out there means that I'm a dick, then I'm glad I am one. If you want examples, go look in my comment history. You may have to go pretty far back though, because I have realized commenting on those subs are pointless.
0 HugeMallett 2015-01-09
it was a guess
2 contrarian_barbarian 2015-01-09
Not just the comments. The moderators are vicious about removing any post that conflicts at all with their world views.
1 Dark_Ghost 2015-01-09
Which is sad
-8 paidshillhere 2015-01-09
Seems to me like there's an awful lot of disparaging those subreddits but not much actual substance to the arguments.
Most of the top comments are typically quite educational and relevant, minus the occasional pun threads you see everywhere.
That and the same comments saying how /r/politics, /r/news, or /r/worldnews is bad but doesn't elaborate why.
5 putin_hates_cats 2015-01-09
I don't know what alternate universe you live in. Really, if you don't see the cancer running through those main subs, then I cannot help you.
1 paidshillhere 2015-01-09
Seems like a winning strategy. Ignore the cancer then.
Meanwhile I'll continue to bash my head against the wall that is the ignorant in hopes that at least a few might see the truth, rather than preaching to a small choir.
2 contrarian_barbarian 2015-01-09
Comments are one thing, but the posts themselves are heavily moderated - the very liberal moderators remove anything that they even slightly disagree with.
2 paidshillhere 2015-01-09
I would know. I was banned from /r/politics for "politics".
Fuck it, and fuck them. That won't stop the truth from being posted there regardless.
-12 DeviMon1 2015-01-09
worldnews is the lesser evil of the three
18 [deleted] 2015-01-09
[deleted]
14 JamesColesPardon 2015-01-09
You forgot Putin Putin Putin
8 heracleides 2015-01-09
worldnews is just as bad as any of them.
1 DeviMon1 2015-01-09
I mean it's not good, but it's a decent place to get news, way better than watching single seperate sites like bbc or guardian, since it has info from all those sites.
1 turdovski 2015-01-09
Yes but those sites can be classified as the exact same thing. They have the same western narrative.
They only show western propaganda.
2 putin_hates_cats 2015-01-09
I don't know, I would consider it the worst. But maybe that is because I am there more often than the other 2.
37 destraht 2015-01-09
True Christmas Story:
9 effinmike12 2015-01-09
I read that in the voices of Archie Bunker and Meathead. Validation of OP and a story.
Uh. Is it too soon for a literary joke about satire and proper execution. I'lljust back outslowly
1 DumbledoreSays 2015-01-09
It's never 'too soon' when the event in question was a hoax.
3 myksane 2015-01-09
Tfw satisfaction of reading that
1 apocalypsychosis 2015-01-09
Your story has been confirmed to be $100% true.
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-9 AllAboutGamers 2015-01-09
That Unnamed Family Member? Adolf "Literally Hitler" Hitler
11 putin_hates_cats 2015-01-09
Why the snark? Do you not understand the point he is making?
10 facereplacer3 2015-01-09
Right. The Ukraine thing is a big one. So many people are brainwashed on that. It was all Putin's fault and he stole Crimea, blah blah blah. I got one dude to watch the StormCloudsGathering video on it and he said, "well, even if that's true, I'd rather have 'American style' democracy in Ukraine than Russian."
As if we, as a country, should just be installing political systems in countries around the world. The cognitive dissonance and exceptionalism is bizarre to me.
8 putin_hates_cats 2015-01-09
Yes, it is extremely disturbing how biased and one-sided all of the people/comments are, particularly on this subreddit.
They just downvote anything inconvenient to their "the world is completely black and white and I refuse to see any grey" circlejerk.
Its like a snapshot of ignorance. A kodak-moment of propaganda and how successful it is.
You could actually print out the average thread in r/worldnews and use it to teach a sociology class on disinformation and how gullible and ignorant people are in groups.
edit: clarified a thing
1 Pazians 2015-01-09
Its just a clusterfuck of different opinions crossing eachother. The people your talking about fit souch a small niche. People are seriously fucking confused the countries confused. Coincidence? Idk it is r conspiracy.
1 destraht 2015-01-09
With my family it pretty much went in a way where they said a lot of things about Russia and then when I clarify and give background then it turns into a team Russia vs team America conversation. UFM2 even declared that I am a "Putin boot-licker". Additionally, UFM2 tried to disqualify me from the
conversationlive Twitter battle for being on my second serving of Scotch whiskey. UFM2 was also kind of a dick to me by saying that it was the first intelligent thing that I had said all night when I explained some budding thoughts of his as having to do with the R2P issue.Also, my post was just linked to on r/thathappened and apparently being over there for 1.5 years and having multiple girlfriends is unbelievable. Personally, I would of liked to of had a girlfriend more of my time there but I guess that apparently compared to some I'm living some legendary unobtainable lifestyle. I've encountered this on the Internet a few times about Ukraine this year that people just can't seem understand that living there is not some huge deal and its just about wanting to go over there and to accept and deal with all of the changes in lifestyle. In the meantime it won't stop people from overextending on their knowledge of an issue. Its been real obvious to me for a number of years that I don't get respect for the things that I've done. In my ideal world I'd like to see UFM1 and UFM2 saying "WOW! You were living in that place that everyone was talking about this last year! Whats going on over there?" Really the disparity of the breadth of our experience on the subject only highlights the fact that I can't get any respect there. I really doubt that I'm the only one in this boat either.
2 facereplacer3 2015-01-09
Brother. It's like we're not even there. Prolly a big boat indeed.
Thanks for linking to the R2P. Hadn't heard of that.
9 ADavidJohnson 2015-01-09
Well, he liked them when he was using them for propaganda against the British crown and said he preferred newspapers without a government to a government without newspapers.
And when he used his Secretary of State position to bankroll Freneau against Washington's administration, and then against Adams'.
He didn't start to dislike them until he was actually in their targets and wielding executive power.
11 s70n3834r 2015-01-09
He isn't decrying newspapers, just only newspapers.
8 greggerypeccary 2015-01-09
Which kinda brings an interesting twist to the quote. He himself knew that much of what the papers publish is tripe since he was the one feeding it to them.
2 Radium_Coyote 2015-01-09
You can't be a politician without engaging in politics.
8 OB1_kenobi 2015-01-09
Judging from the average level of comment I see on r/worldnews, I'd say Jefferson is just as right today as he was back then.
10 les_bijoux 2015-01-09
I'd say more right. They propaganda machine is much more sophisticated now.
6 gandaf007 2015-01-09
Does anyone have a source on this?
6 ceilte 2015-01-09
According to the book "America's Failing Experiment" (first sourced link from searching Google), it was during the election of 1800. I can't find a direct citation, however.
2 gandaf007 2015-01-09
Yeah, I'm doubting the validity of this quote. I study American political thought and to often do the foundung fathers become a mouthpiece for others through the use of spurious quotes. Monticello's website has a good section on bs quotes.
2 ceilte 2015-01-09
I found nothing about the quote either on Monticello or Snopes. I'm tempted to ask both.
1 gandaf007 2015-01-09
Yeah, that's why I was asking for a source on this. Sources for it seem unreliable, but there's nothing really saying it's untrue.
I could see him saying something like this considering the whole Sally Hemmings thing or the bitter newspaper wars, but the language just doesn't really sound like something he, or anyone besides Franklin, would say. Inquiring on Snopes or Monticello would probably be worthwhile.
6 twsmith 2015-01-09
It's a paraphrase. He said, "the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them".
With a little more context:
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Norvell, June 11, 1807
5 pamperino 2015-01-09
But when you read news keeping in mind the psychological effect of media, you learn a lot.
7 putin_hates_cats 2015-01-09
Very true. But it seems like most people don't know how to interpret the media at all.
4 club-mate 2015-01-09
Nobody is encouraged to interpret anything in todays media. The journalsit interprets situations for you. They give comments, analyse problems etc. Why should somebody who reads that kind of news even bother thinking for himself? It costs too much energy.
4 putin_hates_cats 2015-01-09
The brain is a muscle and when it has been turned off for so long, it just becomes easier to let it waste away. The equivalent of ordering delivery chinese everyday instead of putting effort into going to the supermarket.
4 JamesColesPardon 2015-01-09
This is such a perfect analogy, and I find while this is surely a broad brush of a statement - but it's the same way I feel every time I try and get back into physical fitness lately (took 1-2 years off when the kid was born), and I hit a wall 2 weeks in and I'm so busy with other things I let it slide.
I can totally understand the mentality of this relative to mental fitness - whereas sometimes I try to have real conversations with my social circle and they have no idea how I know these things and what is really happening lately. Resistance in both situations, both due to laziness.
5 Nova_Jake 2015-01-09
This is actually a proven statistic. People who watched Fox News were less informed on current events than people who didn't watch the news at all.
2 VegansAreMeatToo 2015-01-09
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/11/21/survey-people-who-watch-no-news-know-more-than/183982
0 Nova_Jake 2015-01-09
You're awesome.
3 DronePuppet 2015-01-09
...or listen / believe / follow crappy corporate news!
3 lava_lice 2015-01-09
I remember when my uncle was shot and killed, the newspaper article about him was about half true. They even spelled his name wrong. I learned from that young age not to believe everything in the news.
1 Dark_Ghost 2015-01-09
Yep believe about half
2 HildredCastaigne 2015-01-09
While this quote does not show up under Monticello's list of known spurious quotes, I can't find it under their database of quotes nor can I find any citation for it.
Here is a real quote from Jefferson:
(Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787 found in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors), 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04.)
Not that it really matters. Decontextualized quotes are a dime a dozen and you can always find a dead famous person saying something that either supports what you believe or can be twisted to do so.
2 reputable_opinion 2015-01-09
he likely adapted that from .
'if you don't read the news you are uninformed, but if you read the news you are misinformed.
1 Fomenkologist 2015-01-09
Mark Twain. Most likely, as I\d never heard the Jefferson one.
2 newoldwave 2015-01-09
So, the public mistrust of the press has been going on for some time. But now we have TV, radio and internet media to mistrust as well.
1 vincent_ignatius 2015-01-09
walter. fucking. benjamin
1 hypercompact 2015-01-09
News isn't the proper approach for getting educated in any way. Try reading some literature. Right now I'm reading Kissinger's On China. Very interesting read.
1 Reediddy 2015-01-09
News is sensationalized, delivered in a way to get views rather than educate/enlighten. Throw in some stunningly attractive anchors and that's a great business model.
1 Rekel 2015-01-09
A man who watches nothing but conspiracy videos on youtube on the other hand...
1 TheRighteousTyrant 2015-01-09
Jefferson was silent about those who read only reddit, and there is good reason for that . . .
1 NOTNixonsGhost 2015-01-09
I find it curious (and maddening) how many will reject and scrutinize MSM propaganda but will gobble up any competing narrative without a second thought.
I suspect a good chunk of people only care about burning the system / group that's burning them.
1 sunflowerblues 2015-01-09
Words of wisdom....
1 btcmbc 2015-01-09
“Those who tell the stories, rule the world” — Plato
1 hopefullydepressed 2015-01-09
I tell people I don't watch the news because I'd rather be uniformed than misinformed because the biggest enemy of knowledge isn't ignorance it's the illusion of knowledge.
1 88x3 2015-01-09
How can I think for myself if the media tells me what to think? Roger Ailes saw television as the perfect delivery system of propaganda. People don't think for themselves when they sit down and watch the news, that's why it's so effective for them.
0 Tchocky 2015-01-09
If you read news without any sense of context and common sense, believe everything you're told and mistake plot for information then yes, you won't be helping yourself.
If you read no news at all you're just uninformed. It's nothing to be proud of.
-1 KingOfDigitalMedia 2015-01-09
That's what he told his slaves.
-2 colorcoma 2015-01-09
If he can't read then he will never get the pleasure of reading this amazing historical quote from our favorite founding father Jeff.
10 putin_hates_cats 2015-01-09
This has nothing to do with the ability to read.
0 ct_warlock 2015-01-09
It does in his case, given he apparently can't read!
1 [deleted] 2015-01-09
I was inclined to agree with you before I realized that this quote deserves more attention.
As a man, the subject would have most likely already received enough education prior to becoming a man to be able to read.
Jefferson is describing one man who chooses not to read anything at all and another man who only chooses to read newspapers.
Both extremes are unlikely, and only provided to make a point that the choice to read nothing is better (actually more educated) than the choice to only read newspapers.
In other words, he is saying that the education provided by newspapers is detrimental.
Whether you choose to agree with that is another issue, but as u/putin_hates_cats said, the quote has nothing to do with reading ability!
1 ct_warlock 2015-01-09
That's a good argument, although what I was trying to express, albeit imprecisely, was the lack of understanding, not literal illiteracy.
Although media such as newspaper is often not of high journalistic standards, and has its own agenda (the owners, such as Murdoch is a good example here), and that government's will apply their own pressures I'd argue that there's still enough factual information contained in it that you can compare it to what you already know, and make your own determinations.
As an aside, I wonder what it would be like if Jefferson had been a contemporary politician and said “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but the internet.”?
-2 TimlyMannor 2015-01-09
No wonder so many people around here think they're so smart.
10 putin_hates_cats 2015-01-09
This has nothing to do with the ability to read.
8 greggerypeccary 2015-01-09
Which kinda brings an interesting twist to the quote. He himself knew that much of what the papers publish is tripe since he was the one feeding it to them.
10 les_bijoux 2015-01-09
I'd say more right. They propaganda machine is much more sophisticated now.
1 Purpledrank 2015-01-09
Both. It's gotten worse with all e VC funding and monetization.