This has been very useful to me since I encountered it on the old sub. Within the last years, war has broken out. War seeds the clouds of formerly clear skies. The droplets of propaganda are now a torrent.
As such, I don't think it completely wise to follow this rule unaltered when states clash. The power, organization, and incentives come together to cloudy any former clarity. Lies, with a multitude of motivations, float freely.
What addendums would you add to this adage in an age of active conflict?
A series of true statements. However, I must admit to not intuiting the underlying bond tying them together as an answer.
You are right, but I guess the point of my post was that I am having trouble with amount of propaganda out there. I am gullible and aware of it. I liked the idea of simply believing people who admit to being terrible because doubt can be disquieting for a person who struggles to discern social truths. The realities of war in the modern era make the mind itself a battlefield between people propagating programming.
I am aware that the notion of popular discontent being able to bring about peace being libshit, but I still want to modify my heuristics to avoid being a sponge for narratives. My acceptance of any narrative means nothing, ultimately. My unease is with war being able to discredit a good rule of thumb. I want to refine the rule in order to make it able to withstand the realities of a world conflict and the resulting changes to the media-sphere. You have to cultivate cynicism as a consumer of news content during conflict.
A good rule of thumb ought not be discarded completely when it could be modified with addendums.