Comment by criley2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by criley2 | Hacker News Reader

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That requires a subscription, and your subscription to a service which produces long form journalism will be inherently biased.

I am unaware of a service which really aggregates multiple view points in a fair way because such a thing is impossible.

I can link you to a few longer form journalism papers/magazines, but any conservative would decry them as biased.

We could link to some traditionally conservative outlets, but they'd be decried as neo-conservative, out of date and biased.

As offensive as it might be to you, in society and news, opinion is all there is.

"But facts MATTER" you might retort, but no, they don't. Only opinions about facts matter.

Because what power does a fact have if it's not accepted as true? None. What power does a falsehood have if it's accepted as true? All of it.

There is no fair and rational way to separate opinion and fact.

After a fifteen years of using news aggregators, RSS aggregators, aggreagtors like memeorandum.com and polurls.com, and social aggregators like digg, then reddit, and social media services, I have not found what you want.

I have thought about making it, and I have ideas on how liberals and conservatives can use a single website to organize the news into strands and voice their opinions on the validity of that organization WITHOUT the normal animosity and viciousness that is normal, but I've never sat down to really create it.

If you're able to categorize news sources as conservative, or liberal, then couldn't you aggregate news by grouping the conservative and liberal articles about a specific topic together, and presenting them side by side?

For instance, lets say Trump creates an executive order demanding that a wall between Mexico and the US be built by 2018. Both the right, and the left, will write thousands upon thousands of articles about how this will be great for the country, and terrible for the country. The truth like most things, may lie somewhere in between the extremes. Your news aggregator would allow you to read articles about the wall, as written by both conservatives, and liberals.

Then, you'd at LEAST be reading the differing opinions. The problem is, I doubt many people would want a service like this. Like it or not, human beings seem to enjoy the comfort of their solidified beliefs. It's far easier to digest your right wing, or left wing news, rather than digesting BOTH. People don't really want to change.

>If you're able to categorize news sources as conservative, or liberal, then couldn't you aggregate news by grouping the conservative and liberal articles about a specific topic together, and presenting them side by side?

See, the thing is, people aggressively self-bubble so if you natively show them both sides, they will stop using your service.

There may be a minority of less-political and more-rational folks who want that, but I've discovered trying to get people to use polurls.com that people don't want side by side.

If you do side by side, you create cognitive dissonance when "their side" "appears" "wrong", and the easiest way to solve that cognitive dissonance is to close the tab and not return.

>Then, you'd at LEAST be reading the differing opinions. The problem is, I doubt many people would want a service like this. Like it or not, human beings seem to enjoy the comfort of their solidified beliefs. It's far easier to digest your right wing, or left wing news, rather than digesting BOTH. People don't really want to change.

Exactly, which is why I envision a system of silos where you can have your biased lunch and eat it too, but whose tools allow us to measure opinion and biases, and which can attempt to bring down some of the barriers between bubbles through a variety of surfacing techniques.

Give people what they want and the tools to classify THEIR bubble, and in the process, keep other bubbles and ideas just on their edges, visible in the periphery...

Combatting cognitive dissonance self-preservation is a problem worth solving though, ugh.

One solution can be to show the news that conform to one's bias, but have some sort of "score", measuring the sentiment of those of the opposite view, and the general public. There should also be the option to dig deeper on that if desired.

Says I'm liberal, I may get articles that criticize Trump's immigration plan, and the articles would show how well received the plan is to the right.

Again, that's what realclearpolitics.com appears to be doing... listing articles from both sides of the isle, twice daily.

I don't work for them, I've just found their published lists useful.

I agree that both viewpoints will be opinions based upon facts or theories. There is a saying that goes something like "Don't argue with someone unless you know their side better than they do." I feel an author who understands both sides of an issue could write to an audience in a way that is meant to purely inform them about both sides opinions.

You could also do it as a debate where two respectable, well-informed and well spoken people debate following strict rules. Pretty much the opposite of a US Presidential debate. Without it being a live debate, both would have time to give their statements plenty of thought and consideration. They could then take the time to make sure it is well written.

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