3 ms·

the first two things you said are preposterous strawmen, the third I already mentioned, the fourth is wrong. you don't know what will happen in 10 years, maybe

by _dain_ 5y ago

the first two things you said are preposterous strawmen, the third I already mentioned, the fourth is wrong. you don't know what will happen in 10 years, maybe some new coal extraction technology will be invented, maybe new sources will be discovered, maybe it becomes possible to economically extract the CO2 from the smokestacks and coal becomes green and gets tons of subsidies. yeah it's unlikely, but it's not something you can "fact-check". it does violence to the meaning of the term. imagine telling someone ten years ago that oil prices would go negative, which they did last year. and apart from all of this, for every example you can give me of an obvious black-and-white issue where you really could fact-check it 10 years in advance, there will be 99 others where it's really not so clear-cut, but partisans want there to be fact-checker approved talking points for their side. and the market will fill this demand. for subjects outside your domain-expertise, good luck telling the difference.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> yeah it's unlikely, but it's not something you can "fact-check". it does violence to the meaning of the term. One of the points of fact-checking is to point out to "yeah, it's unlikely" to people who would not otherwise know. Lots of claims are made about stuff, in particular climate change and energy supplies, that completely fall into the "yeah, it's unlikely" zone, and yet most ordinary readers and viewers would not know this. It's always going to be in the interest of someone to say "this might happen by the year XXXX". There's generally no shortage of black-swan boosterism. Having someone step who actually knows the field step in and point out that yes, it might happen but it almost certainly will not is of incredible value. Your response reminds me of the situation in the current satirical movie "Don't Look Up", where because the probability of an asteroid colliding with earth is only 99.7%, not 100%, the fictional US president decides it's OK to "sit tight and assess". I mean, sure it could miss, and *"yeah, it's unlikely but...."
- pdonis 5y ago
  > One of the points of fact-checking is to point out to "yeah, it's unlikely" to people who would not otherwise know. Saying some prediction about the future is unlikely to be correct is not fact-checking. That's the whole point. Predictions aren't facts. Unlikely predictions aren't false facts. They're unlikely predictions. > because the probability of an asteroid colliding with earth is only 99.7%, not 100%, the fictional US president decides it's OK to "sit tight and assess". Saying that it is a good idea to act on predictions that are overwhelmingly likely is not the same as saying that those predictions are facts. If you want to improve other people's critical thinking skills, you need to make sure yours are good. Calling predictions facts and acting as if they're the same thing is not good critical thinking.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    > Saying some prediction about the future is unlikely to be correct is not fact-checking. That's the whole point. Predictions aren't facts. Unlikely predictions aren't false facts. They're unlikely predictions. Our culture has become filled with a certain kind of noise in which people who frequently don't know what they are talking about make predictions about the future. I don't really care what you want to call a counter-balancing trend to that - I would agree that "fact-checking" for things that are clearly predictions is likely not the best term, but it's not the worst either, since frequently the process of pointing out just how ridiculous the predictions are will involve using actual facts. So in that context, "fact checking" does not mean "check that the facts claimed are correct", it means "check the facts underlying the prediction". But call it what it should be called or not, it's still a valuable act.
    - pdonis 5y ago
      > Our culture has become filled with a certain kind of noise in which people who frequently don't know what they are talking about make predictions about the future. Focusing on "fact-checking" in general, let alone expanding it to include "prediction checking", worsens the huge amount of noise in our culture of supposedly authoritative pronouncements being made that turn out to be wrong. The Facebook "fact check" that is the subject of the article we are discussing is a case in point. If Facebook weren't so fixated on trying to remove "noise" through "fact checking", they wouldn't be going overboard all the time and removing things that aren't noise at all, but useful dissent. Also, the very term "fact checking", as it is being used in our culture now, is a Russell conjugation (someone else brought up Russell conjugations elsewhere in this thread). Facebook is "fact checking" (actually their outsourced third parties who remain anonymous and unaccountable are doing it, but let that pass); those who support Facebook (and other "fact checkers") are "helping to spread authoritative information"; those who question Facebook (and other "fact checkers") are "questioning authority" (even if they cite actual facts). In short, while I agree that our culture is filled with noise, I don't think all the noise is from individuals who don't know what they're talking about; I think a lot of it is from organizations who don't like to have their power and authority questioned.

by _dain_ 5y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

> yeah it's unlikely, but it's not something you can "fact-check". it does violence to the meaning of the term. One of the points of fact-checking is to point out to "yeah, it's unlikely" to people who would not otherwise know. Lots of claims are made about stuff, in particular climate change and energy supplies, that completely fall into the "yeah, it's unlikely" zone, and yet most ordinary readers and viewers would not know this. It's always going to be in the interest of someone to say "this might happen by the year XXXX". There's generally no shortage of black-swan boosterism. Having someone step who actually knows the field step in and point out that yes, it might happen but it almost certainly will not is of incredible value. Your response reminds me of the situation in the current satirical movie "Don't Look Up", where because the probability of an asteroid colliding with earth is only 99.7%, not 100%, the fictional US president decides it's OK to "sit tight and assess". I mean, sure it could miss, and *"yeah, it's unlikely but...."

pdonis 5y ago
> One of the points of fact-checking is to point out to "yeah, it's unlikely" to people who would not otherwise know. Saying some prediction about the future is unlikely to be correct is not fact-checking. That's the whole point. Predictions aren't facts. Unlikely predictions aren't false facts. They're unlikely predictions. > because the probability of an asteroid colliding with earth is only 99.7%, not 100%, the fictional US president decides it's OK to "sit tight and assess". Saying that it is a good idea to act on predictions that are overwhelmingly likely is not the same as saying that those predictions are facts. If you want to improve other people's critical thinking skills, you need to make sure yours are good. Calling predictions facts and acting as if they're the same thing is not good critical thinking.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  > Saying some prediction about the future is unlikely to be correct is not fact-checking. That's the whole point. Predictions aren't facts. Unlikely predictions aren't false facts. They're unlikely predictions. Our culture has become filled with a certain kind of noise in which people who frequently don't know what they are talking about make predictions about the future. I don't really care what you want to call a counter-balancing trend to that - I would agree that "fact-checking" for things that are clearly predictions is likely not the best term, but it's not the worst either, since frequently the process of pointing out just how ridiculous the predictions are will involve using actual facts. So in that context, "fact checking" does not mean "check that the facts claimed are correct", it means "check the facts underlying the prediction". But call it what it should be called or not, it's still a valuable act.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > Our culture has become filled with a certain kind of noise in which people who frequently don't know what they are talking about make predictions about the future. Focusing on "fact-checking" in general, let alone expanding it to include "prediction checking", worsens the huge amount of noise in our culture of supposedly authoritative pronouncements being made that turn out to be wrong. The Facebook "fact check" that is the subject of the article we are discussing is a case in point. If Facebook weren't so fixated on trying to remove "noise" through "fact checking", they wouldn't be going overboard all the time and removing things that aren't noise at all, but useful dissent. Also, the very term "fact checking", as it is being used in our culture now, is a Russell conjugation (someone else brought up Russell conjugations elsewhere in this thread). Facebook is "fact checking" (actually their outsourced third parties who remain anonymous and unaccountable are doing it, but let that pass); those who support Facebook (and other "fact checkers") are "helping to spread authoritative information"; those who question Facebook (and other "fact checkers") are "questioning authority" (even if they cite actual facts). In short, while I agree that our culture is filled with noise, I don't think all the noise is from individuals who don't know what they're talking about; I think a lot of it is from organizations who don't like to have their power and authority questioned.