"I remember as a kid, asking a school mate "did you see that news report", and he said "you can't believe everything you see on the news" and I thought, what an idiot, as if they'd lie on the evening news.
It wasn't for a good many more years that I finally awoke from the bliss of my ignorance... and I'm not sure about being better off.
But as a famous person once said, Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.".......And there's your problem right there. Flysurfer, do you realize you're both correct. No, you don't. Unfortunately you don't understand the subtlety that most people can use to look at the news report and try to weigh up the the various news stories. For example, most people understand there are competing forces at work especially in the commercial media. I wouldn't say that the media "lies" to it's audience. Sometimes our media has an agenda, like the Herald Sun trying to dispose of our police commisioner because of a "law and order" crusade at the time, or adopting a political "tone". To lie, the media would have to knowingly "lie". It's different to Crusading, beating up, repeating a "factoid"....like weapons of mass destruction etc. There's a difference, its subtle, its sophisticated. I find with most conspiracy nuts that the main problem is that they don't possess the ability to see things in any shade of grey. So it's "the media is Corrupt!!"(yes, sometimes...mainly not) "I don't believe anything the media tells me"(what not even the football scores???).
Oh, and the "outsourcing you thinking".....what bollocks. Flysurfer, do you read the flight manual of the skybus before flying to your next holiday????no, you trust that the system of regulation imposed on pilots and aircraft companies assures you that the whole system works. ...and it does. Everyone "outsources their thinking" to some extent. It makes sense. I don't want to study surgery for a couple of years so I can perform my own medical proceedures......I entrust that to my surgeon......he's spent 20 years doing this ****, and I'm not going to second guess.
Also your ideas about "outsourcers". Again, simple thinking. The information that your being given HAS to be treated with scepticism. The information cannot just be judged on its content without knowing it's source and the history of that source. So when you put up some youtube pearl of wisdom and then we find out it comes from some white supremacist mob in the US. then.......the information is dubious. Most people understand that.