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Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

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Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#241

Post by Manuel_D »

wpietri wrote: post #223
slowhand09 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its perspective. Drawing a parallel to Elon Musk. He says his political leanings haven't changed. Draw a line marked Far Left, Left, Sort of Left, Middle, Sort of Right, Right, Far Right. He says he was Left or Sort of Left, but somebody dragged the line way to the left. He is where he always was, but the line has moved.

Nah. We live in an age of asymmetric polarization. XKCD has a good rendering of the DW-NOMINATE data. Look especially at the US House since Reagan: https://xkcd.com/1127/ The right has moved far more than the left. Just looking at today's news, we find a prominent right-wing activist was convicted of plotting to overthrow the government: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63802649 The only area I think you coul…

More reputable sources find that polarization is largely symmetrical: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/section-1-gr...

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#242

Post by ChainOfFools »

davidhyde wrote: post #237
crazygringo wrote: post #162

I see this claim in nearly every HN thread about the Economist -- that it's declined in quality. And it baffles me because, having read it for 20+ years and gone back for research to read plenty of articles from further back... I just don't see it at all. It's the same market-based, socially progressive, pragmatic international strongly opinionated journalism it's always been. Sometimes I think the way it characteriz…

I agree that The Economist has not been declining. I believe that what is really happening is that, at some point, a reader will eventually come across an article where they are particularly knowledgable about the subject matter. To their horror, they proceed to read an article that is “fraudulent by omission”. The cherry picked facts (which are correct) are chosen to fit a narrative. Every article read after this is…

the gell-mann effect

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#243

Post by rainingmonkey »

Aromasin wrote: post #107
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #79

Could you give examples of how quality has declined? I'm scared if a rag like Jacobin is in the running. When people say that the quality of a publication has declined they often mean they disagree with things that are published. Many also say that they seek out blogs and other sources that I assume they agree with. I read these publications because I often disagree with their opinion pieces. It's a value add. Why wo…

I've discussed how I think the quality has decline elsewhere in the thread, but in short, they flip-flop so as to be on the "correct" side of the conversation too often instead of admitting fault, their UK/EU commentary has been of such a low quality I could find it in a tabloid newspaper if I wanted, and their general Anglo-centric view of the world is not valuable to me explicitly for the reason you describe; I'm B…

I've found Tribune Magazine (https://tribunemag.co.uk/) a good source of well-written leftist opinions without the tone and US focus of Jacobin.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#244

Post by NullInvictus »

jakozaur wrote: post #22

I am long-time fun of Economist, but unfortunately the quality decreases. E.g. last issue EU is frozen and claim so many people will die in Europe due to high energy prices. First, I find they did not explain their model well. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Second, the correlation does not imply causation or whether extrapolations are solid. It looks like there might be mistakes on that front an…

> EU is frozen and claim so many people will die in Europe due to high energy prices.

This complaint is one that (jokingly) makes me ask if you're new around here. the Economist is almost pathologically pessimist. I sometimes think they should call themselves _The Cassandra_, as they are constantly forecasting doom over every scenario.

I enjoy how they summarize background information and the candor of their analysis, but when it gets time to make long-term predictions I tune them out because they're about 0-50 on the number of times I should have been walking knee deep through rivers of bodies and economic collapse.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#245

Post by nescioquid »

wpietri wrote: post #223
slowhand09 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its perspective. Drawing a parallel to Elon Musk. He says his political leanings haven't changed. Draw a line marked Far Left, Left, Sort of Left, Middle, Sort of Right, Right, Far Right. He says he was Left or Sort of Left, but somebody dragged the line way to the left. He is where he always was, but the line has moved.

Nah. We live in an age of asymmetric polarization. XKCD has a good rendering of the DW-NOMINATE data. Look especially at the US House since Reagan: https://xkcd.com/1127/ The right has moved far more than the left. Just looking at today's news, we find a prominent right-wing activist was convicted of plotting to overthrow the government: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63802649 The only area I think you coul…

The Democratic party deliberately moved right under Clinton. What was at the time called "triangulation" was Clinton adopting republican policy positions and one-upping them (e.g. welfare reform, NAFTA, Glass-Steagall). This drove the republicans crazy (remember Gingrich's Contract with America) and ever further right.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#247

Post by Normille »

jll29 wrote: post #21

Very timely question, I just purchased an issue of the Economist because I was toying with the idea of re-instating a previously held subscription. I share the disappointment. In the past, even just the book reviews were so good that they "forced" me to buy 2-3 of the reviewed books; that issue didn't intrigue me. I don't have an answer whether it's a general trend or not, as I'm trained not to ascribe too much weigh…

  >I subscribed the Guardian for one year just to avoid that it goes down (I could read it for free at work), and of course it is excellent, but it has a tacit pro-UK bias that brits (esp. leftists) wouldn't even notice. On the other hand they have excellent reporting and do not refrain from the most challenging topics...
Funnily enough reading this thread [I don't read The Economist, BTW] I found myself thinking along similar lines as the OP re The Guardian [or the 'Grauniad' as it will forever be known by Private Eye[0] readers of a certain age].

When I originally used to read The 'Graun' back in the 80s 90s, it was a crusading paper which did cover 'challenging topics' --such as Britain's role in Northern Ireland, US bases in Europe, Britain's membership of NATO, nuclear disarmament, class struggle, etc. etc. ie. proper socialist politics.

Now, whenever I look at their website all I see are endless articles about racism, hompophobia, transgenderism... whether what X said on Twitter was racist... whether Y's opinion on sport is transgenderist etc. etc. Issues which the current crop of Guardian journalists probably think are terrifically 'crusading' and 'challenging' but which are just pushing at the same open door as every other 'right on' publication and website around and which I find tedious beyond measure. Virtue signalling trivia masquerading as crusading journalism.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_jokes_in_Private_Eye

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#248

Post by ROTMetro »

scythe wrote: post #179
crazygringo wrote: post #162

I see this claim in nearly every HN thread about the Economist -- that it's declined in quality. And it baffles me because, having read it for 20+ years and gone back for research to read plenty of articles from further back... I just don't see it at all. It's the same market-based, socially progressive, pragmatic international strongly opinionated journalism it's always been. Sometimes I think the way it characteriz…

One thing I noticed about The Economist is that every so often they'll bring up some interesting criticism of a widely held view. Then a few days later they'll publish an article vigorously supporting the Current Thing. A particularly obvious example was when they had a column about Ukraine from John Mearshimer, and the various follow-ups. They also ran that takedown of Mohammed bin Salman but periodically tout the u…

They gave a platform to Mearshimer and his 'my entire argument is built on the thesis that Putin has never lied (even though he has lied)'? Glad I've skipped reading it the last year.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#249

Post by musk_micropenis »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #242
davidhyde wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that The Economist has not been declining. I believe that what is really happening is that, at some point, a reader will eventually come across an article where they are particularly knowledgable about the subject matter. To their horror, they proceed to read an article that is “fraudulent by omission”. The cherry picked facts (which are correct) are chosen to fit a narrative. Every article read after this is…

the gell-mann effect

What he described is literally the opposite of Gell-Mann Amnesia, which is the phenomenon where such a reader will forget about all of the inaccuracies he noticed in the article on which he was an expert and continue believing other articles to be accurate.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#250

Post by jmyeet »

crazygringo wrote: post #162

I see this claim in nearly every HN thread about the Economist -- that it's declined in quality. And it baffles me because, having read it for 20+ years and gone back for research to read plenty of articles from further back... I just don't see it at all. It's the same market-based, socially progressive, pragmatic international strongly opinionated journalism it's always been. Sometimes I think the way it characteriz…

I feel this exact same way every time someone claims Google search results have declined in quality.
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