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Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

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Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#191

Post by ribosometronome »

serial_dev wrote: post #184
p_j_w wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people, even here, are infected with “It can’t happen here.”

The best predictor of future events is past experience. Every US president in history has left office peacefully, the most probable outcome is that future presidents will too. Similarly, some people always think that the current president will crown himself a king and the Other Party will never ever be able to get into power. And these people have been so far always wrong. I’m not saying it can’t happen this time, bu…

I'm not sure how you can say every President left office peacefully when four of them left by way of being assassinated, but I do see that's not quite the point you're trying to make. I'm not sure why we'd be so narrow as to only examine US history, rather than history at large unless we're operating under some guise of American Exceptionalism.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#193

Post by MattGaiser »

serial_dev wrote: post #184
p_j_w wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people, even here, are infected with “It can’t happen here.”

The best predictor of future events is past experience. Every US president in history has left office peacefully, the most probable outcome is that future presidents will too. Similarly, some people always think that the current president will crown himself a king and the Other Party will never ever be able to get into power. And these people have been so far always wrong. I’m not saying it can’t happen this time, bu…

> The best predictor of future events is past experience

Except for the most impactful things.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#194

Post by lovich »

serial_dev wrote: post #184
p_j_w wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people, even here, are infected with “It can’t happen here.”

The best predictor of future events is past experience. Every US president in history has left office peacefully, the most probable outcome is that future presidents will too. Similarly, some people always think that the current president will crown himself a king and the Other Party will never ever be able to get into power. And these people have been so far always wrong. I’m not saying it can’t happen this time, bu…

> Every US president in history has left office peacefully, the most probable outcome is that future presidents will too.

That is false. On January 6th 2021 the sitting president fomented a mob to violently keep him in power.

If we’re going off your rule of past events being the best prediction for future events then we should all be shitting ourselves over the fact that this guy isn’t leaving peacefully

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#195

Post by slg »

bpt3 wrote: post #187
slg wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They can certainly point out that he was the leader of a group that was systematically killing millions of people with physical or cultural attributes he deemed undesirable and people will reach the same obvious conclusion about him. How do you know this?

Because of thousands upon thousands of documented accounts from eyewitnesses and participants? I'm aware of what you're trying to do, but there is a difference between stating a generally accepted fact that has a tiny faction of dissenters (e.g. the earth is round) and something that is not and is therefore considered an opinion.

>Because of thousands upon thousands of documented accounts from eyewitnesses and participants?

Then why can't you accept the "thousands upon thousands of documented accounts from eyewitnesses and participants" of him committing war crimes?

>I'm aware of what you're trying to do, but there is a difference between stating a generally accepted fact that has a tiny faction of dissenters (e.g. the earth is round) and something that is not and is therefore considered an opinion.

I think war crimes are bad. There is no "fact" involved in that statement, it is purely a value judgment and therefore an opinion. Yet I think it is inarguably a better opinion than believing that war crimes are good. Would you disagree?

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#196

Post by axpy906 »

seattle_spring wrote: post #168
fdschoeneman wrote: post #115

I agree that Bezos should have disclosed his links to the construction through Amazon, but I also think every single reporter for NPR, including and especially the one who wrote this, should disclose their personal, family, and political relationships to political parties and politicians before reporting on them. One standard.

You're saying that the rank-and-file employees of a public radio station should be held to the same standard as billionaire owners of private news media conglomerates?

Probably relates to some of the political controversies surrounding the source NPR here: https://grokipedia.com/page/NPR_controversies

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#197

Post by serial_dev »

tclancy wrote: post #131
clircle wrote: post #68

Do we really hold editorials to the same standard as the rest of the news? These are opinion pieces, you should expect bias, no?

An individual editorial? No. At the meta level when an outlet only allows a specific direction of bias, that doesn't feel like a good idea to accept.

Honest question, don’t all newspapers do this? Sure there are subjects where they publish articles representing different opinions, but on core issues (to them) there is only so much wiggle room before they will pull an opinion piece.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#198

Post by insane_dreamer »

serial_dev wrote: post #184
p_j_w wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people, even here, are infected with “It can’t happen here.”

The best predictor of future events is past experience. Every US president in history has left office peacefully, the most probable outcome is that future presidents will too. Similarly, some people always think that the current president will crown himself a king and the Other Party will never ever be able to get into power. And these people have been so far always wrong. I’m not saying it can’t happen this time, bu…

> Every US president in history has left office peacefully,

That's not how I would describe Jan 6 2021 not to mention Trump's other efforts to subvert the election results, and refusal to accept the results to this day.

> some people always think that the current president will crown himself a king and the Other Party will never ever be able to get into power.

Really? When has there been such a public outcry before? There have never been "No Kings" protests before, because they weren't needed. Even if you hated Reagan, Clinton or Obama, you knew he wasn't going to try to run for a third term, whereas Trump keeps publicly saying he might.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#199

Post by strictnein »

gryfft wrote: post #188
serial_dev wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best predictor of future events is past experience. Every US president in history has left office peacefully, the most probable outcome is that future presidents will too. Similarly, some people always think that the current president will crown himself a king and the Other Party will never ever be able to get into power. And these people have been so far always wrong. I’m not saying it can’t happen this time, bu…

> The best predictor of future events is past experience. I have never died before, not once in my life. The most likely outcome is that I will live forever.

> I have never died before, not once in my life. The most likely outcome is that I will live forever.

They didn't say that this is always true for every situation forever. They said "The best predictor of future events is past experience".

Keyword is "best".

You being alive today is the best predictor of you being alive tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#200

Post by g8oz »

serial_dev wrote: post #184
p_j_w wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people, even here, are infected with “It can’t happen here.”

The best predictor of future events is past experience. Every US president in history has left office peacefully, the most probable outcome is that future presidents will too. Similarly, some people always think that the current president will crown himself a king and the Other Party will never ever be able to get into power. And these people have been so far always wrong. I’m not saying it can’t happen this time, bu…

>> Every US president in history has left office peacefully,

The events of January 6th 2021 suggest otherwise.

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