4 ms·

It's even worse than that, their sentence after the quote implies PG said something about FB stock. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1236980342667575296?s=20 h

It's even worse than that, their sentence after the quote implies PG said something about FB stock. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1236980342667575296?s=20 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1236980342667575296?s=20 The NYT writer isn't mistakenly summarizing, they're actively misleading. They had to read through PG's post and selectively pick a line that they could stuff into the position they already had, to say the thing they already wanted to say. It's just motivated reasoning and the primary sources aren't being used as sources beyond something they can vaguely mention to pretend it supports what they wanted to say anyway. That isn't journalism - or at least it shouldn't be.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jimkleiber 6y ago
When I first read it, I didn't get the impression that the author was implying PG said FB stock wouldn't go up. In reading the PG post, it seems that a conversation with prominent investor, who was confident that FB's bad stock performance would hurt the IPO, led PG to write a post exploring how that may happen. In re-reading the NYT blurb, I still don't see it as the author saying PG said the FB stock would not go up but rather as the author believed that PG said that "start-up investments would dry up." And I think it's in that last sentence, in particular, the third to last word, "would," where the majority of the problem lies. PG in his post included a tremendous amount of ifs, mays, and qualifying statements talking about how he wasn't sure in which direction it would go. The NYT author, I think, just changed his uncertainty into certainty, both with putting "would" in that last sentence, and removing the "If you haven't raised money yet," part of the quoted link. So, I see it as the author attributing more certainty to PG than he had in his post, and yet, at the end of the author's post, saying that there is less certainty about this, "The party can’t go on forever, but the infamous question must be asked: Is this time different?" By you saying, "they're actively misleading," I'm assuming you're attributing malice to the NYT author. I guess I just see journalists and politicians (and many people in general) speaking with an utmost certainty on behalf of people who speak with qualifications and attribute it more to the desire to condense words and present a confident argument than the former. Qualifying statements often use a lot of words. I like to qualify most things that I say and I think journalists and editors often remove them out of seeing them as extraneous—e.g., removing the "I'm assuming", "I guess", "often", "most", and "I think" out of the previous paragraph.
- fossuser 6y ago
  > "By you saying, "they're actively misleading," I'm assuming you're attributing malice to the NYT author." Not so much malice, but having what they want to say predetermined and looking to frame support in what they already believe to be true. (Rather than trying to find out what's true and reporting that). Basically the writer believes X to be true or wants to write a story that X is true and digs through things to find quotes they can narrowly pull to support X.
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    Ahhh, yes, I think that may have been the case. I still think if the author just put "might" instead of "would," then the article would be quite accurate. However, to your point, I find myself doing that sometimes without even realizing it and I wonder what drives it internally and externally.
    - fossuser 6y ago
      Me too, I think to some extent everyone does it and learning to recognize your own motivated reasoning and pushing back against it is an important way to think better. I think motivated reasoning is probably the default behavior (and once you start looking for it, you see it everywhere). This post dives into it a bit: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/34XxbRFe54FycoCDw/the-bottom-line https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/34XxbRFe54FycoCDw/the-bottom... Just because an argument comes from motivated reasoning doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but I think it's more likely to be wrong (and it's also likely to be framed in a misleading way or ignoring good contradictory examples). It's also hard to discuss things with the person to learn what's true because they're often not arguing in good faith. I think this is actually a reason people are often skeptical of debate (since a clever arguer can argue a wrong position and win against someone who is right, but not as good at manipulating rhetorical devices). Also why lawyers can have a bad reputation. People can know something is wrong, but may themselves be bad at articulating why. Other people that are wrong may be good at making themselves seem right. The smarter the person is the more they can effectively rationalize bullshit. A good example of this is Ben Shapiro and a lot of his arguments (particularly the ones I've seen around religion/abortion) are mostly motivated reasoning nonsense. That said, while this may be true on an individual level debate should still be true at scale (the best argument from one side should still be pitted against the best argument from another). I think this is what free society and liberal democracy is all about.
buisi 6y ago
Sadly, NYT does this frequently to push their own ends. In one story, they tried really hard to push for authoritarian laws to protect children and ended up wading through history to find a retracted and discredited paper. All this to make criminals look more dangerous than they actually are. They even admitted it was an old retracted paper in the article. But downplayed it. If the evidence was so solid, they could have cited a more recent paper of higher prestige.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jimkleiber 6y ago

When I first read it, I didn't get the impression that the author was implying PG said FB stock wouldn't go up. In reading the PG post, it seems that a conversation with prominent investor, who was confident that FB's bad stock performance would hurt the IPO, led PG to write a post exploring how that may happen. In re-reading the NYT blurb, I still don't see it as the author saying PG said the FB stock would not go up but rather as the author believed that PG said that "start-up investments would dry up." And I think it's in that last sentence, in particular, the third to last word, "would," where the majority of the problem lies. PG in his post included a tremendous amount of ifs, mays, and qualifying statements talking about how he wasn't sure in which direction it would go. The NYT author, I think, just changed his uncertainty into certainty, both with putting "would" in that last sentence, and removing the "If you haven't raised money yet," part of the quoted link. So, I see it as the author attributing more certainty to PG than he had in his post, and yet, at the end of the author's post, saying that there is less certainty about this, "The party can’t go on forever, but the infamous question must be asked: Is this time different?" By you saying, "they're actively misleading," I'm assuming you're attributing malice to the NYT author. I guess I just see journalists and politicians (and many people in general) speaking with an utmost certainty on behalf of people who speak with qualifications and attribute it more to the desire to condense words and present a confident argument than the former. Qualifying statements often use a lot of words. I like to qualify most things that I say and I think journalists and editors often remove them out of seeing them as extraneous—e.g., removing the "I'm assuming", "I guess", "often", "most", and "I think" out of the previous paragraph.

fossuser 6y ago
> "By you saying, "they're actively misleading," I'm assuming you're attributing malice to the NYT author." Not so much malice, but having what they want to say predetermined and looking to frame support in what they already believe to be true. (Rather than trying to find out what's true and reporting that). Basically the writer believes X to be true or wants to write a story that X is true and digs through things to find quotes they can narrowly pull to support X.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  Ahhh, yes, I think that may have been the case. I still think if the author just put "might" instead of "would," then the article would be quite accurate. However, to your point, I find myself doing that sometimes without even realizing it and I wonder what drives it internally and externally.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Me too, I think to some extent everyone does it and learning to recognize your own motivated reasoning and pushing back against it is an important way to think better. I think motivated reasoning is probably the default behavior (and once you start looking for it, you see it everywhere). This post dives into it a bit: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/34XxbRFe54FycoCDw/the-bottom-line https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/34XxbRFe54FycoCDw/the-bottom... Just because an argument comes from motivated reasoning doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but I think it's more likely to be wrong (and it's also likely to be framed in a misleading way or ignoring good contradictory examples). It's also hard to discuss things with the person to learn what's true because they're often not arguing in good faith. I think this is actually a reason people are often skeptical of debate (since a clever arguer can argue a wrong position and win against someone who is right, but not as good at manipulating rhetorical devices). Also why lawyers can have a bad reputation. People can know something is wrong, but may themselves be bad at articulating why. Other people that are wrong may be good at making themselves seem right. The smarter the person is the more they can effectively rationalize bullshit. A good example of this is Ben Shapiro and a lot of his arguments (particularly the ones I've seen around religion/abortion) are mostly motivated reasoning nonsense. That said, while this may be true on an individual level debate should still be true at scale (the best argument from one side should still be pitted against the best argument from another). I think this is what free society and liberal democracy is all about.

buisi 6y ago

Sadly, NYT does this frequently to push their own ends. In one story, they tried really hard to push for authoritarian laws to protect children and ended up wading through history to find a retracted and discredited paper. All this to make criminals look more dangerous than they actually are. They even admitted it was an old retracted paper in the article. But downplayed it. If the evidence was so solid, they could have cited a more recent paper of higher prestige.