4 ms·

> The very fact of being unbiased, or claiming to be, is quite a big claim and the burden of proof of being unbiased should lie on the side that claims being so

by croon 5y ago

> The very fact of being unbiased, or claiming to be, is quite a big claim and the burden of proof of being unbiased should lie on the side that claims being so. This is a ridiculous claim. You can't prove a negative. If they are being biased, it's on the person making that claim to provide examples/proof. Analogue: "Prove you're not hitting your wife", etc.

LocalH 5y ago
Your point is very poignant. Perhaps people should drop the pretense of unbias and wear their bias on their sleeves? It’s not like that’s too far from the current meta. Everyone is biased to all hell while saying on the tin “fair”, “unbiased”, “balanced”, or other weasel words
- croon 5y ago
  That's not my point. Everyone is unbiased until pointed out where/how they are biased. Maybe that is every action of every person on the planet, but in my biased opinion some are clearly less biased than others, and it's not that hard to compare.
  - LocalH 5y ago
    It's closely related if it's not your actual point. Some people actively try to minimize their bias, some lean into it. Also, not all bias is harmful. At some level, it's also an essential component of human existence.
    - _0ffh 5y ago
      Quite so! The reasoning (or excuse) with some folks seems to be "As I'm likely to be biased anyway, I may just as well be a bald-facedly lying propagandist", which is an even bigger problem!
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    This sounds like presumption of innocence in criminal court, but being biased isn't a guilt (and certainly shouldn't carry any penalty), it is, at least in my view, similar to being a left-handed or a right-handed person.
    - croon 5y ago
      I wasn't focusing on guilt. I pointed out the logical fallacy in you stating the burden of proof was on the fact checker.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        You consider "being unbiased" as a default in a world where most people are biased. This is not the same as "not beating your wife". Vast majority of people are indeed innocent of such crimes, so there is no problem treating them as innocent by default. I would personally be happy if the medium didn't try to prove its absence of bias, which would indeed be hard, but at least tried to prove that it gives platform to sufficiently different views. Note that we speak about "real world" proofs (preponderance of evidence etc.), not pure abstract mathematical logic which cannot be applied fully in real, messy human society.
        croon 5y ago
        > You consider "being unbiased" as a default in a world where most people are biased. Again, it's not about being default, it's about not being possible to prove, which you asked for in your original post. The number of people or publications being 1% or 99% is irrelevant. If someone is biased, it's trivial to point out how, and if they're not, it's impossible to prove so. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot > Note that we speak about "real world" proofs (preponderance of evidence etc.), not pure abstract mathematical logic which cannot be applied fully in real, messy human society. This I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. Logic is basically a flow chart where things either follow or don't. It's absolutely applicable to real world messy human society.
denton-scratch 5y ago
Nobody's unbiased. The best you can hope for is a source that wears its biases on its sleeve. Then you can judge how those biases might have influenced information from that source. The least-reliable sources tend to proclaim their "neutrality", i.e. they deliberately conceal their biases.
- croon 5y ago
  The best sources I've encountered are the ones where they source their information to some form of verifiable data (not blog/youtube/rag), lay out their reasoning, fix/own mistakes, have clear information about who they are, and their information checks out outside their sphere. Neither of these involve their stating any biases.

by croon 5y ago

LocalH 5y ago

Your point is very poignant. Perhaps people should drop the pretense of unbias and wear their bias on their sleeves? It’s not like that’s too far from the current meta. Everyone is biased to all hell while saying on the tin “fair”, “unbiased”, “balanced”, or other weasel words

croon 5y ago
That's not my point. Everyone is unbiased until pointed out where/how they are biased. Maybe that is every action of every person on the planet, but in my biased opinion some are clearly less biased than others, and it's not that hard to compare.
- LocalH 5y ago
  It's closely related if it's not your actual point. Some people actively try to minimize their bias, some lean into it. Also, not all bias is harmful. At some level, it's also an essential component of human existence.
  - _0ffh 5y ago
    Quite so! The reasoning (or excuse) with some folks seems to be "As I'm likely to be biased anyway, I may just as well be a bald-facedly lying propagandist", which is an even bigger problem!
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  This sounds like presumption of innocence in criminal court, but being biased isn't a guilt (and certainly shouldn't carry any penalty), it is, at least in my view, similar to being a left-handed or a right-handed person.
  - croon 5y ago
    I wasn't focusing on guilt. I pointed out the logical fallacy in you stating the burden of proof was on the fact checker.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      You consider "being unbiased" as a default in a world where most people are biased. This is not the same as "not beating your wife". Vast majority of people are indeed innocent of such crimes, so there is no problem treating them as innocent by default. I would personally be happy if the medium didn't try to prove its absence of bias, which would indeed be hard, but at least tried to prove that it gives platform to sufficiently different views. Note that we speak about "real world" proofs (preponderance of evidence etc.), not pure abstract mathematical logic which cannot be applied fully in real, messy human society.
      - croon 5y ago
        > You consider "being unbiased" as a default in a world where most people are biased. Again, it's not about being default, it's about not being possible to prove, which you asked for in your original post. The number of people or publications being 1% or 99% is irrelevant. If someone is biased, it's trivial to point out how, and if they're not, it's impossible to prove so. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot > Note that we speak about "real world" proofs (preponderance of evidence etc.), not pure abstract mathematical logic which cannot be applied fully in real, messy human society. This I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. Logic is basically a flow chart where things either follow or don't. It's absolutely applicable to real world messy human society.

denton-scratch 5y ago

Nobody's unbiased. The best you can hope for is a source that wears its biases on its sleeve. Then you can judge how those biases might have influenced information from that source. The least-reliable sources tend to proclaim their "neutrality", i.e. they deliberately conceal their biases.

croon 5y ago
The best sources I've encountered are the ones where they source their information to some form of verifiable data (not blog/youtube/rag), lay out their reasoning, fix/own mistakes, have clear information about who they are, and their information checks out outside their sphere. Neither of these involve their stating any biases.