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Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

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Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#51

Post by evanwise »

rjbwork wrote: post #37
willvarfar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Tangent: many countries have national tv channels that are paid by license fees or taxation. These channels strive to be independent, neutral and objective. And although it's quite in fashion to be negative about eg the bbc, I think they succeed really very well.)

I dunno man, the BBC from what I hear/read is really biased towards the left.

From my perspective, as a leftist and not a liberal, I'd describe the BBC and NPR as having, largely, a liberal / centrist viewpoint. I don't think I've ever heard the BBC advocating seizing the means of production or NPR agitating for a general strike. If you are in the US, consider that our entire political compass is shifted very far to the right. In Europe, the Democrats would be considered a center-right party and the Republicans would be a far-right, borderline extremist party. Regardless of where you fall on this spectrum, it's important not to fool yourself into thinking you are in the "center" or have some "objective" viewpoint from which you can label things "left" and "right", when everything in politics is so contextual.

Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#52

Post by zaptheimpaler »

panarky wrote: post #40
cirgue wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the exception of encyclopedias (and even then...), newspapers (owned by robber barons since day one, and then later mega-corps), text books (read "lies my teacher told me") etc have always been about profit. This is a profoundly naive view of how media works. In the past, advertisers made ad buying decisions based in part on the reputation of the outlet, and circulation of media was dependent on public consens…

The author missed the biggest economic difference between fact-driven businesses and signal-driven businesses. Today, to make money in a fact-driven business, you must restrict access to information. For example, those who originate high-quality news have large payrolls of journalists in the field, layers of editors and fact-checkers, etc. They typically fund the business by restricting access with subscriptions, pay…

Good point. Do you have any examples of fact based businesses? I can think of ONE(!) - Stratecherry by Ben Thompson, but I'm really craving more.

Its not just facts, its facts in service of telling a story - truth. "Raw" facts by themselves are hard to contextualize for an uninformed person. I really want more like that.

Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#53

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

panarky wrote: post #40
cirgue wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the exception of encyclopedias (and even then...), newspapers (owned by robber barons since day one, and then later mega-corps), text books (read "lies my teacher told me") etc have always been about profit. This is a profoundly naive view of how media works. In the past, advertisers made ad buying decisions based in part on the reputation of the outlet, and circulation of media was dependent on public consens…

The author missed the biggest economic difference between fact-driven businesses and signal-driven businesses. Today, to make money in a fact-driven business, you must restrict access to information. For example, those who originate high-quality news have large payrolls of journalists in the field, layers of editors and fact-checkers, etc. They typically fund the business by restricting access with subscriptions, pay…

This is manifestly not true in public journalism. In the UK the paywalled newspaper all produce opinion propped up by heavily editorialised reporting, which tries hard to appear fact based but is anything but.

As others have pointed out, what has happened is that the status of "fact-based journaiism" has been degraded - because most "fact-based journalism" was only ever opinionation written in a high-status social register.

The real change has been the obvious shift in the social register of public writing, from schoolmaster-ish formal and paternal authority, to inclusive, child-like, and trivial accessibility.

It's not quite true that neither was ever in the fact business, and the old model did a far better job of hiding it.

But it was much less fact-oriented than it appeared to be. And the old long-form journalistic style of writing used to describe factual experiences - e.g. travelogues - has been replaced by short-form subjective quick-hit social media posts, often supported by amateur photos or captioned memes. (I.e. fixed-format DIY cartoons.)

Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#54

Post by alexandercrohde »

s17n wrote: post #14

The internet has definitely killed the profitability of distributing facts, if it ever existed. The rest of the tweets about "signaling goods" are the type of hogwash you end up with when you confuse Ted talks with actual intellectual activity.

Oversimplified. Largely, the internet has reduced the profitability of distributing facts because it gives them all away for free (how much can you learn online that you used to have to pay for? encyclopedia, years of video, stanford courses, books, scihub)

The problem isn't an absence of facts. It's whether the layperson is both capable and motivated to seek out correct facts vs incorrect facts or unfalsifiable narratives.

Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#55

Post by golergka »

SandersAK wrote: post #44
golergka wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent storytelling, strong narrative. Got any evidence to back it up though?

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+fall+of+journalism&oq=th... There are dozens of papers written about this - but the main thought exercise is to just consider that if the "truth" was the core value of media, of course they would double down on it.

So, you're OK with wasting a lot of effort to tell a story, but when asked to back it up, you instantly resolve to the simple "google why I'm right".

People are certainly moving their efforts from facts to opinions and emotion.

Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#56

Post by coupdetaco »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #52
panarky wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author missed the biggest economic difference between fact-driven businesses and signal-driven businesses. Today, to make money in a fact-driven business, you must restrict access to information. For example, those who originate high-quality news have large payrolls of journalists in the field, layers of editors and fact-checkers, etc. They typically fund the business by restricting access with subscriptions, pay…

Good point. Do you have any examples of fact based businesses? I can think of ONE(!) - Stratecherry by Ben Thompson, but I'm really craving more. Its not just facts, its facts in service of telling a story - truth. "Raw" facts by themselves are hard to contextualize for an uninformed person. I really want more like that.

You really shouldn't share this here per the ToS. Also, the financial Times and Bloomberg machines are vehicles for expensive facts.

Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#57

Post by pixl97 »

cirgue wrote: post #43
djshgakdfdh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> based in part on the reputation of the outlet The reputation is where the bias lies. Consider the new york times: you probably respect it if you agree with it. If you don’t, it’s crappy narrative journalism. This certainly aligns with the parent comment’s claim that “facts” have never been the forte of any media; they simply need to agree with their readers. There’s simply little need to get 100% accuracy when 70%…

>The reputation is where the bias lies. So there's a difference between bias, which exists in every human communication imaginable, and abjectly bad writing and reporting. The major problem today is the latter. > Also, note that you can only see the issues in reporting if you’re closer to the story than the reporter is. That is absolutely not true at all. Most bad journalism today is insultingly bad. Take this articl…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

This term us from the 1890s, journalism has been terrible from its inception.

Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#58

Post by jochung »

evanwise wrote: post #51
rjbwork wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno man, the BBC from what I hear/read is really biased towards the left.

From my perspective, as a leftist and not a liberal, I'd describe the BBC and NPR as having, largely, a liberal / centrist viewpoint. I don't think I've ever heard the BBC advocating seizing the means of production or NPR agitating for a general strike. If you are in the US, consider that our entire political compass is shifted very far to the right. In Europe, the Democrats would be considered a center-right party a…

A big part of confusion is that the left is no longer interested in the common man and elevating the lower classes. So no, they won't advocate seizing the means. They are instead obsessed with identity politics, which seems to be another aspect of signaling and status seeking. Those who have victim cred wield it, those who don't will display excessive concern to try and be a good ally.

The BBC, like so many others, will absolutely maintain certain narratives from a left Orthodox view, particularly anything to do with sexism, racism or islamophobia.

They decide ahead of time who the victim and oppressor is, and quote only what works to support that hypothesis. There is still a pretense of impartiality, but that's all. There's a reason many classic liberal and alt types have adopted a policy of recording their own interviews and publishing them alongside any outlet featuring them.

It wasn't always so, if you look at articles from their archive of 10+ years ago, you find a much more balanced and neutral perspective.

Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#59

Post by SandersAK »

golergka wrote: post #55
SandersAK wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+fall+of+journalism&oq=th... There are dozens of papers written about this - but the main thought exercise is to just consider that if the "truth" was the core value of media, of course they would double down on it.

So, you're OK with wasting a lot of effort to tell a story, but when asked to back it up, you instantly resolve to the simple "google why I'm right". People are certainly moving their efforts from facts to opinions and emotion.

Your replies telegraphed not curiosity or interest but just standard internet "source?" flame posts. It's not hard to google any element of what I'm saying to read countless articles in Poynter, NYT, CRJ etc to find stuff to back this up. Why should I waste my time when your mind is already made up?

I will just in case someone actually reads into your reply some genuine curiosity: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/business/media/the-return-...

Also, I worked in journalism for years and have met with and worked with most of the major media entities, specifically around editorial and business model, so I guess technically I'm a source too.

Re: Naval Ravikant: “The Internet lowers the returns to distributing facts”

#60

Post by golergka »

SandersAK wrote: post #59
golergka wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you're OK with wasting a lot of effort to tell a story, but when asked to back it up, you instantly resolve to the simple "google why I'm right". People are certainly moving their efforts from facts to opinions and emotion.

Your replies telegraphed not curiosity or interest but just standard internet "source?" flame posts. It's not hard to google any element of what I'm saying to read countless articles in Poynter, NYT, CRJ etc to find stuff to back this up. Why should I waste my time when your mind is already made up? I will just in case someone actually reads into your reply some genuine curiosity: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/bu…

You're right, my mind is made up - to a certain extent. If your parent comments would actually be written well and contain strong arguments, I could change my mind.

But instead, your parent comments reek of the same absence of essence as a lot of modern "high-brow" journalism - and that's exactly why I was so irritated. I'm sick and tired of longreads in NYT, New Yorker, Slate and other presumably good publications that focus on stories, narratives and individuals instead of facts and arguments. How many times have a opened a story about some kind of global phenomena that affects millions and instead of statistics and studies saw most text dedicated to few particular people affected by it! Just like your text - makes a good and emotional narrative, but doesn't have any logical arguments to support author's viewpoint.

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