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I gave a talk at Denver startup week last year about the underlying profit incentives tied to fake news and how industry reforms in the way media companies do business could not only benefit the advertisers but also stop Fake news. At the end of the talk I had 3 people ask how they could make fake news to promote their startups. That this has turned into a booming industry surprises me 0%, though it is depressing.
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Sure it could have been, which is why I said "if Dr. Ford was intentionally lying". If you believe that she was sincere though, I think it's much more likely that Kavanaugh was lying to protect himself than it was that an assault victim randomly mixed him up with her assaulter. From her story she knew him and had fairly prolonged close contact with him. It wasn't like she just caught a glimpse of him from a distance.…
There's the identification during the event, and there's the identification many, many years later (even 2012 was still 30 years after the event). > I think it's much more likely that Kavanaugh was lying to protect himself than it was that an assault victim randomly mixed him up with her assaulter. I agree. And if it were 1982 that would weight heavily. On the other hand, delaying charges for multiple decades, then b…
So you think it's likely that she was attacked by someone in 1982, but she didn't know who that person was at the time, and then she randomly decided in 2012 that it was this one guy she knew from high school?
Or are you saying it’s likely that she knew who it was in 1982, and then in 2012 she misremembered and decided it was someone else?
>I agree. And if it were 1982 that would weight heavily. On the other hand, delaying charges for multiple decades,
In the early 2000s my younger sister had a similar event happen to her. 2 guys grabbed her and tried to pull her clothes off at a party. My parents called the police, a detective came out and interviewed my sister. He interviewed the guys. The guys denied it. There was no way to prove that she wasn’t lying.
The result: Sorry nothing we can do. It’s your word against theirs. Don’t go to parties.
Christine Ford’s assault allegedly happened in 1982. What do you think the police response would have done in 1982 if girl accused 2 boys of sexual assault, with no evidence, and no witnesses? Keeping in mind one of the boys was the son of a judge. More importantly what do you think a 15 year old girl in 1982 would have thought the response would have been?
>then bringing them out within a narrow several-week window that happens to have the greatest possible maximum political effect...what are the probabilities of underlying motivation?
She told her therapist in 2012. What are the probabilities that she was prescient enough in 2012 to know that some day Kavanaugh would be nominated for SCOTUS so she better start laying the groundwork for an attack?
She called The Washington Post, contacted her congressman, and wrote a letter to her senator in July. Right after Kavanaugh was nominated.
>Unfortunately, either way there are some incredulous events.
Nothing about a 15 year old girl not going to the police about a crime she can’t prove is hard to believe. If anything is hard to believe it’s Kavanaugh’s responses to the questioning. Especially his explanation of “Renate Alumnius”. I don’t buy that one for a second.
Is her testimony enough to convict Kavanaugh of a crime? Certainly not--nor do I think it should be. Personally I’d say there’s a better than 50% chance it’s true though.
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There's the identification during the event, and there's the identification many, many years later (even 2012 was still 30 years after the event). > I think it's much more likely that Kavanaugh was lying to protect himself than it was that an assault victim randomly mixed him up with her assaulter. I agree. And if it were 1982 that would weight heavily. On the other hand, delaying charges for multiple decades, then b…
> There's the identification during the event, and there's the identification many, many years later (even 2012 was still 30 years after the event). So you think it's likely that she was attacked by someone in 1982, but she didn't know who that person was at the time, and then she randomly decided in 2012 that it was this one guy she knew from high school? Or are you saying it’s likely that she knew who it was in 198…
And this is what is supposed to happen. Unfortunately, there wasn't a conviction (two of the proverbial 10 guilty free), but your sister has far, far, far more credibility than if she contacted law enforcement in 2040 when one of them was in the public spotlight, or about to be promoted. Everything about her and your parents behavior in that situation is very consistent.
> she called The Washington Post, contacted her congressman, and wrote a letter to her senator in July. Right after Kavanaugh was nominated.
Exactly. Assume -- just for a minute -- that Ford is lying.
At what point would she have accused Kavanaugh? 1982? 1983? 1984? 1985? 1986? 1987? 1988? 1989?...2012? 2013?...Jan 2018? Feb 2018? Mar 2018?...Or July 2018?
Obviously that she waited until July 2018 doesn't prove she's wrong. It's just circumstantial.
> Especially his explanation of “Renate Alumnius”.
Agreed. Or Ford's explanation of a phobia of flying so intense she nearly couldn't leave her hometown.
If you haven't seen Century of the Self[1] I recommend it. It is a documentary about the history, and rise of PR. We are now, perhaps, at the end of the century of the self - as the trustworthiness (and hence value) of broadcast information drops to zero (not that it has yet, but it will). How our current news/media copes, and what replaces it are still unknown. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04
> How our current news/media copes, and what replaces it are still unknown... You should be more worried about how the current government copes with it. I think fake news might have helped Trump gain power in part, but it's DEFINITELY contributing to Trump losing power. Which illustrates that it's much easier to tear down with fake news than it is to build up. That doesn't bode at all well for anyone who wants to be…
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Allowing businesses to divorce themselves from responsibility for the effects of what they produce, regardless of consumer choice, is too easy. I have no idea what the equivalent of "Saturday morning cartoons" is today, but 20 years ago, that slot was filled with commercials for sugary foods, targeted at children. Now we have payday loans, "buy here pay here" and a host of other services that capitalize on unsophisti…
Free Markets aren't amoral at all, if I produce something of value and we swap value, I fail to see how that is amoral. In fact, preventing that transaction is amoral. Slavery itself was amoral, and codified and enforced by the state. Many in the South abhorred slavery and segregation, but had no choice but to follow the law. Killing and maiming people has been a State activity since they've existed. It's one of the…
Make no mistake, Slavery was an intended feature. Not a bug, nor a result of a state gone wild. It was considered part of their economy and part of their free market.
I've been working on some algorithms I think can identify fake news easily and reliably. The key part is you have to have a massive dataset of historical information. With Datastreamer (my company) we have about 1PB of news, blogs, and social media from the last 4-5 years. I'm curious if it would make sense to ship an open/public API that would allow people both to report AND check on whether something is fake news.…
What I found was that it's really hard to get people to report this stuff, I never really found my ideal user. A lot of people signed up, but only a few people ever actively reported things. I never finished validating the concept, but my general feel is that the only way to keep the project afloat is via grants and donations, and that's hard to do.
Email me if you ever want to collaborate.
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Usually the kind of people who esteem journalists as philosopher-kings, and the organizations who employ them as paragons of perfect, unassailable virtue. The Fourth Estate is not to be criticized.
What kind of conspiracy nonsense is this?
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> There's the identification during the event, and there's the identification many, many years later (even 2012 was still 30 years after the event). So you think it's likely that she was attacked by someone in 1982, but she didn't know who that person was at the time, and then she randomly decided in 2012 that it was this one guy she knew from high school? Or are you saying it’s likely that she knew who it was in 198…
> My parents called the police, a detective came out and interviewed my sister. And this is what is supposed to happen. Unfortunately, there wasn't a conviction (two of the proverbial 10 guilty free), but your sister has far, far, far more credibility than if she contacted law enforcement in 2040 when one of them was in the public spotlight, or about to be promoted. Everything about her and your parents behavior in t…
Yes she does. That's not the point of my story. The point is that many women today see the end result and they don’t think it’s worth the public shame.
30 years ago in 1982 when a rape investigation could end up with the victim being accused of wanting it because they dressed too slutty.
It’s not about what women should do it’s about what they actually do. The evidence shows that they are very likely not to immediately report assaults.
>Exactly. Assume -- just for a minute -- that Ford is lying. At what point would she have accused Kavanaugh? 1982? 1983? 1984? 1985? 1986? 1987? 1988? 1989?...2012? 2013?...Jan 2018? Feb 2018? Mar 2018?...Or July 2018?
If she was lying. She was lying in 2012. The potential motive of wanting to sink a SCOTUS nominee, didn’t hold in 2012. And since she didn’t do so publicly, the potential publicity motive didn’t hold then either.
Her testimony isn’t proof, but it’s strong enough evidence that I would pass on the candidate if I were interviewing him for a job.
>Agreed. Or Ford's explanation of a phobia of flying so intense she nearly couldn't leave her hometown.
This explanation?
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Mitchell: I ask that because it’s been reported by the press that you would not submit to an interview with the committee because of your fear of flying. Is that true?
Ford: Well, I was willing—I was hoping that they would come to me. But then realized that was an unrealistic request.
Mitchell: It would have been a quicker trip for me. [Both laugh.]
Ford: Yes. So, that was certainly what I was hoping, was to avoid having to get on an airplane. But I eventually was able to get up the gumption with the help of some friends, and get on the plane.
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It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I hate flying, but I fly 2 or 3 times a year for work because they pay me a lot of money to do it. I won’t do it if I can avoid it, but with sufficient motivation I will.
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That's a remarkably confident statement that's completely unprovable. I could just as easily posit easy international travel, world trade, mass media, democracy, and many other things as more effective than h-bombs for bringing about the relative peace of the late 20th/early 21st century. Those particular things have the added benefit that they generally don't risk the side-effect of world annihilation.
> completely unprovable Yes, it's challenging to answer with certainty. Though "easy international travel, world trade, mass media, democracy, etc." were not invented at almost the precise moment that all-out large scale wars ("world wars") on Earth ended.
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I don't think Internet anonymity is a thing though. Even if you make a fully unrelated identity, smearing that identity is enough to discredit your ability to engage online. Sure, you can make another and another, but starting over with zero online credibility is the same thing as losing all your credibility.
One of the components of online anonymity is having different identites for different communities. That way if your expiremental political blog goes horribly wrong it doesn't take your professional life or hobby group with it