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There is no objective truth. Especially not for every author and every topic. Even when trying to represent controversy, the problem of false balance is quite r

by maweki 5y ago

There is no objective truth. Especially not for every author and every topic. Even when trying to represent controversy, the problem of false balance is quite real. Maybe we differ on the definition of "political alignment", but there is no way that an entity has no angle.

yesenadam 5y ago
(Sorry to slightly derail the topic, but I think this is an important point.) > There is no objective truth. And yet you say that like you think it's the (objective) truth. Or is that just your opinion, or just true for you, etc? I don't think it makes any sense to deny objective truth—it's self-contradictory. When you hear "There is no objective truth", ask "Is that true?". (At least you immediately backpedalled with "Especially for..") I take your point I think—e.g. more than once on HN I've criticized the idea some people have of starting a facts-only objective 'unbiased' news service as totally implausible and naïve. But to deny that anything is or can be true seems rather to throw the baby out with bathwater.
- maweki 5y ago
  > But to deny that anything is or can be true Where exactly did I deny that? I was merely noting that the an impartial encyclopedia (which is there to document everything in existence) is impossible, as there are indeed issues of controversy in existence. Even in trying to represent the controversy, as opposed to one of the myriad points of views, is a stance in itself and subject to false balance, selection bias, and I guess a few other fallacies. We're not talking about a collection of mathematical formulas here.
  - Jasper_ 5y ago
    Even mathematical formulas come with them a wide variety of assumptions on shared, uncommunicated base axioms. Nobody explicitly points out "assuming we're not modulo 2" after stating "1 + 1 = 2". Context and interpretation matters, and a lot of those disagreements over "objective facts" often come down to different interpretations of the context. There's no such thing as "pure data" without a huge system of definitions underlying the whole thing, which are often unspoken. Do you consider "my website got 10,000 views today" to be unambiguous factual data? If so, what counts as a "view"? Do bot views count? The browser auto-refreshing because it reloaded the tab? What about the exact definitions of "today"? What hours do you start and stop counting? Even the most basic facts succumb to this. There's lots of talk about birthdays and ages in this thread. Well, in South Korea, the cultural standard is that everyone's age goes up by one on New Year's Day (so a baby born on Dec. 31st turns two years old the next day), so someone's age is going to be reported differently when reading Korean media. And I know of someone who was born on April 4th, but because of some mix-ups at the busy hospital, her official records state April 5th instead. She chooses to celebrate it on April 4th, but she couldn't legally buy any liquor herself until the next day. Culture and context matter. Different people have different takes on what is reasonable, and that's why there's no "objective truth" unless you interrogate all of your definitions and standards all the way to the bottom.

by maweki 5y ago

yesenadam 5y ago

(Sorry to slightly derail the topic, but I think this is an important point.) > There is no objective truth. And yet you say that like you think it's the (objective) truth. Or is that just your opinion, or just true for you, etc? I don't think it makes any sense to deny objective truth—it's self-contradictory. When you hear "There is no objective truth", ask "Is that true?". (At least you immediately backpedalled with "Especially for..") I take your point I think—e.g. more than once on HN I've criticized the idea some people have of starting a facts-only objective 'unbiased' news service as totally implausible and naïve. But to deny that anything is or can be true seems rather to throw the baby out with bathwater.

maweki 5y ago
> But to deny that anything is or can be true Where exactly did I deny that? I was merely noting that the an impartial encyclopedia (which is there to document everything in existence) is impossible, as there are indeed issues of controversy in existence. Even in trying to represent the controversy, as opposed to one of the myriad points of views, is a stance in itself and subject to false balance, selection bias, and I guess a few other fallacies. We're not talking about a collection of mathematical formulas here.
- Jasper_ 5y ago
  Even mathematical formulas come with them a wide variety of assumptions on shared, uncommunicated base axioms. Nobody explicitly points out "assuming we're not modulo 2" after stating "1 + 1 = 2". Context and interpretation matters, and a lot of those disagreements over "objective facts" often come down to different interpretations of the context. There's no such thing as "pure data" without a huge system of definitions underlying the whole thing, which are often unspoken. Do you consider "my website got 10,000 views today" to be unambiguous factual data? If so, what counts as a "view"? Do bot views count? The browser auto-refreshing because it reloaded the tab? What about the exact definitions of "today"? What hours do you start and stop counting? Even the most basic facts succumb to this. There's lots of talk about birthdays and ages in this thread. Well, in South Korea, the cultural standard is that everyone's age goes up by one on New Year's Day (so a baby born on Dec. 31st turns two years old the next day), so someone's age is going to be reported differently when reading Korean media. And I know of someone who was born on April 4th, but because of some mix-ups at the busy hospital, her official records state April 5th instead. She chooses to celebrate it on April 4th, but she couldn't legally buy any liquor herself until the next day. Culture and context matter. Different people have different takes on what is reasonable, and that's why there's no "objective truth" unless you interrogate all of your definitions and standards all the way to the bottom.