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I see what you're saying but I don't agree that they were presenting the officials opinion as fact. The reason we could criticize it in the first place is that

by habnds 7y ago

I see what you're saying but I don't agree that they were presenting the officials opinion as fact. The reason we could criticize it in the first place is that it's clearly the opinion of an official who Politico judged as a credible expert on the matter of how these issues are commonly handled.

mistermann 7y ago
> I see what you're saying but I don't agree that they were presenting the officials opinion as fact I don't think you really see what I'm saying. As literally written, they were presenting that particular section as fact. You may remark that I'm being excessively pedantic and that they were just writing a little sloppily, and you may be right, but at the end of the day the result is the same: each individual's mental model of the world is formed based upon the information they consume, and neither you nor I (nor scientists in the field) really know the effect this style of "news" reporting has on people at both the conscious and subconscious level. Let me ask you this: hypothetically, let's say there was a way to enforce a law outlawing presenting speculation or opinions as if they were facts - do you think this would have an effect on society? I think HN would be a good testing ground for this experiment, but I don't sense much support for the idea.
- habnds 7y ago
  Maybe I don't understand you. Exactly which sentence is presenting an opinion as a fact? I don't think they do so.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > “The reaction ... WAS very different than it WOULD HAVE BEEN in the last administration,” this person said. “With the current administration, there ARE a different set of calculations in regard to addressing THIS.” > The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which LIKELY would have at a very minimum issued a démarche, or formal diplomatic reprimand, to the foreign government (INCLUDING ISRAEL) condemning its actions. I capitalized the key words, as well as changed something from implicit to explicit. The article states that the last administration WOULD HAVE handled this situation different. This statement is epistemically flawed in a variety of ways, one major one being being it requires not just top secret but omniscient knowledge. People have a hard enough time deducing what's actually going on even based on first hand and far simpler interpersonal interactions in their own daily lives, it's no wonder so many people are confused when hundreds of leading articles like this are printed and consumed every day. People already "hallucinate reality", we shouldn't be making it worse. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128725-a-guide-to-why-your-world-is-a-hallucination/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128725-a-guide-to-why-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding EDIT: Perhaps this is where we're not seeing eye to eye: you may be judging/evaluating (see what I did there) this article based on your presumption of the _intent_ of the author, whereas I am talking about the impact of this kind of narrative-over-facts writing style on people's perception of reality, regardless of underlying intent?
    - habnds 7y ago
      The article isn't saying that. It's in quotes becuase they are reporting the words of someone they've deemed to be a reputable source for the topic of standard administration behavior. You may have an issue with that source's opinion, but that's different from having an issue with Politico.
      - mistermann 7y ago
        > The article isn't saying that. It's in quotes becuase they are reporting the words of someone they've deemed to be a reputable source for the topic of standard administration behavior. Very good point. My claim: "Stating speculation as fact...." itself could be described as sloppy. To clarify: factually, Politico is printing the words of a third party - it is a fact (presumably) that this person made that statement. The statement itself is speculation stated as fact, but the speaker bears the direct guilt for that, not Politico. But I'm not pointing my finger so much at Politico for some sort of outrageous bias, in general or in this particular case, but rather the general way that events in reality are communicated to the public, and the way in which this subsequently manifests in society. Even if nothing nefarious has gone on, people perceive reality and the news the way they do (the specifics of which no one fully understands), and I'm suggesting (based largely on observation of apparent beliefs held by people in forums) that narrative and rumor based reporting like this is having a possibly very serious effect on people's perception of reality, the result being some degree of textbook mass delusion or worse in the public, where prior to cable news and the internet the beliefs would generally have been either null or wrong in other ways.
        habnds 7y ago
        You should look up any number of books about how the US got into the Spanish American War in 1898. It's a very long standing problem. I wouldn't describe an expert's opinion as "speculation". Maybe it's becuase you don't agree with their opinion that you see it that way?
        mistermann 7y ago

by habnds 7y ago

mistermann 7y ago

> I see what you're saying but I don't agree that they were presenting the officials opinion as fact I don't think you really see what I'm saying. As literally written, they were presenting that particular section as fact. You may remark that I'm being excessively pedantic and that they were just writing a little sloppily, and you may be right, but at the end of the day the result is the same: each individual's mental model of the world is formed based upon the information they consume, and neither you nor I (nor scientists in the field) really know the effect this style of "news" reporting has on people at both the conscious and subconscious level. Let me ask you this: hypothetically, let's say there was a way to enforce a law outlawing presenting speculation or opinions as if they were facts - do you think this would have an effect on society? I think HN would be a good testing ground for this experiment, but I don't sense much support for the idea.

habnds 7y ago
Maybe I don't understand you. Exactly which sentence is presenting an opinion as a fact? I don't think they do so.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > “The reaction ... WAS very different than it WOULD HAVE BEEN in the last administration,” this person said. “With the current administration, there ARE a different set of calculations in regard to addressing THIS.” > The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which LIKELY would have at a very minimum issued a démarche, or formal diplomatic reprimand, to the foreign government (INCLUDING ISRAEL) condemning its actions. I capitalized the key words, as well as changed something from implicit to explicit. The article states that the last administration WOULD HAVE handled this situation different. This statement is epistemically flawed in a variety of ways, one major one being being it requires not just top secret but omniscient knowledge. People have a hard enough time deducing what's actually going on even based on first hand and far simpler interpersonal interactions in their own daily lives, it's no wonder so many people are confused when hundreds of leading articles like this are printed and consumed every day. People already "hallucinate reality", we shouldn't be making it worse. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128725-a-guide-to-why-your-world-is-a-hallucination/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128725-a-guide-to-why-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding EDIT: Perhaps this is where we're not seeing eye to eye: you may be judging/evaluating (see what I did there) this article based on your presumption of the _intent_ of the author, whereas I am talking about the impact of this kind of narrative-over-facts writing style on people's perception of reality, regardless of underlying intent?
  - habnds 7y ago
    The article isn't saying that. It's in quotes becuase they are reporting the words of someone they've deemed to be a reputable source for the topic of standard administration behavior. You may have an issue with that source's opinion, but that's different from having an issue with Politico.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      > The article isn't saying that. It's in quotes becuase they are reporting the words of someone they've deemed to be a reputable source for the topic of standard administration behavior. Very good point. My claim: "Stating speculation as fact...." itself could be described as sloppy. To clarify: factually, Politico is printing the words of a third party - it is a fact (presumably) that this person made that statement. The statement itself is speculation stated as fact, but the speaker bears the direct guilt for that, not Politico. But I'm not pointing my finger so much at Politico for some sort of outrageous bias, in general or in this particular case, but rather the general way that events in reality are communicated to the public, and the way in which this subsequently manifests in society. Even if nothing nefarious has gone on, people perceive reality and the news the way they do (the specifics of which no one fully understands), and I'm suggesting (based largely on observation of apparent beliefs held by people in forums) that narrative and rumor based reporting like this is having a possibly very serious effect on people's perception of reality, the result being some degree of textbook mass delusion or worse in the public, where prior to cable news and the internet the beliefs would generally have been either null or wrong in other ways.
      - habnds 7y ago
        You should look up any number of books about how the US got into the Spanish American War in 1898. It's a very long standing problem. I wouldn't describe an expert's opinion as "speculation". Maybe it's becuase you don't agree with their opinion that you see it that way?
        mistermann 7y ago