4 ms·

Just an attempt to explain downvoting. Unbiased critical thinking requires one to only look at the validity of the message. The author should not matter at all.

Just an attempt to explain downvoting. Unbiased critical thinking requires one to only look at the validity of the message. The author should not matter at all. The only exception to that I am aware of is when an extraordinary claim is made that is previously considered unlikely, when disproving it is very hard. In that case it might be easier for the sake of saving time of readers to point out that author lied or misled in similar statements before. An example of that would be somebody coming up with a energy out of thin air idea (extremely unlikely, hard to check in-house), and pointing out that same person made such claims for 10+ years, perhaps with different apparatus and it never worked when reviewed, etc allows quick dismissal for many people until more trusted source checks and speaks on the matter. "Extremist" material plaque on Facebook however is factual information, there's nothing to quickly dismiss based on credentials of the author here. Therefore bringing up their identity only introduces previously missing bias in otherwise unbiased conversation, thus damaging clear thought process.

wpietri 5y ago
> Unbiased critical thinking requires one to only look at the validity of the message. The author should not matter at all. This is obviously not what people do. It's not what experts in media criticism recommend. And it's also not even vaguely practical. The number of claims made is effectively infinite. The time needed to validate a given claim varies, but is often quite large, and can be effectively infinite. No single person can fully validate even a tiny fraction of all the claims made. Ergo, a person must choose between almost never deciding anything or collaborating with other people to do the work of validation. This introduces the vital concept of trust. The whole existence of journalism is part of that. If the world worked the way you suggest, we would just need something like 4chan: a bunch of anons posting messages. Then individuals could validate each one themselves. Instead what we have is established, branded newspapers, networks, magazines, and the like. What most have in common is a reputation for accuracy, something they invest quite a bit in maintaining and defending through the use of standard journalistic practices, professional editors, and fact-checking departments. The Washington Times purports to be a respectable journalistic outfit, inviting its readers to trust it. Its history demonstrates that is has a strong agenda and is willing to ride roughshod over traditional standards of validity in pursuit of partisan gains. There's nothing wrong with noting that so that people don't mistake it for some sort of journalistic effort.
- bmarquez 5y ago
  Just because an news outfit has an editorial bias doesn't mean the actual article is incorrect. If that was the case people would flag certain domains posted on HN without reading the articles. I looked for other sources besides Washington Times and found them. Could the submitter have chosen a more centrist source? Sure. Does it change the fact that Facebook is posting these alerts and there is controversy over them? It does not.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Neither I nor the person I replied to claimed the article was incorrect, so I don't know what that has to do with it.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  Hacker News crowd holds itself to a higher standard of _discussion_, than most other communities.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    I don't think that's true at all. It's certainly different, but "higher" is quite a stretch. And this is a good example. Politically-motivated voting to suppress basic facts critical of an article source is not "higher" in any sense.
    - lostmsu 5y ago
      Why do you believe voting was political as opposed to the reasoning I mentioned: that bringing up political orientation of the source is a low quality data point?
      - wpietri 5y ago
        It did not bring up political orientation of the source. You can go back and read the comment yourself. It pointed out that the article only sought comment from people with a conflict of interest. That's bad journalistic practice no matter one's politics. It's also is a) true, and b) an indication that the political orientation of the source is driving the bad journalism. I'm confident it the voting was political because I didn't just fall off the turnip truck. It's my long experience here that unless criticism of the US right is phrased in very particular ways it will get a lot of reflex downvoting.

wpietri 5y ago

> Unbiased critical thinking requires one to only look at the validity of the message. The author should not matter at all. This is obviously not what people do. It's not what experts in media criticism recommend. And it's also not even vaguely practical. The number of claims made is effectively infinite. The time needed to validate a given claim varies, but is often quite large, and can be effectively infinite. No single person can fully validate even a tiny fraction of all the claims made. Ergo, a person must choose between almost never deciding anything or collaborating with other people to do the work of validation. This introduces the vital concept of trust. The whole existence of journalism is part of that. If the world worked the way you suggest, we would just need something like 4chan: a bunch of anons posting messages. Then individuals could validate each one themselves. Instead what we have is established, branded newspapers, networks, magazines, and the like. What most have in common is a reputation for accuracy, something they invest quite a bit in maintaining and defending through the use of standard journalistic practices, professional editors, and fact-checking departments. The Washington Times purports to be a respectable journalistic outfit, inviting its readers to trust it. Its history demonstrates that is has a strong agenda and is willing to ride roughshod over traditional standards of validity in pursuit of partisan gains. There's nothing wrong with noting that so that people don't mistake it for some sort of journalistic effort.

bmarquez 5y ago
Just because an news outfit has an editorial bias doesn't mean the actual article is incorrect. If that was the case people would flag certain domains posted on HN without reading the articles. I looked for other sources besides Washington Times and found them. Could the submitter have chosen a more centrist source? Sure. Does it change the fact that Facebook is posting these alerts and there is controversy over them? It does not.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Neither I nor the person I replied to claimed the article was incorrect, so I don't know what that has to do with it.
lostmsu 5y ago
Hacker News crowd holds itself to a higher standard of _discussion_, than most other communities.
- wpietri 5y ago
  I don't think that's true at all. It's certainly different, but "higher" is quite a stretch. And this is a good example. Politically-motivated voting to suppress basic facts critical of an article source is not "higher" in any sense.
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    Why do you believe voting was political as opposed to the reasoning I mentioned: that bringing up political orientation of the source is a low quality data point?
    - wpietri 5y ago
      It did not bring up political orientation of the source. You can go back and read the comment yourself. It pointed out that the article only sought comment from people with a conflict of interest. That's bad journalistic practice no matter one's politics. It's also is a) true, and b) an indication that the political orientation of the source is driving the bad journalism. I'm confident it the voting was political because I didn't just fall off the turnip truck. It's my long experience here that unless criticism of the US right is phrased in very particular ways it will get a lot of reflex downvoting.