4 ms·

Looks like that entire account is dedicated to attacking Tesla. Can we believe it?

justtopost 8y ago
As opposed to the hundreds astroturfing and greenwahing them? In a war of ideas, give everyone ammo. The truth is never exclusive to one view.
- mikeash 8y ago
  That doesn’t answer my question at all.
- 0_gravitas 8y ago
  Exceptional non-answer
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
Should it matter? You can analyze this disparate piece of evidence independently of the agenda. In fact, you might even say that by putting the cards on the table, at least this source is transparent about which stance of the topic it is taking, giving you opportunity to take care when evaluating single pieces of evidence.. this is possibly better than sources which purport to be fair and balanced and go to greater lengths to obfuscate ways they are tacitly pushing an agenda. I don’t agree with the concept of forming a high-level conclusion about the general nature of a source of information, and then using that to argue that you should not separately carefully analyze disparate pieces of content from that source.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Most of us don’t have the time to perform our own analysis from scratch. So, yes, it matters a great deal.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    If you have the time to make ad hoc Hacker News comments in the weeds about the credibility of a link from a comment from a niche post, then you obviously have enough time to evaluate disparate pieces of evidence instead of trying to discredit them by applying blanket heuristic judgements based on seeming one-sidedness from a glance. Nobody is saying you need so much spare time to rigorously analyze every source. That would be a disingenuous false dilemma. Instead, just apply slightly more effort than your stated dismissive heuristic.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      Who’s trying to discredit them? I just asked if their claims can be believed. I thought “can I trust this random Twitter account” would be a completely standard question, attacked on the basis of “duh, of course you can’t, why would you even ask?” rather than because how dare I impugn the reputation of poor whatshisface instead of spending a couple of hours combing through the evidence for myself.
mhermher 8y ago
You don't believe those cars are? I don't get it. What's to believe or not?
- mikeash 8y ago
  I don’t know if I should believe the analysis. I don’t know if the video being presented is representative or being selectively chosen to tell a story.
  - navigatesol 8y ago
    >I don’t know if I should believe the analysis. What "analysis" is necessary? There are threads of people going around the country, taking photographs of parking and car lots filled to the brim with Teslas. How do you explain it? The cars are made-to-order, I'm assured. Furthermore, I don't understand "can't believe an account that attacks Tesla". What do you believe is more likely: 1. A random person wakes up one day (maybe an Big Oil shill!) and says, 'I think I'm just gonna randomly hate on Tesla, make a bunch of stuff up, and risk my livelihood on the lies'. 2. An investor starts doing due diligence and finds a lot of holes in the Tesla story, then dedicates their online presence to spreading that message. 1 is possible, but I'll bet 2 is far more likely. So many people are going to get a rude awakening if this thing goes down. If I recall correctly, HN loved Theranos too; only after the fraud was revealed did people claim it was obvious.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      Have you observed the internet at all? If the internet were a country, hating would be the national sport. Does that mean this particular guy must be a hater? No, of course not. But there are tons of them out there. A twitter account is pretty mild compared to, for example, the guy who makes a hobby out of filing safety complaints with the NHTSA about random Tesla crashes he sees online. I see no possible comparison to Theranos. HN was skeptical from the start and called out the fraud early. Theranos never had a product. Tesla may have its faults, but there’s no question that they’ve built and sold hundreds of thousands of cars.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

As opposed to the hundreds astroturfing and greenwahing them? In a war of ideas, give everyone ammo. The truth is never exclusive to one view.

mikeash 8y ago
That doesn’t answer my question at all.
0_gravitas 8y ago
Exceptional non-answer
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

Should it matter? You can analyze this disparate piece of evidence independently of the agenda. In fact, you might even say that by putting the cards on the table, at least this source is transparent about which stance of the topic it is taking, giving you opportunity to take care when evaluating single pieces of evidence.. this is possibly better than sources which purport to be fair and balanced and go to greater lengths to obfuscate ways they are tacitly pushing an agenda. I don’t agree with the concept of forming a high-level conclusion about the general nature of a source of information, and then using that to argue that you should not separately carefully analyze disparate pieces of content from that source.

mikeash 8y ago
Most of us don’t have the time to perform our own analysis from scratch. So, yes, it matters a great deal.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  If you have the time to make ad hoc Hacker News comments in the weeds about the credibility of a link from a comment from a niche post, then you obviously have enough time to evaluate disparate pieces of evidence instead of trying to discredit them by applying blanket heuristic judgements based on seeming one-sidedness from a glance. Nobody is saying you need so much spare time to rigorously analyze every source. That would be a disingenuous false dilemma. Instead, just apply slightly more effort than your stated dismissive heuristic.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Who’s trying to discredit them? I just asked if their claims can be believed. I thought “can I trust this random Twitter account” would be a completely standard question, attacked on the basis of “duh, of course you can’t, why would you even ask?” rather than because how dare I impugn the reputation of poor whatshisface instead of spending a couple of hours combing through the evidence for myself.

mhermher 8y ago

You don't believe those cars are? I don't get it. What's to believe or not?

mikeash 8y ago
I don’t know if I should believe the analysis. I don’t know if the video being presented is representative or being selectively chosen to tell a story.
- navigatesol 8y ago
  >I don’t know if I should believe the analysis. What "analysis" is necessary? There are threads of people going around the country, taking photographs of parking and car lots filled to the brim with Teslas. How do you explain it? The cars are made-to-order, I'm assured. Furthermore, I don't understand "can't believe an account that attacks Tesla". What do you believe is more likely: 1. A random person wakes up one day (maybe an Big Oil shill!) and says, 'I think I'm just gonna randomly hate on Tesla, make a bunch of stuff up, and risk my livelihood on the lies'. 2. An investor starts doing due diligence and finds a lot of holes in the Tesla story, then dedicates their online presence to spreading that message. 1 is possible, but I'll bet 2 is far more likely. So many people are going to get a rude awakening if this thing goes down. If I recall correctly, HN loved Theranos too; only after the fraud was revealed did people claim it was obvious.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Have you observed the internet at all? If the internet were a country, hating would be the national sport. Does that mean this particular guy must be a hater? No, of course not. But there are tons of them out there. A twitter account is pretty mild compared to, for example, the guy who makes a hobby out of filing safety complaints with the NHTSA about random Tesla crashes he sees online. I see no possible comparison to Theranos. HN was skeptical from the start and called out the fraud early. Theranos never had a product. Tesla may have its faults, but there’s no question that they’ve built and sold hundreds of thousands of cars.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]