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Yes, everyone is biased, this is not a deep insight, it's the common denominator we can subtract from a meaningful discussion about specific events.

zepto 6y ago
It actually is a deep insight if it’s true. It doesn’t matter very much if one side is more crass, or tells more obvious lies. It matters a lot if everybody has derelicted the attempt to represent views and understandings across the spectrum, and it’s important that we be able to distinguish that situation from just blaming a particular actor. Perhaps you have something deeper to offer though?
- root_axis 6y ago
  Dishonest reporting is not a quality inherent to arbitrary political labels, there is no "spectrum", there are only "particular actors" and people decide in real time which particular actors they prefer to focus their attention on.
  - zepto 6y ago
    > Dishonest reporting is not a quality inherent to arbitrary political label Agreed. > there is no "spectrum" Only true in a pedantic and useless sense. It certainly is possible to cluster and organize political preferences. > there are only "particular actors" and people decide in real time which particular actors they prefer to focus their attention on. Without further explanation this is just a frame which doesn’t add meaning on its own. Overall it’s not clear what you have added here.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      > Only true in a pedantic and useless sense. No. It's true in the sense that you cannot impugn a particular part of the spectrum for the actions of individuals because there is no way to reliably quantify dishonesty much less attribute its distribution across a poorly defined political continuum. > Without further explanation this is just a frame which doesn’t add meaning on its own. In other words, dishonesty is everywhere and it's trivial to collate a mountain of cherry-picked evidence from a particular part of the continuum to support the conclusion that a certain part of the continuum is dishonest. > Overall it’s not clear what you have added here. Your pretentious snark is bad form and unnecessary.
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      - zepto 6y ago
        “Overall it’s not clear what you have added here.“ This isn’t pretentious snark. It’s an expression of surprise, and feedback that you really don’t seem to be making a clear point. You reduced my original comment to “everyone is biased, this is not a deep insight”. I thought you might have something deeper to add, so I was surprised not to see it. “It's true in the sense that you cannot impugn a particular part of the spectrum for the actions of individuals because there is no way to reliably quantify dishonesty much less attribute its distribution across a poorly defined political continuum.” This seems like a re-statement of the original comment I made in response to the post about FOX. I guess we agree about that. It continues not to be clear what you are trying to add.
        root_axis 6y ago
        > It really isn’t just Fox. They don’t have a lot of shame about their partisanship or desire to hide it, but there is ideological distortion going on everywhere. Yes, we agree on this point, what I'm critiquing is your injection of this obvious fact into a discussion about a specific event that can be attributed to the particular type of misinformation spread by FOX, the fact that "there is ideological distortion going on everywhere" is beside the point, obviously that's true, so what? If an oil spill dumps millions of barrels into the ocean and someone exclaims "wow, these oil spills are really destroying the environment" your response is akin to "yes, but pollution is a global problem that includes more than just oil spills", yes, nobody is arguing otherwise, so what's your point?
        deleted 6y ago
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        zepto 6y ago
        “A specific event that can be attributed to the particular type of misinformation spread by FOX” So really you are just saying this was caused by FOX. You could have just said that. In my view our political environment is much more complex than that and involves a pattern of escalations which can’t be so reductively disentangled. I accept that you disagree with this. When the NYT misrepresents something, for example, it contributes to the narrative of distortion just as much as when FOX openly claims there is distortion. FOX news as far as I am aware has maintained that there is no evidence of election fraud, and called the election for Biden very early, so it’s not clear how you attribute this event to them. I don’t watch it, so I could be wrong about this, but it wouldn’t change the point. The problem is not so easily attributable to a particular media outlet. I wish it were that easy.
didibus 6y ago
Bias isn't that big of a problem, corruption and dishonesty is. If all we had to deal with is bias in decision making which resulted in suboptimal outcome, things would still be okay, as long as people making decisions and in position of authority (which includes voters) are still honestly thinking that one strategy will yield the best outcome for all of society. But as soon as people start being dishonest for self-interest reasons, they've subsumed the goal for their own, that's the real problem. I'd rather have someone in charge whose not the best at coming up with strategies and approaches that meet the goal, possibly due to their bias or other reasons, but is at least trying their best, then someone whose trying to manipulate support and slowly put goons they control in various positions so that they can just focus on their own self-interest and promotion while pretending to everyone that this is in our interest.

zepto 6y ago

It actually is a deep insight if it’s true. It doesn’t matter very much if one side is more crass, or tells more obvious lies. It matters a lot if everybody has derelicted the attempt to represent views and understandings across the spectrum, and it’s important that we be able to distinguish that situation from just blaming a particular actor. Perhaps you have something deeper to offer though?

root_axis 6y ago
Dishonest reporting is not a quality inherent to arbitrary political labels, there is no "spectrum", there are only "particular actors" and people decide in real time which particular actors they prefer to focus their attention on.
- zepto 6y ago
  > Dishonest reporting is not a quality inherent to arbitrary political label Agreed. > there is no "spectrum" Only true in a pedantic and useless sense. It certainly is possible to cluster and organize political preferences. > there are only "particular actors" and people decide in real time which particular actors they prefer to focus their attention on. Without further explanation this is just a frame which doesn’t add meaning on its own. Overall it’s not clear what you have added here.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    > Only true in a pedantic and useless sense. No. It's true in the sense that you cannot impugn a particular part of the spectrum for the actions of individuals because there is no way to reliably quantify dishonesty much less attribute its distribution across a poorly defined political continuum. > Without further explanation this is just a frame which doesn’t add meaning on its own. In other words, dishonesty is everywhere and it's trivial to collate a mountain of cherry-picked evidence from a particular part of the continuum to support the conclusion that a certain part of the continuum is dishonest. > Overall it’s not clear what you have added here. Your pretentious snark is bad form and unnecessary.
    - deleted 6y ago
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    - deleted 6y ago
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    - zepto 6y ago
      “Overall it’s not clear what you have added here.“ This isn’t pretentious snark. It’s an expression of surprise, and feedback that you really don’t seem to be making a clear point. You reduced my original comment to “everyone is biased, this is not a deep insight”. I thought you might have something deeper to add, so I was surprised not to see it. “It's true in the sense that you cannot impugn a particular part of the spectrum for the actions of individuals because there is no way to reliably quantify dishonesty much less attribute its distribution across a poorly defined political continuum.” This seems like a re-statement of the original comment I made in response to the post about FOX. I guess we agree about that. It continues not to be clear what you are trying to add.
      - root_axis 6y ago
        > It really isn’t just Fox. They don’t have a lot of shame about their partisanship or desire to hide it, but there is ideological distortion going on everywhere. Yes, we agree on this point, what I'm critiquing is your injection of this obvious fact into a discussion about a specific event that can be attributed to the particular type of misinformation spread by FOX, the fact that "there is ideological distortion going on everywhere" is beside the point, obviously that's true, so what? If an oil spill dumps millions of barrels into the ocean and someone exclaims "wow, these oil spills are really destroying the environment" your response is akin to "yes, but pollution is a global problem that includes more than just oil spills", yes, nobody is arguing otherwise, so what's your point?
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        zepto 6y ago
        “A specific event that can be attributed to the particular type of misinformation spread by FOX” So really you are just saying this was caused by FOX. You could have just said that. In my view our political environment is much more complex than that and involves a pattern of escalations which can’t be so reductively disentangled. I accept that you disagree with this. When the NYT misrepresents something, for example, it contributes to the narrative of distortion just as much as when FOX openly claims there is distortion. FOX news as far as I am aware has maintained that there is no evidence of election fraud, and called the election for Biden very early, so it’s not clear how you attribute this event to them. I don’t watch it, so I could be wrong about this, but it wouldn’t change the point. The problem is not so easily attributable to a particular media outlet. I wish it were that easy.

didibus 6y ago

Bias isn't that big of a problem, corruption and dishonesty is. If all we had to deal with is bias in decision making which resulted in suboptimal outcome, things would still be okay, as long as people making decisions and in position of authority (which includes voters) are still honestly thinking that one strategy will yield the best outcome for all of society. But as soon as people start being dishonest for self-interest reasons, they've subsumed the goal for their own, that's the real problem. I'd rather have someone in charge whose not the best at coming up with strategies and approaches that meet the goal, possibly due to their bias or other reasons, but is at least trying their best, then someone whose trying to manipulate support and slowly put goons they control in various positions so that they can just focus on their own self-interest and promotion while pretending to everyone that this is in our interest.