A populace has a belief that is discordant with your belief system and instead of trying to understand the idiosyncrasies of why the populace has this, in your opinion, false belief, you instead come up with nonsense conspiracy theories.

Maybe the populace does infact hold the incorrect belief, in that regard the burden of effort should be on you to justify your belief and justify why their belief is incorrect. But, ofcourse that's too hard. It's much easier to say that the populace has been somehow manipulated or deceived, or in your case, come to the conclusion that the populace does not hold the discordant belief at all. The discordant belief is a fabrication.

It isn't a populace though, look at all the people who hate the movie, they are all over the place. The reviews don't reflect that. Also paid for reviews is well proven now. Also you spelled your name wrong.

@microscope said:

It isn't a populace though, look at all the people who hate the movie, they are all over the place.

Even if you interview a thousand people, that's not a representative sample of the entire world. It might be a representative sample for a zip code; you might determine that people in your zip code don't like the movie. You cannot generalize the opinions of people in your zip code to the entire world.

@microscope said:

Also you spelled your name wrong.

There isn't great availability of the username Jeff if you make an account, for anything.

Why would I know people in my zip code? Lol. I am talking about all the pages online and on this forum. Lots of people hated it yet the reviews are like 100% positive. RT gives it 94% which is a total scandal.

Selection bias. Have you considered that people who like the movie might not be outspoken on the internet. When you are looking at posts on the internet you might be seeing a skewed view.

That being said, I shouldn't be hypocritical and encourage self-doubt without doubting my own beliefs. Maybe I'm wrong and you are indeed right in your conspiracy theory.

Still it's worthy of reflection: Is your theory parsimonious, or does it violate Occam's Razor? Are the assumptions you are making plausible assumptions?

@Geff said:

Selection bias. Have you considered that people who like the movie might not be outspoken on the internet.

If that was the case all movie discussion would be the same, yet it isn't. You can decide for yourself if it is plausible, but you should first think about whether it is illegal or not to pay off reviewers. (It isn't). And if it happens in one industry, why wouldn't it happen in others? At the end of the day, no movie should ever get 94% from a professional review website, especially this movie.

The Wailing got 99% (I happen to agree with this rating, but that's subjective and unimportant). Does that mean that they too purchased reviews?

For sure.

I guess don't trust the rating system then. Fairly simple solution.

I happen to be part of the, according to you, small minority who who like Arrival. My impression is validated by the rating, unlike yours. As a result, I have no cause to doubt the legitimacy of the rating. You have not provided sufficient evidence to convince me.

Your argument (if I'm correct) is: Just because it can happen and it has happened in the past (you have not shown sources in regards to this claim), means that it is happening now. A possibility does not imply a certainty.

It really comes down to whether or not you agree with the rating. If you agree with the rating, it's legitimate, if you disagree with the rating then it's illegitimate.

@Geff said:

@microscope said:

It isn't a populace though, look at all the people who hate the movie, they are all over the place.

Even if you interview a thousand people, that's not a representative sample of the entire world. It might be a representative sample for a zip code; you might determine that people in your zip code don't like the movie. You cannot generalize the opinions of people in your zip code to the entire world.

@microscope said:

Also you spelled your name wrong.

There isn't great availability of the username Jeff if you make an account, for anything.

I kinda figured your username was short for "Geoffrey".

Did you like Contact?

@microscope said:

Did you like Contact?

Much better than Arrival.

I'm guessing Geff has watched it a million times.

Other than an interesting premise, Arrival was total garbage. Most of the reviews had to have been fixed.

Yep!