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> These days, I don't trust... The goal of the new style autocrats and their advocates is not a particular propaganda line but to create doubt in reality based

> These days, I don't trust... The goal of the new style autocrats and their advocates is not a particular propaganda line but to create doubt in reality based information sources. Individuals can follow rabbit holes until the find the story that matches their previously held world view and so guarantee supporters never defect. For example, you can always find an obscure website "proving" climate change is a hoax. If you now distrust reputable sources and weight every site roughly equally, you could easily convince yourself that no one knows if there is climate change or not.

afiori 7y ago
> For example, you can always find an obscure website "proving" climate change is a hoax. But according to the assumption then you check their own sources and their validity. Also while the "climate change is an hoax" is little more than a conspiracy theory in terms of validity, some prediction have been proven false. All together climate change is an undeniable truth, singularly each prediction is far from undeniable on average. > If you now distrust reputable sources Considering the frequency of retractions on reputable sources (especially in bombshell articles e.g. the last scoop on Kavanaugh where the NYT forgot to mention that the main witness apparently did not remember the event) you are better off with a weighted average of various source where you try and factor in each source bias.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  That main witness "bombshell" is not remotely what is written in the NYT. It is what Fox news _says_ the NYT wrote knowing the audience will never actually read the article. And is in fact a rather blatant example of undermining reality based media as an "enemy of the people" >Considering the frequency of retraction What, even approximately, is the rate of retraction? And more generally, note the irony that if honest journals correct errors, it is portrayed as proof of conspiracy yet those outlets that don't (or "double down") are considered reliable. Perhaps the NYT should follow politicians and the lower grade media and aggressively deny anything that makes them look bad.
  - afiori 7y ago
    > What, even approximately, is the rate of retraction? On RussiaGate? pretty high. On the Covington MAGA-wearing kids? A lawsuit. But naked numbers means nothing. We agree that trump tweets a lot of nonsense, if he were to add 10 time more tweets that were true it would not dilute the nonsense of the others. > That main witness "bombshell" is not remotely what is written in the NYT. It is what Fox news _says_ the NYT I read the NYT article (do not remember the exact wording, but I have never opened the fox news one) and the clear picture was that they were reporting the content of a book and that the book was reporting that as facts; what I criticize in the NYT article is the omission about the witness apparently not remembering the story (an omission they had to correct indeed). (As a philosophical aside: I do not want to convince you that "the mainstream media lies", that is not a proposition to me, in the sense that I do not know What a proof or disproof looks like. What I am trying to do is to point out the viewpoint of your outgroup.)

afiori 7y ago

> For example, you can always find an obscure website "proving" climate change is a hoax. But according to the assumption then you check their own sources and their validity. Also while the "climate change is an hoax" is little more than a conspiracy theory in terms of validity, some prediction have been proven false. All together climate change is an undeniable truth, singularly each prediction is far from undeniable on average. > If you now distrust reputable sources Considering the frequency of retractions on reputable sources (especially in bombshell articles e.g. the last scoop on Kavanaugh where the NYT forgot to mention that the main witness apparently did not remember the event) you are better off with a weighted average of various source where you try and factor in each source bias.

TomMckenny 7y ago
That main witness "bombshell" is not remotely what is written in the NYT. It is what Fox news _says_ the NYT wrote knowing the audience will never actually read the article. And is in fact a rather blatant example of undermining reality based media as an "enemy of the people" >Considering the frequency of retraction What, even approximately, is the rate of retraction? And more generally, note the irony that if honest journals correct errors, it is portrayed as proof of conspiracy yet those outlets that don't (or "double down") are considered reliable. Perhaps the NYT should follow politicians and the lower grade media and aggressively deny anything that makes them look bad.
- afiori 7y ago
  > What, even approximately, is the rate of retraction? On RussiaGate? pretty high. On the Covington MAGA-wearing kids? A lawsuit. But naked numbers means nothing. We agree that trump tweets a lot of nonsense, if he were to add 10 time more tweets that were true it would not dilute the nonsense of the others. > That main witness "bombshell" is not remotely what is written in the NYT. It is what Fox news _says_ the NYT I read the NYT article (do not remember the exact wording, but I have never opened the fox news one) and the clear picture was that they were reporting the content of a book and that the book was reporting that as facts; what I criticize in the NYT article is the omission about the witness apparently not remembering the story (an omission they had to correct indeed). (As a philosophical aside: I do not want to convince you that "the mainstream media lies", that is not a proposition to me, in the sense that I do not know What a proof or disproof looks like. What I am trying to do is to point out the viewpoint of your outgroup.)