
Not All Facts Are Equal - BobbyVsTheDevil
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/mi5-files-fake-news-prevent-programme-newspapers-patrick-cockburn-a8389581.html
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whatshisface
This confusion is rampant in the business world. Some people prefer to
bamboozle and be bamboozled by case studies, some people prefer to bamboozle
and be bamboozled by pie charts. Powerpoint is a common medium for both.
However, despite their differences, they share their audience - people who
can't do a good analysis and have no idea what one would look like.
Inevitably, if this realization ever sinks in it will have to be worded in a
way that doesn't make it sound like there's anything wrong with the people who
don't know what they're doing. Now that journalists have started to phrase it
in a way that makes it sound like the "facts," are at fault, I think it has a
good chance of becoming accepted.

~~~
mAEStro-paNDa
This is an excellent point. Although, I think as far as (most) journalism
goes, it's less about "facts" in general than it is defending an
authority/legitimacy that was previously accepted (generally) but is now being
put into question.

It seems the author is pointing out how the tendencies that lead people to
consider something as "fact" haven't changed despite the mechanism of
communication improving in capability/efficiency.

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hliyan
This part is true:

"In practice, this data-driven approach never worked and campaigns that relied
on it, like Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid in 2016, have usually ended in
failure."

I think that a statistically significant set of detailed case studies is
superior to a massive mountain of data where each data point is just an
approximation of what it is supposed to measure (e.g. answers to a handful of
questions, or some metric).

Perhaps anecdotes, in large enough numbers, are data.

~~~
obelix_
All you have to do is ask Google - did inequality increase under 8 years of
Obama?

Look at the results that pop up. You will see articles filled with charts and
data that tell two totally different stories. Every other link will dutifully
fall on one side or the other.

How is the average American going to figure out what the truth is?

~~~
kadenshep
>How is the average American going to figure out what the truth is?

Basic education that was provided for free in middle and high school?

~~~
obelix_
Do you think that's working?

Once you take this position, and from the outcomes we see all around us, its
very easy to reach a conclusion that the edu system is failing as a large part
of the population can't parse what they are being fed. And that includes
highly educated people btw. Cause they land up on either side on any issue you
pick.

But that's just wrong.

People constantly expect the education system to solve the problem (of info
overload - so many facts that not all facts are equal as the article does a
good job explaining). The education system was never designed to solve info
overload.

And social media/news media/Google are designed to overload everyone.

We need a bridging of the two systems.

Google/social media/news media has to understand they are constantly serving
second graders tenth grade problems. And pretending there won't be any
consewuences.

The education system is atlest able to signal to a second grader he is in
second grade and here is a path to tenth grade with feedback constantly being
provided to ensure he stays on track if he wants to get to tenth grade.

These signals don't exist on the internet of 2018 or are drowned out by 2000
other signals.

Most people are busy, distracted, coping with their own life problems and with
the minimum attention they have to spare are told to pick facts from a large
buffet table. The tech world has reinvent what signals it's providing
alongside those facts.

Cause the highly simplistic current signals of upvotes/view
counts/likes/retweets etc are not enough.

~~~
kadenshep
>its very easy to reach a conclusion that the edu system is failing as a large
part of the population can't parse what they are being fed.

I think the problem is deeper than any education system could reasonably be
expected to fix.

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DoreenMichele
I think the headline is great, the article not so much.

I learned about the inequality of facts while processing accident claims.
Accident claims are a little like a court case where a single judge determines
a verdict. That verdict determines whether or not a check is cut to cover the
claim.

In any claim, you will see strong facts, weak facts, and even red flags that
can indicate it is fraudulent. With reading it, you need to make one of four
decisions:

1\. Pay the claim.

2\. Deny the claim.

3\. Request more information.

4\. Refer to the fraud department for review.

Any given claim can have indicators to pay and contradictory indicators to
deny. The decision to pay or deny hinges not only on how many such indicators
there are, but on the strength of each of them. Kind of like DNA evidence will
outweigh hearsay in a court case.

Some facts are stronger than others. This is true even if you take out the
element of politics.

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brobdingnagians
I feel like literature can often have this problem too; the information
density has become less thoughtful since there is so much data to quote and
people spend less time just sitting and thinking. It is easy to quote data; it
is much harder and more time consuming to connect the data yourself and come
up with something meaningful to guide your life.

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have
lost in information?" \- TS Eliot

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BobbyVsTheDevil
The author has a long track record of being one of the most careful and
factual journalists in the English-speaking world. His reporting on the wars
in the Middle East has been consistently some of the most informative, and
unlike most of his colleagues he has put his body on the line by being
physically present there. So an article like the OP is more worth listening to
than it might seem.

~~~
zafka
I always read carefully when I see this authors byline. If he did not quite
often tell uncomfortable truths, he would probably be much more well known. As
it is, he does not make the mainstream media very often.

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Bucephalus355
FYI, the author, Patrick Cockburn, has a last name pronounced “co-burn”.

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RyanZAG
Obligatory relevant xkcd:

[https://xkcd.com/882/](https://xkcd.com/882/)

And if you think this only applies to statistics, you need to think about the
problem being described here a bit more.

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tqi
I think the title of this piece is right (if a bit banal and obvious), but the
op-ed is rambling and not at all convincing.

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lando2319
The facts that support one's narrative are the most important.

Mainstream media 101

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remyrylan
I agree that all mainstream media, no matter if it's on the right, the left,
center, government owned or not -- it's all full of bias to push the narrative
each organization cares about.

Maybe 5% of the news reported is worth paying attention to, the rest may as
well be garbage.

~~~
fvdessen
They put the narrative people want to read about. Have you seen what's on the
clickbaity ads ? That's what people click on ! Most people want garbage.

~~~
remyrylan
Very true. I internally weep for humanity every time I use a browser without
ad block.

