6 ms·

The marketplace is broken. A non-trivial amount of people believe the earth is flat. People are becoming immune to fact-based evidence, because they get to imme

The marketplace is broken. A non-trivial amount of people believe the earth is flat. People are becoming immune to fact-based evidence, because they get to immerse themselves in an alternate universe which tells them that they're right. Soon the ramifications won't be restricted to people shooting up pizza parlors.

quotemstr 6y ago
The marketplace is not broken merely because one party's goods aren't selling. If I make scratchy toilet paper and people don't buy it, it's my fault, not the market's. The fact is that the media elite have little credibility these days among the general public, their wares suck, and people are investigating alternatives. The solution isn't censorship. It's becoming more credible.
- thelastwave 6y ago
  But all the little monkeys don't understand science.
- cpursley 6y ago
  > The solution isn't censorship. It's becoming more credible. This is great. Is it a quote?
  - quotemstr 6y ago
    No. I wrote it just now.
- status_quo69 6y ago
  Why should credibility matter? That is to say, how can the average person know that what they're reading is credible or not to make that determination and say "oh, CNN reported this and it's credible! Must mean that CNN is becoming more credible and I should watch it more because they have a better product" rather than "CNN is reporting this but it doesn't line up with what I want to believe, they must be wrong and not credible". Your metaphor doesn't make sense in a world where news stories are looked at skin deep, where someone doesn't even know that the toilet paper is scratchy it just _looks_ scratchy from the label or uncle Joe told me that it must be scratchy because it's made by Proctor & Gamble.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Credibility matters, because people really do want to base their opinions on facts. CNN existed for two decades before Fox News got popular. That wasn't the case because everyone agreed all the time back then. It was because the media respected its role in society and at least tried to be objective.
    - status_quo69 6y ago
      > people really do want to base their opinions on facts Not really, confirmation bias is a real thing for all human beings. The issue here is that there's a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes a fact. Objectivity in reporting is also subjective, funnily enough. If I consider NPR to be very objective because the dead-pan monotonic voice of the announcer simply says a direct quote from a member of congress, I can talk to a relative who will tell me that same NPR story is biased because they reported on something they don't agree with. > It was because the media respected its role in society and at least tried to be objective. There are _plenty_ of news outlets that still respect their role in society. The difference is that 20-30 years ago, there wasn't a deluge of information or misinformation readily available to get those dopamine hits from confirming biases.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        > There are _plenty_ of news outlets that still respect their role in society. Like?
        status_quo69 6y ago
        I doubt that compiling a list will convince you, but NPR, the BBC, the Economist, the WSJ, the AP, National Review as a small snippet.
        rayiner 6y ago
        I agree, but I’m not sure I’d call those “major” (in the US) except maybe the WSJ.
rayiner 6y ago
And a non-trivial number of people believed that the U.S. has spent decades slashing school funding. Or that Stacey Abrams "should be the governor of Georgia right now." Or that Citizens United was about campaign contributions. Or that we are 10 years away from the end of civilization due to climate change. As a life-long Democrat, I didn't realize how much false received wisdom I had internalized until I married a Republican. I think it's fair to say that Republicans are somewhat more likely to believe in false information, but Democrats believe plenty of incorrect things as well. And I'd rather have a broken marketplace than one where Democrats just get to decide what's true. Especially when its taken just 5 minutes for the perceived guard rails to evaporate! We're not talking about "the earth is flat" here. We are talking about Hunter Biden emails that still nobody has proven are inauthentic. We're talking about election fraud allegations which are the subject of ongoing court cases for god's sake. Even if I'm amenable to "fact checking" something like "Obama was born in Kenya" I'm sure as hell not going to support Google deciding something is true or untrue before the courts do.
- awnird 6y ago
  Google is not deciding what is true or untrue. Google is deciding what they will host on their service. The mods on this site make similar decisions every single day, but I've never seen you post about that. Why shouldn't youtube have the same ability to moderate their site as Hacker News?
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Google is deciding what to host based on decisions about what is purportedly true or untrue.
- tzs 6y ago
  > We're talking about election fraud allegations which are the subject of ongoing court cases for god's sake. Does a case really count as "ongoing" if it gets dismissed pretty much as soon as the judge finishes reading the plaintiff's complaint?
  - 6y ago

quotemstr 6y ago

The marketplace is not broken merely because one party's goods aren't selling. If I make scratchy toilet paper and people don't buy it, it's my fault, not the market's. The fact is that the media elite have little credibility these days among the general public, their wares suck, and people are investigating alternatives. The solution isn't censorship. It's becoming more credible.

thelastwave 6y ago
But all the little monkeys don't understand science.
cpursley 6y ago
> The solution isn't censorship. It's becoming more credible. This is great. Is it a quote?
- quotemstr 6y ago
  No. I wrote it just now.
status_quo69 6y ago
Why should credibility matter? That is to say, how can the average person know that what they're reading is credible or not to make that determination and say "oh, CNN reported this and it's credible! Must mean that CNN is becoming more credible and I should watch it more because they have a better product" rather than "CNN is reporting this but it doesn't line up with what I want to believe, they must be wrong and not credible". Your metaphor doesn't make sense in a world where news stories are looked at skin deep, where someone doesn't even know that the toilet paper is scratchy it just _looks_ scratchy from the label or uncle Joe told me that it must be scratchy because it's made by Proctor & Gamble.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Credibility matters, because people really do want to base their opinions on facts. CNN existed for two decades before Fox News got popular. That wasn't the case because everyone agreed all the time back then. It was because the media respected its role in society and at least tried to be objective.
  - status_quo69 6y ago
    > people really do want to base their opinions on facts Not really, confirmation bias is a real thing for all human beings. The issue here is that there's a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes a fact. Objectivity in reporting is also subjective, funnily enough. If I consider NPR to be very objective because the dead-pan monotonic voice of the announcer simply says a direct quote from a member of congress, I can talk to a relative who will tell me that same NPR story is biased because they reported on something they don't agree with. > It was because the media respected its role in society and at least tried to be objective. There are _plenty_ of news outlets that still respect their role in society. The difference is that 20-30 years ago, there wasn't a deluge of information or misinformation readily available to get those dopamine hits from confirming biases.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      > There are _plenty_ of news outlets that still respect their role in society. Like?
      - status_quo69 6y ago
        I doubt that compiling a list will convince you, but NPR, the BBC, the Economist, the WSJ, the AP, National Review as a small snippet.
        rayiner 6y ago
        I agree, but I’m not sure I’d call those “major” (in the US) except maybe the WSJ.

rayiner 6y ago

And a non-trivial number of people believed that the U.S. has spent decades slashing school funding. Or that Stacey Abrams "should be the governor of Georgia right now." Or that Citizens United was about campaign contributions. Or that we are 10 years away from the end of civilization due to climate change. As a life-long Democrat, I didn't realize how much false received wisdom I had internalized until I married a Republican. I think it's fair to say that Republicans are somewhat more likely to believe in false information, but Democrats believe plenty of incorrect things as well. And I'd rather have a broken marketplace than one where Democrats just get to decide what's true. Especially when its taken just 5 minutes for the perceived guard rails to evaporate! We're not talking about "the earth is flat" here. We are talking about Hunter Biden emails that still nobody has proven are inauthentic. We're talking about election fraud allegations which are the subject of ongoing court cases for god's sake. Even if I'm amenable to "fact checking" something like "Obama was born in Kenya" I'm sure as hell not going to support Google deciding something is true or untrue before the courts do.

awnird 6y ago
Google is not deciding what is true or untrue. Google is deciding what they will host on their service. The mods on this site make similar decisions every single day, but I've never seen you post about that. Why shouldn't youtube have the same ability to moderate their site as Hacker News?
- rayiner 6y ago
  Google is deciding what to host based on decisions about what is purportedly true or untrue.
tzs 6y ago
> We're talking about election fraud allegations which are the subject of ongoing court cases for god's sake. Does a case really count as "ongoing" if it gets dismissed pretty much as soon as the judge finishes reading the plaintiff's complaint?
- 6y ago