61–70 of 105 posts
My 2020 opinion: Bias in news is largely unimportant. News is saturated with incompetence however and that is harming everyone, in direct and meaningful ways. Worst of all, important questions go unasked.
Sure, bias exists, but you're getting awful at identifying it. More importantly, railing about bias won't get what you want, which is bringing grief to center->left people in power.
I have something better for that.
What you want is a Meaningfully Competent Press Corps - something that mostly doesn't exist now.
An MCPC never hesitates to target anyone in power. It knows government and corporations are dangerous by default - that harm is only averted thru ceaseless, aggressive, public oversight. It lives to expose powerful corruption and it doesn't care who's it is. A MCPC knows that secrecy is generally about hiding misdeeds and it never, ever assumes powerful people are being truthful.
Will a MCPC routinely ding powerful people you like? Sure, but isn't that what you see happening now? Wouldn't it be gratifying to see powerful people you dislike get dinged?
How about Pelosi going down for protecting horrific CIA abuses? Sweet. Imagine Obama being justly shamed for prosecuting more whistleblowers than all previous PotUS combined. An MCPC could deliver that for you.
Consider how golden that could be.
Seriously conservative dudes. Forget bias. An MCPC will cost you nothing that you aren't already paying and it is uniquely positioned to give you rich, satisfying payback - which, truthfully, is what you want.
>My assertion, paradoxically, is that polarization has greatly diminished the quantity of information being produced and consumed via today's press despite the sea of content they produce. Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media. Noam Chomsky I agree with Chomsky here. >In today's polarized media, each side of the media discourse has established its perspective, and the content they p…
The only news reporting agencies which are actually in opposition to the current are the so called "alternate news sites", those which are also branded as fake news factories or hate centrals by the mainstream media.
The classical liberalism which arguably founded the western societies has been completely overthrown and subjugated by neoliberal leftism of various degrees, multicultural mania etc.
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.
1. The premises are themselves valid: you buy that they are truthful. 2. The argument's logic coheres: when added to your existing beliefs there is no contradiction.
Fallicies manifest through violations of these claims. But you don't have to know the name of that violation to raise a complaint: you can derive it on the spot. Discussing these fallicies mostly acts as a practice tool, and provides a useful bit of jargon if you are writing philosophy and need to convey the idea quickly. But most arguments in online spaces are dismissed with: "the premise is invalid" or "the reasoning is incoherent."
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> 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 This highlights both a problem an opportunity. How many people know how to make a good argument or how to spot one? How many know what good evidence looks like or how to spot beliefs and assumptions making their way into something? I would…
> How many people know how to make a good argument or how to spot one? Even if you could spot "good" arguments that really isn't enough without knowing that it's also made in good faith. If the person making an argument doesn't actually believe what they're saying, is arguing with a particular outcome, or is arguing with an ulterior motive like flame-bait then you also shouldn't bother engaging them even if it's well…
Perhaps what you object to is being dragged into some messy going-in-circles argument. Those are frustrating but they happen because the good-faith participant tolerates some of the logical fallacies and false information presented by the bad-faith one.
People have a powerful force driving them to argue for the thing they believe in so it makes sense to tap into that force to generate high quality arguments. If everyone was kind of passive and willing to accept whatever seems obviously right, we wouldn't push any boundaries. Being kind of passive can happen if you're not emotionally invested in your argument.
> our opinions should be formed from a careful examination of arguments and evidence on each side of the issue, reading from only one perspective is akin to not reading at all 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 a…
> 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…
As for private individuals, like posters arguing on the internet, yes they probably tend to believe what they say in the moment. A big problem there, perhaps ironically, is people assuming bad faith about each other.
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…
Also, don't lead with the exact same sun story as 300 other news orgs. Perform actual journalism instead.
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…
How about this. Once you've covered the sun-progress-scenario, it's covered. Stop covering it. Also, don't lead with the exact same sun story as 300 other news orgs. Perform actual journalism instead.
What are "covered" stories that the media still writes about but should stop?
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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 p…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How many people know how to make a good argument or how to spot one? Even if you could spot "good" arguments that really isn't enough without knowing that it's also made in good faith. If the person making an argument doesn't actually believe what they're saying, is arguing with a particular outcome, or is arguing with an ulterior motive like flame-bait then you also shouldn't bother engaging them even if it's well…
If an argument is bad faith but right, doesn't that still make it right? Perhaps what you object to is being dragged into some messy going-in-circles argument. Those are frustrating but they happen because the good-faith participant tolerates some of the logical fallacies and false information presented by the bad-faith one. People have a powerful force driving them to argue for the thing they believe in so it makes…
Ultimately, most of our arguments are about solving problems (or pursuing opportunities). Most problems worth arguing at length require collaboration to solve.
I would rather discuss problems and their solutions, and hash out disagreements, with someone who is likely to be a true partner in the implementation of the solution.
Bad faith vs good faith can then be inferred by track records or commitments, same as you would for anything else.