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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

#281

Post by bpt3 »

slg wrote: post #275
bpt3 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the definition of a war criminal is something who was convicted of a war crime, not being accused of committing them or observed doing something that could be considered one. You can't fact check opinions, no matter how morally superior they are to another one, so I don't know what your point is there.

From the Cambridge Dictionary[1]: >war criminal >noun >someone who commits war crimes: >- He was a Nazi war criminal. "Commits" not "convicted". If I had to summarize my point it would be "you're objectively wrong". [1] - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/war-c...

And how exactly is it confirmed that someone commited them?

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

#282

Post by bpt3 »

pyuser583 wrote: post #255
davisr wrote: post #3

If you think this kind of reporting is cool, you should donate to https://fair.org . Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) has been exposing two-faced news for decades. They are worthy of your attention.

Fair has its own issues - or did last I checked which was a while ago. They used to claim reporters were biased towards the right. That used to be a left-wing claim, but it’s no longer credible. Something like 90% of reporters are left-wing. Maybe they’ve reformed, and aren’t in the business of providing partisan talking points anymore.

They're so far left that nearly everyone seems right wing to them.

It's a persistent problem for people on the fringes of the political spectrum. I guess if they were aware of this, they probably wouldn't be on the fringe in the first place.

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

#283

Post by skeeter2020 »

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.

That's why you're currently reading HN with Internet Explorer on your IBM desktop running OS/2 2025.

The adage about history as an indicator only applies to the steady state. It compeltely breaks down when with events that are so rare as to be unpredictable when they have extreme - good or bad - consequences.

ex:

"The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology."

And I would argue the world today isn't even close to the edge of the spectrum when it comes to lack of predictability or how extreme the outcomes may be.

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

#284

Post by AnimalMuppet »

bpt3 wrote: post #144
vlovich123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would right-wing leaning think tanks be complaining about right wing authoritarianism they’re in favor of? You’d expect them to trot out this verbiage if a populist left wing politician with authoritarian vibes came to power.

You can identify and complain about right wing (or left wing) authoritarianism without hurling insults. A publication failing to do so is a key indication of bias in a specific direction.

Not just bias. I see at least two options.

I recall seeing the statement "Profanity is the attempt of a weak mind to express itself forcefully." Well, these childish insults and put-downs seem to me to be the same. They may sense that they don't have the intellectual horsepower to have a serious discussion about the issue, so they just insult.

Alternatively, they're not trying to have a serious conversation about the issue. They're talking to their own in-group, not to the other side, not even to those who are neutral or undecided. Instead, they're just telling their own in-group how right they are and how stupid the others are. They aren't trying to engage at all; they've given up on that. This is a deeply non-serious response - if the situation is as bad as you claim it is, why are you not trying to persuade at least the neutrals? Why are you instead doing things that make you look childish to everyone except your in-group?

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

#285

Post by AnimalMuppet »

slg wrote: post #114
next_xibalba wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your understanding of the word objective differs markedly from my own. I don’t disagree with the general spirit of what you mean. But I would love to see news outlets, and so called watch dogs, pursue the unobtainable dream of objectivity and neutrality over all others. Calling people toadies and democratically elected administrations “fascists” falls far, far short of that dream.

Some people are of the opinion that the world is flat, I would say it's objectively round. That is the context in which I'm using that word. I'm not using it to describe 100% consensus, because there will always be someone who disagrees with something. News without opinion is objectively impossible because the act of reporting the news is inherently governed by an opinion on what is worthy to report. Pretending other…

Yeah, yeah, true objectivity is objectively impossible. We know.

The thing is, this isn't binary. There's a sliding scale between "totally objective" and "totally biased". When you eliminate the (unattainable) standard of "total objectivity", then reporters and news organizations move more toward biased. And the difference matters. You used to be able to get news that at least tried to be unbiased, that wasn't openly pushing a narrative. That made it possible to form a more accurate (though not totally accurate) view of what was actually going on.

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

#286

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dragonwriter wrote: post #166
bpt3 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was GW Bush convicted of any war crimes? If not, then he isn't a war criminal. You can argue that he should be, and I probably would agree with you, but an organization supposedly dedicated to unearthing biases in the media should not inject their opinions into their own reporting.

> Was GW Bush convicted of any war crimes? If not, then he isn't a war criminal. No, if he wasn't convicted, he is not a convict and a government grounded in the rule of law cannot treat him as a criminal. Conviction doesn't retroactively create the crime.

No. But until then he is only an accused war criminal.

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

#288

Post by AnimalMuppet »

slg wrote: post #164
bpt3 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was GW Bush convicted of any war crimes? If not, then he isn't a war criminal. You can argue that he should be, and I probably would agree with you, but an organization supposedly dedicated to unearthing biases in the media should not inject their opinions into their own reporting.

That is a silly standard. Hitler was never convicted of war crimes, would you object to someone calling him a war criminal?

He ordered the actions of a number of people who were convicted of war crimes. He himself was never tried because he was already dead. Still, in that case, I think we can say that yes, he was.

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

#289

Post by bpt3 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #284
bpt3 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can identify and complain about right wing (or left wing) authoritarianism without hurling insults. A publication failing to do so is a key indication of bias in a specific direction.

Not just bias. I see at least two options. I recall seeing the statement "Profanity is the attempt of a weak mind to express itself forcefully." Well, these childish insults and put-downs seem to me to be the same. They may sense that they don't have the intellectual horsepower to have a serious discussion about the issue, so they just insult. Alternatively, they're not trying to have a serious conversation about the…

I agree with everything you said, but it doesn't seem to resonate with the masses based on voting patterns here.

They don't need to have a serious conversation to succeed. Their supporters visit their site, get their dopamine hit from being told their viewpoint is correct, and they feel empowered to lash out at any dissent so the cycle continues.

They're the equivalent of a left-wing Fox News, but get very angry when that is pointed out.

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

#290

Post by DengistKhan »

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…

> 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.

As far as I know, this is the first time a president has completely disregarded civility, declared marshall law under false pretenses (not false alarm, specifically false pretenses), talked about crowning himself king, and various forms of rigging future elections.

So the fact that some people (allegedly) thought Clinton/Bush/Obama/Biden would crown themselves is pretty irrelevant.

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