

Ask HN: Is a Red newspaper plausible? - theSage

By &quot;Red&quot; I mean a newspaper which challenges group thinking and comes up with alternative theories backed by facts.The word Red comes from military intelligence agencies around the world generally calling such a unit a Red unit.<p>For a clearer picture imagine the tenth man rule from World War Z which says that in a council of 10 men if 9 men agree, the tenth man has to disagree.<p>If such a paper was to exist what would stop it from simply becoming a conspiracy theory newspaper? Would people be interested in such a newspaper?
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chipsy
Anything sufficiently challenging and plain-spoken will experience external
forces that attempt to dismiss, discredit or co-opt it - starting with one's
own self.

As well, ideas that are serious and challenging require the reader to make a
great, intentional effort to understand them. Rationalization mechanisms will
always find ways to avoid understanding otherwise. A narrow band of
"interesting" is allowed, but not something which triggers defensiveness.

Thus, the optimal way to teach the reader is to find a way for them to engage
in play with the idea and solve a mystery that unlocks the real information,
creating the intentional effort without waking up the rationalization guards.

Conspiracy theories act as the foil to "mainstream" propaganda by presenting a
story which is just fractionally harder to follow, but not tremendously so;
the initial reader effort is basically one of "what if They are lying to me?"
Subsequently the reader is showered with evidence that yes, they are being
lied to. This point and counter-point effort allows people to remain anchored
in a binary, yes-or-no, right-or-wrong framing of events and actions, where
their identity and opinions can remain stable and confident.

There is an inevitability that a popular medium will hew close to surface
dualism. Anything that achieves more in that realm hides something of itself.

Another way to think about it is that understanding is concentric - the group
in the innermost circle can't directly speak to the folks far in the outside.
They have to teach the people they're adjacent to, first. In the process the
understanding may become a little more basic and limited, but still more
"correct" to the expert's understanding.

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s986s
If I were to take you literally, I imagine the newspaper would serve as a few
things

1) Devil's advocate - This would be the worst it can do

2) Speak the opinions people would rather hide - This would be the best it can
do

3) Break Down pros and cons of equal two sided debates - I'm a big believer in
give people as much information as possible to make decisions

Maybe more. Conspiracy enters into hidden opinions however, if we are talking
about the "tenth man rule" then I doubt leaking private information would be
this newspaper's bread and butter.

Honestly, I skim through things to try to get to the meat of materials. So if
you provide information that was easy to sort through, about current and
heated topics and attempt to hit every angle with logical arguments, I would
read it.

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notahacker
Theories backed by interpretations of the facts that most experts disagree
with? You mean like scientific racism, anti-vaccing and climate change denial?

There would certainly be an audience for such a publication, though whether
you'd want to pander to it is another question...

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theSage
I had not thought of it in this light. The context I had in mind was
propaganda and other stories published by mainstream newspapers.

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notahacker
So more like a Snopes for the mainstream media then? The trouble is,
mainstream media usually (i) is correct on the actual course of events
reported and (ii) already comes to wildly differing conclusions about the
rights and wrongs, which facts are most relevant, whose opinions matter and
what will happen in the future. Disagreeing with other commentators' editorial
stance and tearing them out for reporting rumours which later turn out to be
false is something mainstream media personalities take great pleasure in doing
already. So if your stance is writing alternatives to things that the media
pretty much universally agree on, you're inevitably straying into pretty
outlandish territory

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maxharris
_If such a paper was to exist what would stop it from simply becoming a
conspiracy theory newspaper?_

As long as the people that make the paper are on the premise that the facts
gathered and presented are verifiable (in principle) by anyone, there is
little danger.

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fsk
Your main problem would be getting enough paid subscribers to cover the cost.

Also, you should do it as a website rather than a print newspaper.

There already are several "conspiracy theory" websites.

