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Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

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Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#111

Post by cm2187 »

taeric wrote: post #80
cm2187 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the WSJ article: > The field, they argue, has discovered little of importance in the last 50 years, because it is dominated by groupthink and silences anyone who dares to dissent from mainstream ideas, like string theory. I don't agree with the second part of the sentence, i.e. about the reason, not that I disagree, just that I have no idea why that is. But the first part, about discovering little of importance,…

It isn't hard to argue that most of the advances that people recognize as scientific advances are more from material sciences than they have ever been theoretical physics, though? Even claiming that theoretical physics enabled the industrial revolution feels off to me. What supports that claim?

Well it is hard to talk about theoretical physics at the XVIII century since physics in general was nascent and there was little separation between the disciplines. But I believe the industrial revolution was largely driven by the development of the steam engine, so Watt, Carnot, later Kalvin, etc.

Of course that's not the only factor. Like computers rely on XIX century physics but it took almost a century before the technology became industrially significant.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#112

Post by ejstronge »

mikert89 wrote: post #96
ejstronge wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WSJ and the like just hire for pedigree. You end up with careerists writing generic articles, and injecting political opinion into everything I think your comment implies that journalism in some previous time did not 'just hire for pedigree' and 'end up with careerists.' When was this time and who were the specialist writers from that moment? How can one write anything without taking a political stance? We make muc…

I’m saying that modern journalists are in many cases careerists, in a way that was not true 50 years ago

I actually think the opposite is true. TV did not exist in the same way 50 years ago, so journalists played a more important role in transmitting news.

Maybe you mean that those journalists were more specialized than the writers of today?

It seems that there may have been more journalists in the 1970s (when we consider people who call themselves reporters and work in 'news').

1972 - ~39,000 ( https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/occupational-outlook-han... ; a great resource to find out about what journalism was like)

2022 - ~17,000 ( https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes273023.htm#nat - search for Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers. If you want to add social media companies one needs a reasonable way to discount media streaming services. At any rate, this doesn't match what was being done in the 1970s so it's immaterial to your argument)

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#113

Post by tracker1 »

ejstronge wrote: post #110
tracker1 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the workers are actually contractors and not direct employees of Samsung and were left to make their own Visa arrangements and instead of getting the correct Visas to be able to actually work in the US, they used business travel (B-1) Visas which are supposed to be for temporary travel in order to enter the US for a maximum of 6 months. This was reported in other articles on the situation...…

I likely have read at least one of the articles you were citing (or similar work) and my sense was that information was obtained later that was unclear at the time of the event. I see your point - especially when a journalist writes about an area where I have personal experience - but I guess I don't equate this to a decline in journalist quality given the confusion around an event like this.

To me, it's just a core part of "Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How" as basic tenants of what a news article should cover in terms of an event. Part of this in terms of professional reporting (not twitter) is to reach out to sources or agency contacts for comments/statements. Even a "ICE has not yet returned a request for comment." placeholder would have helped significantly. It's just a matter of due diligence, and with online reporting there should be some follow-up/editing as new information presents or responses do come in.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#114

Post by sockbot »

This shit is infecting every news source. Even CBC yesterday put out this garbage headline "Charlie Kirk shot dead at university event, Trump says".

Who cares what Trump says. Responsible reporting would be getting the information from primary sources, not fettering responsibility for determining newsworthiness to whatever Trump says.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6897816

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#115

Post by ejstronge »

jacobgkau wrote: post #104
srean wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they have special rights ? Perhaps an expectation or a duty. From the number of press people jailed or killed it does not seem they enjoy any special rights of they speak truth to power.

As an example, courts ordered the Associated Press allowed back into the White House press pool after the Trump administration attempted to remove them. You or I would not be allowed to just show up at the president's events to watch/listen in person. That is a special right.

> As an example, courts ordered the Associated Press allowed back into the White House press pool after the Trump administration attempted to remove them. You or I would not be allowed to just show up at the president's events to watch/listen in person. That is a special right.

This was overturned.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/business/media/appeals-co...

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#116

Post by SilverElfin »

muglug wrote: post #53
SilverElfin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link doesn’t work for me, but based off your comment: I can accept that mainstream journalism is generally in decline in various ways. But it is curious they chose to single out WSJ, which is considered more balanced and less biased than NYT or whoever else ( https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart ). Or is it just to point out that even WSJ is subject to this issue?

Framing it as a spectrum between Left and Right is absolutely daft. In any European country the New York Times opinion pages would be seen as pretty centrist, or even centre-right. That so much of US media and political sphere skews heavily to the right distorts the overall picture.

All Sides has a documented methodology for how they establish their spectrum (https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-rating-method...). So even if you hold this view, I think calling it “daft” is dismissing the rigor of their approach.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#117

Post by godelski »

mikestorrent wrote: post #9
jcalvinowens wrote: post #2

Huh, Firefox on Debian: An error occurred during a connection to www.math.columbia.edu. Peer’s Certificate has been revoked. Error code: SEC_ERROR_REVOKED_CERTIFICATE I apparently can't bypass it. EDIT: Chain: https://pastebin.com/raw/Mch2XTiQ

www.math. .edu SSL cert expired??? unfathomable!! As a former math sysadmin... I apologize on behalf of math sysadmins

  Validity
    Not Before  Fri, 06 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT
    Not After   Tue, 07 Oct 2025 23:59:59 GMT

  Subject Alt Names
    DNS Name    *.math.columbia.edu
Looks valid to me

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#118

Post by hkpack »

Herring wrote: post #67
javier123454321 wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Maybe your society. Finland is doing great with media literacy and resilience to misinformation in Europe. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-f... As a general rule, you can sit there and moan about problems or you can spend 5min to find proven solutions. It's hard to do both.

I have a suspicion that Finland is able to do well against fake news mostly because it is Russian fake news and people know them very well.

I can also confirm that Ukrainians are doing amazingly well compared to the rest of the world in this regards.

The problem I see is that the west _loves_ russian propaganda. Listening to any popular US podcaster feels like they are taking their hot takes directly from the Olgino troll factories.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#119

Post by lawlessone »

jihadjihad wrote: post #39

It's not just technical subjects, either. In the midst of the chaos of Charlie Kirk's assassination, they ran an article [0] yesterday titled (it has since been edited) "Ammunition in Kirk Shooting Engraved With Transgender, Antifascist Ideology" . It's just incredibly irresponsible reporting. One can only assume it is a symptom of a wider problem within WSJ and media itself. 0: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/charl…

edited but no retracton.

Re: Epistemic Collapse at the WSJ

#120

Post by javier123454321 »

Herring wrote: post #67
javier123454321 wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Maybe your society. Finland is doing great with media literacy and resilience to misinformation in Europe. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-f... As a general rule, you can sit there and moan about problems or you can spend 5min to find proven solutions. It's hard to do both.

The US definitely has a global target for disinformation. I've lived in Latam and the propaganda was far more easy to spot. The link I gave a lot was concerted efforts by the democratic party but I do acknowledge there is Russian, North Korean, Chinese, and probably other propaganda that is looking to destabilize. However, I do think that we are at a moment where the idea of objectivity is loosing its foundation. That's a cultural philosophical moment we're having, and I don't know if you can say that Finland is above this epistemic shift.
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