4 ms·

The alternative is what, exactly? It may simple be that a facile understanding of the world is perfectly acceptable for most topics.

close04 8y ago
I guess a good option is to pick "reference topics" as measuring sticks. Read about something you are intimately familiar with. If the reporting matches your experience you can assume it's relatively unbiased. If there's a strong mismatch you can assume it will be present when covering topics you are not familiar with and cannot judge correctly.
- peteretep 8y ago
  This doesn't sound like how newspapers work. Take a state propaganda outlet like RT.com. They have plenty of stories on topics I know about that are just fine.
  - close04 8y ago
    It's not necessarily applicable at anything above journalist level. Different journalists have different biases. And their biases might be overridden by their superiors when they get hired by another media outlet, with different "sponsors". But unless you plan on being an expert in every field or just distrusting about everything you read (safe option if you ask me), such a measuring stick is better than nothing.
- rusk 8y ago
  > I guess a good option is to pick "reference topics" as measuring sticks For me this is the beauty of HN. I have a good familiarity with a lot of the topics discussed so I can generally tell who knows what they're talking about and who isn't. When the discussion veers into more general topics I can feel mostly confident (relatively speaking anyway) of the information I'm getting that's "on the level".
fsloth 8y ago
The alternative is having a fact based discussion of the causes and effects. "It may simple be that a facile understanding of the world is perfectly acceptable for most topics." I agree, for most practical things it's sufficient to register a thing has happened without deeply understanding the causal premises leading to the event, nor the implications.
- rusk 8y ago
  That's all well and good, until people actually start interpreting the facile interpretation as fact. Newspapers often present their interpretation as definitive. Then people go and make serious decisions based on this or start campaigning or policy-makers take it as informative about what's going on in the world. On the one hand as a reader we need to be more sceptical, but on the other, a bit more humility is needed from these news sources.
shawn 8y ago
HN.
- krapp 8y ago
  Hacker News is no alternative. Read any thread about any subject not related to programming, and chances are an expert in the field will show up and point out how wrong the assumptions being made about that field are. This seems to be most common in thread about subjects for which hacker culture holds traditional animosity - business, government and the military, and art or design. That being the case, and given the contentiousness that tech-related threads also sometimes generate, it's likely most commenters' opinions on programming and CS are only slightly more informed as their opinions on everything else. I'll include myself in this set -- I've been corrected (sometimes harshly) on a number of things I assumed were true and insisted on in good faith. Take HN with the same healthy dose of salt with which you should take all other media.
  - lordnacho 8y ago
    > Read any thread about any subject not related to programming, and chances are an expert in the field will show up and point out how wrong the assumptions being made about that field are. That's precisely why HN!
  - rusk 8y ago
    > Read any thread about any subject not related to programming, and chances are an expert in the field will show up > I've been corrected (sometimes harshly) Yes, but that's the beauty of it. You get bullshit articles and often bullshit discussions but the quality of discourse is of very high quality, and often verifiable.
pdpi 8y ago
From the linked wikipedia article: "One example is that of C. S. Lewis (who did not know of this phenomenon but nevertheless has a case of it). After reading biographical interpretations of his own works and realizing how incorrect they could be, he began to read other biographical interpretations with more caution, aware not to accept everything stated at face value." A facile understanding might be perfectly acceptable — as long as you accept it for what it is, and allow for the idea that you might be wrong in your understanding.
mattnewport 8y ago
A pretty good alternative is to largely avoid consuming the kinds of media most prone to this, mostly newspapers and television news. If it's true that a facile understanding of the world is perfectly acceptable for most topics then it's also true that no understanding or awareness of those topics is also acceptable. General news media is largely useless to actively harmful. For topics you actually care about, you're better off learning about them from specialist sources. For general understanding of the world you're probably better off reading history, science or literature. For plenty of topics you're probably better off not knowing or caring. If you think you're getting value from these types of media, it's at least worth a skeptical re-evaluation of what value they are really providing.

close04 8y ago

I guess a good option is to pick "reference topics" as measuring sticks. Read about something you are intimately familiar with. If the reporting matches your experience you can assume it's relatively unbiased. If there's a strong mismatch you can assume it will be present when covering topics you are not familiar with and cannot judge correctly.

peteretep 8y ago
This doesn't sound like how newspapers work. Take a state propaganda outlet like RT.com. They have plenty of stories on topics I know about that are just fine.
- close04 8y ago
  It's not necessarily applicable at anything above journalist level. Different journalists have different biases. And their biases might be overridden by their superiors when they get hired by another media outlet, with different "sponsors". But unless you plan on being an expert in every field or just distrusting about everything you read (safe option if you ask me), such a measuring stick is better than nothing.
rusk 8y ago
> I guess a good option is to pick "reference topics" as measuring sticks For me this is the beauty of HN. I have a good familiarity with a lot of the topics discussed so I can generally tell who knows what they're talking about and who isn't. When the discussion veers into more general topics I can feel mostly confident (relatively speaking anyway) of the information I'm getting that's "on the level".

fsloth 8y ago

The alternative is having a fact based discussion of the causes and effects. "It may simple be that a facile understanding of the world is perfectly acceptable for most topics." I agree, for most practical things it's sufficient to register a thing has happened without deeply understanding the causal premises leading to the event, nor the implications.

rusk 8y ago
That's all well and good, until people actually start interpreting the facile interpretation as fact. Newspapers often present their interpretation as definitive. Then people go and make serious decisions based on this or start campaigning or policy-makers take it as informative about what's going on in the world. On the one hand as a reader we need to be more sceptical, but on the other, a bit more humility is needed from these news sources.

shawn 8y ago

HN.

krapp 8y ago
Hacker News is no alternative. Read any thread about any subject not related to programming, and chances are an expert in the field will show up and point out how wrong the assumptions being made about that field are. This seems to be most common in thread about subjects for which hacker culture holds traditional animosity - business, government and the military, and art or design. That being the case, and given the contentiousness that tech-related threads also sometimes generate, it's likely most commenters' opinions on programming and CS are only slightly more informed as their opinions on everything else. I'll include myself in this set -- I've been corrected (sometimes harshly) on a number of things I assumed were true and insisted on in good faith. Take HN with the same healthy dose of salt with which you should take all other media.
- lordnacho 8y ago
  > Read any thread about any subject not related to programming, and chances are an expert in the field will show up and point out how wrong the assumptions being made about that field are. That's precisely why HN!
- rusk 8y ago
  > Read any thread about any subject not related to programming, and chances are an expert in the field will show up > I've been corrected (sometimes harshly) Yes, but that's the beauty of it. You get bullshit articles and often bullshit discussions but the quality of discourse is of very high quality, and often verifiable.

pdpi 8y ago

From the linked wikipedia article: "One example is that of C. S. Lewis (who did not know of this phenomenon but nevertheless has a case of it). After reading biographical interpretations of his own works and realizing how incorrect they could be, he began to read other biographical interpretations with more caution, aware not to accept everything stated at face value." A facile understanding might be perfectly acceptable — as long as you accept it for what it is, and allow for the idea that you might be wrong in your understanding.

mattnewport 8y ago

A pretty good alternative is to largely avoid consuming the kinds of media most prone to this, mostly newspapers and television news. If it's true that a facile understanding of the world is perfectly acceptable for most topics then it's also true that no understanding or awareness of those topics is also acceptable. General news media is largely useless to actively harmful. For topics you actually care about, you're better off learning about them from specialist sources. For general understanding of the world you're probably better off reading history, science or literature. For plenty of topics you're probably better off not knowing or caring. If you think you're getting value from these types of media, it's at least worth a skeptical re-evaluation of what value they are really providing.