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Single-sided "news" reports can be right in some cases and wrong in others. Given that there is no way to verify them, they are obviously untrustworthy at that

by DenisM 12y ago

Single-sided "news" reports can be right in some cases and wrong in others. Given that there is no way to verify them, they are obviously untrustworthy at that time, even if later they turn out to be correct. When evaluating one-sided reports absent a different perspective, your best bet is to weight in the biases and the track record of the people reporting it. I'm not sure why you have a problem with that line of reasoning. If anything this is empiricism. Even if he was wrong about his stance on KhR, how does that affect validity of the book? The book cites all of its sources and makes its conclusions in broad daylight, so it's entirely possible to have a productive discussion about the contents and the arguments being made, without discuss the person making those arguments.

mc32 12y ago
It's not as though there were not refugees streaming out of the country recounting the atrocities and the difficulties they faced escaping the regime. Look, the first two years, the KCP itself thought it was illegitimate that it had no name. They didn't even acknowledge they existed. All you have to do is listen the population. When you have thousands of escapees and refugees recounting the same horrible things, it's not a sinister "propaganda plot". I've heard the stories from actual escapees who still have nightmares from when they trudged though unknown jungle for months not knowing if they'd see another day, not less make it out free. Decomposing bodies, where you might see a cow, in previous times, so in all kinds of places, you din't know who might turn you in, hunger, dispossession, etc.
- DenisM 12y ago
  Sadly, there is no shortage of manipulated victim testimonies either, often used to start or perpetuate a war. - Nayirah testimony leading up to the 1st Iraq war [1] - Numerous refugees testimonies leading up to the 2nd Iraq war (WMD, torture reports, etc) - Torrent of testimonies from Ukraine in recent months, e.g. [2] - I heard there is plenty of made-up material coming from Palestine You can see how giving much credence to a single-sourced report is not just un-epistemological, but also plain dangerous in that it can easily make bad situation worse. It's a very interesting question - how do we judge credibility of such reports? Clearly you can't take them at face value, but there must be things we can do. Obviously the best is a number of investigations by multiple independent people on site, but that's not always possible. One thing that comes to mind is interviewing all of the refugees and collating their accounts, as it could give a lot of data - people make errors, but if they all make the same errors it can point to manipulated accounts. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_%28testimony%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_%28testimony%29 [2] http://news.yahoo.com/russian-tv-sparks-outrage-ukraine-child-crucifixion-claim-114839196.html http://news.yahoo.com/russian-tv-sparks-outrage-ukraine-chil...
  - mc32 12y ago
    I think if you can verify that people are indeed taking perilous journeys dragging along families and whatever possessions they can (usually the clothes on their backs and some money), it's a good indicator of bad things happening. In Kampuchea, it wasn't a few dozen people. There were lots of 'boat people' in vietnam, hong kong, who escaped from the Kh R. That in no way can be interpreted as being "ambiguous". People don't travel through jungle, losing members along the way, for propaganda. Like I said, these weren't a few dozen people. It was thousands. People who ignored this can only be described as ideologues. It's kind of the same way some people in the West didn't want to believe gulags existed.

by DenisM 12y ago

mc32 12y ago

It's not as though there were not refugees streaming out of the country recounting the atrocities and the difficulties they faced escaping the regime. Look, the first two years, the KCP itself thought it was illegitimate that it had no name. They didn't even acknowledge they existed. All you have to do is listen the population. When you have thousands of escapees and refugees recounting the same horrible things, it's not a sinister "propaganda plot". I've heard the stories from actual escapees who still have nightmares from when they trudged though unknown jungle for months not knowing if they'd see another day, not less make it out free. Decomposing bodies, where you might see a cow, in previous times, so in all kinds of places, you din't know who might turn you in, hunger, dispossession, etc.

DenisM 12y ago
Sadly, there is no shortage of manipulated victim testimonies either, often used to start or perpetuate a war. - Nayirah testimony leading up to the 1st Iraq war [1] - Numerous refugees testimonies leading up to the 2nd Iraq war (WMD, torture reports, etc) - Torrent of testimonies from Ukraine in recent months, e.g. [2] - I heard there is plenty of made-up material coming from Palestine You can see how giving much credence to a single-sourced report is not just un-epistemological, but also plain dangerous in that it can easily make bad situation worse. It's a very interesting question - how do we judge credibility of such reports? Clearly you can't take them at face value, but there must be things we can do. Obviously the best is a number of investigations by multiple independent people on site, but that's not always possible. One thing that comes to mind is interviewing all of the refugees and collating their accounts, as it could give a lot of data - people make errors, but if they all make the same errors it can point to manipulated accounts. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_%28testimony%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_%28testimony%29 [2] http://news.yahoo.com/russian-tv-sparks-outrage-ukraine-child-crucifixion-claim-114839196.html http://news.yahoo.com/russian-tv-sparks-outrage-ukraine-chil...
- mc32 12y ago
  I think if you can verify that people are indeed taking perilous journeys dragging along families and whatever possessions they can (usually the clothes on their backs and some money), it's a good indicator of bad things happening. In Kampuchea, it wasn't a few dozen people. There were lots of 'boat people' in vietnam, hong kong, who escaped from the Kh R. That in no way can be interpreted as being "ambiguous". People don't travel through jungle, losing members along the way, for propaganda. Like I said, these weren't a few dozen people. It was thousands. People who ignored this can only be described as ideologues. It's kind of the same way some people in the West didn't want to believe gulags existed.