181–190 of 297 posts
This increasingly common use of the word "weaponize" (as a dysphemism for "utilize") bothers me, as does the article's use of the phrase "information war."
As horrible as it is to spread disinformation and propaganda, it seems unnecessarily extreme to describe that as analogous or comparable to warfare or physical violence.
The New York Times mastered all this long ago. It is not necessary to lie. All you need is to be selective about what truths you tell, and where. Some goes on the front page, some on page 13, other bits nowhere at all. Hans Blix's UN reports, before the invasion, about Iraq's entire lack of any WMD whatsoever were too important to completely ignore, but were easy enough to bury in a back page. The entire lack of any…
Which is why, in a court of law, you swear to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth", as selective truth is no truth at all.
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This is super interesting. Do you mind giving a concrete example?
Yes, by the argument just provided :). Oh alright, but it's not really as interesting as all that. False implications in the logical context are commonly referred to as logical fallacies. Wikipedia has a (non-exhaustive) list of those. One of the more famous false implications is interesting in that it maps between types of implication. A is correlated with B implies that A implies (causal) B or B implies (causal) A…
Do you know if there is a way to encode these reasoning chains so as to assess their validity automatically? Like a knowledge graph with propositions linked in some way?
I have been reading about knowledge graphs but haven't seen this kind of application yet, but I think it should exist.
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Not OP, but Snopes used to be very trustworthy but has since become nearly completely useless.
How so; do you have any concrete examples of the lack of use? Bias, omissions, lying, lack of context, deliberate miseading, etc? I see some shade thrown at Snopes from time to time, but it's usually of the of "But they're LIBERAL!" variety which is not of much value.
I just don’t understand the need for fact checkers in an age of instant access to information. Anyone who wants to stick to their priors, can. Anyone who wants to delegate has an array of choices to choose from. And those who want (and have the time) to chase deeper comprehension themselves can do so (still delegating some here and there, recursively). This is why every material must point to its source(s), and have…
"Information" is not "knowledge". Information can consist of many falsehoods, knowledge should contain few if any falsehoods. We want a decent signal to noise ratio in our information, which requires some base of reliable knowledge.
So I think there's a place for fact checking. This used to be the domain of good reporters, but many of them have shit the bed hard on that for a couple of decades now, and lost most of their credibility. Now is the age of "fact checkers", which aren't doing much better frankly.
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Far far more effective is lying by implication. This happens almost all the time. The article is written in such a way as to imply something is true; for example talking in such a way that said thing is obviously true and everyone knows it, when in fact it isn't true at all. This allows them to make the reader think something is true without lying, and often without even having the reader question it, and it allows t…
"Cloth masks required," "vaccines required," etc.?
The New York Times mastered all this long ago. It is not necessary to lie. All you need is to be selective about what truths you tell, and where. Some goes on the front page, some on page 13, other bits nowhere at all. Hans Blix's UN reports, before the invasion, about Iraq's entire lack of any WMD whatsoever were too important to completely ignore, but were easy enough to bury in a back page. The entire lack of any…
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>Yes. I don't have the time to dig up the sources right now, and I don't remember seeing it specifically about doctors, but in many lines of work the relative salaries have gone down when traditionally male professions have been taken over more and more by women. No. I don't have the time to dig up the sources right now, and I don't remember seeing it specifically about doctors, but in many lines of work the relative…
Broken_Hippo dug up some, so here you go: [0] and some of the research behind the article: [1] The article contains quite a few interesting links to research if you are interested to learn more. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over... [1] https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/223534...
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I do. The NYT is chock full of partisans who seem to have little to no apprehension about framing "the facts" in whatever way helps to shape public opinion in a direction that aligns with their worldview. All the while presenting themselves as some beacon of objective truth and journalistic integrity. And, they're notoriously obtuse to work with. Remember what they did to Scott Alexander (Slate Star Codex)?
Apparently, you see no difference in the goals of "shaping public opinion" and misleading people (with or without facts). I'm not interested in defending the NYT. I'm just interested in the judgements of other people about the NYT that seem to me to be, shall we say, a little over the top. And note: I think it would as true of SSC/SA as the NYT that they seek to shape public opinion in a direction that aligns with th…