4 ms·

Too Good to Check

64 points by KeepTalking 16y ago

carbocation 16y ago
I understand that willful ignorance and propagation of false facts is an important issue. However, the reason that the story propagated so widely ends up being mostly political and doesn't really pique my hacker fancy.
- colanderman 16y ago
  I'd say on the contrary. Right-wing pundits have gotten very good at hacking the social system, of which this is an example. It's an unfortunate truth that humans tend to believe things they hear repeated, regardless of the context. This makes countering a lie very difficult, since every time you state that the lie is not true, you're just subconsciously reinforcing its truth in the minds of many people. The best way to counter a lie is by stating the facts and avoiding mentioning the lie altogether, but in this case the White House refused to divulge a concrete number. The $200 million figure was allowed to propagate unchecked.
- reduxredacted 16y ago
  Agreed. There's this nice gray area about what is "politics" and what is "politics, but with a huge element of ..." (I really paused for a second looking for the right words, and not coming up with it, I'll take your words if you don't mind: "hacker fancy"). When submitting, it would be nice if folks asked the question Would you find this interesting if you were diametrically opposed to the political or religious elements of this article/post? If the answer is yes than it's likely fantastic, if it's no then it's likely to be seen as tea party/%palin%/%obama/SEIU/ACORN/Fox News/MSNBC/ZOMDL! Hacker News does a pretty good job of weeding this sort of stuff out, and I'm guessing this one will float off soon enough.
noahth 16y ago
Is a recap of a TV show really worthy of an NYT op-ed slot? And is it really worth posting here? IMO, no on both counts.
- rewind 16y ago
  Then flag it.
zone411 16y ago
I don't disagree with the general premise of this article but I find it ironic that Friedman says "Cooper also pointed out that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the entire war effort in Afghanistan was costing about $190 million a day and that President Bill Clinton’s 1998 trip to Africa with 1,300 people and of roughly similar duration, cost, according to the Government Accountability Office and adjusted for inflation, about $5.2 million a day," without mentioning that this CBO report specifically excludes the costs of the Secret Service and that the security costs after the 9/11 are likely significantly greater than what they were previously. $5.2 million/day is likely just as bad a number as $200 million/day, yet Friendman repeats is without stipulations, just like Bachmann did.
- Retric 16y ago
  How on earth can you think that spending 40x as much money is just as bad?
  - zone411 16y ago
    You missed the point. The estimate is just as bad. I wasn't talking about the amount of money spent.
- cwp 16y ago
  If you want to dispute the numbers, fine. But it's ridiculous to accuse Friedman of the same dishonesty as Bachmann. First, he explicitly said he doesn't know the real cost of the trip, and explained how he arrived at his estimate. Second, his source is a lot more authoritative than Bachmann's: the GAO, a department of the U.S. government whose raison d'être is to monitor government spending, vs an unnamed Indian official cited by an Indian reporter. Third, he provides context that helps his readers understand the scale of the numbers being thrown around - are we really to believe that this trip is spending money faster than the war effort in Afghanistan? Do we really think Obama is spending 40 times as much as Clinton did for a similar trip? Friedman may well be wrong, but I'll take his number over Bachmann's any day of the week.
  - 16y ago
aidenn0 16y ago
200M Indian rupees is about 4.5M USD, that might explain the rumor.
Aloisius 16y ago
The brilliance of this tactic is that if you repeat some outrageous number, the only way to defend it is to produce the real number which is bound to still be quite large. You can't respond with, "It is only $5 million/day!" because that is still a lot of money. It doesn't matter if every President does it to these people. What matters is that they get to demonize Obama.
- rewind 16y ago
  Agreed, but $5 million a day is a lot for you and your family to take a vacation. It is NOTHING when the POTUS is on an international trip. Anyone who thinks that is a big number relative to what it's for is completely out of touch with reality, and you'll have a hard time arguing about ANYTHING with them when they don't even have a basic understanding of the way the world works.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    It may be unrealistic, but personally I can't fault them for having a problem wasting that much money -- there really isn't a reason he should need thousands of people, 10% of that should have been enough. But hey, if you don't have to pay the bill you might as well enjoy the show.
    - rewind 16y ago
      The "thousands" figure is part of the bullshit. Clinton did it with about 1,300 people. That is far from "thousands". They talk about this in the article. And I'm curious what your experience and understanding of how that all works is to be able to say something like "10% of that should have been enough". I'm not being antagonistic. I'm genuinely curious if you understand the role that all people on this trip play, and how 90% of them could, in your opinion, be eliminated.
damoncali 16y ago
What is interesting about this is that the huge numbers being thrown around by the gorvernment for the last three (or so) years have numbed us to the point where such an absurd number as $200M/day does not trip the BS meter at first utterance.
tomjen3 16y ago
Pretty smartly done - but the White House could easily have saved it if they had told the actual number, now they just look like idiots. And if the right wing really wanted the story to stick, they should have invented a much, much more accurate number: $191.635.000 sounds much more impressive and accurate than $200 million.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  The right wing will gleefully call a complex planetarium projector an "overhead projector". They don't care about being accurate, and accuracy isn't needed for their stories to stick. They've pretty much checked out of reality and into World of GOPcraft.

64 points by KeepTalking 16y ago

I understand that willful ignorance and propagation of false facts is an important issue. However, the reason that the story propagated so widely ends up being mostly political and doesn't really pique my hacker fancy.

colanderman 16y ago
I'd say on the contrary. Right-wing pundits have gotten very good at hacking the social system, of which this is an example. It's an unfortunate truth that humans tend to believe things they hear repeated, regardless of the context. This makes countering a lie very difficult, since every time you state that the lie is not true, you're just subconsciously reinforcing its truth in the minds of many people. The best way to counter a lie is by stating the facts and avoiding mentioning the lie altogether, but in this case the White House refused to divulge a concrete number. The $200 million figure was allowed to propagate unchecked.
reduxredacted 16y ago
Agreed. There's this nice gray area about what is "politics" and what is "politics, but with a huge element of ..." (I really paused for a second looking for the right words, and not coming up with it, I'll take your words if you don't mind: "hacker fancy"). When submitting, it would be nice if folks asked the question Would you find this interesting if you were diametrically opposed to the political or religious elements of this article/post? If the answer is yes than it's likely fantastic, if it's no then it's likely to be seen as tea party/%palin%/%obama/SEIU/ACORN/Fox News/MSNBC/ZOMDL! Hacker News does a pretty good job of weeding this sort of stuff out, and I'm guessing this one will float off soon enough.

noahth 16y ago

Is a recap of a TV show really worthy of an NYT op-ed slot? And is it really worth posting here? IMO, no on both counts.

rewind 16y ago
Then flag it.

zone411 16y ago

I don't disagree with the general premise of this article but I find it ironic that Friedman says "Cooper also pointed out that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the entire war effort in Afghanistan was costing about $190 million a day and that President Bill Clinton’s 1998 trip to Africa with 1,300 people and of roughly similar duration, cost, according to the Government Accountability Office and adjusted for inflation, about $5.2 million a day," without mentioning that this CBO report specifically excludes the costs of the Secret Service and that the security costs after the 9/11 are likely significantly greater than what they were previously. $5.2 million/day is likely just as bad a number as $200 million/day, yet Friendman repeats is without stipulations, just like Bachmann did.

Retric 16y ago
How on earth can you think that spending 40x as much money is just as bad?
- zone411 16y ago
  You missed the point. The estimate is just as bad. I wasn't talking about the amount of money spent.
cwp 16y ago
If you want to dispute the numbers, fine. But it's ridiculous to accuse Friedman of the same dishonesty as Bachmann. First, he explicitly said he doesn't know the real cost of the trip, and explained how he arrived at his estimate. Second, his source is a lot more authoritative than Bachmann's: the GAO, a department of the U.S. government whose raison d'être is to monitor government spending, vs an unnamed Indian official cited by an Indian reporter. Third, he provides context that helps his readers understand the scale of the numbers being thrown around - are we really to believe that this trip is spending money faster than the war effort in Afghanistan? Do we really think Obama is spending 40 times as much as Clinton did for a similar trip? Friedman may well be wrong, but I'll take his number over Bachmann's any day of the week.
- 16y ago

aidenn0 16y ago

200M Indian rupees is about 4.5M USD, that might explain the rumor.

Aloisius 16y ago

The brilliance of this tactic is that if you repeat some outrageous number, the only way to defend it is to produce the real number which is bound to still be quite large. You can't respond with, "It is only $5 million/day!" because that is still a lot of money. It doesn't matter if every President does it to these people. What matters is that they get to demonize Obama.

rewind 16y ago
Agreed, but $5 million a day is a lot for you and your family to take a vacation. It is NOTHING when the POTUS is on an international trip. Anyone who thinks that is a big number relative to what it's for is completely out of touch with reality, and you'll have a hard time arguing about ANYTHING with them when they don't even have a basic understanding of the way the world works.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  It may be unrealistic, but personally I can't fault them for having a problem wasting that much money -- there really isn't a reason he should need thousands of people, 10% of that should have been enough. But hey, if you don't have to pay the bill you might as well enjoy the show.
  - rewind 16y ago
    The "thousands" figure is part of the bullshit. Clinton did it with about 1,300 people. That is far from "thousands". They talk about this in the article. And I'm curious what your experience and understanding of how that all works is to be able to say something like "10% of that should have been enough". I'm not being antagonistic. I'm genuinely curious if you understand the role that all people on this trip play, and how 90% of them could, in your opinion, be eliminated.

damoncali 16y ago

What is interesting about this is that the huge numbers being thrown around by the gorvernment for the last three (or so) years have numbed us to the point where such an absurd number as $200M/day does not trip the BS meter at first utterance.

tomjen3 16y ago

Pretty smartly done - but the White House could easily have saved it if they had told the actual number, now they just look like idiots. And if the right wing really wanted the story to stick, they should have invented a much, much more accurate number: $191.635.000 sounds much more impressive and accurate than $200 million.

jonhendry 16y ago
The right wing will gleefully call a complex planetarium projector an "overhead projector". They don't care about being accurate, and accuracy isn't needed for their stories to stick. They've pretty much checked out of reality and into World of GOPcraft.