How to detect nonsense in your daily reading
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
I was amusing myself on Twitter the other day engaging with a US resident who criticized the Philippines in response to my post that jabbed at the craziness going on in the US these days. He was trolling me, I was trolling him, then out of my head rolled a gem of a comment. I’d like to share it. Maybe it will help as we engage with others on social media, sorting out nonsense from sense.
“At the end of the day, a belief is not a fact and simplicity grossly misrepresents complex environments. Put another way, I see no need to incorporate your thinking into mine.”
We should be clear that people today speak in codes, not literature, rather like my wife gives me instructions by pursing her lips and nodding at something I’d better attend to if I value my life.
Memes are codes. Insults are codes. Protest signs are codes. Quotes from Mark Twain. Slogans. Jokes. These are all codes.
Beliefs are codes. Most are not truths, or sorely misrepresent the truth.
The truth is elaborate. It has a place and a time and a reason. It has a context. We ought not mistake codes for truths. Codes are speaking more to our emotions than our intellect.
What do we want to be when we engage on line? Emotionalists or intellectuals?
Demanding the ICI be transparent is an emotional argument. “We’ve been tricked by you government schmoes before and we’re tired of it. We don’t trust you!!!”
Exclamation points are emotional, eh?
The ICI does not want misreads of its work. It wants to do the work. That makes sense to me if indeed they are showing results, which they are doing with travel watch order requests and seeking more executional powers. But I dare not offer that view in the maelstrom of emotions blasting across social media. I don’t wish to infest my calm rational observation with other peoples’ angst.
Simplicity is an emotional code. We should understand that. It is not bad, necessarily. I emotionalize often with my posts and Twitter length commentary. Memes, insults, short form commentary, and other codes are like dogs herding sheep, sometimes useful to influence thinking, sometimes just a lot of useless noise.
We should be more cerebral sheep and object now and then to the dog. Bark back or take our chosen rational path. Simplicity is tiresome if you are aware of it. There is just so much of the stuff.
Give me context or give me a beer. Go bark at someone else.
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Cover photo from yourdictionary.com article “Mark Twain Quotes on Life That Tell It Like It Is”.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
For those who have no time to read, gossip or chismis is still the source of info.
And many are illeterate even if many are bashing PSA for declaring it
those who cannot read maybe because they have bad eyesight or blind because of diabetes induced retinopathy can still listen to radio, we have broadcast network servicing the archipelago. all one has to do is tune in and listen. we also have several news personalities that people loved and trusted.
First, I agree diabetes sucks.
But those given the chance to learn how to read waste it on nopnsense as the topic of the time rightfully says so.
How to stop this, since a full stop is just temporary maybe fact-checking, truth blasting meaning truth spreading on steroids and not blasting the truth.
But I don’t agree with stopping wowowee, showtime, bubble gang and the likes because we get something from them.
Still it is eye of the beholder, knowing what to do next thing.
chismis is still subject to defamation or libel. anything said or vexatiously spoken that destroys the reputation or good name of another carries penalty. being spoken, chismis or such, may not be easy to retrieve, it may take longer, but it can be retrieved. and both chismosa’t chismoso can be taken to court, made accountable, and either fined or punished.
On a daily viewing note.
I could not believe that a real estate moguls can beat teams of career diplomats in brokering peace or some say temporary cease fires.
ahem, here is one diplomat that summat lost the plot!
https://tribune.net.ph/2025/10/15/locsin-duterte-was-abducted-not-arrested
We now must be educated with fact checking sources. But we are too stubborn to believe what we want.
That’s a good point. I should add fact checkers to my follow and read lists. Excellent way to stay on top of debates and not get influenced by noise.
Nice quote.
That just explains the wokeism of Biden era that is dying today as ordinary people are waking up.
You can identify as a woman or man and donkey, it doesn’t bother me. It’s your right. But don’t label me transphobic if I think you are crazy. If you identify yourself as a lampstand, good for you. I’ll buy you a bulb and you can shove it up your a**.
You see a chaos of today, I see a reaction to the craziness of Biden years.
Okay Tom. I’ll not incorporate your thinking into mine. Nor your character.
OT: MLQ3’s new vlog format for The Explainer, with his first episode about.. hearts.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17CpTrD6J3/
that is so sad! did not want to test immigration’s look out order just in case.
paris catwalk ay mangungulila without her. here, it is hard to catwalk on flood waters, she would need a submersible and a snorkel and enough media coverage to report her feat.
Early morning in Berlin. Getting ready to head back across Poland to Lviv.
I met some amazing expat patriots, and European friends of Americans, yesterday afternoon at the #NoKings protest at the Brandenburg Gate. Conservative estimates are that over 7 million Americans protested across the Mainland US. Double the attendance of the last No Kings protest. The true attendance numbers are probably more. Fast approaching the 3.5% activated citizenry mark, with now more than 2% of Americans rising up.
Today there are 350 million Americans, out of 700 million Americans who have ever lived since the Founding. Democracy requires patriotism and patriotism requires PERSONAL sacrifice, not just for ourselves but for our neighbor. And all the naysayers be damned about the supposed “American decline.” The United States is a nation of constant renewal. There are no politicians, no judges, there no leaders to lead us out of the darkness but ourselves.
Yesterday at the Brandenburg Gate a public reading of Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “The American Crisis,” welled up deep emotion inside of me. The lowest point of Continental morale; the improbability of success staring down the then-superpower. I’ll leave an excerpt of that pamphlet here:
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
— Thomas Paine, December 19, 1776, The American Crisis No. 1
Let us not be summer soldiers and sunshine patriots. From the US to the Philippines and all peoples facing authoritarian pressure — Love your country not only as it was and is, but LOVE YOUR COUNTRY FOR WHAT IT CAN BE.
Good advice that, as the future is what change moves into. I chuckled earlier today, upon seeing all the anti-Duterte memes and messages flooding Facebook, that the good governance coalition evidently now includes Yellows, Pinks, Left, and the CIA. LOL. And eventually maybe President Marcos as it is the only logical end to his effort to rebuild the family brand.
Enjoy your travels. They are the real riches.