Photo-Fakery and Hatemongering - John Dunn, Consultant, Ambertec, P.E., P.C.

Hatemongers like to invoke the most precious and personal virtues of religious righteousness, moral rectitude and honor in very peculiar ways. For several years, I was receiving hatemonger diatribes by e-mail that contained all of the following, taken from there by copy-and-paste:

"The Bible", "the Ten Commandments", "the word God", "-One minute for God:", "In remembrance of the lives lost on Tuesday, September 11, 2001... ", "In God We Trust, United We Stand.", "Hillary Clinton was constituently (sic) rude... ", "some of my more liberal friends aren't gonna like this", "... the fairy godmother of the radical left... ", "Screw the ACLU.", "Makes me proud to be an American!!!!!!!!!" and "Drop dead. God bless America."

One message made reference to "Hillary Rotten Clinton".

From this juxtaposition of divine references, foul epithets, sloganeering, put-downs and whatever else this might be called, we learn that hatemongering is not a philosophy, a set of moral values, a political agenda nor a belief system, but defies such categorization. Sadly however, this empty drivel has suckered in enough foolish Americans to repeatedly tip elections the wrong way and has thus served to plunge this nation into the disastrous and tragic consequences of recent years in which thousands of Americans who would otherwise be alive today, are dead.  

Observation teaches us that hatemongering is a behavioral aberration born of frustration with the real world combined with an intense detestation of selected scapegoats. Consider for example, the following low quality picture that was once e-mailed to me, said to be of a welfare recipient cheat living in luxury surroundings. Upon close examination however, this image does not appear to bear scrutiny.

Why do I think that? Because the reflection in the screen of the television does not match anything in the room. There is nothing that has what looks like five knobs arranged in an upside down letter "V" pattern.    

Now add to this picture the attributed quote: Shut up, white boy! and the originator's malicious intent is made all too clear.

For information about detection of fraudulent images, see Scientific American, June 2008, "Digital Forensics: How Experts Uncover Doctored Images". That article seeks to  teach the reader how to (hopefully) not be fooled by such chicanery.

After this message came to me, I saw that the entire e-mail distribution list was visible so I replied to all of the recipients with the above observation and commentary and the hatemongering messages stopped coming in. At least, they stopped coming in to me.

It's been three years so far. 

Comments

[John Stoughton]

Hold their feet to the fire John.

[Donald S Brant Jr]

For an interesting treatise on "the history and techniques of photographic deception and manipulation" please refer to "Photo Fakery" by Dino A. Brugioni, a founder of the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center. I found it to be fascinating reading. With the proliferation of Photoshop and its clones this method of deception is bound to become more common and more difficult to detect.

[Randall Brynsvold]

Too many people can be convinced by arguments focused on "fairness" and "unfairness", and are willing to ignore their own well-being to keep someone else from getting what they don't "deserve". Even if that someone else is not real.

From The New Yorker magazine, in an article by James Surowiecki:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2012/06/04/120604ta_talk_surowiecki

"The basic problem is that we care so much about fairness that we are often willing to sacrifice economic well-being to enforce it. Behavioral economists have shown that a sizable percentage of people are willing to pay real money to punish people who are taking from a common pot but not contributing to it. Just to insure that shirkers get what they deserve, we are prepared to make ourselves poorer. Similarly, a famous experiment known as the ultimatum game — one person offers another a cut of a sum of money and the second person decides whether or not to accept — shows that people will walk away from free money if they feel that an offer is unfair. Thus, even when there’s a solution that would leave everyone better off, a fixation on fairness can make agreement impossible.

...The fairness problem is exacerbated by the fact that our definition of what counts as fair typically reflects what the economists Linda Babcock and George Loewenstein call a “self-serving bias.”
...The self-serving bias leads us to define fairness in ways that redound to our benefit, and to discount information that might conflict with our perspective. This effect is even more pronounced when bargainers don’t feel that they are part of the same community — a phenomenon that psychologists call “social distance.”"

[David W. Rogers]

John
I congratulate you on the sentiments expressed above and your actions taken. How exactly did you capture the distribution list? I need to do the same with some email I am receiving.
Dave