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that arguably is another form of political bias - if I want to push position A, I will choose the most ridiculous and deranged proponent of position B to imply

that arguably is another form of political bias - if I want to push position A, I will choose the most ridiculous and deranged proponent of position B to imply that "all rational people choose position A". Like on the issue of climate change - there's clearly some fraction of people who choose to deny it completely, but the more meaningful debate at this point is around how much we can do to prevent it, and what approaches might work (iron seeding, carbon sequestration, artificial photosynthesis, planting/algae cultivation, etc). Presenting a climate scientist who advocates a move to solar panels against a conspiracy theorist who thinks climate change is an invention of the new world order to seize control of the manufacturing industry is not a balanced presentation of the available angles.

mrpopo 8y ago
> Presenting a climate scientist who advocates a move to solar panels against a conspiracy theorist who thinks climate change is an invention of the new world order to seize control of the manufacturing industry is not a balanced presentation of the available angles. But this is litterally the position of both camps in the US right now. Donald Trump, Wells Griffith, Jeff Sessions, all have (or had) tremendous power over US energy policies, and they all share (publicly at least) indubitably non-scientific views on the climate change problem.
- purple-again 8y ago
  If you accept that client change is happening, man made, and inevitable, but you believe the best course of action for the United States is to do nothing...do you argue that cold dispassionate position with people that want to open the borders and eliminate capitalism? Or do you double and triple down on denial so your opponents are busy trying to convince you rather than trying to maneuver you into compromise. After all, based on progress so far your strategy has been exceptionally successful.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  I'm aware of that. But then that's a slightly different topic - why do some people believe in climate change where others do not? I mean, I believe in anthropomorphic climate change but that's not because I have read the scientific papers and understood the nuance and the data - it's because I trust that the media is at least reporting in the right ball park, even if the nuance is lacking and the accuracy is minimal. And also that it makes logical sense that we can't just pump chemicals into the atmosphere and the sea at our world-spanning civilisational scale and expect nothing bad to happen. But I think the whole issue comes down to a lack of trust in the media - if I already thought that the media is following a political agenda (or just exaggerating to get more views/shares) and then they started pushing climate change heavily, saying we need to aggressively regulate industries and eliminate blue-collar energy jobs in favour of high-tech clean energy (both generally considered left wing policies/strategies already) I would likely look at that with extreme skepticism. So we're back to the issue of media trustworthiness. I think media needs to earn back the trust of the right in order that climate change reporting be taken seriously. There's still going to be the issue of industry advocates pushing fake science, but that needs a whole different approach to tackle.
  - awinder 8y ago
    > saying we need to aggressively regulate industries and eliminate blue-collar energy jobs in favour of high-tech clean energy (both generally considered left wing policies/strategies already) There’s 180K people employed in oil, coal, and natural gas jobs compared to 370K in solar. From a pure numbers standpoint this is just a completely farscical angle, but it’s a great example of why there is no true media bias problem, but there is a huge problem with stupid people who will believe anything and vote with fear.
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      but you've just proved the point - the industry has shifted in favour of high tech over blue collar. I'm willing to bet that the disparity wasn't the same in the Bush era. I don't personally think it's a conspiracy - as I said, I believe that we need to attempt to counteract anthropomorphic climate change. But the evidence does bear the idea out. The idea that Republicans are all just morons is cancerous as fuck. And I'm British - I have no horse in that race. But seeing Democrats actively promote the idea that Republicans are white trash hillbilly redneck bumpkins with sub-80 IQ makes me really dislike those Democrats. Rather than basically claiming superiority over your political opponents, why not try to understand their position, and the circumstances that lead them to believe things different from what you believe? It's supreme arrogance to think you know everything and your opponents know nothing.
      - bzbarsky 8y ago
        For what it's worth, most of the jobs "in solar" are installers. Very much blue collar (also, fairly dangerous work). Agreed with the rest of your points.
        beaconstudios 8y ago
        yes you do raise a great point actually. I think my mental model for the fuel economy shift is moving from red geographies to blue geographies (with innovation occurring inside universities and cleantech startups, and the majority of solar panels being installed in bluer states) but you're right in that there's still plenty of blue collar work involved.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
It's sometimes just incredible ignorance. You're right a more productive debate is called for though. Case in point. The BBC trotting out Nigel Lawson as their standard puppet to "balance" pieces on climate change appears to have been about presenting the opposite point of view for balance. From a denier happy to spout easily disprovable fake facts, with no knowledge of the science. Every interview with a climate scientist appeared to come with a space for an unqualified denier. I suspect it's far more an indictment of a sad lack of scientific awareness in the BBC than deliberate political bias. Perhaps inevitable now they've been required to outsource so much. Far from demonstrating the absurdity of the denier's position, for many of the public, it gave it credibility. For those with enough scientific awareness, yes his "balance" clearly consisted of cringe-inducing lies. Of course it was made far worse by the BBC taking so long to realise and acknowledge their big mistake. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the memo they had to send around late last year. I suppose cry, I expected much better of them. Maybe a little fact checking too.
0x445442 8y ago
There are credible scientists who disagree with the climate change narrative. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't make them "nut jobs" or "deniers" or any other label you care to attach. Equating folks who don't agree with a lot of climate change assertions with flat earthers is not productive in any way. And I agree with you're analysis; legacy media typically trot out straw men only to signal how superior their view is.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  I wasn't specifically saying all climate change deniers are nut jobs, just that the ones the media trots out often are. I'm not familiar enough with the denial side to evaluate their position - but that's the modern problem isn't it? We have to delegate to a third party to assess ideas for us because we don't have the time or expertise to fully understand every political position. But if that third party becomes biased, it all collapses.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    One: Roy Spencer. The one time I heard him talk, he set off all of my kook alarms in the first few minutes of his lecture.
  - Izkata 8y ago
    > I'm not familiar enough with the denial side to evaluate their position This is sort of third or fourth-hand, so don't just trust it blindly, but what I generally hear is that most of the real "other side" does actually believe climate change is real. They just oppose action because they believe humans aren't the cause, and almost any action we take will be a lot of wasted time and money that could be used better for other things. The problem is that upon hearing that they oppose action, the "climate change is real" people totally ignore their reasons and lump them in with the crazy "climate change isn't real" people.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    Why don't you go investigate the denial side? It will probably only take thirty minutes and might be interesting. I did this once. I had fully accepted the media's narrative that these people were all kooks and idiots, so I was curious what could possibly cause them to think these things. I went and read some of their websites for the same reason I went and read some flat earther websites the other day, for amusement. Unfortunately it turned out that (surprise) journalists had been wildly misleading me about what these people really believe, probably because journalists as a class of people accept intellectual authority without question, especially in the scientific realm. The problem of fraudulent psychology results is one well known example of this. Here's what a lot of "climate change denial" really boils down to: - CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas. We are indeed releasing lots of it. I've yet to see anyone deny this, although I'm sure there are people out there who do. However this is not mainstream "denial". - But we don't really know what effect this is having, or if it's really changing the climate This is where climate change "deniers" separate from journalistic mainstream. They aren't so much in denial as much, much less certain about climate science and its conclusions, to the extent that they often conclude nothing should be done. - This is partly because the climate is too complex to model, and partly because of scientific bias, fraud and malpractice. A lot of climate change denial turns out to be a specific case of more general criticisms of the scientific establishment. Their style of argument can easily be ported to criticisms of social science or economics, with hardly any tweaks. Basically: proclaiming certain doom and that your field of study is the only way to avoid it is a surefire way to get massive amounts of grant money, media coverage and political power. In addition, the "deniers" tend to have lots of evidence of actual serious problems with the science. One recent article I saw pointed out that the thermometer dataset that has been used for over 20 years to measure climate change is full of obvious errors, like temperatures that would be physically impossible or which are clearly the result of bad celsius/Farenheit conversions, or which are taken from thermometers that are literally at the start of airport runways i.e. routinely blasted with jet exhaust. When errors that are obvious to laymen are discovered in critical datasets that have been used for years to make very precise predictions about very complex things, it is reasonable for some people to conclude the science is less certain than journalists present it, and as a consequence that maybe the costs of inaction are lower than has been presented.
50656E6973 8y ago
It's a "strawman". You see this in fake wrestling: a designedly weak contender is set up to get owned by the audience's favorite protagonist
- mattferderer 8y ago
  Do they still do that? I thought that was a 90's thing. Also known as a "Squash Match". If pro wrestling can move on from them, maybe news media should too!
  - deadmetheny 8y ago
    Jobbing is alive and well, especially on the mid-card, but not as prevalent as it used to be.
  - StevePerkins 8y ago
    Of all my random childhood / young-adulthood interests, I never expected a Hacker News tangent discussing this one. The role of "jobbers" or "enhancement talent" (i.e. performers on the show whose role was to make the real stars look good) faded in the mid-1980's. The industry consolidated, from a collection of regional operators focused on live events, to two main companies with national footprints and a focus on television (i.e. WWF and WCW). Competition heated up between the two, and the "squash matches" that had filled out live event cards were not compelling to the newer television audience. With the dawn of The Attitude Era (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_Era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_Era), squash matches became virtually extinct. They had already become more rare in the preceding years. Much of the Attitude Era can be seen as a postmodern deconstruction of the old-school tropes that came before. In this environment, a group of former-"jobbers" even formed an on-screen faction dealing wit the concept (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_J.O.B._Squad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_J.O.B._Squad), which elevated them to moderate stardom by breaking the fourth wall for an increasingly-informed audience. Today, some performers will still never have the same potential for stardom as other top performers. But no one is kept on the roster to always lose. It's too boring, and doesn't really work to enhance the winners. You are correct, of course. The industry changed only because the "mark" fans "smartened up" and demanded it!
jsight 8y ago
Exactly... one of the big problems is trotting out the weakest possible arguments for whatever view opposes your network's preferred narrative.
justin66 8y ago
> Presenting a climate scientist who advocates a move to solar panels against a conspiracy theorist who thinks climate change is an invention of the new world order to seize control of the manufacturing industry is not a balanced presentation of the available angles. Remove the deliberately goofy language you've used ("conspiracy theorist," "new world order") and just say "someone who believes the danger of climate change is not real and is a lie perpetrated by the political left." When you've done that, you have a rather mainstream conservative American position. What you see as deliberately manufactured, idiotic strawmen are sometimes just idiots.

mrpopo 8y ago

> Presenting a climate scientist who advocates a move to solar panels against a conspiracy theorist who thinks climate change is an invention of the new world order to seize control of the manufacturing industry is not a balanced presentation of the available angles. But this is litterally the position of both camps in the US right now. Donald Trump, Wells Griffith, Jeff Sessions, all have (or had) tremendous power over US energy policies, and they all share (publicly at least) indubitably non-scientific views on the climate change problem.

purple-again 8y ago
If you accept that client change is happening, man made, and inevitable, but you believe the best course of action for the United States is to do nothing...do you argue that cold dispassionate position with people that want to open the borders and eliminate capitalism? Or do you double and triple down on denial so your opponents are busy trying to convince you rather than trying to maneuver you into compromise. After all, based on progress so far your strategy has been exceptionally successful.
beaconstudios 8y ago
I'm aware of that. But then that's a slightly different topic - why do some people believe in climate change where others do not? I mean, I believe in anthropomorphic climate change but that's not because I have read the scientific papers and understood the nuance and the data - it's because I trust that the media is at least reporting in the right ball park, even if the nuance is lacking and the accuracy is minimal. And also that it makes logical sense that we can't just pump chemicals into the atmosphere and the sea at our world-spanning civilisational scale and expect nothing bad to happen. But I think the whole issue comes down to a lack of trust in the media - if I already thought that the media is following a political agenda (or just exaggerating to get more views/shares) and then they started pushing climate change heavily, saying we need to aggressively regulate industries and eliminate blue-collar energy jobs in favour of high-tech clean energy (both generally considered left wing policies/strategies already) I would likely look at that with extreme skepticism. So we're back to the issue of media trustworthiness. I think media needs to earn back the trust of the right in order that climate change reporting be taken seriously. There's still going to be the issue of industry advocates pushing fake science, but that needs a whole different approach to tackle.
- awinder 8y ago
  > saying we need to aggressively regulate industries and eliminate blue-collar energy jobs in favour of high-tech clean energy (both generally considered left wing policies/strategies already) There’s 180K people employed in oil, coal, and natural gas jobs compared to 370K in solar. From a pure numbers standpoint this is just a completely farscical angle, but it’s a great example of why there is no true media bias problem, but there is a huge problem with stupid people who will believe anything and vote with fear.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    but you've just proved the point - the industry has shifted in favour of high tech over blue collar. I'm willing to bet that the disparity wasn't the same in the Bush era. I don't personally think it's a conspiracy - as I said, I believe that we need to attempt to counteract anthropomorphic climate change. But the evidence does bear the idea out. The idea that Republicans are all just morons is cancerous as fuck. And I'm British - I have no horse in that race. But seeing Democrats actively promote the idea that Republicans are white trash hillbilly redneck bumpkins with sub-80 IQ makes me really dislike those Democrats. Rather than basically claiming superiority over your political opponents, why not try to understand their position, and the circumstances that lead them to believe things different from what you believe? It's supreme arrogance to think you know everything and your opponents know nothing.
    - bzbarsky 8y ago
      For what it's worth, most of the jobs "in solar" are installers. Very much blue collar (also, fairly dangerous work). Agreed with the rest of your points.
      - beaconstudios 8y ago
        yes you do raise a great point actually. I think my mental model for the fuel economy shift is moving from red geographies to blue geographies (with innovation occurring inside universities and cleantech startups, and the majority of solar panels being installed in bluer states) but you're right in that there's still plenty of blue collar work involved.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

It's sometimes just incredible ignorance. You're right a more productive debate is called for though. Case in point. The BBC trotting out Nigel Lawson as their standard puppet to "balance" pieces on climate change appears to have been about presenting the opposite point of view for balance. From a denier happy to spout easily disprovable fake facts, with no knowledge of the science. Every interview with a climate scientist appeared to come with a space for an unqualified denier. I suspect it's far more an indictment of a sad lack of scientific awareness in the BBC than deliberate political bias. Perhaps inevitable now they've been required to outsource so much. Far from demonstrating the absurdity of the denier's position, for many of the public, it gave it credibility. For those with enough scientific awareness, yes his "balance" clearly consisted of cringe-inducing lies. Of course it was made far worse by the BBC taking so long to realise and acknowledge their big mistake. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the memo they had to send around late last year. I suppose cry, I expected much better of them. Maybe a little fact checking too.

0x445442 8y ago

There are credible scientists who disagree with the climate change narrative. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't make them "nut jobs" or "deniers" or any other label you care to attach. Equating folks who don't agree with a lot of climate change assertions with flat earthers is not productive in any way. And I agree with you're analysis; legacy media typically trot out straw men only to signal how superior their view is.

beaconstudios 8y ago
I wasn't specifically saying all climate change deniers are nut jobs, just that the ones the media trots out often are. I'm not familiar enough with the denial side to evaluate their position - but that's the modern problem isn't it? We have to delegate to a third party to assess ideas for us because we don't have the time or expertise to fully understand every political position. But if that third party becomes biased, it all collapses.
- mcguire 8y ago
  One: Roy Spencer. The one time I heard him talk, he set off all of my kook alarms in the first few minutes of his lecture.
- Izkata 8y ago
  > I'm not familiar enough with the denial side to evaluate their position This is sort of third or fourth-hand, so don't just trust it blindly, but what I generally hear is that most of the real "other side" does actually believe climate change is real. They just oppose action because they believe humans aren't the cause, and almost any action we take will be a lot of wasted time and money that could be used better for other things. The problem is that upon hearing that they oppose action, the "climate change is real" people totally ignore their reasons and lump them in with the crazy "climate change isn't real" people.
- repolfx 8y ago
  Why don't you go investigate the denial side? It will probably only take thirty minutes and might be interesting. I did this once. I had fully accepted the media's narrative that these people were all kooks and idiots, so I was curious what could possibly cause them to think these things. I went and read some of their websites for the same reason I went and read some flat earther websites the other day, for amusement. Unfortunately it turned out that (surprise) journalists had been wildly misleading me about what these people really believe, probably because journalists as a class of people accept intellectual authority without question, especially in the scientific realm. The problem of fraudulent psychology results is one well known example of this. Here's what a lot of "climate change denial" really boils down to: - CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas. We are indeed releasing lots of it. I've yet to see anyone deny this, although I'm sure there are people out there who do. However this is not mainstream "denial". - But we don't really know what effect this is having, or if it's really changing the climate This is where climate change "deniers" separate from journalistic mainstream. They aren't so much in denial as much, much less certain about climate science and its conclusions, to the extent that they often conclude nothing should be done. - This is partly because the climate is too complex to model, and partly because of scientific bias, fraud and malpractice. A lot of climate change denial turns out to be a specific case of more general criticisms of the scientific establishment. Their style of argument can easily be ported to criticisms of social science or economics, with hardly any tweaks. Basically: proclaiming certain doom and that your field of study is the only way to avoid it is a surefire way to get massive amounts of grant money, media coverage and political power. In addition, the "deniers" tend to have lots of evidence of actual serious problems with the science. One recent article I saw pointed out that the thermometer dataset that has been used for over 20 years to measure climate change is full of obvious errors, like temperatures that would be physically impossible or which are clearly the result of bad celsius/Farenheit conversions, or which are taken from thermometers that are literally at the start of airport runways i.e. routinely blasted with jet exhaust. When errors that are obvious to laymen are discovered in critical datasets that have been used for years to make very precise predictions about very complex things, it is reasonable for some people to conclude the science is less certain than journalists present it, and as a consequence that maybe the costs of inaction are lower than has been presented.

50656E6973 8y ago

It's a "strawman". You see this in fake wrestling: a designedly weak contender is set up to get owned by the audience's favorite protagonist

mattferderer 8y ago
Do they still do that? I thought that was a 90's thing. Also known as a "Squash Match". If pro wrestling can move on from them, maybe news media should too!
- deadmetheny 8y ago
  Jobbing is alive and well, especially on the mid-card, but not as prevalent as it used to be.
- StevePerkins 8y ago
  Of all my random childhood / young-adulthood interests, I never expected a Hacker News tangent discussing this one. The role of "jobbers" or "enhancement talent" (i.e. performers on the show whose role was to make the real stars look good) faded in the mid-1980's. The industry consolidated, from a collection of regional operators focused on live events, to two main companies with national footprints and a focus on television (i.e. WWF and WCW). Competition heated up between the two, and the "squash matches" that had filled out live event cards were not compelling to the newer television audience. With the dawn of The Attitude Era (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_Era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_Era), squash matches became virtually extinct. They had already become more rare in the preceding years. Much of the Attitude Era can be seen as a postmodern deconstruction of the old-school tropes that came before. In this environment, a group of former-"jobbers" even formed an on-screen faction dealing wit the concept (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_J.O.B._Squad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_J.O.B._Squad), which elevated them to moderate stardom by breaking the fourth wall for an increasingly-informed audience. Today, some performers will still never have the same potential for stardom as other top performers. But no one is kept on the roster to always lose. It's too boring, and doesn't really work to enhance the winners. You are correct, of course. The industry changed only because the "mark" fans "smartened up" and demanded it!

jsight 8y ago

Exactly... one of the big problems is trotting out the weakest possible arguments for whatever view opposes your network's preferred narrative.

justin66 8y ago

> Presenting a climate scientist who advocates a move to solar panels against a conspiracy theorist who thinks climate change is an invention of the new world order to seize control of the manufacturing industry is not a balanced presentation of the available angles. Remove the deliberately goofy language you've used ("conspiracy theorist," "new world order") and just say "someone who believes the danger of climate change is not real and is a lie perpetrated by the political left." When you've done that, you have a rather mainstream conservative American position. What you see as deliberately manufactured, idiotic strawmen are sometimes just idiots.