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A lot of this information is only readily available on websites with a strong environmentalist or anti-nuclear agenda and thus is usually dismissed with comment

A lot of this information is only readily available on websites with a strong environmentalist or anti-nuclear agenda and thus is usually dismissed with comments such as this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2317006 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2317006

zoul 16y ago
That's the problem with most arguments and information in these topics. It seems to me that both sides can come up with information that would require almost a full-time job to reasonably verify. In the end it usually boils down to finding some arguments that fit your subjective point of view…
jrockway 16y ago
I think this is a good comment. If the goal of your organization is to share information, then make that your goal. When the goal is "eliminating all nuclear power from the Universe", then it's hard to take your data seriously, because the reader knows that it's cherry-picked specifically to support their agenda. Bias, even when declared, is bad. An analogy: imagine that there is a really good prosecutor who wins a lot of cases. Great! But what do you think when he says, "my goal is to rid the world of poor people by prosecuting them for capital offenses and ensuring that they are executed". Not as good.
- lutorm 16y ago
  You could entertain the possibility that the reason they are dedicated to eliminating all nuclear power is because they have seen information like that. You can't know a posteriori, of course, but there are actually people who try to make a judgement upon facts. That doesn't mean there aren't arbitrary judgement calls made as part of that decision, of course. Ultimately you have to judge whether you think more expensive power is a worse outcome than the small risk of making a large area somewhere around a nuclear plant uninhabitable, for example. Those are based on values and can't really be decided by facts. So, another analogy would be: Imagine a journalist who is known for speaking out against nuclear power. Asking him for his reasons, he responds: "I've covered the nuclear industry for my entire life, and I've seen the coverups. Those that calculate the risks of nuclear power don't really know how close we've been to disaster many times, and I've come to the conclusion that we can't trust for-profit companies with managing the small risk of real disaster." Would your opinion of him be strengthened, or would you assume that he made up his mind beforehand and only went looking for facts that supported his belief?

zoul 16y ago

That's the problem with most arguments and information in these topics. It seems to me that both sides can come up with information that would require almost a full-time job to reasonably verify. In the end it usually boils down to finding some arguments that fit your subjective point of view…

jrockway 16y ago

I think this is a good comment. If the goal of your organization is to share information, then make that your goal. When the goal is "eliminating all nuclear power from the Universe", then it's hard to take your data seriously, because the reader knows that it's cherry-picked specifically to support their agenda. Bias, even when declared, is bad. An analogy: imagine that there is a really good prosecutor who wins a lot of cases. Great! But what do you think when he says, "my goal is to rid the world of poor people by prosecuting them for capital offenses and ensuring that they are executed". Not as good.

lutorm 16y ago
You could entertain the possibility that the reason they are dedicated to eliminating all nuclear power is because they have seen information like that. You can't know a posteriori, of course, but there are actually people who try to make a judgement upon facts. That doesn't mean there aren't arbitrary judgement calls made as part of that decision, of course. Ultimately you have to judge whether you think more expensive power is a worse outcome than the small risk of making a large area somewhere around a nuclear plant uninhabitable, for example. Those are based on values and can't really be decided by facts. So, another analogy would be: Imagine a journalist who is known for speaking out against nuclear power. Asking him for his reasons, he responds: "I've covered the nuclear industry for my entire life, and I've seen the coverups. Those that calculate the risks of nuclear power don't really know how close we've been to disaster many times, and I've come to the conclusion that we can't trust for-profit companies with managing the small risk of real disaster." Would your opinion of him be strengthened, or would you assume that he made up his mind beforehand and only went looking for facts that supported his belief?