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No surprises here – On the absence of information in today’s media

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Re: No surprises here – On the absence of information in today’s media

#41

Post by labster »

pm90 wrote: post #38
glitcher wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree. I have been tempted to buy the logical fallacies and critical thinking posters from The Thinking Shop[1] as gifts for certain family members, but I know too much of my motivation comes from the self-centered position of wanting to prove I'm right, which I didn't want to perpetuate. Instead I just read through the posters and ended up recognizing several items I probably need to work on myself. The…

There are twenty four logical fallacies listed there... twenty four Genuine question: how does one keep 24 logical fallacies in mind when evaluating arguments? Do you mentally iterate through all these fallacies? Don't get me wrong: they are very valid and I think they will make me better and my arguments better. I just want to understand how people without photographic memories do this.

Learn them one at a time, in such a way as you start seeing the pattern. Human brains are great pattern recognition machines, which is also where the errors come in. That’s okay: you want both zones to fire, so the cognitive dissonance forces you to consciously think about a potential fallacy.

Re: No surprises here – On the absence of information in today’s media

#42

Post by rayiner »

pm90 wrote: post #39
ChuckMcM wrote: post #28

As I read this, I think what the author is saying is that today's media is more about creating "Narratives" rather than communicating "Information." My Grandfather, who was an attorney, shared with me that attorneys cut apart narratives with evidence to get to the truth. If all of the evidence is available, the only surviving narrative is most likely the truest representation of an event. At the time, I didn't apprec…

It depends on what kind of media sources you're looking at. Long form media (like the New Yorker) are generally better at being somewhat exhaustive with their sources. Newspapers...are almost entirely narrative driven but do include the factual description of at least one event around which the stories are based. "Instant" media (e.g. Twitter, TikTok) is even more extreme in being narrative driven. Because of the tim…

I quite disagree. Long form media tend to be just very long narratives. Newspapers are narrative wrapped around a single factual event, to fit that event into a preferred narrative.

Tweets can be narrative driven, but sometimes they’re centered around some primary source document or chart or something like that, and in that case they can be far more useful than a newspaper article.

My view these days is give me the primary sources or GTFO. For example, I don’t trust you to tell me what’s in a court filing—the first thing in your article better be a link to the filing itself and you had better actually quote the source material.

Re: No surprises here – On the absence of information in today’s media

#44

Post by rayiner »

hnracer wrote: post #25
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #8

I don't understand why news sites do not add references and footnotes to their articles. I have been working on an idea for a site that makes "mind maps" of a graph of facts inside of news articles to show how conclusions are reached. However, I think the average person's critical reasoning skills would not appreciate this and just believe what they want to hear.

I would've liked to see this quality of journalism regarding the recent election fraud allegations. With some exceptions the most common style has been to dismiss it as bad faith and cite election authorities who say there's insufficient evidence. While I agree, it would've been much more illuminating, persuasive, engaging and educational to do a deep dive into the substance of the claims and show why they're likely…

I agree with you strongly. I’m a lawyer and I still don’t really understand why Trump’s cases are so weak, because I haven’t had time to read most of the decisions. I assume it’s true, but the news coverage has been totally unilluminating.

Re: No surprises here – On the absence of information in today’s media

#46

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

Suppose that the media reported on only one issue: the progress of the sun across the sky. Every day, they would report that it rose (in the east), grew higher in the sky, and eventually set (in the west). Periodically there would be analysis pieces that took a longer view, and noted how when the weather was warmer, the sun rose to a higher position in the sky, and that when it was colder, the rise point was a little more to the south.

After a year or two of this, by the metrics of TFA, this coverage would contain essentially zero information (at least for anyone who had followed said coverage for a while).

And yet ... every single part of it would be true, and there would be no other "sides" to consider. For most humans, the knowledge that the sun behaves in this way is of some importance, though less so in a modern industrialized society.

So ... the question is not about how much information there is "today's media". It's about whether or not what the media contains is true and whether or not it is important (which might often be synonym for "useful").

Re: No surprises here – On the absence of information in today’s media

#47

Post by pbasista »

rossdavidh wrote: post #19

It seems clear to me that the problem lies, at least in large part, with our business model. If you write a thought-provoking article that people read, reflect on, think back on numerous times during the next few weeks, etc. it does not get you as much money as if you write five clickbait articles a day. If we were paying people based on the articles they write, that we read, which a week later we were still glad we…

Business model may favor such a behavior but in my opinion its ethics should be considered as well.

For example, many cars generate some air pollution. But there are some, typically more expensive ones, which produce less or no air pollution.

It may be economically beneficial to simply buy the cheapest one. But some people choose the less polluting cars anyway, perhaps also because they incorporate ethics into their decisions.

I believe that it is very beneficial to the society as a whole that there are people who are willing to make ethically correct decisions even if they would not bring them any immediate personal advantage.

The reason is that such a behavior motivates people to look beyond their own interests. It may steer the society towards a better state thanks to appreciating values that have been underestimated before.

Re: No surprises here – On the absence of information in today’s media

#48

Post by scollet »

sn wrote: post #37

https://www.allsides.com/about is trying to combat exactly this issue. I'm surprised they weren't referenced in the original article.

This seems to just display top articles on a 1-dimensional spectrum.

I don't see how that's helpful or even justifies the service's name.

Wouldn't fact harvesting be more helpful and inclusive? Ditch the framing as much as possible and assert what happened.

Re: No surprises here – On the absence of information in today’s media

#49

Post by Natsu »

watwut wrote: post #16
bxk1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The elephant in the room not addressed in this essay is the widespread use of bad faith arguments, and the absence or dismissal of evidence in preference of beliefs and feelings. On some issues it can be extremely difficult to find good faith arguments and evidence on each side of the issue. "Good faith", "bad faith" labeling is not logical, it's more of an attempt to apply morality and ideology to reasoning to rej…

I mostly agree with you, except one thing. There is such a thing as bad faith argument. There is such a thing as lying or manipulating truth so that it sounds like a lie. There is such a thing as throwing as much mud as you can waiting for something to stick. There are fallacies and mistakes too, sure. There are differences of opinion. But, there is also such a thing as person standing confidently in front of camera…

There are bad faith arguments, but there are also people who label any argument that they don't want to or can't deal with as 'bad faith', so... yeah. At some point we can't avoid the fact that people are human and tend to seize upon things they agree with.

Re: No surprises here – On the absence of information in today’s media

#50

Post by alisonkisk »

pbasista wrote: post #47
rossdavidh wrote: post #19

It seems clear to me that the problem lies, at least in large part, with our business model. If you write a thought-provoking article that people read, reflect on, think back on numerous times during the next few weeks, etc. it does not get you as much money as if you write five clickbait articles a day. If we were paying people based on the articles they write, that we read, which a week later we were still glad we…

Business model may favor such a behavior but in my opinion its ethics should be considered as well. For example, many cars generate some air pollution. But there are some, typically more expensive ones, which produce less or no air pollution. It may be economically beneficial to simply buy the cheapest one. But some people choose the less polluting cars anyway, perhaps also because they incorporate ethics into their…

Systems thinking is important here.

The majority of people, the majority of the time, are some combination of lazy, stupid, and greedy.

Isolated efforts to be moral and wise don't move the needle substantially.

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