Post #4049056

2026-07-23 23:35 UTC

But then I don't suppose you end up typing "content" for @SciMag@flipboard.com or @newscientist@mstdn.social or @arstechnica@mastodon.social if you're inclined to curiosity yourself. Curious people don't survive long in corporate structures. Hence U.S. #journalism especially in #science and #tech is mostly advertising. Corporations hand over press packets all neatly prepared and inviting, and the journalists consider such trash to be a source now, one of their most important sources. They hardly need to do anything at all, beyond writing some flavor text to sweeten the medley of corporate marketing slop, seasoned with one or two lines of insignificant complaints and counterpoint--"balance" supplied by powerless troublemakers daring to impugn the sacred missions of Elon Musk and his buddies. (cont'd)

Replies (1)

@mxchara@seattle.pink 2026-07-23 23:40

Hence the right-wing popularizers of #science and #technology have been allowed to define what #space is to the popular imagination. They want it to be a landscape of corporate conquest and so there's a lot of specious speculation especially from British authorities such as Dick Dawkins--for U.S. media culture grants Great Britain with superior intellectual authority--which the science journalists print as though it weren't pure speculation. Possibly nobody at @arstechnica@mastodon.social and @popsci@universeodon.com etc. has the capacity to double-check what these purported authorities say, so they just let nonsense get through. Dick Dawkins hasn't talked like a scientist in decades, and I daresay from what little I remember of his writing that he was NEVER any fucking good at it. "Mediocre" is almost too nice a word for Dick Dawkins. (cont'd)

Open ##4049121