Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

Posted Mar 16, 2017 21:58 UTC (Thu) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404)
In reply to: Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor by ShadowTek
Parent article: Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

"I will begin the believe that the liberal media is less than 99% Democrat when I see evidence for it. As yet, I have not."

Which makes that a religious belief or an insane one. The rational approach would be to believe a hypothesis once reproducible, multi-sourced, controlled evidence supports it, not until evidence disproves it.

This kind of irrational nonsense has even less place on LWN than politics.

Trump, fine, claiming the media is biased and liberal fine, adamant belief without proof, scarrry.

Yes, I am a liberal who subscribes to the NYT, and finds Trump a bit batty. But am willing to admit it has a bias (and even find it's breatheless over-the-top tone annoying after the calm, working-so-hard to be neutral tone of Science, and pop over to some random conservative blog like national review or something just to get a balance).

So it's not your belief that I find inappropriate - it's the lack of intellectual rigor behind it, and the triumph of irrationality over reasoned disagreement.

(Yes, you carefully phrased it as you will believe.. when proof.., but the logic is still that you believe that the media is 99% or greater Democratic until you see evidence otherwise. And in reasoned debate, logic and facts matter more than clever phrasing)

Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

Posted Mar 17, 2017 0:30 UTC (Fri) by ShadowTek (guest, #112558) [Link] (2 responses)

> The rational approach would be to believe a hypothesis once reproducible, multi-sourced, controlled evidence supports it, not until evidence disproves it.

You seem to be making the assumption that this is what I have always believed, or that it is what I want to believe, which is incorrect. When I was younger, I used to chuckle when people talked of a vast left-wing media conspiracy, but my observations over time have opened my eyes. I have, over the years, observed much bias that is repeated and has come to be predictable, and these things have come from many multiple sources indeed.

As far as a control, such a thing unfortunately does not exist for a comparison to be made, at least not in the mainstream media. Everything is propaganda, and nothing is based on the journalistic principals of such things as honesty or ethics.

> But am willing to admit it has a bias (and even find it's breatheless over-the-top tone annoying after the calm, working-so-hard to be neutral tone of Science, and pop over to some random conservative blog like national review or something just to get a balance).

Then we sound more similar than different. Your status or mine as a liberal or conservative is irrelevant. This conversation, and the article that spawned it, is about overcoming the challenges presented by the presence of misinformation in the media; be it television, the Internet, or otherwise.

"Intellectual rigor" is what is required to wade through the vast ocean of propaganda from both sides, weigh their claims against their bias, and then make a reasoned judgment on what is believable, and to what extent it can be believed.

As I said before, this is not what I want to believe. It is simply the only logical explanation for all that I have observed over time.

My criticism of the liberal media is not a criticism or liberalism itself. My views on liberalism are beyond the scope of the current topic. It is the dishonest methods of the liberal media in the US that I am exclusively referring to, so there is no need to take it as a personal attack on your beliefs.

Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

Posted Mar 17, 2017 0:33 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (1 responses)

ShadowTek, as you will have noticed, you are flagged to be moderated now. I passed this one through because we really hate to silence people by force. This is the last of these, though. It's really time for this conversation to come to an end. There are plenty of places to engage in this kind of talk; LWN really does not aspire to be one of them.

Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

Posted Apr 16, 2017 4:46 UTC (Sun) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link]

Don't feel too bad. I would actually pay extra to have you watching my comments for inappropriateness. Probably couldn't afford enough to make it worth being my own personal editor, but still.. nice to know someone would have stopped some of the dumber things I've said...