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"Forget about the Syrian civil war hype, the number of violent deaths globally have gone down!" I hope everyone gets the point that you can drown a serious neg

"Forget about the Syrian civil war hype, the number of violent deaths globally have gone down!" I hope everyone gets the point that you can drown a serious negative trend in a much larger set of unrelated data (how related is the incidence of fires in Ruussia with those in Brazil? I don't know, lets combine them anyway!). I hope I get to live to the point where this sort of sensationalist trash headline isn't the most common type online.

el_cujo 7y ago
>how related is the incidence of fires in Ruussia with those in Brazil? I don't know, lets combine them anyway! If the "hype" the author is crusading against is the idea that the Amazon fire is killing the planet's lungs and will result in an apocalypse or whatever, then isn't it fair to look at incidence of forest fires all over the world? The author is definitely being a contrarian and the headline is clickbait, but a lot of people in this thread are railing against the author saying nobody should care about the Amazon fire and that it's not a big deal, when really he's just arguing that the media is sensationalizing aspects of the ordeal to sell papers/subscriptions/views. You can care about/report on the story without going nuts on headlines saying the world is ending.
- dictum 7y ago
  > a lot of people in this thread are railing against the author saying nobody should care about the Amazon fire and that it's not a big deal Any newspiece that can have a political angle, regardless of the textual content and the author's intentions, will have its potential political angle explored by other agents. Case in point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789081 So it must be read between the lines, even though that can muddy the technical/factual debate. A more sophisticated reading of such a piece must take into account how people will perceive it, and what actions may come from it. Especially in the US (which may not be an exception — I just follow it more closely) a lot of news organizations seem to operate with a "news you can use" viewpoint: these are the facts, here's how to act in face of these facts. Readers are primed to change their minds after being presented with a set of facts. It's akin to overwriting data that should have been appended to existing data[0]. [0]: I'm dealing with data recovery, so this metaphor may be topical to me, but not entirely useful.
drivebycomment 7y ago
The headline is a factual statement. Also, the data says globally Earth is seeing a reforestration, not deforestration. That doesn't mean there's no localized deforestration, nor we should stop fighting against deforestration everywhere. But it also means it's not all doom-and-gloom. The article is exactly the kind of anti-sensationalist article that brings the proper context and data to the forefront and highlights the actual challenges. EDIT: Per advice, removed unnecessary part.
- richrichardsson 7y ago
  > Have you actually read the article ? I would edit this part out of your reply, it's unnecassary to your point, goes against the rules of HN and will invite downvotes.
- dictum 7y ago
  > I don't see how trying to tell the truth about something can be equated with trying to downplay the situation or encouraging people not to bother about it. Because it's a red herring. It's a very common form of red herring, to be precise: taking averaged measurements of a whole set to infer information about a single element. The converse is also a red herring; inferring information about a set by analyzing only a single, cherry picked member. "Fires Globally" includes "Fires in the region X of country Y", but doesn't take into account the specific importance of that region, the trends over time, what's going to happen to surrounding regions in the future... (For a quick metaphor: You have 99.5%~99.8% of your body in perfect working order when your eyes have just been gouged.)
  - drivebycomment 7y ago
    It's not a red herring if we're discussing a global trend, and contributing factors to it. And we are discussing a global trend, or at least the article is a criticism against other sensationalist trends to make everything look like doom-and-gloom globally. A global trend and a local trend contradicting with each other doesn't make the global trend a red herring, and putting forward the global trend to better understand the local trend in the context is not a bad thing. Nowhere in the article suggests we should stop doing things in Amazon.
navigatesol 7y ago
>I hope everyone gets the point that you can drown a serious negative trend in a much larger set of unrelated data A single data point is not a trend. You have it completely backwards: just because there is violence in a particular state, doesn't mean the world is going to shit. >sensationalist trash Facts are sensationalist trash? As opposed to the flurry of articles lately telling us the world is ending?

el_cujo 7y ago

>how related is the incidence of fires in Ruussia with those in Brazil? I don't know, lets combine them anyway! If the "hype" the author is crusading against is the idea that the Amazon fire is killing the planet's lungs and will result in an apocalypse or whatever, then isn't it fair to look at incidence of forest fires all over the world? The author is definitely being a contrarian and the headline is clickbait, but a lot of people in this thread are railing against the author saying nobody should care about the Amazon fire and that it's not a big deal, when really he's just arguing that the media is sensationalizing aspects of the ordeal to sell papers/subscriptions/views. You can care about/report on the story without going nuts on headlines saying the world is ending.

dictum 7y ago
> a lot of people in this thread are railing against the author saying nobody should care about the Amazon fire and that it's not a big deal Any newspiece that can have a political angle, regardless of the textual content and the author's intentions, will have its potential political angle explored by other agents. Case in point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789081 So it must be read between the lines, even though that can muddy the technical/factual debate. A more sophisticated reading of such a piece must take into account how people will perceive it, and what actions may come from it. Especially in the US (which may not be an exception — I just follow it more closely) a lot of news organizations seem to operate with a "news you can use" viewpoint: these are the facts, here's how to act in face of these facts. Readers are primed to change their minds after being presented with a set of facts. It's akin to overwriting data that should have been appended to existing data[0]. [0]: I'm dealing with data recovery, so this metaphor may be topical to me, but not entirely useful.

drivebycomment 7y ago

The headline is a factual statement. Also, the data says globally Earth is seeing a reforestration, not deforestration. That doesn't mean there's no localized deforestration, nor we should stop fighting against deforestration everywhere. But it also means it's not all doom-and-gloom. The article is exactly the kind of anti-sensationalist article that brings the proper context and data to the forefront and highlights the actual challenges. EDIT: Per advice, removed unnecessary part.

richrichardsson 7y ago
> Have you actually read the article ? I would edit this part out of your reply, it's unnecassary to your point, goes against the rules of HN and will invite downvotes.
dictum 7y ago
> I don't see how trying to tell the truth about something can be equated with trying to downplay the situation or encouraging people not to bother about it. Because it's a red herring. It's a very common form of red herring, to be precise: taking averaged measurements of a whole set to infer information about a single element. The converse is also a red herring; inferring information about a set by analyzing only a single, cherry picked member. "Fires Globally" includes "Fires in the region X of country Y", but doesn't take into account the specific importance of that region, the trends over time, what's going to happen to surrounding regions in the future... (For a quick metaphor: You have 99.5%~99.8% of your body in perfect working order when your eyes have just been gouged.)
- drivebycomment 7y ago
  It's not a red herring if we're discussing a global trend, and contributing factors to it. And we are discussing a global trend, or at least the article is a criticism against other sensationalist trends to make everything look like doom-and-gloom globally. A global trend and a local trend contradicting with each other doesn't make the global trend a red herring, and putting forward the global trend to better understand the local trend in the context is not a bad thing. Nowhere in the article suggests we should stop doing things in Amazon.

navigatesol 7y ago

>I hope everyone gets the point that you can drown a serious negative trend in a much larger set of unrelated data A single data point is not a trend. You have it completely backwards: just because there is violence in a particular state, doesn't mean the world is going to shit. >sensationalist trash Facts are sensationalist trash? As opposed to the flurry of articles lately telling us the world is ending?