4 ms·

"At some point you've got to trust your newspaper (or read a better one!) unless there is explicit counter-evidence from elsewhere against the story." Gell-Man

"At some point you've got to trust your newspaper (or read a better one!) unless there is explicit counter-evidence from elsewhere against the story." Gell-Mann has fascinated me for years (even before I knew it by name). It stemmed from reading news articles about technology in the newspaper (even pre-internet) and other conventional news sources. They never seemed to get it right, and it was frustrating. Particularly galling was the use mis-use of "hacker". As I got older, and eventually had a cadre of friends and acquaintances in various professions - nurse, doctor, lawyer, CEO (food), COO (software development), environmental scientist, hydrologist, industrial engineer, insurance salesman, high level manager, and most notably, a journalist. Querying them specifically on Gell-Mann, the results were pretty much unanimous. They all felt like the conventional media mis-reported their fields of expertise. Being introduced to the Gell-Mann concept was an eye-opener for some of them, while others had intuitively understood it, as I had. Consequently, I follow no out of domain news sources. If I want to know something, I read something in depth from within the industry it is covering. I choose carefully, and try discredit what I've read. I have to say, it was particular satisfying not paying attention to the last election. One of my friends, a self-avowed news-monger, remarked to me casually a few days before election day, "Hillary cancelled her post-election party." I said, "She knows she's going to lose." He said, "You're crazy, everyone has her in a landslide." I said, "You might be misinformed."

tptacek 8y ago
Can you source the claim that the Clinton campaign believed it would lose going into election night? That's the opposite of my understanding.
- redleggedfrog 8y ago
  Yeah, me, I'm the one who said that. :^)
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    So you were convinced she was going to lose. I'm curious what sources you were curating for yourself that led you to believe that. I recall the probability was definitely in her favor, but the most reliable analysis still put it around 2/3 or so, which leaves a pretty big opening for a miss. It sounds like you had access to your own analysis that put the odds against her? Aside from drinking the kool-aid on the other side of the aisle, I'd be interested to know how you made that conclusion.
    - redleggedfrog 8y ago
      No, sorry, you're missing my point. I have no inside information, other than Gell-Mann effect. My friend, who told me a zillions times about how Hillary is going to win big, how the Republican party was on it's death-bed, and all the big news organizations are projecting a Hillary win, and my response to hearing of the fire-works cancelling was, "She thinks she's going to lose." Because the media was getting it wrong, like they always seem to.
    - redleggedfrog 8y ago
      "Aside from drinking the kool-aid on the other side of the aisle..." Sorry, I missed that. I'm most certainly not political or a side of an aisle. I generally abhor politics and drink very little Kool-Aid.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    The Clinton campaign absolutely did not believe they were going to lose days before the election. You could have made a defensible and germane argument by saying you predicted the outcome of the election, but, nope, your rhetorical reach exceeded your grasp, and you "predicted" something that the press got right and you got wrong.
    - redleggedfrog 8y ago
      I didn't even try to predict anything. I just responded to the cancellation of the fire-works in relationship to the media's sureness of a Hillary win. I suspected she knew she was going the lose when the press did not.
      - tptacek 8y ago
        And, again, you were wrong about that. There are numerous reports from embeds in the campaign detailing how stunned the campaign was at the loss on election night.
        redleggedfrog 8y ago
        I think we're talking cross purposes, but, no worries.
chasingthewind 8y ago
>Consequently, I follow no out of domain news sources. I wonder if this has the opposite risk of creating a kind of "journalistic capture" where the reporting of the journalists who are experts on the topic can be too highly influenced by the industry they're covering. >"Hillary cancelled her post-election party." A quick search suggests to me that it's well documented that she canceled some kind of party at the Javits Center on election day rather than days in advance. Do you have anything offhand that speaks to this? Am I perhaps searching for a different party than the one you're describing?
- redleggedfrog 8y ago
  "where the reporting of the journalists who are experts on the topic can be too highly influenced by the industry they're covering." Yes, I worry about that, too. I try to balance it out best I can. "A quick search suggests to me that it's well documented that she canceled some kind of party at the Javits Center on election day rather than days in advance." Nope, I suspect that's the one. Sorry about the time-frame lapse. Should have Googled it myself.
  - redleggedfrog 8y ago
    "Nope, I suspect that's the one. Sorry about the time-frame lapse. Should have Googled it myself." I just got hit on the head with the irony on that. Thanks chasingthewind I got a good laugh.
- jmgao 8y ago
  Some googling seems to indicate that they cancelled a fireworks display: https://nypost.com/2016/11/07/clinton-calls-off-election-night-fireworks/ https://nypost.com/2016/11/07/clinton-calls-off-election-nig...

tptacek 8y ago

Can you source the claim that the Clinton campaign believed it would lose going into election night? That's the opposite of my understanding.

redleggedfrog 8y ago
Yeah, me, I'm the one who said that. :^)
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  So you were convinced she was going to lose. I'm curious what sources you were curating for yourself that led you to believe that. I recall the probability was definitely in her favor, but the most reliable analysis still put it around 2/3 or so, which leaves a pretty big opening for a miss. It sounds like you had access to your own analysis that put the odds against her? Aside from drinking the kool-aid on the other side of the aisle, I'd be interested to know how you made that conclusion.
  - redleggedfrog 8y ago
    No, sorry, you're missing my point. I have no inside information, other than Gell-Mann effect. My friend, who told me a zillions times about how Hillary is going to win big, how the Republican party was on it's death-bed, and all the big news organizations are projecting a Hillary win, and my response to hearing of the fire-works cancelling was, "She thinks she's going to lose." Because the media was getting it wrong, like they always seem to.
  - redleggedfrog 8y ago
    "Aside from drinking the kool-aid on the other side of the aisle..." Sorry, I missed that. I'm most certainly not political or a side of an aisle. I generally abhor politics and drink very little Kool-Aid.
- tptacek 8y ago
  The Clinton campaign absolutely did not believe they were going to lose days before the election. You could have made a defensible and germane argument by saying you predicted the outcome of the election, but, nope, your rhetorical reach exceeded your grasp, and you "predicted" something that the press got right and you got wrong.
  - redleggedfrog 8y ago
    I didn't even try to predict anything. I just responded to the cancellation of the fire-works in relationship to the media's sureness of a Hillary win. I suspected she knew she was going the lose when the press did not.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      And, again, you were wrong about that. There are numerous reports from embeds in the campaign detailing how stunned the campaign was at the loss on election night.
      - redleggedfrog 8y ago
        I think we're talking cross purposes, but, no worries.

chasingthewind 8y ago

>Consequently, I follow no out of domain news sources. I wonder if this has the opposite risk of creating a kind of "journalistic capture" where the reporting of the journalists who are experts on the topic can be too highly influenced by the industry they're covering. >"Hillary cancelled her post-election party." A quick search suggests to me that it's well documented that she canceled some kind of party at the Javits Center on election day rather than days in advance. Do you have anything offhand that speaks to this? Am I perhaps searching for a different party than the one you're describing?

redleggedfrog 8y ago
"where the reporting of the journalists who are experts on the topic can be too highly influenced by the industry they're covering." Yes, I worry about that, too. I try to balance it out best I can. "A quick search suggests to me that it's well documented that she canceled some kind of party at the Javits Center on election day rather than days in advance." Nope, I suspect that's the one. Sorry about the time-frame lapse. Should have Googled it myself.
- redleggedfrog 8y ago
  "Nope, I suspect that's the one. Sorry about the time-frame lapse. Should have Googled it myself." I just got hit on the head with the irony on that. Thanks chasingthewind I got a good laugh.
jmgao 8y ago
Some googling seems to indicate that they cancelled a fireworks display: https://nypost.com/2016/11/07/clinton-calls-off-election-night-fireworks/ https://nypost.com/2016/11/07/clinton-calls-off-election-nig...