4 ms·

Reading reddit politics makes me more knowledable than those that watch Fox News, nbc news, msnbc. I’m more well rounded and know arguments made on both sides.

by tdhz77 8y ago

chatmasta 8y ago
You sure you’re getting arguments from both sides? In /r/politics at least, unless you’re sorting comments by “controversial,” you are definitely not getting both sides. What I liked to do before the election was bounce between T_D and HRC subreddits. Finding any unbiased source of news is a hopeless quest. The next best solution is to read bias on both sides and use it to triangulate the truth so you can develop your own point of view. I actually think bias is very useful. As long as you consider all bias equally, it provides a mechanism for separating facts from narrative.
- zer00eyz 8y ago
  > The next best solution is to read bias on both sides and use it to triangulate the truth You might be able to make a conclusion comparing two rational arguments. You can't compare a rational, or factual argument to a lie and make any sort of progress. Unless your clear headed that one is a lie... Welcome to the reality of post truth America.
  - chatmasta 8y ago
    I agree that America has a massive cultural + media problem right now, but I'm skeptical that the problem is literal "lies," i.e. factually incorrect statements presented as facts. The real issue is in embellishments, misrepresentations, and generally mixing of fact and opinion. The actual facts, i.e. verifiably accurate descriptions of events, would probably average less than 100 words per article. And yet every article is 800+ words. What are the other 700 words about? That, IMO, is the real issue with the content of media these days (ignoring the larger problem with the distribution of it, i.e. social media). The other issue is lack of ability for the average reader to verify facts presented in the article. There is so much information on every topic, but we cannot be experts in every topic. So by nature, we must trust others to be experts and accurately interpret the facts. Not only does this inhibit us from verifying facts, it also makes it impossible to provably judge which facts are true, but embellished. Before a false claim exists, there is a vacuum. It takes no energy to create false claim X. Anyone can post an article claiming X, with no real need to cite any authority. But for someone to then disprove X, it does require energy. They need to read the article, find motivation to disprove it, and finally write and publish a counter-article disproving the claim of X. There will inevitably be a delay between the article claiming X and any article refuting it. Since there is a constant influx of new articles, there is a constant subset of articles that are provably false but have not been refuted. This comprises a certain percentage of news, which commands a percentage of daily eyeball time. In recent years, both these percentages have become way too high. Interestingly, this seems like the same pattern of cat-and-mouse games that we see repeatedly in infosec. Perhaps there's something to be said for that analogy. False articles are like bugs in the global information system.
- tdhz77 8y ago
  Just saying I know that not all laws are enforced and that is a policy preference given to the President. I also know that Obama was born in US and not Kenya.
- diffeomorphism 8y ago
  > As long as you consider all bias equally, In many cases biases are not nearly equal in magnitude however, e.g. anti-vaxxers, homeopathy, climate change. Similarly, for politics bias on the left includes misleading statistics or cherry picking, while T_D goes much further and just blatantly makes stuff up (e.g. murder rate is way up; reality heavily disagrees). The truth is probably inbetween these extremes but nowhere near the middle.
ben509 8y ago
> ... than those that watch Fox News, nbc news, msnbc TV news is a pretty low bar to set for yourself. > I’m more well rounded and know arguments made on both sides. Any decent political site will put out the talking points, but those don't give you much insight into the belief system undergirding them.

Reading reddit politics makes me more knowledable than those that watch Fox News, nbc news, msnbc. I’m more well rounded and know arguments made on both sides.

by tdhz77 8y ago

Reading reddit politics makes me more knowledable than those that watch Fox News, nbc news, msnbc. I’m more well rounded and know arguments made on both sides.

chatmasta 8y ago

You sure you’re getting arguments from both sides? In /r/politics at least, unless you’re sorting comments by “controversial,” you are definitely not getting both sides. What I liked to do before the election was bounce between T_D and HRC subreddits. Finding any unbiased source of news is a hopeless quest. The next best solution is to read bias on both sides and use it to triangulate the truth so you can develop your own point of view. I actually think bias is very useful. As long as you consider all bias equally, it provides a mechanism for separating facts from narrative.

zer00eyz 8y ago
> The next best solution is to read bias on both sides and use it to triangulate the truth You might be able to make a conclusion comparing two rational arguments. You can't compare a rational, or factual argument to a lie and make any sort of progress. Unless your clear headed that one is a lie... Welcome to the reality of post truth America.
- chatmasta 8y ago
  I agree that America has a massive cultural + media problem right now, but I'm skeptical that the problem is literal "lies," i.e. factually incorrect statements presented as facts. The real issue is in embellishments, misrepresentations, and generally mixing of fact and opinion. The actual facts, i.e. verifiably accurate descriptions of events, would probably average less than 100 words per article. And yet every article is 800+ words. What are the other 700 words about? That, IMO, is the real issue with the content of media these days (ignoring the larger problem with the distribution of it, i.e. social media). The other issue is lack of ability for the average reader to verify facts presented in the article. There is so much information on every topic, but we cannot be experts in every topic. So by nature, we must trust others to be experts and accurately interpret the facts. Not only does this inhibit us from verifying facts, it also makes it impossible to provably judge which facts are true, but embellished. Before a false claim exists, there is a vacuum. It takes no energy to create false claim X. Anyone can post an article claiming X, with no real need to cite any authority. But for someone to then disprove X, it does require energy. They need to read the article, find motivation to disprove it, and finally write and publish a counter-article disproving the claim of X. There will inevitably be a delay between the article claiming X and any article refuting it. Since there is a constant influx of new articles, there is a constant subset of articles that are provably false but have not been refuted. This comprises a certain percentage of news, which commands a percentage of daily eyeball time. In recent years, both these percentages have become way too high. Interestingly, this seems like the same pattern of cat-and-mouse games that we see repeatedly in infosec. Perhaps there's something to be said for that analogy. False articles are like bugs in the global information system.
tdhz77 8y ago
Just saying I know that not all laws are enforced and that is a policy preference given to the President. I also know that Obama was born in US and not Kenya.
diffeomorphism 8y ago
> As long as you consider all bias equally, In many cases biases are not nearly equal in magnitude however, e.g. anti-vaxxers, homeopathy, climate change. Similarly, for politics bias on the left includes misleading statistics or cherry picking, while T_D goes much further and just blatantly makes stuff up (e.g. murder rate is way up; reality heavily disagrees). The truth is probably inbetween these extremes but nowhere near the middle.

ben509 8y ago

> ... than those that watch Fox News, nbc news, msnbc TV news is a pretty low bar to set for yourself. > I’m more well rounded and know arguments made on both sides. Any decent political site will put out the talking points, but those don't give you much insight into the belief system undergirding them.