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Know your source: Cato is an advocate for libertarianism, at least as envisioned by its funders, founded in part by Charles Koch, and still heavily funded and c

Know your source: Cato is an advocate for libertarianism, at least as envisioned by its funders, founded in part by Charles Koch, and still heavily funded and controlled by him (and I think by his brother). I don't mean that in a partisan way; you might love them, hate them, or not care one way or the other, but it's always useful to know who is talking.

bendykstra 10y ago
The internet has made it very easy to shield ourselves from the arguments of people with differing views. Disclaimers such as this are just another way for us to filter what we read and further isolate ourselves ideologically. Who cares who said it so long as what they said has merit? Conversely, a healthy skepticism is always valuable, regardless of the source.
- existencebox 10y ago
  Because who is saying something colors the merit it brings. And as a healthy skeptic, knowing the direction to look for potential bias _does_ help orient my skepticism and find potential ulterior motives within the infinite space of "all ulterior motives". I certainly was asking myself "I wonder who was backing this" while reading it. (Don't take me the wrong way, I absolutely agree with you with respect to not filtering our input, I go out of my way to find people biased against my topics to see how they look at things and for me at least the labeling _assists_ with gathering a more diverse viewpoint, and understanding the true motives at play)
  - pjlegato 10y ago
    > Because who is saying something colors the merit it brings Not at all; this is the "ad hominem" logical fallacy. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem) The claims being made are objectively true or false entirely independently of any personal attributes of the person making them. In other words, who is saying something is entirely irrelevant to the merit of what they are saying.
    - existencebox 10y ago
      That's a rather pedantic interpretation. To give one counterexample. Claims can have merit in terms of how the long term events that follow. I have certain ideas of what will follow from e.g. a given proposal; but that's often given many assumptions that went unstated in the original source. By knowing the direction of bias I can postulate what might come from the author's assumptions for those unknowns as well, and perhaps see an angle I hadn't or adjust my "internal bayesian function" of outcomes; which absolutely leads to a subjective judgement of merit. (but despite subjectivity is still to my eyes a best-we-can-do-in-absence-of-more-data question of merit; necessary due to the messiness of "real life") To bring this very hand wavy generalization back to the topic, look at many arguments posed in the anti-marijuana camp (as discussed in this very writeup) being based on extremely pessimistic to the point of unrealistic assumptions in order to derive the conclusions they prescribed; conclusions in isolation that could be seen as terrifying but if you consider author bias can be accounted for more reasonably.
      - hueving 10y ago
        It's not pedantic, it's the only interpretation. Who says something does not alter its logical validity.
        existencebox 10y ago
        Do read the tail of my prior post. If only we were in a world where logical purism was possible you would be preaching to the choir, I promise you. But given a world with hilariously incomplete information, ESPECIALLY often when having to judge the merits of a decision, one must make a judgement that takes into account aspects outside of literal content. (If you're a CSer at all I would expect this is a very familiar concept from having to do anything from project estimation to architecture in the presence of unknowns) (Sister post Linkregister says it better than I did, frankly)
        imron 10y ago
        Perhaps in a world where everyone always deals in facts and everyone only tells the truth that statement is true, but that is not our world. People lie and distort facts for their own personal gain all the time. See for example, the scientists paid by the cigarette companies that produced data showing that smoking was safe. Knowing who said something (and knowing who is paying someone to say something) allows you to better calibrate your skepticism to see if what they are saying might be biased by their financial or other interests.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    Which is why you shouldn't read just the conclusions, but get the actual source data they used. Easier said than done. It's easy to dismiss, but hard to verify. Science found hard! News at 11! ;) http://www.theonion.com/article/national-science-foundation-science-hard-1405 http://www.theonion.com/article/national-science-foundation-...
- hackuser 10y ago
  I strongly agree that we shouldn't shield ourselves from opinions that disagree with our own, and that the 'bubble' is dangerous ... ... > Who cares who said it so long as what they said has merit? But how do we know how much merit it has? I don't believe anyone has the capability to answer that question on their own (unless they already possess the expert knowledge in the field), or the time to verify it. Therefore, to a great degree we must trust the authors, so it helps to know who is speaking. No author is without bias; it helps to know their biases. Some authors are more honest than others and some more accurate than others. If an author has tried to deceive me before, I won't trust them again. If I've seen an author be diligent about accuracy, I'll trust them more next time. ... ... and so I do want to filter dishonest and inaccurate arguments, for obvious reasons. And for a less obvious reason: I don't have time to read all the exceptionally well-informed, highly accurate, honest, brilliant arguments out there; I resent someone wasting my time with their bullsh*t.
- eyelidlessness 10y ago
  Understanding the ideological underpinnings of an organization can help to provide context for that organization's statements, especially when those underpinnings are not included in those statements. In order to fully understand politicized writing—its assumptions, its impacts, its expectations and its motivations—it can often be necessary to have that context. Writing that isn't even consciously propaganda can often be heavily influenced by jargon and premises that are not apparent to the reader, but being familiar with the ideological background can help clear up that cloud.
- gcb0 10y ago
  actually it have achieve that in the worst way possible: making it easier to be surround only by the little echo chamber you choose. see how most tailored "news" aggregators such as facebook or yahoo or reddit will mostly show you only what you want to read. its perfect for the fear mongering ways of the two party system.
tw04 10y ago
Libertarianism, as envisioned by the Koch brothers, is AMAZING when you're rich. You simply remove all government functions that protect the poor from the wealthy, and re-create feudal Europe. What's not to love???
- clock_tower 10y ago
  Honestly, I think the poor had more rights (or at least had an easier time of having their rights honored) in the Middle Ages than they would under libertarianism. Look up _Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages_ or _A History of Private Life_ if you're curious.
  - dnautics 10y ago
    No, in the middle ages (and it's returning now) there were debtor's prisons, which libertarians are very strong opponents of. That in and of itself is huge.
    - clock_tower 10y ago
      Looks like that's true; I hadn't come across the early history of debtors' prisons, and had always thought of them as an early-modern thing. It looks like Reason.com argues that pay-for-service modern law is equivalent to debtors' prison, but I haven't heard of libertarians supporting the restoration of proper debtors' prison (where the state imprisons someone for failing to pay a debt to a non-state contracting party). Of course, there's no canonical list of libertarian principles, so I'm sure some do support that... As for the Middle Ages, I'd still recommend the books I mentioned; they make a number of interesting references to village law, and the right of peasant farmers (both serfs, who owed labor service, and freemen, who owed rent) to self-regulate. _A Farewell to Alms_ mentions that farmland in the Middle Ages returned 10% per annum at basically zero risk in England and relatively little on the Continent (the only risks being war and bad harvests); if libertarianism wants to return to that economic arrangement, perhaps with the US government selling bonds returning 10% adjusted for inflation, then perhaps it has a silver lining.
- 10y ago
pjlegato 10y ago
The study seems to be making a sincere effort to be objective and evidence-based, with proper citations and such. In my opinion, it largely succeeds. The fact that it was partially funded by someone I may not like is irrelevant (the ad hominem fallacy). That's the entire purpose of the scientific method -- to bypass the ad hominem arguments you have made, to seperate the data and the claims from questions of whether we happen to like the person or group making the claims on a personal level.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > The study seems to be making a sincere effort to be objective and evidence-based, with proper citations and such. Without commenting on this particular study, I'll point out something I've learned from long experience reading think tank material: Some think tanks are created to provide 'intellectual cover' and credibility (in the eyes of people like you and me, who care about the things you listed) to whatever ideas their political masters desire, regardless of the ideas' true legitimacy. This isn't a conspiracy theory, but a well-known (in political circles) tool in the political toolkit. And they do it in exactly the ways you identify, by appearing to make "a sincere effort to be objective and evidence-based, with proper citations and such." Unless we have time to check the citations and expertise to evaluate the quality of the citations and the arguments, we have little chance of detecting it. Other tools are used to persuade other audiences: Anonymous, slandering robocalls are used for some (probably not you and me), blog posts for some, newspaper op-eds for some, astroturfing on Internet forums for others; some think tanks (not all) are just another tool for another audience.
rayiner 10y ago
In this case, libertarianism led them to the right idea long before legalization was popular: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/lets-quit-drug-war http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/lets-quit-drug-w... (a 1988 NYT article by the Cato Inatitute executive).
BurningFrog 10y ago
And who are you then?
bsbechtel 10y ago
Sometimes a heavily biased source is the only one that is willing to discuss an issue, or bring it forward. Consider it the opposite of an appeal to authority argument, but bias of a source doesn't necessarily discredit the argument.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
eldude 10y ago
Ad-hominem.
IPbanned 10y ago
Know your community: Hacker News is run by Bilderbergers.

bendykstra 10y ago

The internet has made it very easy to shield ourselves from the arguments of people with differing views. Disclaimers such as this are just another way for us to filter what we read and further isolate ourselves ideologically. Who cares who said it so long as what they said has merit? Conversely, a healthy skepticism is always valuable, regardless of the source.

existencebox 10y ago
Because who is saying something colors the merit it brings. And as a healthy skeptic, knowing the direction to look for potential bias _does_ help orient my skepticism and find potential ulterior motives within the infinite space of "all ulterior motives". I certainly was asking myself "I wonder who was backing this" while reading it. (Don't take me the wrong way, I absolutely agree with you with respect to not filtering our input, I go out of my way to find people biased against my topics to see how they look at things and for me at least the labeling _assists_ with gathering a more diverse viewpoint, and understanding the true motives at play)
- pjlegato 10y ago
  > Because who is saying something colors the merit it brings Not at all; this is the "ad hominem" logical fallacy. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem) The claims being made are objectively true or false entirely independently of any personal attributes of the person making them. In other words, who is saying something is entirely irrelevant to the merit of what they are saying.
  - existencebox 10y ago
    That's a rather pedantic interpretation. To give one counterexample. Claims can have merit in terms of how the long term events that follow. I have certain ideas of what will follow from e.g. a given proposal; but that's often given many assumptions that went unstated in the original source. By knowing the direction of bias I can postulate what might come from the author's assumptions for those unknowns as well, and perhaps see an angle I hadn't or adjust my "internal bayesian function" of outcomes; which absolutely leads to a subjective judgement of merit. (but despite subjectivity is still to my eyes a best-we-can-do-in-absence-of-more-data question of merit; necessary due to the messiness of "real life") To bring this very hand wavy generalization back to the topic, look at many arguments posed in the anti-marijuana camp (as discussed in this very writeup) being based on extremely pessimistic to the point of unrealistic assumptions in order to derive the conclusions they prescribed; conclusions in isolation that could be seen as terrifying but if you consider author bias can be accounted for more reasonably.
    - hueving 10y ago
      It's not pedantic, it's the only interpretation. Who says something does not alter its logical validity.
      - existencebox 10y ago
        Do read the tail of my prior post. If only we were in a world where logical purism was possible you would be preaching to the choir, I promise you. But given a world with hilariously incomplete information, ESPECIALLY often when having to judge the merits of a decision, one must make a judgement that takes into account aspects outside of literal content. (If you're a CSer at all I would expect this is a very familiar concept from having to do anything from project estimation to architecture in the presence of unknowns) (Sister post Linkregister says it better than I did, frankly)
      - imron 10y ago
        Perhaps in a world where everyone always deals in facts and everyone only tells the truth that statement is true, but that is not our world. People lie and distort facts for their own personal gain all the time. See for example, the scientists paid by the cigarette companies that produced data showing that smoking was safe. Knowing who said something (and knowing who is paying someone to say something) allows you to better calibrate your skepticism to see if what they are saying might be biased by their financial or other interests.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  Which is why you shouldn't read just the conclusions, but get the actual source data they used. Easier said than done. It's easy to dismiss, but hard to verify. Science found hard! News at 11! ;) http://www.theonion.com/article/national-science-foundation-science-hard-1405 http://www.theonion.com/article/national-science-foundation-...
hackuser 10y ago
I strongly agree that we shouldn't shield ourselves from opinions that disagree with our own, and that the 'bubble' is dangerous ... ... > Who cares who said it so long as what they said has merit? But how do we know how much merit it has? I don't believe anyone has the capability to answer that question on their own (unless they already possess the expert knowledge in the field), or the time to verify it. Therefore, to a great degree we must trust the authors, so it helps to know who is speaking. No author is without bias; it helps to know their biases. Some authors are more honest than others and some more accurate than others. If an author has tried to deceive me before, I won't trust them again. If I've seen an author be diligent about accuracy, I'll trust them more next time. ... ... and so I do want to filter dishonest and inaccurate arguments, for obvious reasons. And for a less obvious reason: I don't have time to read all the exceptionally well-informed, highly accurate, honest, brilliant arguments out there; I resent someone wasting my time with their bullsh*t.
eyelidlessness 10y ago
Understanding the ideological underpinnings of an organization can help to provide context for that organization's statements, especially when those underpinnings are not included in those statements. In order to fully understand politicized writing—its assumptions, its impacts, its expectations and its motivations—it can often be necessary to have that context. Writing that isn't even consciously propaganda can often be heavily influenced by jargon and premises that are not apparent to the reader, but being familiar with the ideological background can help clear up that cloud.
gcb0 10y ago
actually it have achieve that in the worst way possible: making it easier to be surround only by the little echo chamber you choose. see how most tailored "news" aggregators such as facebook or yahoo or reddit will mostly show you only what you want to read. its perfect for the fear mongering ways of the two party system.

tw04 10y ago

Libertarianism, as envisioned by the Koch brothers, is AMAZING when you're rich. You simply remove all government functions that protect the poor from the wealthy, and re-create feudal Europe. What's not to love???

clock_tower 10y ago
Honestly, I think the poor had more rights (or at least had an easier time of having their rights honored) in the Middle Ages than they would under libertarianism. Look up _Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages_ or _A History of Private Life_ if you're curious.
- dnautics 10y ago
  No, in the middle ages (and it's returning now) there were debtor's prisons, which libertarians are very strong opponents of. That in and of itself is huge.
  - clock_tower 10y ago
    Looks like that's true; I hadn't come across the early history of debtors' prisons, and had always thought of them as an early-modern thing. It looks like Reason.com argues that pay-for-service modern law is equivalent to debtors' prison, but I haven't heard of libertarians supporting the restoration of proper debtors' prison (where the state imprisons someone for failing to pay a debt to a non-state contracting party). Of course, there's no canonical list of libertarian principles, so I'm sure some do support that... As for the Middle Ages, I'd still recommend the books I mentioned; they make a number of interesting references to village law, and the right of peasant farmers (both serfs, who owed labor service, and freemen, who owed rent) to self-regulate. _A Farewell to Alms_ mentions that farmland in the Middle Ages returned 10% per annum at basically zero risk in England and relatively little on the Continent (the only risks being war and bad harvests); if libertarianism wants to return to that economic arrangement, perhaps with the US government selling bonds returning 10% adjusted for inflation, then perhaps it has a silver lining.
10y ago

pjlegato 10y ago

The study seems to be making a sincere effort to be objective and evidence-based, with proper citations and such. In my opinion, it largely succeeds. The fact that it was partially funded by someone I may not like is irrelevant (the ad hominem fallacy). That's the entire purpose of the scientific method -- to bypass the ad hominem arguments you have made, to seperate the data and the claims from questions of whether we happen to like the person or group making the claims on a personal level.

hackuser 10y ago
> The study seems to be making a sincere effort to be objective and evidence-based, with proper citations and such. Without commenting on this particular study, I'll point out something I've learned from long experience reading think tank material: Some think tanks are created to provide 'intellectual cover' and credibility (in the eyes of people like you and me, who care about the things you listed) to whatever ideas their political masters desire, regardless of the ideas' true legitimacy. This isn't a conspiracy theory, but a well-known (in political circles) tool in the political toolkit. And they do it in exactly the ways you identify, by appearing to make "a sincere effort to be objective and evidence-based, with proper citations and such." Unless we have time to check the citations and expertise to evaluate the quality of the citations and the arguments, we have little chance of detecting it. Other tools are used to persuade other audiences: Anonymous, slandering robocalls are used for some (probably not you and me), blog posts for some, newspaper op-eds for some, astroturfing on Internet forums for others; some think tanks (not all) are just another tool for another audience.

rayiner 10y ago

In this case, libertarianism led them to the right idea long before legalization was popular: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/lets-quit-drug-war http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/lets-quit-drug-w... (a 1988 NYT article by the Cato Inatitute executive).

BurningFrog 10y ago

And who are you then?

bsbechtel 10y ago

Sometimes a heavily biased source is the only one that is willing to discuss an issue, or bring it forward. Consider it the opposite of an appeal to authority argument, but bias of a source doesn't necessarily discredit the argument.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

eldude 10y ago

Ad-hominem.

IPbanned 10y ago

Know your community: Hacker News is run by Bilderbergers.