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"complex enough" bah, this is just a white flag. sure wave it all you want, many folks think the "terms of surrender" are reasonable enough etc. Its sort of lik

"complex enough" bah, this is just a white flag. sure wave it all you want, many folks think the "terms of surrender" are reasonable enough etc. Its sort of like the "enshittification" trend applied to philosophy lol its a nice gesture for dang to do the "both sides" thing but I just lump that in with memes like "<candidate> tells it like it is" when in reality what <candidate> says is just crazy talk. not everything is so unverifiable that the only choice left is to view everything through <candidates> goggles.

dang 2y ago
I protest! It's not a "both sides" thing. It's an empirical observation, and in my experience quite a reliable one. There are infinitely many facts, and the choice of which facts to select and how strongly to weigh them is not itself a fact, it's a choice made by humans. When those humans are busy advocating for a political position, you can be sure that this is what's dominating their choice. As I pointed out once before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25973366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25973366), it only takes a little self-honesty to notice oneself doing it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20infinitely%20many%20facts&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... This doesn't mean there's no truth or that it's impossible to know what the truth is. It might mean that political passion is too strong a force for the truth-finding process not to be perturbed by it.
- cowboylowrez 2y ago
  there are infinitely many grains of sand, get one in your eye and sure your values will probably adjust by mere reflex. you aren't necessarily bound by the "infinity of facts" in every case. I won't even disagree that politics is often based on what a constituency values. still, how do you eat the elephant, as always, one bite at a time. what I see this time around is that the pursuit of fact itself is devalued and under attack. you are certainly welcome to toss this belief of mine on whatever pile of unmanageable infinity that gets you by. society is often choosing to devalue facts in my opinion, and often substituting far dodgier "information" in its place. To me "infinitely many facts" sounds real close to "who knew it could be this complicated" lol

dang 2y ago

I protest! It's not a "both sides" thing. It's an empirical observation, and in my experience quite a reliable one. There are infinitely many facts, and the choice of which facts to select and how strongly to weigh them is not itself a fact, it's a choice made by humans. When those humans are busy advocating for a political position, you can be sure that this is what's dominating their choice. As I pointed out once before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25973366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25973366), it only takes a little self-honesty to notice oneself doing it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20infinitely%20many%20facts&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... This doesn't mean there's no truth or that it's impossible to know what the truth is. It might mean that political passion is too strong a force for the truth-finding process not to be perturbed by it.

cowboylowrez 2y ago
there are infinitely many grains of sand, get one in your eye and sure your values will probably adjust by mere reflex. you aren't necessarily bound by the "infinity of facts" in every case. I won't even disagree that politics is often based on what a constituency values. still, how do you eat the elephant, as always, one bite at a time. what I see this time around is that the pursuit of fact itself is devalued and under attack. you are certainly welcome to toss this belief of mine on whatever pile of unmanageable infinity that gets you by. society is often choosing to devalue facts in my opinion, and often substituting far dodgier "information" in its place. To me "infinitely many facts" sounds real close to "who knew it could be this complicated" lol