We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

I'm not sure this particular example fits the "sarcastic" angle. I believe a more charitable interpretation is possible:

> HH: I’ve got two more questions. Last night, you said the President was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.

You could infer from this that HH is trying to limit the President's culpability - a difference of "happened on my watch" vs "I am directly responsible".

> DT: No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps DT's objection is over the implication from HH's statement, rather than to be taken literally. He goes on to temper his statement - the President had a "very important role", etc. Outside of this context, DT's objection is not very coherent, but that's the nature of a (presumably) unscripted, antagonistic interview. Case in point, HH blunders in their retort:

> HH: But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them.

This objection is moving the goalposts. You can be a founder of something and hate it - the founder can be displaced, the "something" can change course, etc. You can tell HH is reading into what DT is saying - HH seems to think that DT is pushing a "the President is an ISIS sympathizer" narrative, which isn't at all indicated by DT's words, and he immediately disagrees:

> DT: I don’t care. He was the founder.

In thinking about this interview and how I just overanalyzed it, I reached a frustrating impasse. It would certainly be great if DT had the eloquence of Obama, and his statements were well-crafted and not so open to interpretation. On the other hand, relying too much on the eloquence of politicians leads you into a hole of "empty talk" - they say a lot of words, take no positions and after analyzing their response you realize it lacks any substance.

DT does not conform to the standard mold of a politician, so I think it's difficult to try and analyze him through it. He will eventually become President, and be forced to make decisions - actions are much easier to evaluate than words.

> I am afraid that your average engineer will make a pretty incompetent legislator. So let's leave legislation to legislators... :-)

I disagree. Aside from a few highly political engineers and/or software devs, almost all engineers I know insist on actually looking at the facts and evaluating them to the best of their ability, regardless of their political inclinations. This is a very rare characteristic in our society, and I can't help but to believe it's a very virtuous trait to have for a legislator.

Most engineers also aren't inflicted with the lust for power and status like so many (most?) attorneys I know.

Most engineers also have a pretty rare ability to listen to and to accept criticism. That's not always something legislators can boast of.

I think we need more scientists, engineers, software professionals, etc. in our political system, not less.

Also, what exact lack of understanding in terms of "structure" of the current system did you find appalling in those blockchain hackers? Can you be more specific?

I think (all) the ad networks are the grandfathers of fake news. Maybe it's not news, but with "native advertising" the trend to forward folks to a blog post about this AMAZING PRODUCT instead of shopping cart started. I blame Taboola!

> I'm not sure this particular example fits the "sarcastic" angle

Ok, but Trump disagrees with you: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/12/donald-trump...

> Perhaps DT's objection is over the implication from HH's statement, rather than to be taken literally

Perhaps all sorts of things. That's the problem - throughout the campaign all sorts of Trump surrogates found themselves saying "What he actually meant was...".

> It would certainly be great if DT had the eloquence of Obama, and his statements were well-crafted and not so open to interpretation

It's totally fair to be suspicious of well-crafted statements of career politicians and prefer the "honest simple speech" of outsiders. I'm not sure that's a good description of the way that Trump talks, however.

It's impossible to prove, but I believe that he deliberately speaks ambiguously to serve his own purposes - which is the opposite of honest speech.

> He will eventually become President, and be forced to make decisions - actions are much easier to evaluate than words.

This is very true. And who knows, he might do great things - I'm not hopeful, though.

If a post is being pitched as news, then some amount of fact checking needs to take place. Traditional media has been doing that forever and identifying sources of information, since they have to uphold their reputation. I think in this day and age the responsibility falls on Facebook, or whatever is publishing the "news". Facebook could use a standardized and easily recognizable visual language to indicate how "newsworthy" a given post is. Heck we now have an animated language for reactions, why can't we have this?

I would be cautious about outright filtering content without giving user some way to set thresholds. It feels like handing way too much power to the algorithm. I want to make the final (informed) decision on what to read and what to believe.