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The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

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Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#191

Post by jhardy54 »

googthrowaway42 wrote: post #164
shadowgovt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are biased, but if the facts are accurate, that's irrelevant. A trustworthy organization doing fact checking on one side of the aisle while ignoring inaccuracies from the other side is preferable to no fact-checking at all. Question is: where is Republican Snopes? It's a free information market; why is nobody doing it?

There is no Republican Snopes because conservatives, since the Enlightenment, don't do sense making that way (i.e. via institutional consensus). At the end of the day unless you were personally there to witness something or can prove something mathematically or do the science yourself, you are ultimately dependent on some network of trust to inform you of the truth or falsity of something. And even then "true" and "f…

You're in for a surprise when you discover Fox News.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#192

Post by arp242 »

andrewtbham wrote: post #173

> it is not that the facts it reports tend to be inaccurate yes it is. I really lost faith in nyt when they ran article about running out of running out of charge in a Tesla. When they were caught red handed lying they still wouldn't admit to it. Their response was: "Problems With Precision and Judgment, but Not Integrity, in Tesla Test" They just don't get it. People are sick of their BS and they need to just comp t…

That's 7 years ago? I don't know anything about that entire story so I can't comment specifically, but the NYT publishes about 150 articles a day, so there are bound to be some stinkers over the years. It's not great, but dismissing an entire publication over it doesn't strike me as fair.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#193

Post by Nihilartikel »

Falling3 wrote: post #148
imustbeevil wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government, scientists, experts in various fields, people who have proven to tell the truth in the past, etc. You obviously still have your own ability to determine what fits your model of the universe and what doesn't. These are just groups of people more likely to have access to information that you might not. You don't have to trust anyone, but in a system where someone has to judge what is true, these groups…

Governments, scientists, and experts have also been proven to be wrong and to have lied in the past.

A scientist being wrong is GOOD! The scientific process relies on assimilation of negative results.

If a scientist is emotionally attached to a result and ignores a result that they don't like, they are no longer engaged in science.

Peer review and replication is the correcting factor for the unfortunate reality that science must be, for the moment carried out by humans.

At the very least, when operating properly science becomes less wrong. That cannot be said for politicians who are interested in nothing but confirmation of their preconceptions.

There is a special place in hell for those who cynically use the fact that scientists are sometimes wrong as an attack against the very existence of knowledge and consensus reality itself.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#194

Post by lootsauce »

googthrowaway42 wrote: post #164
shadowgovt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are biased, but if the facts are accurate, that's irrelevant. A trustworthy organization doing fact checking on one side of the aisle while ignoring inaccuracies from the other side is preferable to no fact-checking at all. Question is: where is Republican Snopes? It's a free information market; why is nobody doing it?

There is no Republican Snopes because conservatives, since the Enlightenment, don't do sense making that way (i.e. via institutional consensus). At the end of the day unless you were personally there to witness something or can prove something mathematically or do the science yourself, you are ultimately dependent on some network of trust to inform you of the truth or falsity of something. And even then "true" and "f…

what is the reason to down-vote this comment?

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#195

Post by ksdale »

bjowen wrote: post #184
marcus_holmes wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, who judges whether something is true?

Oh nobody’s even bothered to think about epistemology before.

I mean, I know you're joking, but people agree on the easy stuff (mostly, I guess), so all that's left to figure out is the hard stuff. It's true that people have spent thousands of years thinking about epistemology, but my impression is that it's not a solved problem at all.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#196

Post by schemy »

shadowgovt wrote: post #145
giancarlostoro wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fun one I ask when someone brings up Snopes: Who snopes the snopes? In other words how do we know they are not being biased or thorough enough? I am not saying everything there is wrong but I have ran into weird biased articles before.

They are biased, but if the facts are accurate, that's irrelevant. A trustworthy organization doing fact checking on one side of the aisle while ignoring inaccuracies from the other side is preferable to no fact-checking at all. Question is: where is Republican Snopes? It's a free information market; why is nobody doing it?

>They are biased, but if the facts are accurate, that's irrelevant.

Not really:

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2009/aug/20/bernie-san...

>The OECD's numbers tell a similar story. In 2007, the OECD said that the United States spent $7,290 per capita on health care, ranking it first among the 30 countries studied. Five other nations spent more than $3,645 per capita, the point at which the United States no longer doubles their spending. The highest is the Netherlands at $4,417. The other four were Austria, Canada, Norway and Switzerland.

So he was rated as wrong for saying 'double' because it was actually 1.65 times for one country out of thirty. Oh and they used the dollar exchange rate for their numbers, not the PPP which is what actually matters.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#197

Post by blueyes »

andrewtbham wrote: post #173

> it is not that the facts it reports tend to be inaccurate yes it is. I really lost faith in nyt when they ran article about running out of running out of charge in a Tesla. When they were caught red handed lying they still wouldn't admit to it. Their response was: "Problems With Precision and Judgment, but Not Integrity, in Tesla Test" They just don't get it. People are sick of their BS and they need to just comp t…

What does the author of this piece want?

The "truth", or even a plausible interpretation of the facts, is expensive to produce. It is even more expensive when you do it every day covering a wide array of topics.

If you value facts and good analysis, pay for them. It's that simple. Sure, the New York Times gets a lot of things wrong. So does everyone else, including many commenters on HN.

* But a lot of what the New York Times reports, that people disagree with, are things that governments and companies say and do. Those governments and companies have reasons to lie, but the enunciation of the lie is a fact. Judgment is left to the reader, if he has it.

* Publications are also reflections of the societies and political systems in which they are embedded. They speak based on the assumptions and contest of forces in that milieu.

* Most publications are firmly rooted in the attention seeking dynamics of their industry. Many of their errors can be categorized as: amplifying the causes of fear or outrage. Again, if you keep that in mind, their stories are easier to parse.

* Finally, a publication is not a monolith. It is a human organization with good reporters and bad reporters, good days and bad days. The Tesla article written by Stross was ludicrous. The reports by Judy Miller that led us into the Iraq War were abhorrent.

The New York Times should be ashamed of those lapses. But it is putting out a large number of factual reports everyday. Much larger than any equivalent number of human beings in America.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#199

Post by Falling3 »

Nihilartikel wrote: post #193
Falling3 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments, scientists, and experts have also been proven to be wrong and to have lied in the past.

A scientist being wrong is GOOD! The scientific process relies on assimilation of negative results. If a scientist is emotionally attached to a result and ignores a result that they don't like, they are no longer engaged in science. Peer review and replication is the correcting factor for the unfortunate reality that science must be, for the moment carried out by humans. At the very least, when operating properly sci…

I don't disagree with you. The only thing I'm arguing against is the GP's comment that we should blindly put our trust in the groups mentioned.

Some of the best parts about science, as you've pointed out, are peer review and replication. There should never be a need to put your faith in an individual scientist and take them at their word.

>There is a special place in hell for those who cynically use the fact that scientists are sometimes wrong as an attack against the very existence of knowledge and consensus reality itself.

I hope it's clear that I was in no way doing that.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#200

Post by Falling3 »

askxnakjsn wrote: post #153
Falling3 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments, scientists, and experts have also been proven to be wrong and to have lied in the past.

Getting things wrong on occasion is better than having some sort of idiot free for all.

We have more options than blindly trust those who are more likely to be right and "idiot free for all".
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