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What is ISF's "Mission"?

icerat said:
Been thinking about this recently.

1) Promoting critical thinking

is it I think. Your other points all follow from that.
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One look at political discussions here will rapidly disabuse you of that notion.

That said, the big problem is that ISF has no raison d'etre. UFOs? Debunked. Trutherism? Gone. We've won the major battles. Creationists are slowly dying off. Public opinion is slowly but surely turning against anti-vaxxers. No, the big problems today are when it comes to incredibly subjective matters, such as defining "truth" in an age when its definition has been spun beyond recognition. And that is where things get incredibly messy.
 
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NWO Sentryman said:
One look at political discussions here will rapidly disabuse you of that notion.

That said, the big problem is that ISF has no raison d'etre. UFOs? Debunked. Trutherism? Gone. We've won the major battles. Creationists are slowly dying off. Public opinion is slowly but surely turning against anti-vaxxers. No, the big problems today are when it comes to incredibly subjective matters, such as defining "truth" in an age when its definition has been spun beyond recognition. And that is where things get incredibly messy.
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The big thing now is "fake news". This is related to everything you have said above.

Religion and religious issues are still big things.
 
rjh01 said:
The big thing now is "fake news". This is related to everything you have said above.

Religion and religious issues are still big things.
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As I mentioned, the question of defining "truth" and who gets to do so is a much messier topic than the previous clear-cut ones (Vaccines cause autism Y/N?). After all, we've seen government and corporate institutions twist and spin the truth on so many occasions in the past, this is more the logical endgame of that sort of Spin politics.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
As I mentioned, the question of defining "truth" and who gets to do so is a much messier topic than the previous clear-cut ones (Vaccines cause autism Y/N?). After all, we've seen government and corporate institutions twist and spin the truth on so many occasions in the past, this is more the logical endgame of that sort of Spin politics.
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If we had an owner who was actively promoting this forum we would be very popular with people that want to know if a story was fake or not. Could have changed the result of last year's American election!
 
rjh01 said:
If we had an owner who was actively promoting this forum we would be very popular with people that want to know if a story was fake or not. Could have changed the result of last year's American election!
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How would the owner be able to promote this forum in such a way?
 
rjh01 said:
If we had an owner who was actively promoting this forum we would be very popular with people that want to know if a story was fake or not. Could have changed the result of last year's American election!
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Do I need to point to Amanda Knox?
 
rjh01 said:
If we had an owner who was actively promoting this forum we would be very popular with people that want to know if a story was fake or not. Could have changed the result of last year's American election!
Click to expand...

Most people don't want to change their minds. Seems like the 24-hour entertainment-news cycle, social media, and the Internet in general have made things worse in that respect. Too much information (most of it false or at best, deeply misleading) for the brain to handle, so we take mental shortcuts that confirm our deeply embedded biases. And unscrupulous demagogues in the media and in politics are all too happy to feed and exploit our desire for instant gratification and sensationalistic headlines. Junk food for the mind, essentially.
 
Allen773 said:
Most people don't want to change their minds. Seems like the 24-hour entertainment-news cycle, social media, and the Internet in general have made things worse in that respect. Too much information (most of it false or at best, deeply misleading) for the brain to handle, so we take mental shortcuts that confirm our deeply embedded biases. And unscrupulous demagogues in the media and in politics are all too happy to feed and exploit our desire for instant gratification and sensationalistic headlines. Junk food for the mind, essentially.
Click to expand...

With Ted Talks being the "superfoods"/David Wolfe of mental thought?
 
Allen773 said:
Most people don't want to change their minds. Seems like the 24-hour entertainment-news cycle, social media, and the Internet in general have made things worse in that respect. Too much information (most of it false or at best, deeply misleading) for the brain to handle, so we take mental shortcuts that confirm our deeply embedded biases. And unscrupulous demagogues in the media and in politics are all too happy to feed and exploit our desire for instant gratification and sensationalistic headlines. Junk food for the mind, essentially.
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It is a slow process. Teach a few people every year how to tell the difference between fake news and real news. It has happened before. Once religion dominated all of science. Now slowly their powers are declining. For example in USA gay marriages are legal.
 
beachnut said:
The Atheist said:
It just occurred to me that The Repository gives its description as: A section of articles relating to the forum and its mission...

Does anyone have a clue as to what that mission is?
Click to expand...

Yes. Do you.
Click to expand...

And the scarce content of that repository speaks for its mission: a place where people who think of themselves to be serious adopt user names like FenderBender or Tinkerbell Tities to quench their variegated needs in the "intellectual" field -mainly as a way to climb the social ladder-.

Some of them adopt the elusive techniques of psychoanalysis when they don't know what to say but they still want to enjoy the moment.
 
rjh01 said:
It is a slow process. Teach a few people every year how to tell the difference between fake news and real news. It has happened before. Once religion dominated all of science. Now slowly their powers are declining. For example in USA gay marriages are legal.
Click to expand...

Fake News is a bit different when Established sources actively promote it (See: coverage of Corbyn)
 
Mycroft said:
The Mission could include:

1) Promoting critical thinking.

2) Identifying questionable sources and developing skills in identifying questionable sources.

3) Educating about logical fallacies and how to identify them and avoid using them.

4) Extolling the virtues of critical thinking and evidence-based belief systems.

( ... )

ISF could also become a repository for information and articles that debunks a lot of the nonsense found on these other platforms.
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This. This would be my answer if I were to literally read the OP’s question, which I realized he asked jokingly.

Unfortunately there are not too may places like ISF where critical thinking is the baseline, and where every small deviation from this baseline, every irrational claim (especially those of a religious nature) has to fight its way (and generally end up getting exposed for the fiction it is). That is why I myself check out his forum.

Although I came upon this site relatively recently (two or three years ago), I’m sure that the forum did not accidently get to be this kind of a place. JREF must have actually wanted to set up exactly this kind of a place, and the people joining (and staying) must also, likewise, have appreciated having this kind of a forum. As with the later version, ISF. So I’d say ISF definitely does have this mission, even if the mission isn’t consciously enunciated or worked towards in every thread and every post.
 
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