7 ms·

This is a question I have been pondering for a while. If your knowledge of most of the world is from penny papers then how do you know what is true and what is

This is a question I have been pondering for a while. If your knowledge of most of the world is from penny papers then how do you know what is true and what is not? Arguably all the newspapers/websites that do news are funded in the same way now, advertising rather than directly by their readership throughout the western world, everyone reads penny papers and don't have an alternative. Since they get their news from each other, and its potentially all made up how does anyone brought up in that environment know what is actually true?

acqq 10y ago
Even the "non-penny" papers always followed their own policies. There was always bias and assumed "truths" that weren't. As an example, "big" media supported the "weapons of mass destruction exist in Iraq and are the good reason for war" story. Some years before, Osama bin Laden was still "a good guy" of the media, presented as a former "anti-Soviet warrior" and a "Saudi businessman": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interviews_of_Osama_bin_Laden#/media/File:Bin-laden-road-to-peace_independent.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interviews_of_Osama_bin_Laden#... Then consider the support for the "moderate rebels" in Syria now. If you want something almost 200 years old, Britain presented their wars in support of their opium traders(!) to China, after China forbade the opium trade, as the "enforcing" of "free trade." That's how Britain got Hong Kong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_John_Temple,_3rd_Viscount_Palmerston#China:_Forcing_free_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_John_Temple,_3rd_Viscoun...
- wz1000 10y ago
  Don't forget Americas old friend Saddam Hussein, whom they supplied with... chemical weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Iraq_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Iraq_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Iran-Iraq_War_and_resumption_of_diplomatic_ties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93United_States_rel...
  - acqq 10y ago
    The Vietnam war was started with a (to the government known) lie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
  - nwah1 10y ago
    It seems a bit strange to say that the US supplied him with chemical weapons and that they were lying that he had chemical weapons. Not technically impossible for both to be true, but seems somewhat unlikely. Is the thinking that it was bad intelligence or falsified intelligence? And what about the other foreign intelligence agencies that supposedly corroborated it?
    - acqq 10y ago
      Not unlikely at all. If you really believed that up to now, here's your red pill: Long ago, Iraq bought different weapons. But after the first Gulf War in 1991, the UN Security Council required Iraq to eliminate its WMD. Iraq destroyed it then. The UN inspectors were able to confirm that. Saddam let them search, they have found nothing, but the USG politicians didn't care. They wanted the war. So what happened then in 2003: The Independent reports in 2012: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-wmd-lies-led-to-100000-deaths-confesses-all-7606236.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-w... "Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvntaL3nxEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvntaL3nxEw The Guardian reports in 2011: "Curveball" admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war" Other foreign intelligence agencies? On another side of the ocean, UK and Tony Blair did their part of lies: the "secret services" presented a work of a student, which they copied from the internet(!) as their own "research" and a "proof": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier "much of the work in the Iraq Dossier had been plagiarised" "The most notable source was an article by then graduate student" copied "verbatim including typographical errors" And the attack of Iraq on Kuwait, that was the cause of the first Gulf war, was also result of the signaling that the US prepared for their ambassador (not "don't touch Kuwait, we'll attack you then" but "we want peace" which Saddam translated "if you do it fast we won't do any more war afterwards"): http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/06/why-one-u-s-diplomat-didnt-cause-the-gulf-war/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/06/why-one-u-s-diplomat-did... ""There was no way that April could have done anything more than she did without authority going all the way up to the president of the United States," said White. "Because we don’t make idle threats. If you’re going to threaten, you have to really mean it."" By the way, the testimony of a "nurse" about "Iraqi killing babies" that was a direct excuse for the first Gulf war? Fake, she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) "al-Sabah's testimony has come to be regarded as a classic example of modern atrocity propaganda." See also my other post here, about Vietnam war. P.S. As you still don't believe that there were no WMD in Iraq: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-inspections-fast-facts/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-i... "October 6, 2004 - The final Iraq Survey Group report is released. The report concludes that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction." "March 31, 2005 - The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction reports that the intelligence community was "dead wrong" in its assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities before the U.S. invasion." The US really did it best to find anything once they were there. But there wasn't anything at all. The West did sell Saddam the weapons earlier, but he also destroyed it all for the West. He simply didn't want war.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
facepalm 10y ago
I don't know what is true, but with the media, with some experience, you can see signs. For example they often leave out parts of the story. If you really think about it, you notice the story has holes and you start wondering what they left out. Also, they usually have an agenda, and you'll notice how all the facts presented somehow highlight that agenda. Also, simply try to think about all the ways the story could be wrong, or that would disprove the assumption. Are theses things addressed in the story? If not, they probably don't have an interest in conveying the truth. An article usually works by shining a light on certain aspects of an event. Try to mentally shine the light on other aspects. Essentially, don't fall for "proof by anecdote". If they present you with a sob-story of somebody to relate to, try to generalize and ask yourself if it is still true.
- tomlock 10y ago
  >I don't know what is true, but with the media, with some experience, you can see signs. What experience do you have that differs from typical people which allows you to make these judgements? How are you determining that this isn't just your own confirmation bias?
  - facepalm 10y ago
    I didn't say I differ from typical people. Everybody could see these signs. But if you want: I am a trained mathematician, so I am trained in identifying the root assumptions of problems. I am aware of the typical ways to lie with statistics. There are books about that, everybody can and SHOULD read those. For example choosing certain time intervals, making charts not start from zero to inflate a trend, picking the aspect that best supports your claim (for example, either use relative growth or absolute growth when describing an issue - one more murder in a town can mean "crime incidents increased by one" or "crime incidents increased by 100%"). Playing with proportions, like drawing circles for comparisons and using diameter (instead of area) to correspond to the values you want to show. And so on - there are many possibilities, and they are all being used. So, for example, if I see a chart depicting some trend over a period of time, my immediate instinct is to ask "what would it look like if the chart would start one year earlier?". Also, I think fake news might have become a topic these days because people also get their information from social media. They often know about aspects that an article doesn't mention, so they are more often able to identify articles as fake news. Overall, there is just one thing you have to do: try remain skeptic at all times. "Bend over backwards" as Feynman put it to disprove your own assumptions. Nothing of that is specific to me, and it is not complicated. You just have to be willing to challenge your assumptions. For starters, I would recommend reading those books on how to lie with statistics, and your essential Feynman. And get your news from multiple sources and compare them.

acqq 10y ago

Even the "non-penny" papers always followed their own policies. There was always bias and assumed "truths" that weren't. As an example, "big" media supported the "weapons of mass destruction exist in Iraq and are the good reason for war" story. Some years before, Osama bin Laden was still "a good guy" of the media, presented as a former "anti-Soviet warrior" and a "Saudi businessman": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interviews_of_Osama_bin_Laden#/media/File:Bin-laden-road-to-peace_independent.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interviews_of_Osama_bin_Laden#... Then consider the support for the "moderate rebels" in Syria now. If you want something almost 200 years old, Britain presented their wars in support of their opium traders(!) to China, after China forbade the opium trade, as the "enforcing" of "free trade." That's how Britain got Hong Kong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_John_Temple,_3rd_Viscount_Palmerston#China:_Forcing_free_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_John_Temple,_3rd_Viscoun...

wz1000 10y ago
Don't forget Americas old friend Saddam Hussein, whom they supplied with... chemical weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Iraq_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Iraq_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Iran-Iraq_War_and_resumption_of_diplomatic_ties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93United_States_rel...
- acqq 10y ago
  The Vietnam war was started with a (to the government known) lie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
- nwah1 10y ago
  It seems a bit strange to say that the US supplied him with chemical weapons and that they were lying that he had chemical weapons. Not technically impossible for both to be true, but seems somewhat unlikely. Is the thinking that it was bad intelligence or falsified intelligence? And what about the other foreign intelligence agencies that supposedly corroborated it?
  - acqq 10y ago
    Not unlikely at all. If you really believed that up to now, here's your red pill: Long ago, Iraq bought different weapons. But after the first Gulf War in 1991, the UN Security Council required Iraq to eliminate its WMD. Iraq destroyed it then. The UN inspectors were able to confirm that. Saddam let them search, they have found nothing, but the USG politicians didn't care. They wanted the war. So what happened then in 2003: The Independent reports in 2012: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-wmd-lies-led-to-100000-deaths-confesses-all-7606236.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-w... "Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvntaL3nxEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvntaL3nxEw The Guardian reports in 2011: "Curveball" admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war" Other foreign intelligence agencies? On another side of the ocean, UK and Tony Blair did their part of lies: the "secret services" presented a work of a student, which they copied from the internet(!) as their own "research" and a "proof": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier "much of the work in the Iraq Dossier had been plagiarised" "The most notable source was an article by then graduate student" copied "verbatim including typographical errors" And the attack of Iraq on Kuwait, that was the cause of the first Gulf war, was also result of the signaling that the US prepared for their ambassador (not "don't touch Kuwait, we'll attack you then" but "we want peace" which Saddam translated "if you do it fast we won't do any more war afterwards"): http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/06/why-one-u-s-diplomat-didnt-cause-the-gulf-war/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/06/why-one-u-s-diplomat-did... ""There was no way that April could have done anything more than she did without authority going all the way up to the president of the United States," said White. "Because we don’t make idle threats. If you’re going to threaten, you have to really mean it."" By the way, the testimony of a "nurse" about "Iraqi killing babies" that was a direct excuse for the first Gulf war? Fake, she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) "al-Sabah's testimony has come to be regarded as a classic example of modern atrocity propaganda." See also my other post here, about Vietnam war. P.S. As you still don't believe that there were no WMD in Iraq: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-inspections-fast-facts/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/meast/iraq-weapons-i... "October 6, 2004 - The final Iraq Survey Group report is released. The report concludes that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction." "March 31, 2005 - The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction reports that the intelligence community was "dead wrong" in its assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities before the U.S. invasion." The US really did it best to find anything once they were there. But there wasn't anything at all. The West did sell Saddam the weapons earlier, but he also destroyed it all for the West. He simply didn't want war.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

facepalm 10y ago

I don't know what is true, but with the media, with some experience, you can see signs. For example they often leave out parts of the story. If you really think about it, you notice the story has holes and you start wondering what they left out. Also, they usually have an agenda, and you'll notice how all the facts presented somehow highlight that agenda. Also, simply try to think about all the ways the story could be wrong, or that would disprove the assumption. Are theses things addressed in the story? If not, they probably don't have an interest in conveying the truth. An article usually works by shining a light on certain aspects of an event. Try to mentally shine the light on other aspects. Essentially, don't fall for "proof by anecdote". If they present you with a sob-story of somebody to relate to, try to generalize and ask yourself if it is still true.

tomlock 10y ago
>I don't know what is true, but with the media, with some experience, you can see signs. What experience do you have that differs from typical people which allows you to make these judgements? How are you determining that this isn't just your own confirmation bias?
- facepalm 10y ago
  I didn't say I differ from typical people. Everybody could see these signs. But if you want: I am a trained mathematician, so I am trained in identifying the root assumptions of problems. I am aware of the typical ways to lie with statistics. There are books about that, everybody can and SHOULD read those. For example choosing certain time intervals, making charts not start from zero to inflate a trend, picking the aspect that best supports your claim (for example, either use relative growth or absolute growth when describing an issue - one more murder in a town can mean "crime incidents increased by one" or "crime incidents increased by 100%"). Playing with proportions, like drawing circles for comparisons and using diameter (instead of area) to correspond to the values you want to show. And so on - there are many possibilities, and they are all being used. So, for example, if I see a chart depicting some trend over a period of time, my immediate instinct is to ask "what would it look like if the chart would start one year earlier?". Also, I think fake news might have become a topic these days because people also get their information from social media. They often know about aspects that an article doesn't mention, so they are more often able to identify articles as fake news. Overall, there is just one thing you have to do: try remain skeptic at all times. "Bend over backwards" as Feynman put it to disprove your own assumptions. Nothing of that is specific to me, and it is not complicated. You just have to be willing to challenge your assumptions. For starters, I would recommend reading those books on how to lie with statistics, and your essential Feynman. And get your news from multiple sources and compare them.