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I really wish I could tell some system who I designate as authorities for given subjects. And then I could see the news annotated by the authorities I chose.
by VikingCoder 8y ago
I really wish I could tell some system who I designate as authorities for given subjects.
And then I could see the news annotated by the authorities I chose. Or by the people they acknowledge have authority over those subjects.
Linus Torvalds is an expert on Linux.
John Carmack is an expert on computer graphics.
Tiger Woods is an expert on Golf.
Al Gore is an expert on Climate Change.
I don't care what Tiger Woods thinks about computer graphics. I don't care what Linus Torvalds thinks about Golf. I don't care what John Carmack thinks about Climate Change.
But if those people that I've identified acknowledge that other people or groups get it "mostly right," and those people have annotated some news article, I desperately want to see their commentary!
And I'd also be curious to learn who I think anti-experts are. When the people I think are authorities endorse an article on that subject, I want to see who condemns that article. And I want to read their commentary for myself. If I think they're loopy, I can flag them as anti-authorities.
And yes, when there's dispute among the people I consider authorities on a given topic, I'll be especially interested to read the debate.
I want to say that I probably trust people who work at the Washington Post to cover world news. I probably trust people at MIT, Cornell, Stanford to cover science. Eventually I'll discover which economic school most agrees with my take.
Yes, this may re-enforce the bubble that I'm in. But like I said, I really do want to read the BEST arguments from people who disagree with my school of experts, too. Flame wars are a giant waste of time. I want to flag a comment, "I disagree, but this is the most persuasive point someone has made." Highlight THOSE comments. Even better are the comments where I can say, "You really turned me around on this one."
I want to flag a comment from either side as, "Hey, can people from both sides please comment on this? This seems like it's interesting."
I want to have Line Item Veto. To comment on specific parts of an article, highlighting them, to say they are for sure true, or they're for sure false, etc.
Let the media have the chance to revise and correct their article. Hell, even fixing spelling and grammar mistakes is valuable.
Note that I desperately want this same kind of annotation for research papers on arXiv, etc.
I think I'd want it to work something like Google SideWiki, or maybe Disqus?
Won't someone please implement this?
The democracy of upvotes and downvotes on Reddit and Hacker News is a signal, but it can be gamed by bots, and NOT ALL OPINIONS ARE EQUAL.
I don't want the system to TELL me who experts are. Maybe it can suggest experts. But it should damn well include Alex Jones (even though I detest him), and Fox News (even though I think they're the most incorrect major news source).
If Jon Stewart or Dan Rather have something to say about an article?! You can bet your ass I want to read it!
Hell, even linking me to a video of when Stephen Colbert talked about this topic last night adds some value.
I read a blog post from a pediatrician once that I thought was excellent. He lamented roughly, "If you don't trust me to be an authority on vaccines for your child, then I don't know what kind of relationship you think we have." I agree with that. It's not that I think my pediatrician is RIGHT. It's that I grant that they have more authority on the subject than I do, and my world view is to trust scientific authority / consensus. Even though that's ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEE OF CORRECTNESS. I get that. But of the ways to try to understand the world, I prefer to view the world through the lens of scientists. And since we have divisions of labor, and I do not have enough time to become an expert myself, I want help in understanding how the experts I place trust in, how they view the world, and news, etc.
- jngreenlee 8y agoSorry couldn't help but LOL and sorry for getting off-topic. >Al Gore is an expert on Climate Change. Might need to rethink that. He's a fundraiser and tv personality. Think 'evangelist'. It's not evident that he understands complex systems or probabilities better than say, Taleb. AFAIK, so far all his historic projections have been incorrect. This is the danger of 'celebrity'. Similar with Neil DeGasse. That said, I do think it's interesting, what Taleb said about "you should go to a surgeon that doesn't look like a surgeon"...if one can be successful in a field without succumbing to stereotype-aligned but inconsequential norms, they might just know what they are saying, other wise, they'd be the first ones thrown out of the boat by colleagues. Do be careful about reinforcing your own bubble. Much of what you said would have you doing that, vis-a-vie media-based indication of what is 'an expert'.
- jpttsn 8y agoThe Taleb thing (going furter off topic) seems too reliant on an “efficient market.” I bet bad surgeons harm patients at a higher rate than good surgeons throw bad suregons out of the boat. https://forbetterscience.com/2016/02/21/macchiarini-and-karolinska-the-biomedical-ethics-meltdown/ https://forbetterscience.com/2016/02/21/macchiarini-and-karo...
- rurp 8y agoTaleb isn't arguing that someone who doesn't look like a surgeon will necessarily be a good one, just that they are more likely to be good, relative to a surgeon who got there with fewer obstacles.
- VikingCoder 8y agoI am a human with limited time and resources. If you want me to name right now one human being that I trust to guide me in the right direction on Climate Change, it's Al Gore. Al Gore would then, as I have seen him do, put actual scientists up on a pedestal. His most important role would be to help me find the REAL, underlying authorities. I would as likely be to say, "I would likely trust any of the authors of the IPCC." And again, yes, I would trust Neil deGrasse Tyson to help me find authorities. I would have trusted Carl Sagan to help me find authorities. I would trust Bill Nye to help me find authorities. If you picture the world in some kind of N-Dimensional space of authority and ignorance, I think Al Gore, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan, and Bill Nye are pointed in the right direction. And I think they're aware (or were aware) that they were not themselves the sources of that authority, but merely spokespeople for it. I'd start with them. Because I don't honestly know who to REALLY listen to. After I've started on my path, I'd hope to find out the differences within the schools of thought on any given subject. And I'd hope I'd be open to having my mind changed, on anything. I am completely aware of the problem of the bubble. Another thing I want to do is to specifically find people who share ALMOST ALL of my views, but differ with me on some important subject. Because I think a discussion between me and them would be based on shared views, and would be very fruitful. I'd also like people to volunteer information about themselves (aggregated and anonymized), so that I can find out, "Out of US Citizen, Christian, college-educated people earning more than $100k per year, how many of them believe in anthropogenic climate change?" And other questions like that. Yes, huge bias, because of self-reported people, etc. But still. Being able to even sample HN or Reddit on those kinds of questions would be super interesting. And I'd desperately want to keep bots out of this, and I'd often want to filter out people who aren't KNOWN to be from the US or living in the US. Often I'd care what people in other countries think, but often I just don't.