This article is desperately in need of some examples. I can't believe there isn't one.
the "FBI crime statistics" meme is a common one.
Elaborate
How to Mislead with Facts
261–270 of 297 posts
Re: How to Mislead with Facts
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you blame journalists rather than media owners? Do you believe this is a change brought about by journalists themselves?
Whether or not management has approved of or nudged this change it's clear from the rhetoric of journalists discussing journalism that over the last decade or two they have gone from thinking of themselves has having a duty to simply inform the public to having a duty to engage in discretionary inclusion/omission lest the public draw the wrong conclusion. Journalism is reaping the "people are idiots, gotta protect th…
> Whether or not management has approved of or nudged this change it's clear from the rhetoric of journalists discussing journalism that over the last decade or two they have gone from thinking of themselves has having a duty to simply inform the public to having a duty to engage in discretionary inclusion/omission lest the public draw the wrong conclusion.
A few years back, I had a coworker who was working his way though a journalism major express this attitude explicitly and uncritically as authoritative information passed to him in a class.
It was an eye opening moment for me, and had significant impacts for how I consumed media, and regarded higher education.
Re: How to Mislead with Facts
#263This inevitably makes me think of a video about how meat consumption is not as bad by "things I've learned" on youtube. Search for that name and "meat" and you will inevitably find it. I thiught the claims in the video sounded too good to be true, so I read the study most of the claims in the video were based on. They were comparing against a scenario where we kept producing the food fed to animals, but that humans h…
I know the video you're talking about (I also watched multiple rebuttals of the video which pointed out the issues you mentioned among others). It's been a while since I watched it though, I may be misremembering. I found it very useful as a steel-man of the pro-meat side and even after watching the rebuttals I came out with a more complexed, nuanced, and less certain opinion than I went in with.
You have a statement, like "meat agriculture uses more water than plant agriculture." Then you have a fact checker that says "yup, if you look at the amount of water to raise a cow vs to water a grain field with equivalent weight, calories, or whatever other metric you're using, it takes far more water to raise a cow". This truth gets copied around the internet and used to support claims and policies -- "meat uses more water. We have a water shortage in California. Therefore we should ban cows in California because of the water shortage." The logic makes perfect sense, and all the underlying facts are true.
The video then gave the context, which is that cows are often raised on otherwise unproductive grasslands that aren't used for crops anyways, and those that aren't being raised on unproductive land are usually eating corn from places that don't have as much of a water problem (e.g. the Midwest). This doesn't debunk the fact that a calorie of cow uses more water than a calorie of potato, or corn, or soybean -- you can still find those facts on any fact checker on the internet and they're still just as true -- but it does weaken the claim of "we should ban cows in California to help with the water shortage".
In the context of the linked article, this is both "Decontextualizing and recontextualizing" and "Reinterpreting and pre-framing meaning". The claim "meat uses more water than plants" is decontextualized from the world where corn is grown in places without water problems and meat is often raised in situations where water use is minimal, and reinterpreted and reframed in the context of local environmental problems to support a predetermined conclusion. Of course there are probably examples in the video where it makes the same mistake the other way around -- but by watching both that video, the rebuttals, and the discussion, you can come to a better, more complex understanding of the issue, which can't be a bad thing.
Re: How to Mislead with Facts
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook recently admitted at court, that its fact checking is "personal opinion" rather than authoritative source. They did it to avoid fine. If something claims authority, but with no responsibility and no oversight...
And the judge bought it: > The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion. [1]: https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Faceb...
That document was written by Facebook's lawyers, not the judge.
Re: How to Mislead with Facts
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trust but verify comes to mind. I expect bias in all sources (including myself), but the key thing is to be prepared to be wrong in one's assumptions, as well as being able to update one's understanding of things as new data arrives.
I guess a system of enemies trying to debunk each other might work better than sources trying to be neutral. Enemies might work harder at finding flaws and errors.
That supposes that truth matters. I wish it did.
What seems to work is soundbites that resonate with existing bias. And by work, I mean takes root in hearts and minds.
Re: How to Mislead with Facts
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's always interesting to me, the mental gymnastics people will do to convince themselves that they're not doing something they believe to be morally wrong. Like, if your intent is to mislead, what do you care if you're technically telling the truth?
It isn't mental gymnastics, the media has two very good and intentional reasons for doing this. Number one is to avoid being sued while still being able to get away with misleading their audience. Number two is that it gives the zealots following their cause to clear their conscience by saying "see this article was factually correct" when, on the rare occasion, someone bothers to call them out on the lie.
"Number two is that it gives the zealots following their cause to clear their conscience by saying "see this article was factually correct" when, on the rare occasion, someone bothers to call them out on the lie."
This is literally mental gymnastics, why would it clear their conscience if they intended to mislead? It only clears their conscience because they're doing mental gymnastics to convince themselves that they're not technically lying.
Re: How to Mislead with Facts
#267Would be great if the author included some actual real life examples. This is why I find Chomsky so convincing. He usually presents his argument with lots of evidence.
Re: How to Mislead with Facts
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's recognizing with double quotes "truth" as a different thing than Truth. Hence it's a confession that their task is to "create a new process for determining what counts as 'truth'" and not genuine fidelity to reality. No one has access to "Truth" (with a capital T), the best you can do is try to get closer, and it seems quite honest of them to acknowledge that. > In other words they want to be marketeers of a s…
You pointed out details that I actually share. I have no solution for the culture war. Still, we know that even while we don't have access to capital T truth, nature has the rules in place to make the Natural Selection of our paradigms to compete until one of these ideological constructs converge to capital T truth forcing the rest to reveal themselves as false truths that appeared to be valid up to a point by certai…
You are making very big assumptions here. Think about it, what if the universe is a dynamical system? There would never be any truth only systems which work or are broken according to some set of criteria. Moreover, which systems work would also be a function of their context/environment. Nothing would ever be revealed because dynamical systems can always change (also see problem of induction). Things just work or don‘t work according to your interpretation. I would recommend to look up Pragmatism as a philosophy that elaborates on this line of thinking. It‘s quite enlightening and puts a lot of things we are talking about today into perspective.
Re: How to Mislead with Facts
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
(good) teachers generate great value and positive externalities into the future, but are simply unable to capture that value generation because of the time factor. many teachers accept pride and esteem in lieu of economic gain, but they should get paid accordingly as well if we had a fair politicoeconomic system. economics in general has no answer for this differential temporal factor in value creation vs value captu…
When parents can freely choose who schools their children, the ones that place a premium on how well they are schooled are free to invest relatively more than those who do not. This gap between value creation and value capture can be bridged by foresight.
ah yes, if only we had perfect foresight...
Re: How to Mislead with Facts
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt I'll read it because I think it will bore me to death... knowing the fact what George Soros' "Open Society" comes from his work and judging from their actions, the whole doctrine seems to be against exploring potential truths in different ways and having a new form of monotheism which is strictly imposed on the entire world. I believe that is not only extremely dumb but also extremely dangerous. If it succeed…
We need a healthy plurality of world views and the freedom to live them. That is the correct point of view, both from a moral and a consequentialist perspective. If we have a global monoculture then any flaw in that might doom the whole of humanity, instead of just a part of it.
Why is it morally superior to protect human life?