General Discussion

Bicholim Conflict

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But rampant are edits that viewers don't realize are edits. Things like interactions between people that show the last 2 minutes but not the 5 minutes leading up to it--but since the last 2 minutes are outrage-inducing, and since we've already been primed by what linked to that video or by the text associated with the video as to how were are to interpret it and understand it to be "correct," questioning context is hard, esp. when it taints the person we want to believe and are trying to convince ourselves is the innocent victim.

Some Internet falsities are imposed on us (the Bicholim Conflict, the NW tree octopus) but some we talk ourselves into and love to have it so. (Well, it's really a kind of gradient or spectrum--the NW tree octopus is pretty unbelievable to start off with and requires some credulity, the Bicholim Conflict is obscure and nothing about it screams, at least to me, implausible. Other things just require assuming that absolute strangers that we know nothing about are mean-spirited, hateful malicious A-holes based on externalia, things like uniform, skin color, sex, or facial expression in the first 2 seconds of video we see, or even accompanying after-the-fact narrative as to what we're going to see and so what we expect to see.)

Years ago (by which I mean decades ago) I read something and it concluded with a phrase that the Internet shows is novel and unattested anywhere, "Skepticism serves our interests best." (Maybe it was "scepticism," still Google draws a blank.) Skepticism is at the core of critical thinking, whatever the argument's conclusion (we like, we don't like--be skeptical). Feynman had the same basic idea but said for science it's to be first turned inward to claim we make. You wonder if you're being garden-pathed as you watch a video, find the unedited video; when in doubt, don't trust claims taken from headlines, look at original documents. You think that Renaissance piece shouldn't end on a Picardy third? Find the ms. You wonder if Project 2025 really says something, find the text and the context. (But, a la Feynman, distrust most the things you most want to believe. Yeah, this makes life f**king hard.)