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There's no financial incentive to do fact checking and there is enormous political pressure not to. Ironically, from parties that will thoroughly censor Faceboo

There's no financial incentive to do fact checking and there is enormous political pressure not to. Ironically, from parties that will thoroughly censor Facebook when they can. But more interesting, given much of the thread has somehow become an anti-press tirade, is how easy it has been for the new style autocrats to reuse the cry "Lügenpress!" just by translating it. And while it is becoming increasingly unfashionable to say so; there is such a thing as truth, it is knowable and, there are conscientious people who follow facts wherever they lead and report them.

organsnyder 7y ago
> And while it is becoming increasingly unfashionable to say so; there is such a thing as truth, it is knowable and, there are conscientious people who follow facts wherever they lead and report them. And most of mainstream journalism (as well as many alternative outlets) still strives to do this. Yes, they make mistakes and have their own biases (they are human, after all), and they often have conflicting incentives (they'd like to feed their families) but they really are trying to find the truth. I recently got into in argument with my conservative Christian in-laws about this. It was surreal for me to need to be arguing the position that there is absolute truth out there—even if we can never know for sure in this lifetime. As a progressive millenial, I thought the postmodern post-truth perspective was supposed to be mine!
- brlewis 7y ago
  > there is absolute truth out there—even if we can never know for sure in this lifetime Yes, it does seem strange that they would be opposed. Are you sure they understood your main statement the way I quoted it above?
  - organsnyder 7y ago
    > Yes, it does seem strange that they would be opposed. Are you sure they understood your main statement the way I quoted it above? It was in the context of discussing the Trump administration, especially the impeachment process (how we got there is a long story...). They kept falling back on "there's two sides to every story..." as if that precludes us from attempting to seek truth. I'm sure if pressed, they would agree that objective truth exists (it's hard to be an evangelical Christian and not hold this view). But they seem bewildered at the prospect of actually trying to seek it out. Gaslighting has truly taken its toll.
    - brlewis 7y ago
      I too find it bewildering to uncover the truth when there's evidence on both sides; that's why I made https://en.howtruthful.com/ https://en.howtruthful.com/
      - TomMckenny 7y ago
        We should also distinguish between statements of fact which do have truth value vs statements of opinion which don't. "Is Hillary a bad person?" asks an opinion and has no objectively wrong answer. "Did Hillary run a child abuse ring from a pizza parlor?" is objectively either true or false regardless of how many people believe it. Relativism may have started with the intent of pointing out this distinction (eg the 19th century firm belief that "Primitive societies are bad") before being over generalized.

organsnyder 7y ago

> And while it is becoming increasingly unfashionable to say so; there is such a thing as truth, it is knowable and, there are conscientious people who follow facts wherever they lead and report them. And most of mainstream journalism (as well as many alternative outlets) still strives to do this. Yes, they make mistakes and have their own biases (they are human, after all), and they often have conflicting incentives (they'd like to feed their families) but they really are trying to find the truth. I recently got into in argument with my conservative Christian in-laws about this. It was surreal for me to need to be arguing the position that there is absolute truth out there—even if we can never know for sure in this lifetime. As a progressive millenial, I thought the postmodern post-truth perspective was supposed to be mine!

brlewis 7y ago
> there is absolute truth out there—even if we can never know for sure in this lifetime Yes, it does seem strange that they would be opposed. Are you sure they understood your main statement the way I quoted it above?
- organsnyder 7y ago
  > Yes, it does seem strange that they would be opposed. Are you sure they understood your main statement the way I quoted it above? It was in the context of discussing the Trump administration, especially the impeachment process (how we got there is a long story...). They kept falling back on "there's two sides to every story..." as if that precludes us from attempting to seek truth. I'm sure if pressed, they would agree that objective truth exists (it's hard to be an evangelical Christian and not hold this view). But they seem bewildered at the prospect of actually trying to seek it out. Gaslighting has truly taken its toll.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    I too find it bewildering to uncover the truth when there's evidence on both sides; that's why I made https://en.howtruthful.com/ https://en.howtruthful.com/
    - TomMckenny 7y ago
      We should also distinguish between statements of fact which do have truth value vs statements of opinion which don't. "Is Hillary a bad person?" asks an opinion and has no objectively wrong answer. "Did Hillary run a child abuse ring from a pizza parlor?" is objectively either true or false regardless of how many people believe it. Relativism may have started with the intent of pointing out this distinction (eg the 19th century firm belief that "Primitive societies are bad") before being over generalized.