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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I greatly prefer "off-topic, but interesting" to "interesting, but off-topic". Stuff belonging to the former category can be eye-opening at times.
> off-topic, but interesting > interesting, but off-topic I believe you just said the same thing twice, you only reversed the order (I think the "but" here just is an AND) :-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I greatly prefer "off-topic, but interesting" to "interesting, but off-topic". Stuff belonging to the former category can be eye-opening at times.
> off-topic, but interesting > interesting, but off-topic I believe you just said the same thing twice, you only reversed the order (I think the "but" here just is an AND) :-)
What warrants this story making it to the front page of HN?
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
“Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.”
Left to their own devices, people tend to devolve to the lowest common denominator-type news. I wish the moderators here (since we have them) would do a better job of keeping such “Off-Topic” stuff off the front page.
> "In a press conference last December, he issued a heartfelt plea: if journalists filed positive stories for just six months, [...] would become a great nation. Mostly, [...] journalists obliged." Hmm. The story of a novelist being detained by customs and subject to political interrogation to see if the novel is sufficiently patriotic is not unique to Pakistan, either. Even in countries which pride themselves on fre…
Where else have you seen this?
This dynamic should be familiar to anyone who works at the art of telling stories. People want pretty-sounding stories to be true and will believe in them regardless of any evidence to the contrary. Even if important aspects of the story are demonstrably, verifiably false, they'll seize on some other aspect of the made-up story to believe in the truth of it.
I think this is the underlying dynamic behind the motte-and-bailey rhetorical tactic: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bri...
Once every three weeks or so, my father catches me up on the latest in the alt-right scroogery. There's always some grand reveal just over the horizon, and the time shifts from 'real soon now' to 'in a few years', to mine and draw out that human feeling of being in on the conspiracy as much as possible.
That's the real feeling being sold here. Certainty in a realm in which there can be none. They're willing to overlook countless bits of evidence that there can't be any certainty here either, just to keep the magic of the feeling of seeing things from a higher perspective alive.
On a lighter note, a friend and I often refer to the concept of the mondegreen, misheard lyrics or dialogue that winds up being more iconic than the original. One audience member for the play on which the term originated, upon learning the original reading, refused to accept that it was ever different from how she heard it.
It's a form of audience participation in storytelling and is probably older than civilization itself.
Pakistanis are addicted to 'conspiracy' theories and he who can garner most attention in this circle will ultimately get most media limelight within Pakistan and hence most money.
Pakistan is a simpleton Country and Society in many respects and it is quiet easy to herd the masses and profit out of it. And with certain Countries always looking to drag Pakistan's name and reputation into mud, these people's outlandish claims will go unchallenged and will be etched into global media's output.
This is not to say there aren't any problems with Pakistan -- there are some very serious problems and media and authors and journalists do a great job highlighting them. But unfortunately, certain class of 'elite' Pakistanis tend to view themselves as universe revolving around them.
And icing on cake is that these are same Pakistanis who typically hold dual nationalities and foreign visas and on slightest signs of trouble, quickly take next flight out of Pakistan in order to evade authorities in Pakistan. They from outside of Pakistan, they continue to preach against Pakistan.
The skeptical part of me says none of this actually happened and that the article is just a piece of publicity stunt. The other part thinks the author is too careless/not paranoid enough: he just guaranteed himself a spot on a watchlist by publicly admitting that he deceived the officers who interrogated him.
And knowing Pakistanis both are equally possible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
People here love to quote that, but they rarely mention the very next sentence: “ Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. ” Left to their own devices, people tend to devolve to the lowest common denominator-type news. I wish…
> Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it.
You have to understand something about a subset of 'elite' Pakistanis. This subset cherishes creating controversies as it generates the most attention in Pakistan and puts them on global platform as 'expert' on Pakistan issues. Pakistanis are addicted to 'conspiracy' theories and he who can garner most attention in this circle will ultimately get most media limelight within Pakistan and hence most money. Pakistan is…
Controversies and conspiracies go viral because they capture the human imagination. They appeal to an innate tendency in us to trust a more detailed version of the event with embroidered descriptions over a simpler version where incompetence, coincidence and happenstance determine what truly happened. If there are signs of a grand master plan linking the reported event to other significant events, then all the better. It requires the capability to apply sober second thought to deconstruct such narratives and dissuade oneself, which most people lack either by virtue of talent or training.
There are those who would take advantage of this gullibility to spin narratives completely devoid of reality, these elites that you refer to. And as long as their mission is to enrich themselves at the expense of others, they will continue to do so, and society will suffer as a result.
Education of the masses is the only solution.
You have to understand something about a subset of 'elite' Pakistanis. This subset cherishes creating controversies as it generates the most attention in Pakistan and puts them on global platform as 'expert' on Pakistan issues. Pakistanis are addicted to 'conspiracy' theories and he who can garner most attention in this circle will ultimately get most media limelight within Pakistan and hence most money. Pakistan is…