3 ms·

> Here's a common set of "subjective facts": "Policy X will help group Y in manner Z." along with "Politician A voted against X and therefore hates Y." That's

> Here's a common set of "subjective facts": "Policy X will help group Y in manner Z." along with "Politician A voted against X and therefore hates Y." That's just a logical fallacy. By definition a fact can only be objective, otherwise it's simply an opinion.

mistermann 7y ago
> That's just a logical fallacy. Which is presented as a fact by the media.....which is consumed by readers and mentally filed under "fact", and subsequently used by subconscious heuristics in future evaluations of reality, producing more "facts" which are transmitted throughout their network of acquaintances, infecting more subconscious heuristics, and round and round we go. It's interesting that many here at HN expect the general public to up their epistemological game, when all of us here have the same infected heuristics as them (if to a lesser degree), and routinely behave in similar ways. The question on my mind lately is: how might this situation be improved, first here at HN, and then maybe later throughout the rest of society? We've got a bunch of bright minds here, it might be interesting if we acknowledged this problem and set our collective minds to finding a solution.
- mtberatwork 7y ago
  > Which is presented as a fact by the media..... > The question on my mind lately is: how might this situation be improved, first here at HN I would first suggest not applying such a broad brush stroke to all players in "the media". It's a false-equivalence to say the least.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    A fair angle of criticism, but while I'm no expert, I feel fairly confident asserting (with no proof of course) that "the media", with few exceptions, routinely reports on complex matters in a way that is extremely misleading. Granted, this is not entirely their fault, not by a long shot. They are tasked with conveying extremely complex information to the masses, at a level that is understandable to some sort of lowest common denominator, using human created languages that optimize for pragmatism (and are therefore flawed in various ways: nuance, accuracy, bandwidth, etc), across various mediums that each have their own limitations, all in a limited time frame that must also make room for other pressing topics. It shouldn't be too surprising that the end result is less than perfect.

mistermann 7y ago

> That's just a logical fallacy. Which is presented as a fact by the media.....which is consumed by readers and mentally filed under "fact", and subsequently used by subconscious heuristics in future evaluations of reality, producing more "facts" which are transmitted throughout their network of acquaintances, infecting more subconscious heuristics, and round and round we go. It's interesting that many here at HN expect the general public to up their epistemological game, when all of us here have the same infected heuristics as them (if to a lesser degree), and routinely behave in similar ways. The question on my mind lately is: how might this situation be improved, first here at HN, and then maybe later throughout the rest of society? We've got a bunch of bright minds here, it might be interesting if we acknowledged this problem and set our collective minds to finding a solution.

mtberatwork 7y ago
> Which is presented as a fact by the media..... > The question on my mind lately is: how might this situation be improved, first here at HN I would first suggest not applying such a broad brush stroke to all players in "the media". It's a false-equivalence to say the least.
- mistermann 7y ago
  A fair angle of criticism, but while I'm no expert, I feel fairly confident asserting (with no proof of course) that "the media", with few exceptions, routinely reports on complex matters in a way that is extremely misleading. Granted, this is not entirely their fault, not by a long shot. They are tasked with conveying extremely complex information to the masses, at a level that is understandable to some sort of lowest common denominator, using human created languages that optimize for pragmatism (and are therefore flawed in various ways: nuance, accuracy, bandwidth, etc), across various mediums that each have their own limitations, all in a limited time frame that must also make room for other pressing topics. It shouldn't be too surprising that the end result is less than perfect.