
The anterolateral ligament: Wrong information on the Internet - calebgarling
http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/11/08/anterolateral-ligament-internet-information/
======
ddoolin
> And though Second Commenter is lazy, we recognize the dismissive potato-
> potahto sentiment. “Come on, don’t be a party pooper.” We feel that in
> social situations. Don’t challenge. It’ll be awkward. If someone posts the
> Time piece on their Facebook wall, it’s a little jerky to post LaPrade’s
> rebuttal in the comments. That’s why the good doctor’s post won’t have as
> strong legs in correcting the record; a lot of the people who cared about
> posting the “discovery” the first time will shy from posting that it
> actually wasn’t. It makes them look duped.

This seems to me like the most important takeaway here. I've corrected people
on Facebook many times and gotten pretty nasty replies for doing so, but
honestly it's for the better if just one person isn't fooled by a misleading
story or outright lie.

On the same note, I give things a lot of time and thought before posting
anything on any network, especially if it's opinionated.

~~~
prawks
This is one thing I will probably just never understand about people. If I'm
wrong, I _want_ to know about it. Why wouldn't you?

I get that there are a multitude of reasons, yadda yadda, but it's just so
difficult for me to empathize with someone who has that mentality. You
_really_ want to live with a bunch of (potentially dangerous) misconceptions?
Doesn't that go against basic survival instincts (lizard brain) at the very
least?

~~~
Amadou
_Doesn 't that go against basic survival instincts (lizard brain) at the very
least?_

It's a form of tribalism and I'd argue that tribalism is the king of "lizard
brain" survival instincts.

~~~
xenophonf
Hasn't the whole "lizard brain" thing been debunked? See for example
[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-
blog/2012/09/07/re...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-
blog/2012/09/07/revenge-of-the-lizard-brain/).

~~~
Amadou
Sure, but it is still a catch-all term for base, low-cognitive mental
processes. I don't literally think _lizards_ are tribal, if anything the
opposite.

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nitrogen
That's the first time I've ever had a website involuntarily redirect me to the
Play Store app. Didn't advertisers learn their popup lesson ages ago? I will
no longer visit sfgate on my phone until I have an ad blocker.

~~~
diminoten
Didn't do it for me, must be a specific ad in the rotation or whatever.

I bet if you told sfgate what happened, they'd get the ad removed. So maybe
instead of stealing content from a website, you could just not visit that
website until the problem is resolved.

~~~
anoncow
I used to be a freedom advocate. But making money from ads is making me think
of ways to protect that income source. I should start looking at alternative
sources of income or draw up some business plans. But I am not sure I will be
able to. Eventually, you will find me at an association of adsense publishers
pushing for laws to make adblocking illegal. With charges equivalent to piracy
or stealing. I am not joking. I seriously believe I am becoming that person.

~~~
ronaldx
Do better. I'm serious. Do better so that you don't have to make money from
ads.

~~~
anoncow
Thanks. I recently removed all ads from all but one of my websites (and got a
job). The one is to study trends. Concentrating on learning for now.

Also:

1\. not hating on sites that run on ad money, which is a very valid business
model.

2\. You can detect and choose to not show content, if you detect
adblock(should work for casual users).

3\. Do something that reddit does - "Thank you for not using Adblock" banners
or something that game-debate.com does - "Pics of kittens asking you to add
them to Adblock's whitelist"

4\. You can use adblock-friendly ads

~~~
eevilspock
In our society many of us subconsciously or sometimes consciously turn down
the volume of our own conscience, because we'd rather not come face to face
with our hypocrisy, our complicity with banal and not so banal evil [1],
because we don't want to give up the benefits. In the Internet tech community,
its ultimate manifestation is how we pretend advertising is not evil, while
deep down know it is [2].

[1] The Banality of Systemic Evil,
[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/the-
banality...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/the-banality..).

[2] No free lunch, no free web,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624666](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624666)

~~~
anoncow
>Advertising simply shifts the cost of the "fee lunch" to the price of the
advertised products. In other words we still end up paying. It may even shift
costs regressively, toward lower incomes and the less educated, in which case
the poor are subsidizing the better off.

From the second link. However,

>Without more data, we can't know.

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unclesaamm
Eh, the key part that was misleading wasn't "discovered", it was "entirely
new". It was not entirely new. It was not even vaguely new. It was old.

