4 ms·

[some people seem super annoyed that i pointed it out, and it seems to have brought out the brigade, so i'm just editing this out]

twblalock 10y ago
Why would someone write an article like this if they didn't have an agenda? Every author has biases, whether or not they are conscious or overt. The better approach is to use your critical thinking skills and avoid ad hominem judgments about the author.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  "Why would someone write an article like this if they didn't have an agenda?" Errr, to start a discussion? You don't have to have agendas to have reasoned intellectual discussions. "Every author has biases, whether or not they are conscious or overt." This is such a throw away line i'm not sure why you added it. "The better approach is to use your critical thinking skills and avoid ad hominem judgments about the author." In theory, yes, but honestly, i find it's not worth my time when i know it means he's likely leaving out info, etc, instead of trying to present stuff in a reasonable way. I tend to see others do the same. I don't think you will change this (see, as an example, the viewpoints of the entire populace on pretty much anything, and the way they treat information presented by people they feel have agendas). You can argue till you are blue in the face that this is not what should happen, but it won't change that it does :)
  - twblalock 10y ago
    > This is such a throw away line i'm not sure why you added it. If you understood it, you would not have written something so naive as "Honesty, i wish articles like this were written by people without agendas, so that real discussions would be had."
    - DannyBee 10y ago
      So i see we are back to ad hominen.
msbarnett 10y ago
So, if you feel there's a worthwhile discussion to be had here, maybe don't make an argument to the author, and just have the discussion regardless of the author?
burkaman 10y ago
Robert Epstein is not a household name. The only reason anybody would dismiss this article is because they came to the comments section first and read your comment.
- nqzero 10y ago
  or they noticed any one of the hundreds of cherry picked "facts"
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Shouldn't your comment, where you point out someone's anti-Google bias, absolutely be tagged with: Disclosure: Google employee?
- DannyBee 10y ago
  When it's my personal viewpoint on hacker news, which is pretty much always? No. Despite your claims in other threads about employees, i am not the company i work for. I also don't agree with them on a lot of issues, FWIW. When and if i speak for that company, i'll tag it as me speaking for that company so you know. Otherwise, you should always assume it's just my viewpoint, just like you assume anyone else's view is their viewpoint. Anything else would make for a really crappy place to have discussions. (I find it funny that every sibling comment basically says i shouldn't have done that, and says "you should discuss the thing, not the biases", which is a fair point. Meanwhile, you are saying we should discuss the biases).
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    If you're going to complain about biases in an article or comment, you have to highlight your own. Disclosure isn't a statement you are speaking for your company, it's a statement you have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand. Such as being a significant stockholder, or receiving a paycheck from one of the companies being discussed. Another example is if you review a product, you should disclose if you are being paid for the review, if you received the product to review for free, or even just if you got a discount on it in exchange for a review. It doesn't make it any less your opinion, it's just denoting the potential bias in your statements based on your relationship.
    - DannyBee 10y ago
      "If you're going to complain about biases in an article, you have to highlight your own. " This is pretty ridiculous. I don't expect people having an opinion on child sex trafficking and talking about biases those article authors have to disclose whether they were abused as children, and are thus biased etc. I'm not the one who wrote and published an article in a major news site. I'll point out he didn't disclose his biases in his biography either, so apparently he doesn't agree with you, since he's literally complaining about google's biases. "Disclosure isn't a statement you are speaking for your company, it's a statement you have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand." Which is 100% totally and completely irrelevant to discussion of either someone else's biases or the topic of hand. If someone wants to start a separate discussion of my biases, that's fine too, but it could not be more orthogonal. > Such as being a significant stockholder, or receiving a paycheck from one of the companies being discussed." Why stop at companies? When discussing the california drought, should people living in areas affected point out they have a direct vested interest in one outcome or another (because they pay more, because it means water restrictions for them, because ...)? and again, FWIW: I am neither a significant shareholder, nor do i have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand. If Google was regulated, or whatever, it would have literally no effect on me. In any case, i'm not going to continue this line of discussion. I have no plans to change what i do, because i think it would make for a much worse discussion forum. you are welcome to do what you want.

twblalock 10y ago

Why would someone write an article like this if they didn't have an agenda? Every author has biases, whether or not they are conscious or overt. The better approach is to use your critical thinking skills and avoid ad hominem judgments about the author.

DannyBee 10y ago
"Why would someone write an article like this if they didn't have an agenda?" Errr, to start a discussion? You don't have to have agendas to have reasoned intellectual discussions. "Every author has biases, whether or not they are conscious or overt." This is such a throw away line i'm not sure why you added it. "The better approach is to use your critical thinking skills and avoid ad hominem judgments about the author." In theory, yes, but honestly, i find it's not worth my time when i know it means he's likely leaving out info, etc, instead of trying to present stuff in a reasonable way. I tend to see others do the same. I don't think you will change this (see, as an example, the viewpoints of the entire populace on pretty much anything, and the way they treat information presented by people they feel have agendas). You can argue till you are blue in the face that this is not what should happen, but it won't change that it does :)
- twblalock 10y ago
  > This is such a throw away line i'm not sure why you added it. If you understood it, you would not have written something so naive as "Honesty, i wish articles like this were written by people without agendas, so that real discussions would be had."
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    So i see we are back to ad hominen.

msbarnett 10y ago

So, if you feel there's a worthwhile discussion to be had here, maybe don't make an argument to the author, and just have the discussion regardless of the author?

burkaman 10y ago

Robert Epstein is not a household name. The only reason anybody would dismiss this article is because they came to the comments section first and read your comment.

nqzero 10y ago
or they noticed any one of the hundreds of cherry picked "facts"

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

Shouldn't your comment, where you point out someone's anti-Google bias, absolutely be tagged with: Disclosure: Google employee?

DannyBee 10y ago
When it's my personal viewpoint on hacker news, which is pretty much always? No. Despite your claims in other threads about employees, i am not the company i work for. I also don't agree with them on a lot of issues, FWIW. When and if i speak for that company, i'll tag it as me speaking for that company so you know. Otherwise, you should always assume it's just my viewpoint, just like you assume anyone else's view is their viewpoint. Anything else would make for a really crappy place to have discussions. (I find it funny that every sibling comment basically says i shouldn't have done that, and says "you should discuss the thing, not the biases", which is a fair point. Meanwhile, you are saying we should discuss the biases).
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  If you're going to complain about biases in an article or comment, you have to highlight your own. Disclosure isn't a statement you are speaking for your company, it's a statement you have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand. Such as being a significant stockholder, or receiving a paycheck from one of the companies being discussed. Another example is if you review a product, you should disclose if you are being paid for the review, if you received the product to review for free, or even just if you got a discount on it in exchange for a review. It doesn't make it any less your opinion, it's just denoting the potential bias in your statements based on your relationship.
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    "If you're going to complain about biases in an article, you have to highlight your own. " This is pretty ridiculous. I don't expect people having an opinion on child sex trafficking and talking about biases those article authors have to disclose whether they were abused as children, and are thus biased etc. I'm not the one who wrote and published an article in a major news site. I'll point out he didn't disclose his biases in his biography either, so apparently he doesn't agree with you, since he's literally complaining about google's biases. "Disclosure isn't a statement you are speaking for your company, it's a statement you have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand." Which is 100% totally and completely irrelevant to discussion of either someone else's biases or the topic of hand. If someone wants to start a separate discussion of my biases, that's fine too, but it could not be more orthogonal. > Such as being a significant stockholder, or receiving a paycheck from one of the companies being discussed." Why stop at companies? When discussing the california drought, should people living in areas affected point out they have a direct vested interest in one outcome or another (because they pay more, because it means water restrictions for them, because ...)? and again, FWIW: I am neither a significant shareholder, nor do i have a direct vested interest in the topic at hand. If Google was regulated, or whatever, it would have literally no effect on me. In any case, i'm not going to continue this line of discussion. I have no plans to change what i do, because i think it would make for a much worse discussion forum. you are welcome to do what you want.