Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coronavirus and Credibility

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 968 posts

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#331

Post by dragonwriter »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #292
endorphone wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the sort of false equivalency that leads to claims that they all lie, so it's okay if Fox egregiously lies. We see this on HN all the time where someone stomps their feet and cries about a news headline that they think doesn't convey just the right slant that they want, ergo it's the same as the guy inventing bullshit conspiracy theories on his blog. No, they weren't "chastising" Trump over the China travel b…

The equivalency being drawn by the parent may be wrong, but mainstream sources outside Fox News absolutely downplayed the seriousness of the virus and helped push the "it's not a big deal" perception that we are all now rowing against.

> but mainstream sources outside Fox News absolutely downplayed the seriousness of the virus

That's true, I guess, if you consider OANN to have reached the status of “mainstream” with the boost they've gotten with their attachment to the current US administration.

But, otherwise, show me some specific examples.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#332

Post by nradov »

sgt101 wrote: post #311
throwaway5752 wrote: post #208

In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players . There is also zero introspection - the people who were wrong about covid-19 are simply denying they said what they said. The truly scary part is they are getting away with it in real time, and changing a large populations' memory of contemporary events. I realize it's hard to remember f…

There's a really nasty that is looming in my nightmares. Hurricane season is coming earlier now, due to warming, and the Hurricanes are bigger. And The South is going to be in the thick of the epidemic in mid to late may.

Yes that's a real risk. The current consensus forecast is for a slightly above average hurricane season. In a few months we may have thousands of people evacuated into shelters.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#333

Post by catalogia »

notahacker wrote: post #95
TechBro8615 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's amusing to be is how anyone can look at the incompetence of governments across the world, and conclude they'd be capable of any kind of organized conspiracy against the general population.

Yep. Actual conspiracies are comparatively banal, and often more to do with covering up incompetence than establishing new world orders with incredible technological advances. To bring up famous examples from the not too distant past, the same administration supposedly capable of secretly planting demolition charges in busy NYC offices without anyone noticing apparently saw it as too risky to secretly plant chemical…

All theories about what happened on 9/11/2001, including the official 9/11 Commission Report, are conspiracy theories. They disagree on who the conspirators were, but every last theory about it is a conspiracy theory.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#334

Post by jshevek »

lliamander wrote: post #325
avip wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. It reads: "So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone…

> I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. That's a nice "No True Scotsman" right there. Unless, of course, you can give me a non-arbitrary reason why Dr. David Barber of the University of Manitoba speaking in 2008 is a "pre-modern" climate scientist, whereas Dr. James Hansen of NASA writing in 2009 is a "modern" climate scientist.

That's a good point. The conversation is about a history of irresponsible public statements, but the evidence for this history is dismissed with:

>actual modern climate scientist

With this rhetorical technique, it could be impossible to provide evidence. Who gets to decide what makes a climate scientist 'modern'? Disregarding alleged 'non-modern' climate scientists is the last thing we should do when discussing prior decades of alarmism.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#335

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

enraged_camel wrote: post #323
drocer88 wrote: post #275

If you're getting your "news" from CNN/Fox/MSNBC, or "gathering evidence" to promote one the two permitted narratives, that's your problem. This is stuff is low effort "Presidential Level Politics" 24x7. Real news died when reporters stopped having to craft a story so that the Associated Press or United Press International picked it up and made it available to the varied local newspapers of America, both liberal and…

>> CNN/Fox/MSNBC One of those is not like the other two. CNN and MSNBC may not be as high quality as WaPo/NYTimes in terms of depth and quality of journalism, but they also don't maliciously and cynically and shamelessly lie to their viewers.

I'm not an American and far from Trumps target audience but the CNN is bad as Fox. I have them both on TV. It truly is a kettle and pot situation, I believe so many Americans have grown so deeply into either culture that unfortunately you can't comprehend it anymore.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#336

Post by avip »

jshevek wrote: post #322
avip wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. It reads: "So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone…

> I see one prediction from an actual modern climate scientist. The original conversation was regarding all public statements, not scientists. This is more about journalists than scientists. > ...and consider how it applies to all the people who have made confident predictions over the years regarding global warming.

Who cares what journalists say? IPCC and nasa reports are publicly available and use plain language anyone can read.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#337

Post by shard972 »

Animats wrote: post #297

"These people constantly make false predictions, and get away with it, because the things they make predictions about either have mushy enough outcomes that they can bluster their way out of trouble, or happen so far in the future that few remember what they said." Neither of which applies this time. Here's a project for someone who works in the video space. Start with a Trump speech. As soon as he says something dem…

You just did

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#338

Post by catalogia »

thombat wrote: post #56
TechBro8615 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's amusing to be is how anyone can look at the incompetence of governments across the world, and conclude they'd be capable of any kind of organized conspiracy against the general population.

Like the endless YouTube conspiracy-oriented channels which rant about the vast Illuminati/Jewish/Deep-State/whatever conspiracy that holds our world in thrall and assassinates with impunity, yet somehow can't manage to file a few bogus DMCA claims to get the YouTube channels shutdown. Of course if one tries pointing this out the response is sometimes "oh, they're so powerful that they like to mock us", but more comm…

Supposing for the sake of argument that the Illuminati were real and you were in charge of it. You know a bunch of weirdos on youtube know the truth and are generally regarded as cranks. Would you bother concerning yourself with them, or would you ignore them since they're pathetic and powerless? I'd ignore them.

To be clear, I don't think the Illuminati are real, but I don't think your reasoning is sound either.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#339

Post by mapgrep »

Here are the "journalists" (mostly commentators, actually) in the video Paul Graham links:

Sean Hannity (Fox News)

Rush Limbaugh (independent, right wing)

Pete Hegdeth (Fox News)

Lou Dobbs (Fox Business)

Tomi Lahren (Fox News)

Jeanine Pirro (Fox News)

Dr. Marc Siegel (Fox News)

Geraldo Rivera (Fox News)

Laura Ingraham (Fox News)

Jesse Waters (Fox News)

Matt Schlapp (shown on Fox News)

Dr Drew Pinsky (shown on Fox News)

Ed Henry (Fox News)

Ainsley Earhardt (Fox News)

I think it's misleading to call this "a video of TV journalists and politicians." It's a video of Fox News journalists and Rush Limbaugh and right wing politicians.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#340

Post by hhs »

garraeth wrote: post #289
drocer88 wrote: post #275

If you're getting your "news" from CNN/Fox/MSNBC, or "gathering evidence" to promote one the two permitted narratives, that's your problem. This is stuff is low effort "Presidential Level Politics" 24x7. Real news died when reporters stopped having to craft a story so that the Associated Press or United Press International picked it up and made it available to the varied local newspapers of America, both liberal and…

Agreed. Unfortunately now it's more like picking a sport team ("Team CNN" or "Team Fox"), or Apple vs/ Google vs/ Microsoft than actually finding, or learning about, facts. Tribalism at it's finest. The only alternative I've found (I'm open to helpful suggestions) is to ignore that noise and read actual briefings and original sources. But, that defeats the point of news being an honest and straight forward source of…

> Unfortunately now it's more like picking a sport team

Indeed, what’s being provided is infotainment / soft news. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infotainment

Post reply on HN