It appears that a large-scale international conflict may soon occur. What can we do?

TheDude wrote: @Cayce
In addition, here is a quote from the Wikileaks:

"Here is what we have: Huffington post is doing a story tomorrow "fact checking" the idea that there was a push for a constitutional amendment in 1996, as HRC claimed was true. The piece will essentially say there was not, and will quote Rosen's tweet and Eval Wolfson saying this was not true and was hardly a basis for DOMA to be signed by WJC."

This demonstrates that the Clinton campaign has had exchanges with fact checking sites such as PolitiFact and Snopes. Given that this is the case, how am I supposed to trust in the legitimacy of those websites? How am I supposed to trust that they act in a completely fact-based, nonpartisan manner? I sure don't trust those websites after having read the Wikileaks information, so now what source am I to turn to? Our mainstream media is compromised as well. A review of the Wikileaks information reveals that to be a fact.

What I mean to say clearly is that the legitimacy of those sources are not written in stone, and that the verification of them depends wholly on who is doing the verifying. At this point, Wikileaks may be the most reliable source of information out there.

Wikileaks, while being an amazing service (one I applaud and support), has 'leaked' incorrect documents more than once . They cannot always fact check, verify, or otherwise deeply vett material submitted to them. This is mostly by design, of course, and is not their 'fault' per say.

Even if they do vett a particular leak, they are human, and choose what we do and don't see.

You as an individual are choosing to believe Wikileaks over other sources, which is your right. But people have and will abuse it, and leak fake documents for their own purposes.

This does not make every leak a 100% true fact, though.

We should only accept something as 'fact' if verified by multiple trustworthy sources, and even then, as Jedi I would expect us to keep a healthy open mind to new information. If new information is brought to light, which is correct, even if it goes against our personal views we should not discount it.

In addition, nowhere in the snippet you cited did it explicitly state that her campaign has ties with Poltifact or Snopes. Huffington Post is not related to them. Those two other websites have been, and continue to be vetted for some time, as they are very much in the public eye and professionally cite their proof and sources.

I end with simply stating that we should all do our homework, and hold each other accountable. I'm not arguing against your views at all, just trying to promote healthy open minds and fact checking in detail, which I believe Jedi should strive for.

“For any reputable person or organization to be successful, that person's or organization's actions must be based on solid information, not conspiracy theories, not hearsay, not rumors, and certainly not fear mongering.”
― Mike Klepper

Oh here's an idea... we can just fix stuff by ourselves. Yeah just go to the source and make it right. Sort of like batman. Throw on that mask and cape and be done with the problem.;

We do something, involve ourselves in politics to bring about a peaceful end to this war before it begins, with the most limited amount of casualties as we can achieve.

TheDude wrote: @Senan

Given that my point was that people are advocating violence and extremism, then, you should be completely willing to accept quotes from individuals who advocate violence and extremism.

False. Joseph McCarthy called half of Hollywood "Communists" and advocated throwing them in jail. Joseph McCarthy was full of crap. Just because someone says something and you can quote them doesn't make it evidence. Advocating something and doing something are two very different things. Idle threats are made every day, often by fear mongers. I become concerned when they are both credible and demonstrate an imminent threat to myself or those around me.

TheDude wrote: I disagree with your sentiment that we're not escalating toward a new era of public awareness. The media's job is now being done by hackers and leakers who present the information with complete clarity and no partisan lens, which is more than the media in this country ever did. If things continue in this fashion and people actually care about it, we will certainly be in a better position of public awareness and understanding than at any other point in our history, perhaps in the history of any nation on this planet.

You are welcome to disagree, and on this point we do. Being aware and being informed are not the same. Hackers and leakers are no more credible than mainstream media when their sources cannot be vetted as credible. I'm not saying they do, but it would be just as easy for WikiLeaks to distribute false information as it would for "the media" (See Cayce's paost above). I put that in quotes because there is no such thing as "the media" There is just various media controlled or owned by various groups, each with an agenda. That includes WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and other hackers and leakers. Everyone is partisan, and your claim of "complete clarity" is at best subjective and at worst false.

TheDude wrote: You also use the term "conspiracy" as if it were something automatically untrue, or at least I inferred that from you. We know for a fact that certain conspiracies are true. The DNC corruption, the NSA scandal, etc. are all conspiracies which have been demonstrated to be absolutely true. Recently a scientist named Michio Kaku admitted to some extent that government-based weather control programs exist -- previously a position only taken seriously by that "tinfoil hat" crowd. The legitimacy of any claim can only be demonstrated through facts and we can only learn the facts by listening to the media which has proved thus far to be unreliable or by piecing together the information through logical deduction on our own. Just because someone is talking about something you would consider to be a conspiracy theory doesn't mean they haven't done the latter.

A conspiracy is a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal. I do not consider every conspiracy to be untrue. People create conspiracies to commit murder, get their coworkers fired and cheat on their spouses all the time. The difference between a real conspiracy and a conspiracy theory is that there is actual credible evidence of the first and merely a theory about the second. I consider something a conspiracy theory until it has been proven. That is how logical deduction works, and it is why most intelligent people do not immediately accept conspiracy theories.

TheDude wrote: When you say that there has always been corruption, that probably is true. But that doesn't mean that we have to sit idly by while corrupt politicians create policies which subjugate us or murder innocent civilians (such as the US drone strike program). It doesn't mean we have to sit idly by while corrupt law enforcement officials enforce those unjust policies. It doesn't mean that standing up for ourselves and standing against something terrible is unworthy of a Jedi or an intelligent human being. We may actually have a duty to do so. None of the corruption or the problems will change if WE the people aren't the ones to change it.

I agree. We must fight corruption. Jedi have a duty to do so. Fear mongering is not the way to do it. Scaring people into action creates illogical overreaction. Those who build bomb shelters may one day be proven right, but as of now there is an equally credible outcome that will prove them wrong.

TheDude wrote: And in order for us to change it, we need to take seriously the complaints and threats of individuals, no matter who they might be and no matter what their history is. The boy who cried wolf was right in the end; there was a wolf.

No, we don't. I don't have to take anyone seriously if they do not have the facts to back up what they are saying. I don't have to take every threat of violence seriously when they come from people using fear to encourage violent action by others. I can call "bullshit" on them and suggest they seek a peaceful resolution to their problems rather than threatening others.

The boy who cried wolf was eventually right, and it's entirely his fault that the sheep got eaten in the end. It happened because he was constantly incorrect or lying and the logical and intelligent people in town got tired of his crap. Maybe if he wasn't a fear monger all along, the people in town would have believed him when the threat was real.