Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for May 13, 2022

  1. Giphy
    HidariMak  over 2 years ago

    People often use critical thinking skills when buying expensive things such as cars. It’s rare for someone to make their multi-thousand dollar purchase with thoughts like “I don’t see any reason why the car salesman might try to misdirect me”. Some research on details such as mileage, recalls, and alternatives are usually made in advance of signing on the dotted line. But with science, and politics, and conspiracy theories? Not so much.

     •  Reply
  2. 654px red eyed tree frog   litoria chloris edit1
    Superfrog  over 2 years ago

    I haven’t used “As you are probably aware..” for a long time.

     •  Reply
  3. Skyler
    Name? Whose Name?  over 2 years ago

    You think it’s bad now, wait until Elon Musk owns Twitter.

     •  Reply
  4. Large 1699141985732
    shanen0  over 2 years ago

    Hard to interpret the joke, but the financial models are broken in several ways. Right now the dominant models are disguised propaganda (a la FAUX) and disaster porn (a la CNN). The propaganda is funded by extremely rich folks with an unsolvable problem: “Thar ain’t no profit big enough.” The disaster porn model only works when there’s a disaster, so it’s like the kid with a hammer trying to see everything as a nail.

    Then you have to consider the “production costs”. Finding the truth is difficult and expensive—and then it has to compete with free on the big Internet. In contrast, BS is infinitely cheap and infinitely abundant and often aggressively supported by advertisers, who, after all, prefer easily manipulated and gullible suckers.

    I’d like to see a solution-oriented financial model for journalism. At it would apply right here, the comic could be followed by some links for projects that can solve the problems the joke is based on. If enough of us want to donate for one of the projects, then it would get the money and the comic (or website or producer of a video or author of a news story) would get a share for helping.

     •  Reply
  5. Gocomic avatar
    sandpiper  over 2 years ago

    Don’t know where the phrase originated but have rarely ever seen a situation where it was accurate.

     •  Reply
  6. Profile 6
    dot-the-I  over 2 years ago

    Truth is to be found somewhere between the (NY) Post and Times, but that space is portrayed as empty.

     •  Reply
  7. A0aa4143 088c 4296 85af e0065b6a9fee
    mrwiskers  over 2 years ago

    I haven’t heard those terms used in movie dialog either. But then movie dialog isn’t really written for the exchange of ideas between characters in the movies I watch.

     •  Reply
  8. Photopictureresizer 190623 022710789 crop 2695x2695 1347x1347
    jvo  over 2 years ago

    The Post is owned by Murdoch (who owns Fox). The Times is owned by a reputable company.

     •  Reply
  9. Missing large
    dflak  over 2 years ago

    Here is a brain teaser from Scientific American on this very subject.

    A ball and a bat cost $1.10. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

    The knee-jerk reaction is that the ball costs 10 cents. If you do the math, the actual answers are $0.05 for the ball and %1.05 for the bat.

    People don’t think when faced with “obvious” answers, it’s one of the reasons why scams work so well.

    Now if we are talking about Republicans when you prove to them that they are wrong, first of all they won’t get it because it involves math. This is especially true in Florida where you may be accused of using liberal, “Critical Race Theory” math. Good, conservative math says that 73 million votes is more than 81 million votes and if you recount votes often enough, eventually the results will change. I think this works on he same principles as “Nazi science.”

    Secondly they will complain loudly that you are stupid because balls and bats cost a lot more than $1.10. After fake news and name calling, diversion is their favorite debate tactic.

     •  Reply
  10. Missing large
    Display  over 2 years ago

    Media. Talking heads. Opinion pieces.

    How about… Reporters? Reporters who report on verified and verifiable, unbiased facts.

    Naw, that would never fly in America.

     •  Reply
  11. Desron14
    Masterskrain  over 2 years ago

    “Remember, what you see and what you hear is NOT what’s happening!”

    The Velveeta Voldemort.

     •  Reply
  12. Nc201206
    some idiot from R'lyeh Premium Member over 2 years ago

    There’s an old saying about journalism: "“If someone says it’s raining & another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out of the [expletive] window and find out which is true.”

     •  Reply
  13. 5x5
    Earnestly Frank  over 2 years ago

    All things being equal, arithmetic would be a lot simpler.

     •  Reply
  14. Profile msn
    vaughnrl2003 Premium Member over 2 years ago

    Well, there you go. That’s just what we need. A Fox News neighborhood service center. (I propose we build walls around our cities instead of the whole country. Think local. Avoid global.) ..medeival, right?

     •  Reply
  15. Greg backlit
    mindjob  over 2 years ago

    Now, those newspaper kiosks usually lead with the phrase “Going out of Business”

     •  Reply
  16. Fdr avatar 6d9910b68a3c 128
    Teto85 Premium Member over 2 years ago

    As it happens, that’s a pretty good idea, all things considered.

     •  Reply
  17. Missing large
    Will E. Makeit Premium Member over 2 years ago

    Let me be clear, that’s not who we are, that’s not what we’re about, it’s time to try something new…

     •  Reply
  18. Kirby close up with poppies behind   close cropped
    mistercatworks  over 2 years ago

    “Quantified news” – LOL. I remember one parody slogan “All the news that fits, we print.”

     •  Reply
  19. Wolf
    Mediatech  over 2 years ago

    Considering all the bigots, perverts and morons on social media, I’m not sure equality is anything I want to shoot for.

     •  Reply
  20. Missing large
    198.23.5.11  over 2 years ago

    Kevin McCarthy has taken refuge atop an oil tank.They think they’ve got Kevin McCarthy….well,they haven’t got Kevin McCarthy……

     •  Reply
  21. Caringbridge avatar best
    lalapalooza Premium Member over 2 years ago

    Not so much, LATELY anyway.

     •  Reply
  22. Bolt
    boltjenkins1  over 2 years ago

    All media is equal, but some is more equal than others

     •  Reply
  23. 37cdc61d 2dfd 4a3c 9796 a93e73f76317
    MCProfessor  over 2 years ago

    If there were a newspaper stand with a sign saying “truth” I would try it out.

     •  Reply
  24. Camera1 016
    keenanthelibrarian  over 2 years ago

    In this great country of Oz, media hasn’t been ‘equal’ for as long as I can remember.

     •  Reply
  25. Toughcat
    bakana  over 2 years ago

    The problem is that Nothing is Ever “Equal”.

     •  Reply
Sign in to comment

More From Non Sequitur