5 ms·

Credible concrete arguments for why some article might be flawed or biased tends to carry a lot more weight than just attacking the place it was published in fo

Credible concrete arguments for why some article might be flawed or biased tends to carry a lot more weight than just attacking the place it was published in for its political views.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Why are you taking it as an attack? He's just giving context to the piece.
- johansch 9y ago
  Perhaps, given the topic, I jumped too quickly into confrontational left-vs-right thinking. Anyhow: I quite dislike it when articles and arguments are dismissed with simple labeling tactics ("they said this other thing before, so what they say now carries no weight"). I should have written "dismissed" rather than "attacked".
  - forkandwait 9y ago
    You shouldn't have written "dismissed" either -- the OP just posted a link and noted that they were conservative. Maybe "implicitly dismissed", but even that is pretty paranoid; though, to be fair, that is probably what the OP meant. (I think the partisanship in this country is shameful, dangerous, and rather silly -- just saying.)
  - akamaka 9y ago
    I thought the article was poorly argued, so I looked up the authors and thought it was worth sharing the info and to let others draw their own conclusions. My own suspicion is that this "research institute" hasn't really done true research into whether crime is out of control and the homeless are to blame. Maybe it really is out of control, but I suspect that the authors don't truly care to investigate, seeing as they simply chose some anecdotes that fit the views they have held for decades. Sorry you're getting downvoted.
    - johansch 9y ago
      Sorry, but I think you should have spent that effort refuting the arguments - instead you just spread some kind of implicit-guilt-by-political-leaning ("look, this a right-wing site - obviously it's not even worth your effort to refute the claims"). That's not productive. > Sorry you're getting downvoted. Thanks for that.
      - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        But even now what you're arguing against is attribution. His original comment is just attribution, there's no guilt attached. Readers may choose to attach their political opinions to attribution and you may think that's fair or not but it seems ridiculous to me to be calling out someone for posting about the interests behind a story. So let's cut the crap and be real here, this article is basically propaganda. The entity responsible for producing it will never produce a politically unbiased article examining some critical issue because their raison d'etre is to produce politically biased articles. What you're saying is that it's on us an individuals to line by line refute all the crap propaganda that gets spewed out. There's no way to do that in the 21st century, there's too much information. We need to be able to attribute and write-off when necessary. This article was written by a right-wing think-tank who's explicit mission is to promote free market ideals? Why would I read that? You and I both basically already know what is in it and that the writer is a complete partisan.
      - akamaka 9y ago
        I'm not a big fan of labeling things as left and right wing. In this case, the article is about homelessness, and I found it interesting to know that the institute has for decades held a fixed opinion on individual responsibility. I have no idea whether the rest of the institute's positions could be neatly categorized.
harrumph 9y ago
"Credible concrete arguments for why some article might be flawed or biased tends to carry a lot more weight than just attacking the place it was published in for its political views." That all depends. When it's been hidden, I think it's essential to know the ethos of the organization that paid for the work to be done and disseminated. It isn't plain in the piece that it was brought to us by the Manhattan Institute, which is one of many think tanks producing "journalism" that has never, ever found a problem that the "free market" wasn't the precise cure for. Context is super-important.

Credible concrete arguments for why some article might be flawed or biased tends to carry a lot more weight than just attacking the place it was published in for its political views.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Why are you taking it as an attack? He's just giving context to the piece.

johansch 9y ago
Perhaps, given the topic, I jumped too quickly into confrontational left-vs-right thinking. Anyhow: I quite dislike it when articles and arguments are dismissed with simple labeling tactics ("they said this other thing before, so what they say now carries no weight"). I should have written "dismissed" rather than "attacked".
- forkandwait 9y ago
  You shouldn't have written "dismissed" either -- the OP just posted a link and noted that they were conservative. Maybe "implicitly dismissed", but even that is pretty paranoid; though, to be fair, that is probably what the OP meant. (I think the partisanship in this country is shameful, dangerous, and rather silly -- just saying.)
- akamaka 9y ago
  I thought the article was poorly argued, so I looked up the authors and thought it was worth sharing the info and to let others draw their own conclusions. My own suspicion is that this "research institute" hasn't really done true research into whether crime is out of control and the homeless are to blame. Maybe it really is out of control, but I suspect that the authors don't truly care to investigate, seeing as they simply chose some anecdotes that fit the views they have held for decades. Sorry you're getting downvoted.
  - johansch 9y ago
    Sorry, but I think you should have spent that effort refuting the arguments - instead you just spread some kind of implicit-guilt-by-political-leaning ("look, this a right-wing site - obviously it's not even worth your effort to refute the claims"). That's not productive. > Sorry you're getting downvoted. Thanks for that.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      But even now what you're arguing against is attribution. His original comment is just attribution, there's no guilt attached. Readers may choose to attach their political opinions to attribution and you may think that's fair or not but it seems ridiculous to me to be calling out someone for posting about the interests behind a story. So let's cut the crap and be real here, this article is basically propaganda. The entity responsible for producing it will never produce a politically unbiased article examining some critical issue because their raison d'etre is to produce politically biased articles. What you're saying is that it's on us an individuals to line by line refute all the crap propaganda that gets spewed out. There's no way to do that in the 21st century, there's too much information. We need to be able to attribute and write-off when necessary. This article was written by a right-wing think-tank who's explicit mission is to promote free market ideals? Why would I read that? You and I both basically already know what is in it and that the writer is a complete partisan.
    - akamaka 9y ago
      I'm not a big fan of labeling things as left and right wing. In this case, the article is about homelessness, and I found it interesting to know that the institute has for decades held a fixed opinion on individual responsibility. I have no idea whether the rest of the institute's positions could be neatly categorized.

harrumph 9y ago

"Credible concrete arguments for why some article might be flawed or biased tends to carry a lot more weight than just attacking the place it was published in for its political views." That all depends. When it's been hidden, I think it's essential to know the ethos of the organization that paid for the work to be done and disseminated. It isn't plain in the piece that it was brought to us by the Manhattan Institute, which is one of many think tanks producing "journalism" that has never, ever found a problem that the "free market" wasn't the precise cure for. Context is super-important.