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I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? I subscrib

by dsacco 9y ago

I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? I subscribe to the Brookings Papers, Cato Journal, Chatham House and Council on Foreign Relations. Yes, the content is political, but discussions of economics and policy are necessarily political in nature. I think there is a lot in these publications that is descriptive, not just prescriptive. Certainly more rigor than you're giving them credit for. If you're expecting an organization without any bias, that's different. But your critique sounds as though there is no empiricism involved whatsoever. I take issue with that, because personally I find that I learn quite a bit by reading these, and often the value is in conflicting perspectives. I also think it becomes a little too easy for people to hear what you're saying and just start repeating it (as an example, see this thread where multiple people have piled on to agree with you without any examples cited). To make a comparison: I also subscribe to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, because they have different implicit (and even explicit!) biases. That doesn't mean there isn't high quality journalism, it just means that the nature of information is often biased.

yeukhon 9y ago
Not to distract from the main point, but my experience has been NYT and WST lean towards the left than the right, although WST is more conversative on the financial side which is obvious.
- walshemj 9y ago
  the WST is a left wing paper lol
  - yeukhon 9y ago
    Thanks the "lol", sarcasm.
- subroutine 9y ago
  I recently wrote a little Python script to scrape the url from top submissions to Reddit's /r/The_Donald vs. /r/EnoughTrumpSpam to get an idea of the most conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning news outlets (e.g. more specifically which news sites conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning redditors use to support their respective narratives). Here are the results: https://i.redd.it/45ezt3j9hziy.png https://i.redd.it/45ezt3j9hziy.png Edit: Oh and I almost forgot (and to bring this full circle) a Googler saw my post about this and made an interactive version: https://medium.com/@hoffa/reddit-favorite-sources-the-most-linked-sites-expanded-and-interactive-79070d648573 https://medium.com/@hoffa/reddit-favorite-sources-the-most-l... Edit: and to really bring this full circle, this Googler made an interactive version about HN: https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-with-daily-updates-so-what-are-the-top-domains-963d3c68b2e2 https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-with-d...
  - chasd00 9y ago
    hah that's really cool, can you run it again for August?
    - subroutine 9y ago
      In an edit above, I linked to a version fhoffa from Google made using data studio; I think that version might auto update.
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - chillwaves 9y ago
    What if one side is more reality based than the other? Which certainly has to be the case, both sides would not have exactly equal representation of reality based facts. So your graph is not very helpful unless you want to pretend the Washington Post and New York times are just leftist versions of Breitbart. Honestly do not see the point or value in what you have done.
    - subroutine 9y ago
      I wanted to see "which news sites conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning redditors use to support their respective narratives". I think my graph helped me find out. Nowhere did I mention anything about truthfulness.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - alphapapa 9y ago
      Well here's an interesting observation: the "right" subreddit cites some sources that the "left" subreddit cites, but not vice versa. For example, NYT and Politico appear near the tail of the "right" sub's sources and near the head of the "left" sub's sources, but none of the "right" sub's sources appear anywhere in the "left" sub's sources. So, assuming that NYT and Politico are left-leaning, it would appear that the "right" sub links to its opponents' views, while the "left" sub does not. The implications of this are left to the reader.
- metaphorm 9y ago
  the New York Times is a center-right neoliberal newspaper with a thin paint of "blue tribe" social issues on top. The Wall St. Journal is a center-right neoliberal newspaper with a thin paint of "red tribe" anti-tax paint on top.
  - briandear 9y ago
    Center right? If center left is international socialism or the revival of the Soviet Union, then perhaps you’re correct. Your analysis is would suggest that Obama was center right, which is patently ridiculous.
    - super-serial 9y ago
      Compared to Europe Obama is center-right. Sanders is the closest thing we have to what would be considered center-left in Europe. https://www.quora.com/Are-left-wing-Democrats-of-the-United-States-considered-too-right-wing-compared-to-European-politics https://www.quora.com/Are-left-wing-Democrats-of-the-United-... Universal basic income, free university education and free state-run healthcare are leftist... no Democrat puts those things in their platform so I wouldn't call any democrat leftist.
      - alphapapa 9y ago
        > Universal basic income, free university education and free state-run healthcare are leftist... no Democrat puts those things in their platform so I wouldn't call any democrat leftist. That's not a logical conclusion. Even if they did support those things, they wouldn't put them in their platform now because it wouldn't fly now. You're defining "leftist" as "actively supports X, Y, and Z," which is arbitrary. And the part about Europe is a red herring; this isn't Europe.
- DerekL 9y ago
  What's ”WST“? Did you mean WSJ (Wall Street Journal)?
- yeukhon 9y ago
  Sorry, I mixed up right and left. Ah, sometimes I just can't.
peterwwillis 9y ago
Think tanks were born as ways for monarchs to research and organize legal arguments against Church doctrine. They have since expanded to cover a broad range of subjects, but the central point of a think tank is to get a bunch of smart people together to formalize a particular opinion and support it with arguments/research. Most often, these are funded by a particular group, for a particular agenda. This is the definition of propaganda.
- foota 9y ago
  I don't see how this is incompatible with the parent's remarks.
  - peterwwillis 9y ago
    The disconnect is probably with confusion or distaste over the word 'propaganda'. It has a negative connotation, but 'propaganda' means "non-objective information used primarily to influence an audience or further an agenda", which is what think tanks produce.
    - arcbyte 9y ago
      I think many think-tanks would take issue with "non-objective". Certainly the think tanks themselves subjectively examine only certain issues, but they would like to believe their examinations are as objective as possible. The difference being that while I may only ever study the stars and refuse to study plants, my examinations of the stars are still objective, even though the area of my examinations are not comprehensive.
      - deleted 9y ago
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      - erikpukinskis 9y ago
        Sure, there are researchers who are making narrow claims, but what think tank isn't making broad claims? If you're going to make broad claims and claim to be objective, you need a more robust metaphysical approach than the mission statement of these places usually allows... And even then, you'll probably fail. Your tactics leak into your metaphysics and your ideology leaks into your tactics. Broad claims and objectivity just don't mix.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
It's more about what they don't publish or research than what they do. Very few of those publications have ever published staunchly anti-corporate articles. It's all good to argue some partisan political stuff, or things around the edges, but god help you if you start publishing anti-corporate articles.
colordrops 9y ago
Think tanks all have agendas driven by their backers. Based on your interest in think tanks, you appear to be a person that likes to dig under the surface for more detailed and comprehensive information, so it seems you should also take it upon yourself to research your sources and do some critical thinking on your own. But if you insist, this is a high-level piece on think tanks as servants of corporate agendas: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-research-and-corporate-lobbying.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-r...
- pg_is_a_butt 9y ago
  the new york times is just jew propaganda you're all idiots
  - deleted 9y ago
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- Houshalter 9y ago
  Who do you trust then? There are no organizations that receive funding from no one are run by no one.
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - xor1 9y ago
    Only trust your fists.
    - fao_ 9y ago
      In age of technology, even your fists may spy on you :)
  - Haydos585x2 9y ago
    You can't really trust any single source. Get information from all over the place initially and figure out what's closest to the real thing. Eventually you'll find reliable sources. Plus, a reliable source in one area might not be reliable in another.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Clubber 9y ago
>I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? You mean other than the article we are replying to? :) All joking aside, I'm sure all think tanks aren't shilling with every article, but follow the money. They are typically founded by, actively solicit and are paid for by corporate donations and corporations don't typically give money for nothing. Cato is a libertarian think tank. They have a specific libertarian slant. The print more articles that libertarians would like and print fewer articles that libertarians don't, specifically Koch flavored libertarian-ism. I mean that's the way it just is. I mean I favor social libertarian-ism, but for someone to be an objective reader, they need to know that Cato was formed to serve libertarian interests.
- grasshopperpurp 9y ago
  Remember the Koch's 2012 takeover: The Koch brothers have long supported Cato, which they helped found in Washington in 1977. Recently, however, they have come to consider their creation politically unreliable. In a meeting with Robert Levy, chairman of Cato’s board of directors, they expressed their intention to remake the institute into a party organ that would aid their effort to unseat President Obama. To do so, however, they need control of the board. They intend to get it by suing the widow of William Niskanen, a recently deceased board member, for control of Niskanen’s shares. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-would-the-koch-brothers-want-to-refine-cato-institute/2012/03/09/gIQAxKWe1R_blog.html?utm_term=.61dda0d507c9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-wou...
  - arcbyte 9y ago
    Pointing to Ezra Klein to explain what is happening on the right is the opposite of "slant-free".
    - tptacek 9y ago
      He's not "pointing to Ezra Klein to explain"; he's citing reporting. If some part of it is false, correct it.
Thrymr 9y ago
We have the equivalent of "think tanks" with real intellectual rigor, they are called universities. Yes, you can take issue with the way that university research is funded, etc., but tenure makes a difference.
jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
Cato was specifically founded to advance libertarian views. They say so explicitly. They tolerate some open debate and have some intellectual honesty about it, but don't expect them to continue to fund or advance projects counter to libertarian concepts. Brookings are pretty dang centrist, and I think there was actually a formal study on this point. Anyhow, the point I'm making is that think tanks vary in how overtly political they are, but some like Cato and Heritage are very ideologically driven, and others like Brookings more reflect the selection bias of the status quo.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> I subscribe to the Brookings Papers, Cato Journal, Chatham House and Council on Foreign Relations. Yes, the content is political, but discussions of economics and policy are necessarily political in nature. There is a difference between political subject matter and a clear ideological bias that makes it so if you know the subject and the name of the think tank producing a work, you can predict the general thrust fairly reliably with no other information (or, similarly, where you can identify someone's membership in both a major party and a faction within that party by the think tank’s they are inclined to cite.) Many major think tanks are ideological in this way.
- omginternets 9y ago
  >Many major think tanks are ideological in this way. That's not at all the same statement as "think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine". The goalpost has shifted.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    I don't believe so. Ideological propaganda is still propaganda.
  - asdffdsa321 9y ago
    Yeah it is; when you are ideological, you put out pieces that subscribe to said ideology and ignore evidence/observations that support other ideologies or contradict your own. This is the same as propaganda which, instead of putting out pieces raised from an objective perspective, you only publish pieces that support a specific ideology.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > That's not at all the same statement as "think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine" Yes, it's a different (compatible, though, not contradictory) statement, though related. > That's not at all the same statement as "think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine" You are mistaking a many-soded discussion for a two-sided debate. My having a different position than an earlier participant is not a goalpost shift (them changing the point they are arguing for without acknowledging that it has changed would be.)
gozur88 9y ago
Not every think tank is the same. I'm sure some of them are just fronts for various interests, and some are legitimate groups of people interested in an issue.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I agree there probably are some good ones that get funding somehow. But if the general consensus is most/many think tanks are independent organizations that think about stuff and publish articles, like authors or philosophers for the common good, they certainly are not. Also, I would suspect that the bigger the think tank (read well funded) the better chance of getting their article republished. I mean if I started Clubber's think tank about whatever, I doubt I'd get much traction.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    Depends on what Clubber's think tank produced. If you create "reports" (they don't call 'em studies, and for good reason) media outlets can use for story hooks you might get plenty of traction. Also, you need to call your think tank something meaningless and anodyne like "People United for Truth and Justice". Because who isn't united for truth and justice?
matthjensen 9y ago
I direct the Open Source Policy Center at the American Enterprise Institute. We contribute to open source economic modeling tools. Check us out. I think we do good work, and I have never felt as if a donor biased our work -- this is probably because I state our values and objectives clearly when we raise money.
jartelt 9y ago
The book Dark Money by Jane Mayer tells much of the backstory of how many of these think tanks got started. Most of them were funded by rich folks, mostly far right or libertarian (e.g. Kochs brothers), for one reason: to make the rich folks' far right, libertarian views seem moderate and mainstream. The idea was to sponsor a think tank that looked moderate and unbiased, but then to fill it up handpicked people who were basically paid to try to "prove" that the Koch brothers ideas are good. Of course both sides do this now, but the libertarian and far right folks have done it the best.
- briandear 9y ago
  And Soros funded groups are different? Come on now. There are plenty of think tanks that are supported by anti-capitalist interests as well. It feels to me like “Koch Brothers” is some kind of socialist dog whistle to rile people up. It’s like mentioning Rush Limbaugh: people get riled up over just the name, but it’s highly likely most people have never heard his show — just cherry picked, out of context quotes that are like red-meat to the starving tigers of left wing interest groups. To be fair, the right has their dog whistles too. Mention Nancy Pelosi or George Soros and the right loses their mind as well. Acting like think tanks are some sort of capitalist conspiracy is just ridiculous.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    The comment you replied to wasn't great, but you took what was worst about it and dialed it up to 11.
    - norikki 9y ago
      I agree. Soros and the Koch bros are two sides of the same coin. They both advocate pro-globalization policies, Soros the social aspects, and Koch the economic aspects. It's clear that globalism has massively benefitted the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the lower and middle class, and one way they justify the madness is by funding these propaganda organizations. What bugs me is how often reports from "Think Tanks" and NGOs are uncritically reported as news by the media without disclosing their donors.
tunesmith 9y ago
I think you can roughly split this into two questions: 1) Is the organization receiving funding to focus on analyzing a certain area of policy? Here, you can argue that the organization has an agenda that is driven by its backers, but I don't think it's sufficient to call it propaganda, because by that definition, any paid effort to focus on any particular area is propaganda. 2) Is the organization seeking to highlight positive evidence while seeking to squelch negative evidence? That's where it more becomes about propaganda.
nebabyte 9y ago
>I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? You'd figure the fact that the only "thinking" that gets factored into any decision (apart of that of bureaucrats too worried about their election coffers and thus easily paid off - oh, I'm sorry, "donated to") is privately paid is damning enough...
- mediocrejoker 9y ago
  I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. Would you mind elaborating or rephrasing it?
dkarl 9y ago
It comes down to where their money comes from. Think tanks are funded by people who are looking to manufacture intellectual backing for their political agenda. Given recent developments, I can see a positive aspect to this, because at least it implicitly supports the assumption that research and intellectual arguments matter in politics. However, it shows that you can't conclude anything from the existence of a well-researched and well-argued intellectual support for a position. The think tank system guarantees that anybody with sufficient resources can buy well-researched and well-argued intellectual support. Which is important. I know I've had a few epiphanies in my time where I realized, "Wait, this thing I thought was stupid, there are some really smart people who are into it... they've invested a lot of effort and research and have some coherent arguments to support it... I should really take another look." It's a meaningful signal in some contexts. In some contexts it even creates a presumption in my mind that I am probably wrong in not recognizing any value in something. In politics, though, it doesn't mean anything, because that kind of intellectual engagement is manufactured through the think tank system as a matter of course.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I have not observed many people who have the ability (or willingness) to honestly engage in that sort of introspection. Very seldom do I hear, "You make a good point..." It is even rarer that I hear, "I was wrong..."
- Cozumel 9y ago
  > "Wait, this thing I thought was stupid, there are some really smart people who are into it... they've invested a lot of effort and research and have some coherent arguments to support it... I should really take another look." That's what causes hype around technology. Even if people don't 'get it' they think well everyone else is doing it there has to be something to it.
dahoramanodoceu 9y ago
They present the illusion of rigor with the style of presentation and sophistication of their rhetoric. However what makes censorship so powerful is that you can't see it!
- dahoramanodoceu 9y ago
  It becomes even more powerful when every single mainstream media outlet and every 'think tank' approach the context with the same 'frame.'
- ashark 9y ago
  In Class, Fussell cited think-tanks' kind-of-ridiculous adoption of academic titles and trappings ("Fellow" and such) to make themselves seem respectable and trustworthy as evidence of the social and class standing of academics. They're lobbying organizations with a carefully and consciously applied veneer of learned, academic legitimacy.
WheelsAtLarge 9y ago
Think tanks are organizations funded and founded on a believe, whatever that might be. Their goal is to support the believe with "research." I am one that thinks that it's possible to put just about any believe in positive light. Given this then think tanks are propaganda machines. It comes down to this. If I believe in the think tank's vision then the research papers are research. If I don't then they are research with a spin. Which is the same as propaganda. Bottom line, think tanks are propaganda machines. It just depends on what your believes are.
forapurpose 9y ago
> I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? Let's not lump together all think tanks. Some are more intellectually honest, some are places for partisan intellectuals to work when their party is out of power, some exist to provide intellectual cover to political goals. I've had the same questions as you. According to an interesting paper I came across[0], there have been three waves of think tanks (and this also is painting them with a very broad brush):: 1) Think tanks like Council on Foreign Relations and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which aimed to promote global engagement by Americans. 2) Brookings and Rand, which grew out of quasi-governmental programs (IIRC). 3) Starting in the 1970s, groups that "focus as much on advocacy as on research, aiming to generate timely advice that can compete in a crowded marketplace of ideas and influence policy decisions." Heritage is the prototype; it was the source of much of Reagan's policy and now of Trump's. Heritage (I really hope I have the right think tank) hired someone to write talking points for cutting the estate tax in the U.S., and that is the origin of the meme "death tax", and the (false) argument that small businesses and farmers suffer widespread harm from it - so effective that I'll bet you've heard those. In the last few years, I've seen many allegations of leading think tanks selling out their independence, including Brookings, CNAS, CSIS, and others. The leader of one defended the practice saying (IIRC), 'This isn't the Greatest Generation. Nobody will give you money now and say 'do something good with it'. Everyone wants specific results.' Here is a dump of some more articles. If you really want to know about them, look up U. of Pennsylvania's 'Think Tanks and Civil Society Program'. -- Researchers or Corporate Allies? Think Tanks Blur the Line by Eric Lipton, Brooke Williams, in NY Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-research-and-corporate-lobbying.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-r... -- Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks by Eric Lipton, Brooke Williams, Nicholas Confessore NY Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-power... -- How Saudi Arabia captured Washington by Max Fisher in Vox: Covers more than Saudi Arabia - http://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11275354/saudi-arabia-gulf-washington http://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11275354/saudi-arabia-gulf-wash... -- Hacked Emails Show UAE Building Close Relationship With D.C. Think Tanks That Push Its Agenda by Zaid Jilani, Alex Emmons in The Intercept - https://theintercept.com/2017/07/30/uae-yousef-otaiba-cnas-american-progress-michele-flournoy-drone/ https://theintercept.com/2017/07/30/uae-yousef-otaiba-cnas-a... -- Hackers Vow to Release Apparent Trove of U.A.E. Ambassador’s Emails by Kevin Poulsen in The Daily Beast - http://www.thedailybeast.com/hackers-vow-to-release-apparent-trove-of-uae-ambassadors-emails http://www.thedailybeast.com/hackers-vow-to-release-apparent... [0] From Contributor to Partner? Norway's role in foreign policy research and implementation in the United States by Tove Bjørgaasat Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre/Norsk Ressurssenter for Fredsbygging (NOREF). Here's an old link: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1284105/1-aaa-general-doc-viewer_new.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1284...
kiliantics 9y ago
Think tank research does not undergo peer review, so there is no accountability

by dsacco 9y ago

yeukhon 9y ago

Not to distract from the main point, but my experience has been NYT and WST lean towards the left than the right, although WST is more conversative on the financial side which is obvious.

walshemj 9y ago
the WST is a left wing paper lol
- yeukhon 9y ago
  Thanks the "lol", sarcasm.
subroutine 9y ago
I recently wrote a little Python script to scrape the url from top submissions to Reddit's /r/The_Donald vs. /r/EnoughTrumpSpam to get an idea of the most conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning news outlets (e.g. more specifically which news sites conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning redditors use to support their respective narratives). Here are the results: https://i.redd.it/45ezt3j9hziy.png https://i.redd.it/45ezt3j9hziy.png Edit: Oh and I almost forgot (and to bring this full circle) a Googler saw my post about this and made an interactive version: https://medium.com/@hoffa/reddit-favorite-sources-the-most-linked-sites-expanded-and-interactive-79070d648573 https://medium.com/@hoffa/reddit-favorite-sources-the-most-l... Edit: and to really bring this full circle, this Googler made an interactive version about HN: https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-with-daily-updates-so-what-are-the-top-domains-963d3c68b2e2 https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-with-d...
- chasd00 9y ago
  hah that's really cool, can you run it again for August?
  - subroutine 9y ago
    In an edit above, I linked to a version fhoffa from Google made using data studio; I think that version might auto update.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- chillwaves 9y ago
  What if one side is more reality based than the other? Which certainly has to be the case, both sides would not have exactly equal representation of reality based facts. So your graph is not very helpful unless you want to pretend the Washington Post and New York times are just leftist versions of Breitbart. Honestly do not see the point or value in what you have done.
  - subroutine 9y ago
    I wanted to see "which news sites conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning redditors use to support their respective narratives". I think my graph helped me find out. Nowhere did I mention anything about truthfulness.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - alphapapa 9y ago
    Well here's an interesting observation: the "right" subreddit cites some sources that the "left" subreddit cites, but not vice versa. For example, NYT and Politico appear near the tail of the "right" sub's sources and near the head of the "left" sub's sources, but none of the "right" sub's sources appear anywhere in the "left" sub's sources. So, assuming that NYT and Politico are left-leaning, it would appear that the "right" sub links to its opponents' views, while the "left" sub does not. The implications of this are left to the reader.
metaphorm 9y ago
the New York Times is a center-right neoliberal newspaper with a thin paint of "blue tribe" social issues on top. The Wall St. Journal is a center-right neoliberal newspaper with a thin paint of "red tribe" anti-tax paint on top.
- briandear 9y ago
  Center right? If center left is international socialism or the revival of the Soviet Union, then perhaps you’re correct. Your analysis is would suggest that Obama was center right, which is patently ridiculous.
  - super-serial 9y ago
    Compared to Europe Obama is center-right. Sanders is the closest thing we have to what would be considered center-left in Europe. https://www.quora.com/Are-left-wing-Democrats-of-the-United-States-considered-too-right-wing-compared-to-European-politics https://www.quora.com/Are-left-wing-Democrats-of-the-United-... Universal basic income, free university education and free state-run healthcare are leftist... no Democrat puts those things in their platform so I wouldn't call any democrat leftist.
    - alphapapa 9y ago
      > Universal basic income, free university education and free state-run healthcare are leftist... no Democrat puts those things in their platform so I wouldn't call any democrat leftist. That's not a logical conclusion. Even if they did support those things, they wouldn't put them in their platform now because it wouldn't fly now. You're defining "leftist" as "actively supports X, Y, and Z," which is arbitrary. And the part about Europe is a red herring; this isn't Europe.
DerekL 9y ago
What's ”WST“? Did you mean WSJ (Wall Street Journal)?
yeukhon 9y ago
Sorry, I mixed up right and left. Ah, sometimes I just can't.

peterwwillis 9y ago

Think tanks were born as ways for monarchs to research and organize legal arguments against Church doctrine. They have since expanded to cover a broad range of subjects, but the central point of a think tank is to get a bunch of smart people together to formalize a particular opinion and support it with arguments/research. Most often, these are funded by a particular group, for a particular agenda. This is the definition of propaganda.

foota 9y ago
I don't see how this is incompatible with the parent's remarks.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  The disconnect is probably with confusion or distaste over the word 'propaganda'. It has a negative connotation, but 'propaganda' means "non-objective information used primarily to influence an audience or further an agenda", which is what think tanks produce.
  - arcbyte 9y ago
    I think many think-tanks would take issue with "non-objective". Certainly the think tanks themselves subjectively examine only certain issues, but they would like to believe their examinations are as objective as possible. The difference being that while I may only ever study the stars and refuse to study plants, my examinations of the stars are still objective, even though the area of my examinations are not comprehensive.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      Sure, there are researchers who are making narrow claims, but what think tank isn't making broad claims? If you're going to make broad claims and claim to be objective, you need a more robust metaphysical approach than the mission statement of these places usually allows... And even then, you'll probably fail. Your tactics leak into your metaphysics and your ideology leaks into your tactics. Broad claims and objectivity just don't mix.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

It's more about what they don't publish or research than what they do. Very few of those publications have ever published staunchly anti-corporate articles. It's all good to argue some partisan political stuff, or things around the edges, but god help you if you start publishing anti-corporate articles.

colordrops 9y ago

Think tanks all have agendas driven by their backers. Based on your interest in think tanks, you appear to be a person that likes to dig under the surface for more detailed and comprehensive information, so it seems you should also take it upon yourself to research your sources and do some critical thinking on your own. But if you insist, this is a high-level piece on think tanks as servants of corporate agendas: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-research-and-corporate-lobbying.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-r...

pg_is_a_butt 9y ago
the new york times is just jew propaganda you're all idiots
- deleted 9y ago
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Houshalter 9y ago
Who do you trust then? There are no organizations that receive funding from no one are run by no one.
- deleted 9y ago
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- xor1 9y ago
  Only trust your fists.
  - fao_ 9y ago
    In age of technology, even your fists may spy on you :)
- Haydos585x2 9y ago
  You can't really trust any single source. Get information from all over the place initially and figure out what's closest to the real thing. Eventually you'll find reliable sources. Plus, a reliable source in one area might not be reliable in another.

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Clubber 9y ago

>I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? You mean other than the article we are replying to? :) All joking aside, I'm sure all think tanks aren't shilling with every article, but follow the money. They are typically founded by, actively solicit and are paid for by corporate donations and corporations don't typically give money for nothing. Cato is a libertarian think tank. They have a specific libertarian slant. The print more articles that libertarians would like and print fewer articles that libertarians don't, specifically Koch flavored libertarian-ism. I mean that's the way it just is. I mean I favor social libertarian-ism, but for someone to be an objective reader, they need to know that Cato was formed to serve libertarian interests.

grasshopperpurp 9y ago
Remember the Koch's 2012 takeover: The Koch brothers have long supported Cato, which they helped found in Washington in 1977. Recently, however, they have come to consider their creation politically unreliable. In a meeting with Robert Levy, chairman of Cato’s board of directors, they expressed their intention to remake the institute into a party organ that would aid their effort to unseat President Obama. To do so, however, they need control of the board. They intend to get it by suing the widow of William Niskanen, a recently deceased board member, for control of Niskanen’s shares. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-would-the-koch-brothers-want-to-refine-cato-institute/2012/03/09/gIQAxKWe1R_blog.html?utm_term=.61dda0d507c9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-wou...
- arcbyte 9y ago
  Pointing to Ezra Klein to explain what is happening on the right is the opposite of "slant-free".
  - tptacek 9y ago
    He's not "pointing to Ezra Klein to explain"; he's citing reporting. If some part of it is false, correct it.

Thrymr 9y ago

We have the equivalent of "think tanks" with real intellectual rigor, they are called universities. Yes, you can take issue with the way that university research is funded, etc., but tenure makes a difference.

jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago

Cato was specifically founded to advance libertarian views. They say so explicitly. They tolerate some open debate and have some intellectual honesty about it, but don't expect them to continue to fund or advance projects counter to libertarian concepts. Brookings are pretty dang centrist, and I think there was actually a formal study on this point. Anyhow, the point I'm making is that think tanks vary in how overtly political they are, but some like Cato and Heritage are very ideologically driven, and others like Brookings more reflect the selection bias of the status quo.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I subscribe to the Brookings Papers, Cato Journal, Chatham House and Council on Foreign Relations. Yes, the content is political, but discussions of economics and policy are necessarily political in nature. There is a difference between political subject matter and a clear ideological bias that makes it so if you know the subject and the name of the think tank producing a work, you can predict the general thrust fairly reliably with no other information (or, similarly, where you can identify someone's membership in both a major party and a faction within that party by the think tank’s they are inclined to cite.) Many major think tanks are ideological in this way.

omginternets 9y ago
>Many major think tanks are ideological in this way. That's not at all the same statement as "think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine". The goalpost has shifted.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I don't believe so. Ideological propaganda is still propaganda.
- asdffdsa321 9y ago
  Yeah it is; when you are ideological, you put out pieces that subscribe to said ideology and ignore evidence/observations that support other ideologies or contradict your own. This is the same as propaganda which, instead of putting out pieces raised from an objective perspective, you only publish pieces that support a specific ideology.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > That's not at all the same statement as "think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine" Yes, it's a different (compatible, though, not contradictory) statement, though related. > That's not at all the same statement as "think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine" You are mistaking a many-soded discussion for a two-sided debate. My having a different position than an earlier participant is not a goalpost shift (them changing the point they are arguing for without acknowledging that it has changed would be.)

gozur88 9y ago

Not every think tank is the same. I'm sure some of them are just fronts for various interests, and some are legitimate groups of people interested in an issue.

Clubber 9y ago
I agree there probably are some good ones that get funding somehow. But if the general consensus is most/many think tanks are independent organizations that think about stuff and publish articles, like authors or philosophers for the common good, they certainly are not. Also, I would suspect that the bigger the think tank (read well funded) the better chance of getting their article republished. I mean if I started Clubber's think tank about whatever, I doubt I'd get much traction.
- gozur88 9y ago
  Depends on what Clubber's think tank produced. If you create "reports" (they don't call 'em studies, and for good reason) media outlets can use for story hooks you might get plenty of traction. Also, you need to call your think tank something meaningless and anodyne like "People United for Truth and Justice". Because who isn't united for truth and justice?

matthjensen 9y ago

I direct the Open Source Policy Center at the American Enterprise Institute. We contribute to open source economic modeling tools. Check us out. I think we do good work, and I have never felt as if a donor biased our work -- this is probably because I state our values and objectives clearly when we raise money.

jartelt 9y ago

The book Dark Money by Jane Mayer tells much of the backstory of how many of these think tanks got started. Most of them were funded by rich folks, mostly far right or libertarian (e.g. Kochs brothers), for one reason: to make the rich folks' far right, libertarian views seem moderate and mainstream. The idea was to sponsor a think tank that looked moderate and unbiased, but then to fill it up handpicked people who were basically paid to try to "prove" that the Koch brothers ideas are good. Of course both sides do this now, but the libertarian and far right folks have done it the best.

briandear 9y ago
And Soros funded groups are different? Come on now. There are plenty of think tanks that are supported by anti-capitalist interests as well. It feels to me like “Koch Brothers” is some kind of socialist dog whistle to rile people up. It’s like mentioning Rush Limbaugh: people get riled up over just the name, but it’s highly likely most people have never heard his show — just cherry picked, out of context quotes that are like red-meat to the starving tigers of left wing interest groups. To be fair, the right has their dog whistles too. Mention Nancy Pelosi or George Soros and the right loses their mind as well. Acting like think tanks are some sort of capitalist conspiracy is just ridiculous.
- tptacek 9y ago
  The comment you replied to wasn't great, but you took what was worst about it and dialed it up to 11.
  - norikki 9y ago
    I agree. Soros and the Koch bros are two sides of the same coin. They both advocate pro-globalization policies, Soros the social aspects, and Koch the economic aspects. It's clear that globalism has massively benefitted the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the lower and middle class, and one way they justify the madness is by funding these propaganda organizations. What bugs me is how often reports from "Think Tanks" and NGOs are uncritically reported as news by the media without disclosing their donors.

tunesmith 9y ago

I think you can roughly split this into two questions: 1) Is the organization receiving funding to focus on analyzing a certain area of policy? Here, you can argue that the organization has an agenda that is driven by its backers, but I don't think it's sufficient to call it propaganda, because by that definition, any paid effort to focus on any particular area is propaganda. 2) Is the organization seeking to highlight positive evidence while seeking to squelch negative evidence? That's where it more becomes about propaganda.

nebabyte 9y ago

>I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? You'd figure the fact that the only "thinking" that gets factored into any decision (apart of that of bureaucrats too worried about their election coffers and thus easily paid off - oh, I'm sorry, "donated to") is privately paid is damning enough...

mediocrejoker 9y ago
I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. Would you mind elaborating or rephrasing it?

dkarl 9y ago

It comes down to where their money comes from. Think tanks are funded by people who are looking to manufacture intellectual backing for their political agenda. Given recent developments, I can see a positive aspect to this, because at least it implicitly supports the assumption that research and intellectual arguments matter in politics. However, it shows that you can't conclude anything from the existence of a well-researched and well-argued intellectual support for a position. The think tank system guarantees that anybody with sufficient resources can buy well-researched and well-argued intellectual support. Which is important. I know I've had a few epiphanies in my time where I realized, "Wait, this thing I thought was stupid, there are some really smart people who are into it... they've invested a lot of effort and research and have some coherent arguments to support it... I should really take another look." It's a meaningful signal in some contexts. In some contexts it even creates a presumption in my mind that I am probably wrong in not recognizing any value in something. In politics, though, it doesn't mean anything, because that kind of intellectual engagement is manufactured through the think tank system as a matter of course.

KGIII 9y ago
I have not observed many people who have the ability (or willingness) to honestly engage in that sort of introspection. Very seldom do I hear, "You make a good point..." It is even rarer that I hear, "I was wrong..."
Cozumel 9y ago
> "Wait, this thing I thought was stupid, there are some really smart people who are into it... they've invested a lot of effort and research and have some coherent arguments to support it... I should really take another look." That's what causes hype around technology. Even if people don't 'get it' they think well everyone else is doing it there has to be something to it.

dahoramanodoceu 9y ago

They present the illusion of rigor with the style of presentation and sophistication of their rhetoric. However what makes censorship so powerful is that you can't see it!

dahoramanodoceu 9y ago
It becomes even more powerful when every single mainstream media outlet and every 'think tank' approach the context with the same 'frame.'
ashark 9y ago
In Class, Fussell cited think-tanks' kind-of-ridiculous adoption of academic titles and trappings ("Fellow" and such) to make themselves seem respectable and trustworthy as evidence of the social and class standing of academics. They're lobbying organizations with a carefully and consciously applied veneer of learned, academic legitimacy.

WheelsAtLarge 9y ago

Think tanks are organizations funded and founded on a believe, whatever that might be. Their goal is to support the believe with "research." I am one that thinks that it's possible to put just about any believe in positive light. Given this then think tanks are propaganda machines. It comes down to this. If I believe in the think tank's vision then the research papers are research. If I don't then they are research with a spin. Which is the same as propaganda. Bottom line, think tanks are propaganda machines. It just depends on what your believes are.

forapurpose 9y ago

> I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? Let's not lump together all think tanks. Some are more intellectually honest, some are places for partisan intellectuals to work when their party is out of power, some exist to provide intellectual cover to political goals. I've had the same questions as you. According to an interesting paper I came across[0], there have been three waves of think tanks (and this also is painting them with a very broad brush):: 1) Think tanks like Council on Foreign Relations and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which aimed to promote global engagement by Americans. 2) Brookings and Rand, which grew out of quasi-governmental programs (IIRC). 3) Starting in the 1970s, groups that "focus as much on advocacy as on research, aiming to generate timely advice that can compete in a crowded marketplace of ideas and influence policy decisions." Heritage is the prototype; it was the source of much of Reagan's policy and now of Trump's. Heritage (I really hope I have the right think tank) hired someone to write talking points for cutting the estate tax in the U.S., and that is the origin of the meme "death tax", and the (false) argument that small businesses and farmers suffer widespread harm from it - so effective that I'll bet you've heard those. In the last few years, I've seen many allegations of leading think tanks selling out their independence, including Brookings, CNAS, CSIS, and others. The leader of one defended the practice saying (IIRC), 'This isn't the Greatest Generation. Nobody will give you money now and say 'do something good with it'. Everyone wants specific results.' Here is a dump of some more articles. If you really want to know about them, look up U. of Pennsylvania's 'Think Tanks and Civil Society Program'. -- Researchers or Corporate Allies? Think Tanks Blur the Line by Eric Lipton, Brooke Williams, in NY Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-research-and-corporate-lobbying.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/think-tanks-r... -- Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks by Eric Lipton, Brooke Williams, Nicholas Confessore NY Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-power... -- How Saudi Arabia captured Washington by Max Fisher in Vox: Covers more than Saudi Arabia - http://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11275354/saudi-arabia-gulf-washington http://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11275354/saudi-arabia-gulf-wash... -- Hacked Emails Show UAE Building Close Relationship With D.C. Think Tanks That Push Its Agenda by Zaid Jilani, Alex Emmons in The Intercept - https://theintercept.com/2017/07/30/uae-yousef-otaiba-cnas-american-progress-michele-flournoy-drone/ https://theintercept.com/2017/07/30/uae-yousef-otaiba-cnas-a... -- Hackers Vow to Release Apparent Trove of U.A.E. Ambassador’s Emails by Kevin Poulsen in The Daily Beast - http://www.thedailybeast.com/hackers-vow-to-release-apparent-trove-of-uae-ambassadors-emails http://www.thedailybeast.com/hackers-vow-to-release-apparent... [0] From Contributor to Partner? Norway's role in foreign policy research and implementation in the United States by Tove Bjørgaasat Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre/Norsk Ressurssenter for Fredsbygging (NOREF). Here's an old link: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1284105/1-aaa-general-doc-viewer_new.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1284...

kiliantics 9y ago

Think tank research does not undergo peer review, so there is no accountability