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I hadn't heard about the site, so I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnHerd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnHerd It's paid for out of the pockets of
by wpietri 5y ago
I hadn't heard about the site, so I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnHerd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnHerd
It's paid for out of the pockets of a hedge fund billionaire who used to support the Liberal Democrat party in the UK, but who has since become a major Conservative donor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marshall_(investor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marshall_(investor)
He's also a major funder of the recently launched UK News, whose biggest draw appears to be far-right politician Nigel Farage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GB_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GB_News
- _dain_ 5y agopoisoning the well
- yuliyp 5y ago[flagged]
- wpietri 5y agoOne of my fundamental questions with anything I read is where the writer is coming from, what motivates the writing. That not only helps with interpreting the work, it helps me decide whether it's worth my time at all. I don't think that's ad hom, in that the characteristics I'm raising are relevant. For example, if I am reading an article about a company's stock, I'm not going to care whether the author's eye color is blue or green. But I will care whether they hold that stock or something related, as that's relevant to how I read the article and weigh its claims.
- Nathanba 5y agoSo you won't have a problem with people commenting this under everything you write? "I havent heard of William Pietri before, he seems to be a San Fransisco liberal, LGBT affirming atheist and leading figure for the ADL's Online Hate Index."
- wpietri 5y agoIf you want, sure. Whatever floats your boat. An important difference here is that I try to have useful profiles pretty much anywhere I write. Whereas I had to look this information up specifically because UnHerd is studiously vague about all the things I mentioned: https://unherd.com/about-unherd/ https://unherd.com/about-unherd/
- willcipriano 5y agoIf you were to write on religion, would you find it reasonable if the religious were to simply dismiss any argument you made, no matter how correct or well constructed, simply due to your atheism?
- wpietri 5y agoGenerally when I write on religion, I do make that clear. If some want to dismiss my views because of that, that's their choice. I certainly dismiss a lot of what religious people say, so I can hardly call it unfair.
- willcipriano 5y agoIn a world where everyone operated as you do, I don't think there would be much point in writing, as everyone who reads what you have to say will already agree with you.
- wpietri 5y agoNot at all. I have plenty of good dialog with people of goodwill that I disagree with. And I have time for that because I don't waste a lot of time on people who are engaging in motivated reasoning, propaganda, suppressing cognitive dissonance, disinformation, and the like. And I'm sure you do the same. How much time do you spend in open-minded conversation with Flat Earthers or UFO cultists or Q adherents or telemarketers? I don't think there's much point in talking with people who aren't thoughtful, sincere, and at least self-critical enough to have their acts together. But there are plenty of people who qualify.
- afavour 5y agoNot that it matters but I was amazed to find out via your Wikipedia link that his son was a founding member of Mumford and Sons. What a strange world.
- anm89 5y agoIt's an article about someone's opinions about storytelling. Who cares what political team some person connected to the project was on. Are you claiming this invalidates their opinion about screenwriting? Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances.
- bigbillheck 5y ago> Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances. The comments on the original article certainly appear to have taken it as an invitation to air political grievances.
- dTal 5y ago>Not every occurrence in the world needs to be leveraged to air political grievances. But the article is rich with political subtext; the idea that society is declining due to unreasonably soft-hearted attitudes towards undesirables is a fundamental anti-progressive pillar. The author is completely aware of these political lines and directly references them. Counterpoint - why would you expect articles on a media website funded out of pocket by a hedge fund billionaire with a penchant for political lobbying to be neutral? What's in it for the billionaire?
- anm89 5y agoGasp! Billionaires! And they have their own website which people can post links to! Gasp again! Those dastardly billionaires with their media websites. If only I had known this website was run by evil billionaires I could have found some other website to read links people post about tech stuff.