Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by diplomatpuppy | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

diplomatpuppy

My gut reaction:

Vetted and official news also can get us to believe lies:

* Iraq has a stockpile of WMD.

* Japanese-American citizens should be rounded up.

* You don't need to wear a mask, so don't go buying them up.

* Collage is a wise investment.

* You should fear $those_people because they will kill you.

* Some civil rights are outdated and you don't need them anymore.

View on HN

Seems like good journalistic news would write:

* Pentagon said Iraq has a stockpile of WMD

* White house reports Japanese-American citizens will be rounded up.

* You don't need to wear a mask, so don't go buying them up, surgeon general said in press release.

* Collage is a wise investment, according to College administrators.

* You should fear $those_people because they will kill you, Senate discussed last night.

* Congress argues: Some civil rights are outdated and you don't need them anymore.

It's not news if it's opinion. It's news if it's a writeup of things that happen.

This is how almost all news is presented, unfortunately many people don't seem to understand this - i.e. if it's in quotes it's not the editorial opinion of the newspaper! (Otherwise the BBC would be pro-left pro-right etc.)

That's also something we should teach our kids.

Surprisingly, about the first point at least, the reporting I remember is exactly that : "Pentagon says Irak has WMD, but the rest of the world is not convinced."

Now, it might help that I'm French :P

France, the one country that challenged US intelligence because their own intelligence contradicted the CIA and NSA reports. Absolute studs.

And then we renamed French fries to freedom fries.

In the Netherlands no-one of any importance sincerely believed US intelligence, because nobody trusted Bush. But the thinking here was "Well, it's the US and they have us by the balls. The diplomatic thing is to say we understand their stance on Irak."

Please add Germany to that list:

[Excuse me I’m not convinced](https://youtu.be/_k_QbpFl7RM)

That sentence is idiomatic now for many people I know. (WTF is wrong with my markdown here?)

Hacker news doesn't support markdown. https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

And yet I remember the weasel covers ;) ooooh, not-so-simpler times....

Exposure can lead to the inference that something is true. So if you are wanting to be careful, you need to consider that there may be no effective difference in publishing "Iraq has WMDs" and "the Pentagon says Iraq has WMDs."

There's a difference between believing a plausible lie that one can't verify on their own, like Iraq having WMDs, verses believing an insane conspiracy theory like that there's an Illuminati child sex/eating cult operating under a pizza shop.

It's the level of fervor and delusion behind these beliefs that has me concerned.

Telling people to not believe the things they're seeing and hearing is probably one of the common denominators of all cults and religions.

> * Collage is a wise investment.

It was for the person who bought and sold this: https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/discoveries-john-pipers...

There is a difference between lies and conspiracy theories though. Lies have a lifespan after which they are exposed. Conspiracy theories are like lie factories, more lies will be manufactured to rationalize previous lies ad infinity.

In my opinion, the problem is everyone thinks these things apply to others but not to themselves. There isn’t enough honest introspection.

I assume you meant college?

If so, it is an extremely wise investment. It's not the only way, but its a very good path to take. It's not the best choice for everyone, but people who puppet 'college is a bad investment' are spreading dis-information that an hurt others.

agree that college is the way to go. Just not in the US system. The whole idea of college tuition is fucked up to the rest of the world

No, as blanket advice goes it really isn't a wise investment. It depends entirely on the degree. Many Gen-Ys learned this the hard way after internalizing the notion that taking on lifelong debt to get a degree meant buying a one-way ticket to easy street.

Doctor, accountant, lawyer, engineer? Sure. College is a good investment.

Most other degrees qualify one to be management at Pottery Barn. Hardly worth the five-figure entry fee.

You can also see counterarguments to all of those.

QAnon is different because is it totally unfalsifiable in the eyes of those subscribing to it. There is no truth to any of it - whereas ,for example, Iraq didn't have nukes but they had used Chemical Weapons (WMD) on their own population.

These QAnon people genuinely believe Trump is the culmination of a 20 year plan to defeat the deep state. Right...

And who is us?

Pretty much everything on that list was the right-wing propaganda of it's time. You won't much if any factual reporting supporting any of it.

Don’t know why you are being downvoted, most of the points are indeed typically right wing afaik.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com