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The intent of this visualization is to hit you in the gut. If you want something more concrete, there’s plenty of it out there. We can have both kinds of things

The intent of this visualization is to hit you in the gut. If you want something more concrete, there’s plenty of it out there. We can have both kinds of things.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
I disagree in the strongest possible terms. Manipulating presentation of data to create an emotional reaction so that policy decisions are made emotionally is not ok. If a presentation of the data that conforms to standard techniques for an unbiased representation would not result in “hitting you in the gut” then that has to be accepted, and worked with, not sacrificing intellectual integrity to elide the data and change things for an agenda.
- DFHippie 8y ago
  This is a fine sentiment (double entendre intended), but some people, enough to sway public policy, cannot be reached by a simple presentation of facts. If these people control policy, and one party to the debate has no qualms about controlling them through appeals to their gut, what should one do? If in 100 years humanity is reduced to an impoverished remnant living in the ruins of its greatness, will they be grateful that we kept our rhetoric pure? (Note, I'm not talking about lying, only about presenting information in a way designed to appeal to the audience's emotions.)
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    I'm trying to get you to invest in my fund. I give you a set of cherry picked graphs that indicate I'm earning an unbelievable amount of money with minimal to no variance. Then somebody else shows you a complete graph showing my longterm profits (which are rather different than what I lead you to believe) and other data indicating that I was being somewhat less than completely honest with you. What's going to be your opinion of the value of my fund? Of me? Did I do anything wrong, or can I just claim I was only trying to "appeal to the audience's emotion"? Myopic thinking and Machiavellian logic are a great combination to undermine the very ends you aim to achieve.
    - DFHippie 8y ago
      In your example you are attempting to deceive. That is the immorality. Not the appeal to emotions.
      - Udik 8y ago
        What if he really believes in the potential of his fund, and simply choses the graph that better conveys his belief- even if someone else might object that it's not the complete or most neutral representation?
        DFHippie 8y ago
        If he isn't deliberately omitting information that would lead to a different conclusion -- deceit -- or using emotional manipulation to imply facts not in evidence -- also deceit -- then he's simply wrong. In the case we're talking about, the emotional impact intended is simply that the information is alarming. You can drily say "the house is on fire", or with flushed face and wide eyes exclaim "the house is on fire!" The latter involves emotional information in addition to the relevant facts. If the house is not on fire, both statements have the same problem: they are false. If the house is on fire, the second is more likely to prompt action. The absence of emotional cues in the first statement will itself be taken as an emotional cue by an ordinary audience. "The house can't be on fire in the way I would normally interpret 'the house is on fire' because that would cause panic, and the speaker isn't panicking. Ho, hum. Are there any sports on?" In fact, the dryness of the presentation is frequently presented as evidence that climate change is a fraud. Denialists say "if you really believed this is true, you'd be doing X, and you aren't, so ha!" The beauty of this gambit is that the goal posts are so mobile. If you do X, they pull secret expected behavior Y out of their pocket and repeat the argument. These measures of sincere affect are like sharks teeth. There is always another if you pull out the one you see. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. So, setting aside these particular denialists as insincere, one's best bet is to try to indicate your affect in your presentation, because this is a heuristic ordinary people use to gauge the honesty of their interlocutors: does the implied urgency of their argument match their tone.
  - benlorenzetti 8y ago
    But this is just different sentiment. Personally, I think that people are very skilled at identifying when they are being spoken to unhonestly or dismissively.
    - DFHippie 8y ago
      > But this is just different sentiment. My point precisely. > Personally, I think that people are very skilled at identifying when they are being spoken to unhonestly or dismissively. How? By consulting their gut? Why do certain people lie so frequently if lying doesn't work? Besides, we aren't talking about lying here, only presenting true data such that it has a particular emotional appeal. The goal is not to produce any false belief or any action contrary to the audience's interest. It is only to get the audience to register the information with the organ they use to process such information effectively: their gut.
      - benlorenzetti 8y ago
        Why do people lie? Maybe people are prone to exaggeration when its an idea they like or it's somehow attached to a position or stake they have taken (of)themselves. But really the point I was trying to make by saying it's just another sentiment: perhaps the number of people put off by incomplete statistics is more than the people swayed by the dramatic results
    - rootusrootus 8y ago
      I wouldn't say they are skilled, given the enormous false positive rate.
allthenews 8y ago
Manipulating data to "hit you in the gut" amounts to propaganda, of which people can be (rightly) wary, regardless of the veracity of the ultimate message.
- yongjik 8y ago
  A lot of things are propaganda. Showing a crying immigrant child is propaganda. Showing a picture of mourning fireman on the day of 9/11/2001 is propaganda. In each case we may want to debate what the picture is trying to say and whether it is appealing more to the emotions than rational debate. Or not. It depends. On the other hand, when someone sees the firefighter and says "What a propaganda. These pictures never bother to present a concrete evidence that two planes hit WTC," then we kind of know rational discourse is over, which is what's happening with climate denialism.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    > “On the other hand, when someone sees the firefighter and says "What a propaganda. These pictures never bother to present a concrete evidence that two planes hit WTC," then we kind of know rational discourse is over, which is what's happening with climate denialism.” Let me state first that I do believe climate change is real and urgently needs to be given increased attention to find a solution. But, secondly, your comment falls completely flat, and in my personal view, you are espousing something that is truly far, far more dangerous than even climate denial. You’re attempting to say that a rational analysis of entire patterns of propaganda is equivalent to no longer participating in the rational debate. You’re trying to say that anyone who does not agree there is intrinsic credibility to the data-eliding emotional appeals must themselves no longer have credibility in the discussion. This essentially lobotomizes our best and only chance to solve problems like climate change long-term, which is to use science as a constraint on political gamesmanship. When you say, “... then we know rational discourse is over” you’re just falling right into politicians’ hands, who want to continue politicizing the issue while not actually doing anything about it that doesn’t happen to also serve their short-term profit interests, and figuring that if younger generations have to inherit a wasteland and figure out how to live in it, that’s not their problem, and they’ll happily consume now, while the getting is good. Your type of meta-comment is the most frustrating to me in this whole debate, because you seem self-aware enough to know better.

The intent of this visualization is to hit you in the gut. If you want something more concrete, there’s plenty of it out there. We can have both kinds of things.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

I disagree in the strongest possible terms. Manipulating presentation of data to create an emotional reaction so that policy decisions are made emotionally is not ok. If a presentation of the data that conforms to standard techniques for an unbiased representation would not result in “hitting you in the gut” then that has to be accepted, and worked with, not sacrificing intellectual integrity to elide the data and change things for an agenda.

DFHippie 8y ago
This is a fine sentiment (double entendre intended), but some people, enough to sway public policy, cannot be reached by a simple presentation of facts. If these people control policy, and one party to the debate has no qualms about controlling them through appeals to their gut, what should one do? If in 100 years humanity is reduced to an impoverished remnant living in the ruins of its greatness, will they be grateful that we kept our rhetoric pure? (Note, I'm not talking about lying, only about presenting information in a way designed to appeal to the audience's emotions.)
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I'm trying to get you to invest in my fund. I give you a set of cherry picked graphs that indicate I'm earning an unbelievable amount of money with minimal to no variance. Then somebody else shows you a complete graph showing my longterm profits (which are rather different than what I lead you to believe) and other data indicating that I was being somewhat less than completely honest with you. What's going to be your opinion of the value of my fund? Of me? Did I do anything wrong, or can I just claim I was only trying to "appeal to the audience's emotion"? Myopic thinking and Machiavellian logic are a great combination to undermine the very ends you aim to achieve.
  - DFHippie 8y ago
    In your example you are attempting to deceive. That is the immorality. Not the appeal to emotions.
    - Udik 8y ago
      What if he really believes in the potential of his fund, and simply choses the graph that better conveys his belief- even if someone else might object that it's not the complete or most neutral representation?
      - DFHippie 8y ago
        If he isn't deliberately omitting information that would lead to a different conclusion -- deceit -- or using emotional manipulation to imply facts not in evidence -- also deceit -- then he's simply wrong. In the case we're talking about, the emotional impact intended is simply that the information is alarming. You can drily say "the house is on fire", or with flushed face and wide eyes exclaim "the house is on fire!" The latter involves emotional information in addition to the relevant facts. If the house is not on fire, both statements have the same problem: they are false. If the house is on fire, the second is more likely to prompt action. The absence of emotional cues in the first statement will itself be taken as an emotional cue by an ordinary audience. "The house can't be on fire in the way I would normally interpret 'the house is on fire' because that would cause panic, and the speaker isn't panicking. Ho, hum. Are there any sports on?" In fact, the dryness of the presentation is frequently presented as evidence that climate change is a fraud. Denialists say "if you really believed this is true, you'd be doing X, and you aren't, so ha!" The beauty of this gambit is that the goal posts are so mobile. If you do X, they pull secret expected behavior Y out of their pocket and repeat the argument. These measures of sincere affect are like sharks teeth. There is always another if you pull out the one you see. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. So, setting aside these particular denialists as insincere, one's best bet is to try to indicate your affect in your presentation, because this is a heuristic ordinary people use to gauge the honesty of their interlocutors: does the implied urgency of their argument match their tone.
- benlorenzetti 8y ago
  But this is just different sentiment. Personally, I think that people are very skilled at identifying when they are being spoken to unhonestly or dismissively.
  - DFHippie 8y ago
    > But this is just different sentiment. My point precisely. > Personally, I think that people are very skilled at identifying when they are being spoken to unhonestly or dismissively. How? By consulting their gut? Why do certain people lie so frequently if lying doesn't work? Besides, we aren't talking about lying here, only presenting true data such that it has a particular emotional appeal. The goal is not to produce any false belief or any action contrary to the audience's interest. It is only to get the audience to register the information with the organ they use to process such information effectively: their gut.
    - benlorenzetti 8y ago
      Why do people lie? Maybe people are prone to exaggeration when its an idea they like or it's somehow attached to a position or stake they have taken (of)themselves. But really the point I was trying to make by saying it's just another sentiment: perhaps the number of people put off by incomplete statistics is more than the people swayed by the dramatic results
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    I wouldn't say they are skilled, given the enormous false positive rate.

allthenews 8y ago

Manipulating data to "hit you in the gut" amounts to propaganda, of which people can be (rightly) wary, regardless of the veracity of the ultimate message.

yongjik 8y ago
A lot of things are propaganda. Showing a crying immigrant child is propaganda. Showing a picture of mourning fireman on the day of 9/11/2001 is propaganda. In each case we may want to debate what the picture is trying to say and whether it is appealing more to the emotions than rational debate. Or not. It depends. On the other hand, when someone sees the firefighter and says "What a propaganda. These pictures never bother to present a concrete evidence that two planes hit WTC," then we kind of know rational discourse is over, which is what's happening with climate denialism.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  > “On the other hand, when someone sees the firefighter and says "What a propaganda. These pictures never bother to present a concrete evidence that two planes hit WTC," then we kind of know rational discourse is over, which is what's happening with climate denialism.” Let me state first that I do believe climate change is real and urgently needs to be given increased attention to find a solution. But, secondly, your comment falls completely flat, and in my personal view, you are espousing something that is truly far, far more dangerous than even climate denial. You’re attempting to say that a rational analysis of entire patterns of propaganda is equivalent to no longer participating in the rational debate. You’re trying to say that anyone who does not agree there is intrinsic credibility to the data-eliding emotional appeals must themselves no longer have credibility in the discussion. This essentially lobotomizes our best and only chance to solve problems like climate change long-term, which is to use science as a constraint on political gamesmanship. When you say, “... then we know rational discourse is over” you’re just falling right into politicians’ hands, who want to continue politicizing the issue while not actually doing anything about it that doesn’t happen to also serve their short-term profit interests, and figuring that if younger generations have to inherit a wasteland and figure out how to live in it, that’s not their problem, and they’ll happily consume now, while the getting is good. Your type of meta-comment is the most frustrating to me in this whole debate, because you seem self-aware enough to know better.