the real fake news: 179-T12
the ball is round. everything else is just theory.
The war is over, and fake news won.
Perhaps that is fake news. Perhaps the war is not over. But the Ben Collins-esque “shout down anyone who dares speak against the liberal consensus” approach to Twitter moderation is surely dead.
Other fronts look equally grim. But now, the Tisatsar’s News:
Fake Climate Conference: next Monday, the two-week long COP27 conference is scheduled to begin. Tens of thousands of government apparatchiks will gather in Sharm-el-Sheikh. They will accomplish nothing, but talk a lot about how the effort involved in the junket demonstrates their commitment to fighting climate change.
Why is the conference so useless? Specifically, after 26 years, why haven’t they even taken the simple step of setting atmospheric CO2 concentration targets? Our theories:
It is possible they simply can’t agree on a target. Targeting a 610ppm steady-state CO2 concentration may be too little to be politically tenable in some countries, but too dramatic an effort for others. The much-maligned (and correctly maligned) “degrees of warming” estimates are much harder to measure and predict, thus making it easier for everyone to pretend they are agreeing when they have not actually agreed on anything.
It is possible that they simply haven’t considered such a thing. If you want incompetence, use a large committee, and it is difficult to imagine a larger committee than these conferences.
It is also possible that the conference is “fake” in the sense that it isn’t actually trying to combat climate change directly. Rather, it is merely trying to keep a bunch of corrupt political apparatchiks in line with the narrative that climate change is a problem and they are solving it. In that sense, “doing nothing” is the best option available.
Fake Bicycle Races: On 30 October 2022, Jonas Vingegaard “won” the Singapore Criterium race. According to the Straits Times, “With two laps to go, a group comprising Vingegaard, Froome, Nibali, Simon Geschke and Enric Mas pushed ahead. The Jumbo-Visma rider pulled away from the leading pack with 400m to go and went on to win the race, raising both his arms in celebration.”
One detail that was omitted from the mainstream press coverage: the results of the race were pre-determined. Canadian Cycling magazine explains:
The “exhibition race,” as it is known, is similar to the post-Tour crits held in Belgium and Holland. In those races, the winners of the various classifications and some other well-known riders, do laps for thousands of fans where the winners have already been decided before the race even starts. The riders, with their tired and weary TdF legs, do their best to put on a show, and it’s almost always one of the fan favourites who takes the “victory.”
Fake Lockdowns and Fake Re-openings: After several years of COVID shutdowns, Shanghai Disneyland recently re-opened, and was immediately locked down. According to initial reports, people were locked-down and trapped inside the theme park (ref: BBC).
Later reports clarified that “trapped” may have been a bit of an overstatement. “Required to take a COVID test upon departure” would be more accurate. CBS reports that everybody had left the park by 8:30PM of the day of the lockdown.
Fake Relevance: The CNN headline should demonstrate the complete irrelevance of their coverage without any further discussion: “Oath Keepers spent over $400 at post-US Capitol riot feast at the Olive Garden, prosecutors say”.
Fake Firings: There has been a lot of fake news surrounding the operating business known as Twitter. Much of it is extremely unpleasant in some way or another. But the “firings” of Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson were more humorous. Gossip rag TMZ was among the sources pointing out that a few overeager journalists were duped. And the two performance artists certainly knew their audience: whenever there is a dick joke in the news relating to Mr. Musk, he will tweet about it:
Fake Nostalgia: In a survey conducted by PRRI (the Public Religion Research Institute), 49% of Americans say that American culture and life has changed for the worse since the 1950s.
The problem with that statement is that virtually none of these people remember the 1950s. You would have to be an octogenarian to have an opinion based on personal experience, and even then the ravages of old-age would color ones’ thinking. What they have as “recollection” may have no correlation with the actual 1950s.
In addition, it is a statement designed to be misinterpreted. What changes are making culture worse? Presumbly, the PRRI interpretation is that the decline of religion is what has made society worse. Liberals will look at the data and suggest that many of the conservatives want to go back to before the Civil Rights era.
Here at the Tisatsar Newslettr, we wonder how many of those people actually want a world without computers and smartphones, as opposed to those who simply forgot those technologies weren't around seventy years ago.
Fake Communication: Please take note of the content of the Git repository with checksum 772cb2ce57c1e45b2494ae96c7956267cc7034. As always, any instances of the digit one cannot say over the radio1 have been removed. Whether or not this checksum conveys any information remains an open question.
Fake Debate Coverage: additional commentary on the dubious coverage of the situation in Haiti and the Oz-Fetterman debate can be found in our “Hot Takes” section:
Fake Movies: At some point in time, it would have been unremarkable for a live-action film to be fictional, even if it did not feature comic-book characters. But today, it seems you need a disclaimer in order to not mislead people.
A Fake News Ecosystem
The fake-news headline has to be the coverage and responses of the Paul Pelosi attack from last weekend. Many of the “facts” came from straight-up bullshit vendors like this:
Let’s be clear: these guys are writing pure fiction. They are lying. But there is neither a law nor a policy against lying on Twitter. And the pipeline of laundering lies to liars like Dinesh D’Souza (note tweet) is well-trod.
On the other hand, sources such as broadcast television stations didn’t do much better. A KTVU (FOX affiliate) news story originally was headlined “Alleged Pelosi intruder found in underwear when police arrived” before it was corrected to … not claim that. Now, the new gossip is that DePape may overstayed a visa. Who can say what tomorrow will bring.
And the attackers’ motivation? The efforts by the liberal media to spin this into “stochatic terrorism” assume far too much. Michael Shellenberger is no friend of the Newslettr, but he likely hits the nail on the head here:
Certain of the facts in that article may also be inaccurate. In a world full of fake news, who can tell what is real?
We have been informed by multiple sources that you actually can say Pratchett’s constant over the radio … and also that this is a printed source, not a radio broadcast. As we are concerned about fake news, we continue to exercise caution.