Why We're Living in the Age of Fear • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#201

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 7:23 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #56

Perhaps Rolling Stone would like a little introspection given their fear mongering and false reporting about the University of Virginia. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/business/media/rolling-sto...

Whataboutism.

Rolling Stone did retract the story, and has done some considerble introspection on the topic.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campu...

A key point of the story for me, having seen multiple other instances of people claiming narratives which proved false, is that it is difficult to guard against someone who is committed to telling and promoting untruth. The more so if the person appeals to you as sympathetic or persuasive. This is at the very heart of the con.

It's why being both compassionate to someone who's claiming wrongdoing, and making triply-certain you've dotted all 'i's and crossed all 't's is so crucial.

Hoaxes and (bogus) conspiracy stories, financial and business cons, and political cons work like this. They press all our psychological levers which are geared toward belief, and twist them. Piltdown Man, Crop Circles, Clever Hans (the more so as the perpetrator himself was by all accounts among the deceived), the Chess Turk, and other hoaxes.

I could draw more examples from current headlines, though that might prove more divisive.

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#202

Post by protomyth » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 8:35 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #201

protomyth wrote: post #56

Perhaps Rolling Stone would like a little introspection given their fear mongering and false reporting about the University of Virginia. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/business/media/rolling-sto...

Whataboutism. Rolling Stone did retract the story, and has done some considerble introspection on the topic. http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campu... A key point of the story for me, having seen multiple other instances of people claiming narratives which proved false, is that it is difficult to guard against someone who is committed to telling and promoting untruth . The more so if the person…

> Whataboutism

people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

> Rolling Stone did retract the story, and has done some considerble introspection on the topic.

Let's look at that link:

"Erdely and her editors had hoped their investigation would sound an alarm about campus sexual assault and would challenge Virginia and other universities to do better."

They weren't reporting news, they were doing advocacy and fear mongering. Nowhere do they say, this is a bad thing for journalists to do.

"At Columbia, an aggrieved student dragged a mattress around campus to call attention to her account of assault and injustice. The facts in these cases were sometimes disputed, but they had generated a wave of campus activism."

"Sometimes disputed: must be the new word for the accused was innocent[1]. Even their outside report is dishonest about the subject.

Also, the whole section on their asking for comment from the fraternity without providing any information on what the reporter wanted comment about is beyond unkind.

but as to learning from the experience:

"Yet Rolling Stone's senior editors are unanimous in the belief that the story's failure does not require them to change their editorial systems."

1) http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/magazine/have-we-learned-a...

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#203

Post by wepple » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 3:57 PM UTC

knz wrote: post #191

wepple wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I mostly agree, I think the key difference is that the US has a majority control of international media, and whilst they love to hype up domestic concerns for viewer ratings, they're significantly more reckless when talking about "not-America". The fact that you level Australia and the US has both "safe and stable"; the US is an order of magnitude more troublesome than Aus (As someone who has lived in Australi…

I grew up in New Zealand and have visited Australia many times (and still have many friends and family living in Australia). I now live in Minnesota. Is it really any better there? Australia has it's own history of crime related violence, corrupt police, poor treatment of Aboriginal people, poverty, child abuse, drug crimes, and offshore detention centers. Australia is also another major country that seems to ignore…

Yeah actually you make some fairly valid points. In some ways, Trump reminds me a lot of Abbott (who's name escaped me so I googled "stupid australian prime minister" and was rewarded with the first result), and while organized crime in Aus is a lot less controlling, if Australia were US-scale it would be.

My gut feel is still that Australia is more forward thinking; gun control and healthcare aren't an absolute nightmare. Then again Australia won't touch marriage equality because of a strong enough pocket of conservative religious people in smaller towns.

Hello from fellow Kiwi who's lived in straya for a few years (amongst other places) and somehow currently landed in new york :)