4 ms·

> The article didn't even mention inconvenience. That's a red herring It's not a red herring, it's the primary point I was making. Point is, the impression mo

> The article didn't even mention inconvenience. That's a red herring It's not a red herring, it's the primary point I was making. Point is, the impression most people will undeniably take away from "many recalls" is that the vehicle must be in the shop all the time, and it's a terrible customer experience. This impression is of course incorrect. Remember that most readers don't even read past the headline. You and I and most HN readers are the exception. Obviously the Cybertruck customers themselves know better (we both agree on that), but it's still misleading language that predictably leaves the wrong impression with potential customers. You can argue that readers "ought to know better," but that's disingenuously ignoring the way the headline will actually be interpreted by real people in the real world. The only surprise is how many smart people rush to defend the media using a transparently obvious "lie without lying" tactic, but I guess that's why it's so effective! Smart people don't even detect the mislead (Curse of Knowledge). The smart folks who do see it immediately get nerd-sniped into full-blown denial of the "lay misinterpretation" by the seemingly irresistible temptation of a smarter-than-thou semantics argument (see above). I guess we're fine with media misinformation if we can tell ourselves it's because the reader is dumb, and if "other tribe bad" companies are the ones who got smeared.

lapcat 2y ago
> My point is, the impression many people will unavoidably take away from "many recalls" is that the vehicle must me in the shop all the time, and it's a terrible customer experience. I still think you're missing the point. The biggest problem from many recalls is not time spent in the shop; rather, the biggest problem from many recalls is many vehicle safety defects that are deemed worthy of a recall. In other words, many possible dangers from driving the vehicle. It's an indicator of poor design and quality assurance, which can also reduce the expected lifespan of the vehicle and slash its resale value. > Remember that most readers don't even read past the headline. Do we really need to care about these people? I've been blogging for almost two decades now, and it's very hard to write a fully informative, fully accurate headline. There just aren't enough characters available, unless you write an absurdly long headline. I have no doubt that the news media experience the same problem. There's no good solution for willful ignorance. I really have zero sympathy for how non-readers of articles ignorantly misinterpret headlines. You can't idiot-proof the news.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > Do we really need to care about these people? Yes, because it's most people. It's most of your addressable market, whatever you're selling. It's also their siblings and parents and spouses. Some of mine, too. Possibly even yours. > it's very hard to write a fully informative, fully accurate headline (...) I have no doubt that the news media experience the same problem. There's no good solution for willful ignorance. This is a problem too, but it's not the problem. The problem is that a lot of the news headlines intentionally lie. The pattern is, put a purposefully misleading statement in the headline, then correct it in the article. The lie works as clickbait, but it's not its only effect: everyone in publishing knows most people don't read past headline - that's simply because they'll see 10 or 100 headlines for any single article they can afford to read. Even the non-willfully ignorant will be exposed to 99 simplistic lies for each nuanced opinion. > I really have zero sympathy for how non-readers of articles ignorantly misinterpret headlines. You can't idiot-proof the news. For any article, those "non-readers" are by far the vast majority of people exposed to it. You can't really prevent it, as it's a function of the amount of news. But you also shouldn't exploit it to sell people lies and propaganda.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    > Yes, because it's most people. It's most of your addressable market, whatever you're selling. It's also their siblings and parents and spouses. Some of mine, too. Possibly even yours. No, this is vastly overstated. Most people in the world never saw the headline of the linked article. > The problem is that a lot of the news headlines intentionally lie. The pattern is, put a purposefully misleading statement in the headline, then correct it in the article. The headline in question did not lie. Nor did it mislead. The headline is accurate. Of course there's more to the story, which one can read in the story if one chooses. But this notion of an intentional lie just seems to come from the minds of Tesla apologists and not from any reality outside their minds. I disagree entirely with the notion. Here's a question: how would you rewrite the headline? How about "Cybertruck’s Many Safety Defects Make It Worse Than 91 Percent of All 2024 Vehicles"? Would you prefer that?

lapcat 2y ago

> My point is, the impression many people will unavoidably take away from "many recalls" is that the vehicle must me in the shop all the time, and it's a terrible customer experience. I still think you're missing the point. The biggest problem from many recalls is not time spent in the shop; rather, the biggest problem from many recalls is many vehicle safety defects that are deemed worthy of a recall. In other words, many possible dangers from driving the vehicle. It's an indicator of poor design and quality assurance, which can also reduce the expected lifespan of the vehicle and slash its resale value. > Remember that most readers don't even read past the headline. Do we really need to care about these people? I've been blogging for almost two decades now, and it's very hard to write a fully informative, fully accurate headline. There just aren't enough characters available, unless you write an absurdly long headline. I have no doubt that the news media experience the same problem. There's no good solution for willful ignorance. I really have zero sympathy for how non-readers of articles ignorantly misinterpret headlines. You can't idiot-proof the news.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
> Do we really need to care about these people? Yes, because it's most people. It's most of your addressable market, whatever you're selling. It's also their siblings and parents and spouses. Some of mine, too. Possibly even yours. > it's very hard to write a fully informative, fully accurate headline (...) I have no doubt that the news media experience the same problem. There's no good solution for willful ignorance. This is a problem too, but it's not the problem. The problem is that a lot of the news headlines intentionally lie. The pattern is, put a purposefully misleading statement in the headline, then correct it in the article. The lie works as clickbait, but it's not its only effect: everyone in publishing knows most people don't read past headline - that's simply because they'll see 10 or 100 headlines for any single article they can afford to read. Even the non-willfully ignorant will be exposed to 99 simplistic lies for each nuanced opinion. > I really have zero sympathy for how non-readers of articles ignorantly misinterpret headlines. You can't idiot-proof the news. For any article, those "non-readers" are by far the vast majority of people exposed to it. You can't really prevent it, as it's a function of the amount of news. But you also shouldn't exploit it to sell people lies and propaganda.
- lapcat 2y ago
  > Yes, because it's most people. It's most of your addressable market, whatever you're selling. It's also their siblings and parents and spouses. Some of mine, too. Possibly even yours. No, this is vastly overstated. Most people in the world never saw the headline of the linked article. > The problem is that a lot of the news headlines intentionally lie. The pattern is, put a purposefully misleading statement in the headline, then correct it in the article. The headline in question did not lie. Nor did it mislead. The headline is accurate. Of course there's more to the story, which one can read in the story if one chooses. But this notion of an intentional lie just seems to come from the minds of Tesla apologists and not from any reality outside their minds. I disagree entirely with the notion. Here's a question: how would you rewrite the headline? How about "Cybertruck’s Many Safety Defects Make It Worse Than 91 Percent of All 2024 Vehicles"? Would you prefer that?