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There are a number of factual errors with this article. I agree completely with your complaints about the NYT article: it's terrible reporting, and essentiall

by nkurz 10y ago

There are a number of factual errors with this article. I agree completely with your complaints about the NYT article: it's terrible reporting, and essentially a PR release. Personally, I'm bothered most by the failure to mention that Alefantis is listed in GQ's Top 50 Influential People in DC, and the implication that he's a powerless pizza store owner. But I don't think the problem is that it's not "factual", rather it's being selective about which facts to mention so as to persuade the reader in a particular direction. Why not link to these and let readers decide for themselves? I'm pretty sure that the author believes that "nothing to see here" is the correct conclusion, and fears that the readers, not understanding the situation as well as she does, will reach the wrong conclusions. I'd guess the author has personal connections to some of the people involved, and is confident in her judgement that the accusations are false. This is essentially the definition of 'elitism', but the author's logic is likely correct. At this stage, all evidence for there being a pedo ring operating out of Washington D.C (with Comet Ping Pong playing a major role) is only circumstantial. But there is a LOT of it, literally hundreds of data points. Not only circumstantial, but really flimsy. While it might strike people as unfathomable that their government officials could actually be preoccupied with finding the best 'cheese pizza', this really isn't evidence that 'cheese pizza' equals 'child pornography'. One could argue that it's consistent with the behavior of a ring of pedophiles, but unless you've started with the conclusion that you are probably dealing with pedophiles, even 100 similar data points still don't add up to a likelihood that approaches the chance of a false positive. So what's the solution? I have no idea.

camperman 10y ago
> but the author's logic is likely correct. She was confident in her judgement that the UVA Rape On Campus story that disgraced Rolling Stone was true as well. It wasn't. Oops. > Not only circumstantial, but really flimsy. Decide for yourself then: James Alefantis posts suggestive pictures of children on his Instagram AND He makes lewd comments about them AND Many of his friends do too AND Some of those friends are into weird things like making child-sized coffins AND There's FBI-confirmed pedophile codes and symbols everywhere AND Alefantis knows John Podesta WHO is into Spirit Cooking with Marina Abramovic AND Podesta hangs disturbing child abuse-style art on his wall AND He likes artists who produce disturbing images of abuse AND His emails have masonic images hidden in the attachments AS WELL AS Pictures of children with notes saying "Happy Birthday John" AND contacts of his mail him with messages promising "entertainment" from the young children in the pool AND He and his brother look EXACTLY like the photofits of two men who abducted Madeleine McCann in 2007 AND they were connected to the McCanns through a mutual friend who lived nearby AND .... I haven't even started with Hillary yet. > but unless you've started with the conclusion that you are probably dealing with pedophiles, even 100 similar data points still don't add up to a likelihood that approaches the chance of a false positive. This is not statistics. It's deduction. Given all of these facts, which hypothesis best fits them?
- nkurz 10y ago
  She was confident in her judgement that the UVA Rape On Campus story that disgraced Rolling Stone was true as well. Then she was wrong there, and she could be wrong here too. But I think the greater commonality between the cases is that the "very difficult to believe events" turned out in the end to be false. Decide for yourself then I did. I read the thread, I watched the birthday video, and I read some of the suggestive emails (I even quoted one in a different comment here). I'm sure I've missed a lot, but my conclusion from the parts that I saw was that it's still extremely unlikely that Podesta is involved in pedophilia, and quite unlikely that any of the other named parties close to him are either. This is not statistics. It's deduction. Given all of these facts, which hypothesis best fits them? I think the most likely explanation is that the supposed points of evidence are misunderstandings due to massive cultural differences. In particular, I think the correlation between all the points of evidence you raise and the actual behavior of pedophiles is very low, and the conjunction of 100 such points is still overwhelmed by one's prior beliefs. Section 17 of Scott Alexander's recent article trying to explain why accusing Trump of being racist is counterproductive is relevant to this point: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wo... But we'll see. I could be wrong. I still have (barely) enough faith in the world to believe that if Reddit's interpretation is true, the truth will eventually come out.
  - camperman 10y ago
    > But I think the greater commonality between the cases is that the "very difficult to believe events" turned out in the end to be false. The cases have literally nothing to do with each other. That Cecilia Kang has authored falsehoods about both changes nothing about the facts of either. > but my conclusion from the parts that I saw was that it's still extremely unlikely that Podesta is involved in pedophilia, and quite unlikely that any of the other named parties close to him are either. It's easy to just scratch the surface and conclude that there's nothing to see here. > I think the most likely explanation is that the supposed points of evidence are misunderstandings due to massive cultural differences. In particular, I think the correlation between all the points of evidence you raise and the actual behavior of pedophiles is very low, and the conjunction of 100 such points is still overwhelmed by one's prior beliefs. Except that the pedophile ring theory explains every single data point perfectly. Your theory doesn't explain anything. > I still have (barely) enough faith in the world to believe that if Reddit's interpretation is true, the truth will eventually come out. I hoped I was wrong. I don't think I am :(

by nkurz 10y ago

camperman 10y ago

> but the author's logic is likely correct. She was confident in her judgement that the UVA Rape On Campus story that disgraced Rolling Stone was true as well. It wasn't. Oops. > Not only circumstantial, but really flimsy. Decide for yourself then: James Alefantis posts suggestive pictures of children on his Instagram AND He makes lewd comments about them AND Many of his friends do too AND Some of those friends are into weird things like making child-sized coffins AND There's FBI-confirmed pedophile codes and symbols everywhere AND Alefantis knows John Podesta WHO is into Spirit Cooking with Marina Abramovic AND Podesta hangs disturbing child abuse-style art on his wall AND He likes artists who produce disturbing images of abuse AND His emails have masonic images hidden in the attachments AS WELL AS Pictures of children with notes saying "Happy Birthday John" AND contacts of his mail him with messages promising "entertainment" from the young children in the pool AND He and his brother look EXACTLY like the photofits of two men who abducted Madeleine McCann in 2007 AND they were connected to the McCanns through a mutual friend who lived nearby AND .... I haven't even started with Hillary yet. > but unless you've started with the conclusion that you are probably dealing with pedophiles, even 100 similar data points still don't add up to a likelihood that approaches the chance of a false positive. This is not statistics. It's deduction. Given all of these facts, which hypothesis best fits them?

nkurz 10y ago
She was confident in her judgement that the UVA Rape On Campus story that disgraced Rolling Stone was true as well. Then she was wrong there, and she could be wrong here too. But I think the greater commonality between the cases is that the "very difficult to believe events" turned out in the end to be false. Decide for yourself then I did. I read the thread, I watched the birthday video, and I read some of the suggestive emails (I even quoted one in a different comment here). I'm sure I've missed a lot, but my conclusion from the parts that I saw was that it's still extremely unlikely that Podesta is involved in pedophilia, and quite unlikely that any of the other named parties close to him are either. This is not statistics. It's deduction. Given all of these facts, which hypothesis best fits them? I think the most likely explanation is that the supposed points of evidence are misunderstandings due to massive cultural differences. In particular, I think the correlation between all the points of evidence you raise and the actual behavior of pedophiles is very low, and the conjunction of 100 such points is still overwhelmed by one's prior beliefs. Section 17 of Scott Alexander's recent article trying to explain why accusing Trump of being racist is counterproductive is relevant to this point: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wo... But we'll see. I could be wrong. I still have (barely) enough faith in the world to believe that if Reddit's interpretation is true, the truth will eventually come out.
- camperman 10y ago
  > But I think the greater commonality between the cases is that the "very difficult to believe events" turned out in the end to be false. The cases have literally nothing to do with each other. That Cecilia Kang has authored falsehoods about both changes nothing about the facts of either. > but my conclusion from the parts that I saw was that it's still extremely unlikely that Podesta is involved in pedophilia, and quite unlikely that any of the other named parties close to him are either. It's easy to just scratch the surface and conclude that there's nothing to see here. > I think the most likely explanation is that the supposed points of evidence are misunderstandings due to massive cultural differences. In particular, I think the correlation between all the points of evidence you raise and the actual behavior of pedophiles is very low, and the conjunction of 100 such points is still overwhelmed by one's prior beliefs. Except that the pedophile ring theory explains every single data point perfectly. Your theory doesn't explain anything. > I still have (barely) enough faith in the world to believe that if Reddit's interpretation is true, the truth will eventually come out. I hoped I was wrong. I don't think I am :(