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Comment by arkitaip | Hacker News Reader

He really comes off as a sociopath if you check his Twitter, where he calls someone a moron, keeps attacking Elizabeth Warren, and treats Alex Jones/Info Wars as a serious media outlet [0]. Also, it's hilarious that he considers himself the target of a racist conspiracy but goes to great lengths to deny that Trump's and Bannon's racist politics. And this is a guy who is running for senate.

[0] https://twitter.com/va_shiva

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Treating Alex Jones as a serious media outlet is honestly the worst offense here. This guy has stated on multiple occasions in great detail that he believes that the Newtown shooting was faked and everyone was hired actors, that there is some great deep state conspiracy and other fear mongering shit about how the various politicians are the devil and will destroy the world.

The thing that bugs me most about your comment is that it introduces fallacious groupthink (argument based on authority I guess) that makes it difficult for anyone with a different opinion to speak out: "if you trust such and so (i.c. Alex Jones), you're a moron a priori." This type of reasoning should be discouraged on HN in the same way that "did you even read"-type comments should be (and are) discouraged, because I think that both stifle civil and open discussion. And both of these things can be said in better, less excluding, and less hostile ways.

This is getting off topic, but Popehat calls this the "Nazi Exception"[0]

> Yes, rights are important, and we must offer them generously. But surely we can agree that Nazis don't have rights?

[0]: https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-t...

Well, in this particular case, it seems "Nazis" do have rights, because Alex Jones is apparently having a profitable business and nobody's throwing him into jail.

> "if you trust such and so (i.c. Alex Jones), you're a moron a priori." This type of reasoning should be discouraged

A fine position on its face in the general case, but let's be real here: if you trust Alex Jones specifically, you really are a moron.

Given his history of incendiary garbage-spewing, if you trust Alex Jones, you're a moron.

If there's something you hear from Alex Jones that seems like it might be true, double-check it with knowledgeable sources before you adopt it as a fact.

Better yet, go find more reliable sources for your information.

In fact the time required to vet anything he says against more objective sources is such that listening to him entirely wasted effort. I know no more after hearing him speak than I did before. If he says its raining outside I necessarily must spend just as much time opening a window and looking outside as if he hadn't spoken. To be clear I'm agreeing with you.

This would make a nice template text.

We don't have time to dissect everyone's arguments on merit and perform deep analysis. It helps sometimes to filter based on obvious criteria. Like if someone is a young earth creationist or believes the moon landing was faked. This belief so clearly denotes a lack of critical thinking that dissecting the rest of their arguments that follow is not worth the effort.

The world is so massively full of such low hanging fruit that you can often save a massive amount of time this way as it turns out the majority of people aren't worth listening to outside of narrow areas of knowledge they directly interact with. Its a completely valid strategy. The danger of course is that you risk ignoring useful proof if what you assumed was obvious was incorrect.

I suppose so, but I'm biased against Alex Jones now only because of hearing so that so many dubious people like him.

Yet, I don't know anything about Alex Jones himself. It'd be nice if that were included in the critique.

Alex Jones literally thinks that alien Satanist lizardmen run the world. That's not hyperbolic mockery; he has actually expressed those opinions.

I absolutely agree that automatically dismissing anyone whose news sources don't completely agree with yours is a big problem. But I think intelligent people can agree that some people have proven themselves utterly unworthy of trust.

Wright Brothers thought they could fly.

Have you ever looked into his claims or reasons why he believes that?

I have spoken to him at length myself.

If you don't think Infowars is a serious news outlet, maybe you haven't watched them? In about 20 years they have had I think 3 retractions, which a propaganda rag like CNN or the Washington Post has to do weekly.

I would wish that HN would have more people who care about primary sources - that is what my academic training taught me. Perhaps if you listened to any of Bannon's speeches rather than malicious rumor and hearsay, you would have a different opinion.

>I would wish that HN would have more people who care about primary sources

>If you don't think Infowars is a serious news outlet, maybe you haven't watched them

Sometimes the comments write themselves.

They don't have retractions because they don't care about accuracy, whereas places like CNN will issue retractions or corrections for anything as simple as a spelling error. Your argument is like saying a football team is the best team in baseball because they've never lost a baseball game.

They had to do one a month or so ago because they were peddling an insane theory involving yogurt.

And pizzagate

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/26/521545788/...

Again, Alex Jones has literally claimed that the world is controlled by Satanists and lizard men from space. It is not to his credit that he hasn't retracted those claims.

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