5 ms·

Obligatory Taleb comment: "Think tanks are natural lobbies w/a facade of "research" Their cover allows them to censor dissent from monoculture" https://twitte

by 21 9y ago

Obligatory Taleb comment: "Think tanks are natural lobbies w/a facade of "research" Their cover allows them to censor dissent from monoculture" https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/902859415375798274 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/902859415375798274 OT: I'm curious how many hours will this post survive on the front page

fairpx 9y ago
We might have to make sure the upvotes are stronger than the downvotes :)
- bryanrasmussen 9y ago
  I did my bit.
- koolba 9y ago
  Posts don't have downvotes anyway. Only comments do. The real "fight" is upvotes and substantive comments vs. people blindly flagging articles they disagree with.
wodenokoto 9y ago
In Denmark we have two major economic think tanks, that are respectively self-declared right wing and left wing and they continually release results supporting expanded welfare and the other expanded free trade / lower tax. It is ridiculous that either is taken serious.
- tachyonbeam 9y ago
  People have confirmation bias. They love when there is a "credible" source putting out results that are in agreement with the position they already hold. They can then use this "evidence" to justify their position. Everyone is guilty of this to some extent. The only way to mitigate confirmation bias is to be willing to entertain the idea that it affects you too.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  They aren't though. They are used by the political parties but no one takes them seriously.
  - wodenokoto 9y ago
    Given how much space in newspapers that CEPOS' press releases gets, I'm considering it as being taken serious. I couldn't put out press release on my amateur research and expect to get articles printed in several national papers, simply because they wouldn't take me seriously.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      CEPOs and AE get approximately the same airtime. I don't like any one them but claiming that somehow CEPOS gets more simply isn't supported by evidence. Furthermore they get less and less time because they do more and more lobbying. http://www.altinget.dk/civilsamfund/artikel/taenketanke-faar-mindre-taletid-i-medierne http://www.altinget.dk/civilsamfund/artikel/taenketanke-faar...
      - wodenokoto 9y ago
        I'm claiming CEPOS get more airtime than me, because unlike me, they are taken seriously :)
        ThomPete 9y ago
        Well Linse gets more airtime than you (and me) hardly a useful metric.
    - mseebach 9y ago
      > I couldn't put out press release on my amateur research and expect to get articles printed in several national papers, simply because they wouldn't take me seriously. "Expect?" No. But: - Write a press release with a sufficiently "useful" headline. Ideally add some research with a conclusion that supports the headline, too, but that's really optional. Write well, and offer lots of both clever "sound bytes" and entire copy-pasteable paragraphs. Journalists are busy and/or lazy. - "Useful" means that it fits a narrative being advanced by the part of the press you're interested in. However important your story is, without that hook it goes nowhere. With the right hook, a story about goats in Siberia can end up on the front page. These days, a novel edge on the ways that tax cuts shockingly benefits people who pay a lot of tax ("the rich") more than people who pay less or no tax ("the poor") is a shoe-in. - You'll need some sort of credential, but not much. By the time anyone figures out your PhD is in marine biology and not economics or tax policy or Siberian goats, or the think tank or NGO you're chief researcher of operates out of your kitchen, the world will have moved on. - Finally, you need a bit of luck, ingenuity and cheekiness getting the release in front of a journalist. Most of them are on Twitter and Facebook, and that seems to be where they do most of their research anyway, so that's a good start. You're going to want to offer them an exclusive. Incidentally, this is basically how all of these "think tanks" operate, except with a few established press contacts and a sort of short-circuited credentials loop.
Jerry2 9y ago
>OT: I'm curious how many hours will this post survive on the front page Not long. HN heavily censors any criticism of Google and yet any blog post from one of the official Google sites stays on the front page for a whole day.
- MagicAndi 9y ago
  Isn't this more the effect of Google employed engineers downvoting criticism of their beloved Google, and upvoting the Plex approved propaganda?
- jstandard 9y ago
  I haven't noticed heavy censorship. Who do you think is doing the censoring and how are they accomplishing it? Are there a few specific examples you can point to where that's happening?
  - Jerry2 9y ago
    Check out this story for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15136918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15136918 It was censored by HN admins as a dupe.Even thought it's different from the other Google story about firing of a critic.
    - jstandard 9y ago
      The content of that story and especially the HN discussion of that story was 95% similar to an already much larger and very active discussion on HN about the New York Times version of that story. In case you missed it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15131370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15131370 The WaPo article adds nothing materially new to a conversation about Open Markets and Barry Lynn's firing. Dozens of stories daily are marked as dupes to keep related conversations under one roof. I completely support marking the WaPo story as dupe and directing folks to the NYT discussion.
      - thejynxed 9y ago

by 21 9y ago

fairpx 9y ago

We might have to make sure the upvotes are stronger than the downvotes :)

bryanrasmussen 9y ago
I did my bit.
koolba 9y ago
Posts don't have downvotes anyway. Only comments do. The real "fight" is upvotes and substantive comments vs. people blindly flagging articles they disagree with.

wodenokoto 9y ago

In Denmark we have two major economic think tanks, that are respectively self-declared right wing and left wing and they continually release results supporting expanded welfare and the other expanded free trade / lower tax. It is ridiculous that either is taken serious.

tachyonbeam 9y ago
People have confirmation bias. They love when there is a "credible" source putting out results that are in agreement with the position they already hold. They can then use this "evidence" to justify their position. Everyone is guilty of this to some extent. The only way to mitigate confirmation bias is to be willing to entertain the idea that it affects you too.
ThomPete 9y ago
They aren't though. They are used by the political parties but no one takes them seriously.
- wodenokoto 9y ago
  Given how much space in newspapers that CEPOS' press releases gets, I'm considering it as being taken serious. I couldn't put out press release on my amateur research and expect to get articles printed in several national papers, simply because they wouldn't take me seriously.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    CEPOs and AE get approximately the same airtime. I don't like any one them but claiming that somehow CEPOS gets more simply isn't supported by evidence. Furthermore they get less and less time because they do more and more lobbying. http://www.altinget.dk/civilsamfund/artikel/taenketanke-faar-mindre-taletid-i-medierne http://www.altinget.dk/civilsamfund/artikel/taenketanke-faar...
    - wodenokoto 9y ago
      I'm claiming CEPOS get more airtime than me, because unlike me, they are taken seriously :)
      - ThomPete 9y ago
        Well Linse gets more airtime than you (and me) hardly a useful metric.
  - mseebach 9y ago
    > I couldn't put out press release on my amateur research and expect to get articles printed in several national papers, simply because they wouldn't take me seriously. "Expect?" No. But: - Write a press release with a sufficiently "useful" headline. Ideally add some research with a conclusion that supports the headline, too, but that's really optional. Write well, and offer lots of both clever "sound bytes" and entire copy-pasteable paragraphs. Journalists are busy and/or lazy. - "Useful" means that it fits a narrative being advanced by the part of the press you're interested in. However important your story is, without that hook it goes nowhere. With the right hook, a story about goats in Siberia can end up on the front page. These days, a novel edge on the ways that tax cuts shockingly benefits people who pay a lot of tax ("the rich") more than people who pay less or no tax ("the poor") is a shoe-in. - You'll need some sort of credential, but not much. By the time anyone figures out your PhD is in marine biology and not economics or tax policy or Siberian goats, or the think tank or NGO you're chief researcher of operates out of your kitchen, the world will have moved on. - Finally, you need a bit of luck, ingenuity and cheekiness getting the release in front of a journalist. Most of them are on Twitter and Facebook, and that seems to be where they do most of their research anyway, so that's a good start. You're going to want to offer them an exclusive. Incidentally, this is basically how all of these "think tanks" operate, except with a few established press contacts and a sort of short-circuited credentials loop.

Jerry2 9y ago

>OT: I'm curious how many hours will this post survive on the front page Not long. HN heavily censors any criticism of Google and yet any blog post from one of the official Google sites stays on the front page for a whole day.

MagicAndi 9y ago
Isn't this more the effect of Google employed engineers downvoting criticism of their beloved Google, and upvoting the Plex approved propaganda?
jstandard 9y ago
I haven't noticed heavy censorship. Who do you think is doing the censoring and how are they accomplishing it? Are there a few specific examples you can point to where that's happening?
- Jerry2 9y ago
  Check out this story for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15136918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15136918 It was censored by HN admins as a dupe.Even thought it's different from the other Google story about firing of a critic.
  - jstandard 9y ago
    The content of that story and especially the HN discussion of that story was 95% similar to an already much larger and very active discussion on HN about the New York Times version of that story. In case you missed it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15131370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15131370 The WaPo article adds nothing materially new to a conversation about Open Markets and Barry Lynn's firing. Dozens of stories daily are marked as dupes to keep related conversations under one roof. I completely support marking the WaPo story as dupe and directing folks to the NYT discussion.
    - thejynxed 9y ago