
The Absurd Primacy of the Automobile in American Life - matt4077
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/absurd-primacy-of-the-car-in-american-life/476346/?single_page=true
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chmaynard
> In almost every way imaginable, the car, as it is deployed and used today,
> is insane.

As soon as I read this statement, my brain turned off. This is an opinion
piece, not serious journalism.

~~~
matt4077
Contrary to what people on HN seem to remember from their High School politics
class, there is a lot more to journalism than a recitation of facts with the
accuracy and relevancy of a phone book. In fact, some people argue it's almost
entirely impossible to write anything 'objerctively', as just the decision to
cover something, how much space to give it etc. are matters of opinion.

This here is a format that could be called 'analysis' or 'essay'. It's in The
Atlantic, which is a rather reputable magazine, but not one of those doing
'news'. In fact, you probalby won't find a single article in there satisfying
your need for formalistic objectivism. And yet, The Atlantic has given us such
gems as "What ISIS really wants"
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-
isi...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-
wants/384980/), probably one of the most influential articles of the last 12
months, but brimming with what wikipedia would reject as "original research".

All in all, I wish the thats-not-journalism-refrain would die, together with
the equally stupid correlation-vs-causation-oneuppity^1 or the a-sample-size-
of-50-is-too-small-too-proof-anything-dumbsmaggery^2

(1) it's true, but you're really not telling anybody anything new. Yes, it is
highly likely that they havbe tried to remove confounding factors

(2) I'd like to invite the next 50 people using this argument to my controlled
trial (n=50 + 50 control) where they will receive an injection of strychnine
while the control group gets a placebo. Effect size, bitches!

