4 ms·

Fact checking is not objective, you just need to convince someone that your facts jive with their perception.

by debacle 2y ago

mqefjh 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- blackhawkC17 2y ago
  How's work going at the Internet Research Agency :)
  - mqefjh 2y ago
    How is the weather in Englin today ? Also if you don't want to stick out like a sore thumb on here, think of making comments that actually use technical jargon sometimes. Pretty funny that you mention the IRA since I was threatened with open brain surgical torture by one of them a few months back. Like you, he assumed I was part of an opposite three letter agency. Do you guys never stop and consider that maybe, just maybe, the inevitable fate of conspiracy theorists is to become conspirators ? It always boils down to dialectics. Always. For the wider audience running across this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_post_identifying/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA4e0NqyYMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA4e0NqyYMw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
    - dang 2y ago
      Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. Also, please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments, and please don't use HN primarily for political/ideological/nationalistic battle. Your account has already been doing a lot of those things and that's the sort of account we end up having to ban. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - mqefjh 2y ago
        >a lot There isn't a single comment by this dude that isn't related to politics. Not one. He's probably on a payroll. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40568392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40568392 Meanwhile I provided a link to an obscure proof assistant. What is HN doing against shills, i.e. people that are tactful enough to steer opinion towards certain goals and let you think they "also posted good things" ? Is preventing confrontations on this problem a good tradeoff with the current state of the guidelines considering that political topics are a lot more present on HN than 10 years ago ? Or could fostering a culture of shill-spotting beneficial ? Logging off. Password status: not saved, as always.
  - dang 2y ago
    You broke the site guidelines badly with this comment and unfortunately have been posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments in other places, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40908934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40908934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40793361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40793361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40793252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40793252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40770909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40770909 This is the sort of thing we have to ban accounts for in the end, and I don't want to ban you, because you've also posted good things—so it would be good if you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, take the intended spirit of the site to heart, and stick to the rules in the future. We'd appreciate it.
    - blackhawkC17 2y ago
      Well noted.
- aliasxneo 2y ago
  This is a pretty hot take, which is likely why you're getting downvoted, but I can at least attest to this sort of stuff happening all the time. I recently joined a global company and made acquaintances with a Serbian whose family lineage happened to be in preserving history. Our first few non-work conversations were pretty hot debates because we were talking about the same historical events from a completely different viewpoint (mainly around the actions of NATO in that area). Anyway, I've since learned of some non-Western outlets to see the "other" side of things, and it's very interesting to compare and contrast the differences.
sqeaky 2y ago
There are better and worse ways to do fact checking. Appealing to evidence is more objective than appealing to vibes or appealing to baseless authority. Once solid evidence is in sight then are usually some clean objective takes to be had and some fairly obvious or likely subjective takes that a reasonable viewer might have. The real problems happen when one side objects to what counts as evidence at all or one side puts forward low quality evidence and claims it is beyond reproach.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > Appealing to evidence is more objective Assuming one's evidence is subjective, and one's judgment of it, and some other things. > than appealing to vibes or appealing to baseless authority. "Baseful" authorities are not necessarily objective. In fact, we have massive amounts of evidence that they are very often not.
  - sqeaky 2y ago
    Of course you are correct on both points. But subjective doesn't mean "wrong" or "open to every interpretation", it just mean more than one interpretation, and often narrowing down possibilities makes the truth easy to see. Different people disagree for different reasons. But only the most deranged disagree that what they can do and effect is worse evidence than some authority. So things like "trying it for yourself" have worked consistently as evidence for most of history. Today "it" can be a bunch of different categories of experiments and experiences. Even then lots of experiments are out of reach of most people, sometimes financially, sometimes intellectually. Some people think essential oils helped their cold go away in 3~5 days when most colds go away on their own in 3~5 days and. So there needs to be some delegation of authority. This is where a lot of problems leak it. Some people grant authority to some for silly reasons (like an a priori assumption they can do no wrong) other for good reasons (like lots of experience working in a relevant field with many published papers). For many people exploring the different levels of subjective evidence can get two people to understand why the other believes something goofy. This takes time, isn't guaranteed, but it can be done at least some of the time to show where evidence and many beliefs fall on a gradient of quality. This fails when people hold some belief as firmer than reality, like what conspiracy theorists or religious zealots do.
mike_hearn 2y ago
It can be and they want to focus only on objective questions: > To use an example nearer to my heart, say you want to compare how many Apple and Samsung devices were sold in the past five years. The service would locate and collate that information. My question would be to what extent is this really a problem. Sounds like they're going to be competing with Google and Bloomberg which is a tough sell. Finding data quickly is their bread and butter.

Fact checking is not objective, you just need to convince someone that your facts jive with their perception.

mqefjh 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
blackhawkC17 2y ago
How's work going at the Internet Research Agency :)
- mqefjh 2y ago
  How is the weather in Englin today ? Also if you don't want to stick out like a sore thumb on here, think of making comments that actually use technical jargon sometimes. Pretty funny that you mention the IRA since I was threatened with open brain surgical torture by one of them a few months back. Like you, he assumed I was part of an opposite three letter agency. Do you guys never stop and consider that maybe, just maybe, the inevitable fate of conspiracy theorists is to become conspirators ? It always boils down to dialectics. Always. For the wider audience running across this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_post_identifying/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA4e0NqyYMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA4e0NqyYMw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
  - dang 2y ago
    Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. Also, please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments, and please don't use HN primarily for political/ideological/nationalistic battle. Your account has already been doing a lot of those things and that's the sort of account we end up having to ban. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - mqefjh 2y ago
      >a lot There isn't a single comment by this dude that isn't related to politics. Not one. He's probably on a payroll. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40568392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40568392 Meanwhile I provided a link to an obscure proof assistant. What is HN doing against shills, i.e. people that are tactful enough to steer opinion towards certain goals and let you think they "also posted good things" ? Is preventing confrontations on this problem a good tradeoff with the current state of the guidelines considering that political topics are a lot more present on HN than 10 years ago ? Or could fostering a culture of shill-spotting beneficial ? Logging off. Password status: not saved, as always.
- dang 2y ago
  You broke the site guidelines badly with this comment and unfortunately have been posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments in other places, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40908934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40908934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40793361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40793361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40793252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40793252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40770909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40770909 This is the sort of thing we have to ban accounts for in the end, and I don't want to ban you, because you've also posted good things—so it would be good if you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, take the intended spirit of the site to heart, and stick to the rules in the future. We'd appreciate it.
  - blackhawkC17 2y ago
    Well noted.
aliasxneo 2y ago
This is a pretty hot take, which is likely why you're getting downvoted, but I can at least attest to this sort of stuff happening all the time. I recently joined a global company and made acquaintances with a Serbian whose family lineage happened to be in preserving history. Our first few non-work conversations were pretty hot debates because we were talking about the same historical events from a completely different viewpoint (mainly around the actions of NATO in that area). Anyway, I've since learned of some non-Western outlets to see the "other" side of things, and it's very interesting to compare and contrast the differences.

sqeaky 2y ago

There are better and worse ways to do fact checking. Appealing to evidence is more objective than appealing to vibes or appealing to baseless authority. Once solid evidence is in sight then are usually some clean objective takes to be had and some fairly obvious or likely subjective takes that a reasonable viewer might have. The real problems happen when one side objects to what counts as evidence at all or one side puts forward low quality evidence and claims it is beyond reproach.

mistermann 2y ago
> Appealing to evidence is more objective Assuming one's evidence is subjective, and one's judgment of it, and some other things. > than appealing to vibes or appealing to baseless authority. "Baseful" authorities are not necessarily objective. In fact, we have massive amounts of evidence that they are very often not.
- sqeaky 2y ago
  Of course you are correct on both points. But subjective doesn't mean "wrong" or "open to every interpretation", it just mean more than one interpretation, and often narrowing down possibilities makes the truth easy to see. Different people disagree for different reasons. But only the most deranged disagree that what they can do and effect is worse evidence than some authority. So things like "trying it for yourself" have worked consistently as evidence for most of history. Today "it" can be a bunch of different categories of experiments and experiences. Even then lots of experiments are out of reach of most people, sometimes financially, sometimes intellectually. Some people think essential oils helped their cold go away in 3~5 days when most colds go away on their own in 3~5 days and. So there needs to be some delegation of authority. This is where a lot of problems leak it. Some people grant authority to some for silly reasons (like an a priori assumption they can do no wrong) other for good reasons (like lots of experience working in a relevant field with many published papers). For many people exploring the different levels of subjective evidence can get two people to understand why the other believes something goofy. This takes time, isn't guaranteed, but it can be done at least some of the time to show where evidence and many beliefs fall on a gradient of quality. This fails when people hold some belief as firmer than reality, like what conspiracy theorists or religious zealots do.

mike_hearn 2y ago

It can be and they want to focus only on objective questions: > To use an example nearer to my heart, say you want to compare how many Apple and Samsung devices were sold in the past five years. The service would locate and collate that information. My question would be to what extent is this really a problem. Sounds like they're going to be competing with Google and Bloomberg which is a tough sell. Finding data quickly is their bread and butter.