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Do you think that sneering at people who have an issue with PolitiFact is going to win them over to your side? Gonna be a long eight years if that's the case.

by mzw_mzw 10y ago

Do you think that sneering at people who have an issue with PolitiFact is going to win them over to your side? Gonna be a long eight years if that's the case. Putting aside sneering, though: let's assume for the sake of argument that PolitiFact really is neutral. And Google hires them to put a trustworthiness rating next to news search results. How many days pass before $YOUR_LEAST_FAVORITE_POLITICAL_FORCE realizes that PolitiFact is a single point of failure and starts scheming to influence it? Put it another way, they may be neutral today, but that's hardly a guarantee they'll be neutral tomorrow.

scholia 10y ago
> they may be neutral today, but that's hardly a guarantee they'll be neutral tomorrow. Doesn't work like that. Politifact takes a consensus of people who are experts in the topic, and its answers are subject both to peer review and to corrections from outside sources. > Do you think that sneering at people who have an issue with PolitiFact is going to win them over to your side? I'm damned sure that neither facts nor rational arguments are going to win them over, because they have been conned by a pathological liar. And as I pointed out above, he's a liar who has been supported by a lying alt-right media. They live in the same sort of truth-free alternate reality as the whackjobs who believe in con-trails, think the moon landings were faked, believe Obama was born in Kenya, and don't believe in evolution. As the judge in the Trump University fraud case pointed out: "victims of con artists often sing the praises of their victimizers until the moment they realize they have been fleeced".
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  > Politifact takes a consensus of people who are experts in the topic, and its answers are subject both to peer review and to corrections from outside sources. And who decides which experts get to join the consensus, and which outside sources that proffer corrections should be listened to? You're dreaming if you think that a single-point-of-failure institution like this can ever be immune to the equivalent of regulatory capture. > I'm damned sure that neither facts nor rational arguments are going to win them over, because they have been conned by a pathological liar. And as I pointed out above, he's a liar who has been supported by a lying alt-right media. Yeah, see, that's the thing. We started at "We need a neutral, unbiased source of fact-checking!" and have reached the conclusion of "Because that'll help stick it to the people I hate!" In which case, one wonders how much "neutral, unbiased" was ever in the cards in the first place.
  - scholia 10y ago
    > And who decides which experts get to join the consensus, and which outside sources that proffer corrections should be listened to? A lot of them are academics. They're not bozos dragged in off the streets. The approach isn't significantly different from how science works. > In which case, one wonders how much "neutral, unbiased" was ever in the cards in the first place. Spare me the bullshit. Facts are still facts. There's absolutely no rational way to pretend that Trump isn't a pathological liar.

by mzw_mzw 10y ago

scholia 10y ago

> they may be neutral today, but that's hardly a guarantee they'll be neutral tomorrow. Doesn't work like that. Politifact takes a consensus of people who are experts in the topic, and its answers are subject both to peer review and to corrections from outside sources. > Do you think that sneering at people who have an issue with PolitiFact is going to win them over to your side? I'm damned sure that neither facts nor rational arguments are going to win them over, because they have been conned by a pathological liar. And as I pointed out above, he's a liar who has been supported by a lying alt-right media. They live in the same sort of truth-free alternate reality as the whackjobs who believe in con-trails, think the moon landings were faked, believe Obama was born in Kenya, and don't believe in evolution. As the judge in the Trump University fraud case pointed out: "victims of con artists often sing the praises of their victimizers until the moment they realize they have been fleeced".

mzw_mzw 10y ago
> Politifact takes a consensus of people who are experts in the topic, and its answers are subject both to peer review and to corrections from outside sources. And who decides which experts get to join the consensus, and which outside sources that proffer corrections should be listened to? You're dreaming if you think that a single-point-of-failure institution like this can ever be immune to the equivalent of regulatory capture. > I'm damned sure that neither facts nor rational arguments are going to win them over, because they have been conned by a pathological liar. And as I pointed out above, he's a liar who has been supported by a lying alt-right media. Yeah, see, that's the thing. We started at "We need a neutral, unbiased source of fact-checking!" and have reached the conclusion of "Because that'll help stick it to the people I hate!" In which case, one wonders how much "neutral, unbiased" was ever in the cards in the first place.
- scholia 10y ago
  > And who decides which experts get to join the consensus, and which outside sources that proffer corrections should be listened to? A lot of them are academics. They're not bozos dragged in off the streets. The approach isn't significantly different from how science works. > In which case, one wonders how much "neutral, unbiased" was ever in the cards in the first place. Spare me the bullshit. Facts are still facts. There's absolutely no rational way to pretend that Trump isn't a pathological liar.