Hacker News Reader

Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

Yikes - I've found Zerohedge to be scarily accurate over time! Depends on your political allegiances I suppose but my mother taught me when i was kid to always read the financial press - 'follow the money to find out what the b@stards are thinking' was her old line. (she used to work for the UK tory party in the '50's, despised them). ZH is what many city of London and wall street minions read live on their bloomberg terminals, for better or worse...

Separately I view Twitter as breaking section 230 free speech regulatory agreements in meddling with what they 'publish'

View on HN

> scarily accurate

As the saying goes, Zerohedge has predicted 28 of the last 4 recessions. They have a consistently bearish bias (which rarely seems to play out), and ties to the Russian state, which brings into question the motivations behind their criticisms of the US (not that I'm the biggest fan myself).

All of that said, ZH introduced me to a lot of economic literature and concepts I likely wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. They touch on niche subjects constantly, and I have to give them credit for broadening my understanding of economics in general.

ZH proudly flaunts their bearish bias. The name Zero Hedge really says it all. Their motto, 'On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everybody drops to zero', makes this explicit.

That's a quote from Fight Club and more of a joke than anything, IIRC.

They obviously chose it because it fits their worldview. Their lack of originality is beyond the point.

Most of the articles are written by 'Tyler Durden', part of the 'fight club' philosophy joke.

Right, so I think looking for a deeper philosophy in the choice of name and tagline is a bit futile. "Tyler Durden" used to be the cool pseudonym to use online circa 2005.

Nobody said it was deep. Just that it reflects their attitude.

Fight Club, though, was just fancying up and decontextualizing the first sentence of Milton (EDIT: John Maynard, nor Milton) Keynes famous quote: "In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if, in tempestuous seasons, they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again."

I would be very surprised if a financial news outlet choosing the Fight Club quote did so at random and not specifically because of its predecessor.

Well, if we're going to play the X is really just modified Y game, we might as well go back to the original.

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

- Ecclesiastes, 300 B.C.E.

King James Version truly is the worst translation you can find of the bible.

Milton Keynes? :)

Yeah, that was a great brain-o

Exactly. They are glass half empty paranoids, as are many traders in financial markets, their primary audience.

Most of the corporate media are (sometimes ludicrously) optimistic, the other polarity. I read both.

> Most of the corporate media are (sometimes ludicrously) optimistic, the other polarity. I read both.

Unfortunately being wrong on the internet is now becoming long-term grounds to be censored and excluded from mainstream society's systems.

Its quite sad really and I don't know what the solution is.

One thing that I DO know is that the solution isn't coming from the government. They are terrible at things. Their job should largely be relegated to protecting freedoms and security.

This 230 stuff is mostly probably going to backfire and create a less free internet. We don't need more lawyers and more government intervention to internet communication.

I do know we have many thousands of people working on solutions to things like Reddit (and Cloudflares) hyper-sensitive long-ago-crosed-the-line censorship, even if censorship is probably a poor world for it given the historical baggage.

Although this is the internet and even sights like T_D were almost entirely replaced on a site without Reddit's regulation and controls (a far worse situation in many's eyes) welll before it was banned on Reddit. It's thriving on a domain name I won't mention here.

Same with infowars and 8chan, they both quickly found new homes on new places.

But there censoring on any major platform and being related to fringe online communities being fringe DDOS protection services and aononimizers (who yes do still get heavily advertised and recruited on Reddit and redirected to these new unmoderated sites, so their censorship policies were always destined to fail).

I'm more concern about operating in the real world (VISA/Mastercard, Patreon, acess to advertising monopoly networks like adwords/adsense, etc), less so the online communities where discourse it happening. Reddit's censorship problem will eventually be solved on a wider/easier scale once the engineering work has been put into it.

It's probably one of the biggest problem of our current era for those of us who understand the importance of "outlaw thinking", free expression, and those who know the history of how these tools of control are almost always abused and riddled with false positives. The history of those who went against the grain (even if that grain is terribly wrong, wrong things have plenty of other ways to kill off than censorship).

You've really got to be careful with this sort of thing. This is how Rush Limbaugh got into otherwise sane people's hearts and minds: he explained how the legislative process worked in accessible language.

That's a very interesting point. (I stopped listening to Limbaugh ~ 1994.) I collect books on policy making. I'll look for Limbaugh's explainers. But should you have links handy, I'll be your best friend (duration unspecified).

They are, but when the FED keeps re-inflating bubbles and manipulating the markets, all conventional economic processes that they were using as sentinels were also getting disrupted.

> They are, but...

But nothing. In short, the claim of 'scarily accurate' is not true. There may be underlying reasons that their accuracy has issues, but their track record up to this point has been highly inaccurate.

Yada yada yada

> As the saying goes, Zerohedge has predicted 28 of the last 4 recessions.

No question ZeroHedge is excessively pessimistic, but that saying is silly. The US has been having recessions almost like clockwork once every 10 years since 1950 [0].

Saying "a recession is incoming!" is pretty much trivially true. It is always very likely there will be a recession in the next 10 years.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...

> The US has been having recessions almost like clockwork once every 10 years since 1950

Your standards for "clockwork" regularity seem to be quite low. Your own source offered to support that claim shows almost double that frequency from 1950-1990, and a maximum interval of 10 years, 8 months over the whole period. So it is neither "like clockwork" over that period (the frequency has on average dropped over the period, but the intervals are highly variable from one to the next), and not averaging anything like 10 years.

Gee, well that leaves me debunked. I guess recessions are quite common and ZeroHedge is ... much more reliable than I thought? A scary discovery.

If you are planning your investments around not having a recession about once a decade, I'm unconvinced it will end well for you.

Anyway, the point stands - regularly predicting recessions is a sensible approach, and saying ZeroHedge overpredicts is wrong. The normal financial press are reckless in assuming that recessions are not imminent. Looking 5+ years into the future to assess the present state is prudent.

> regularly predicting recessions is a sensible approach,

No, its not, because recessions do not occur on a regular pattern. And even if they did, its still possible to predict them much more frequently than they do occur.

> and saying ZeroHedge overpredicts is wrong.

Just doing a quick search, ZeroHedge seems to have predicted a recession, counting only predictions with a one year or shorter forward window, literally every year since the end of the of the Great Recession. In many of those years, they made at least one prediction where the window was effectively negative, as they claimed that the US was already in a recession that just wasn't yet recognized.

So, yes, ZeroHedge significantly overpredicts recessions, as they have predicted not less than 11 of the last 1 recessions.

> The normal financial press are reckless in assuming that recessions are not imminent.

That's a non-sequitur, in any case.

> Looking 5+ years into the future to assess the present state is prudent.

Sure, but if ZeroHedge was consistently predicting a recession within 5 years, they'd still be overpredicting by quite a lot (not if this was 1950-1990, but it isn't), but they are much, much worse than that.

No, I don't think you will come out ahead in your investments by trying to predict recessions. Timing the market almost always ends badly in the long term. The best way to come out ahead is to plan based on very long term market trends which include the recessions and stick to your plan with the understanding that there will be recessions, you just don't know when they will start and when they will end.

I'm quite certain if someone simulated trading based on predicted recessions on ZH, you would end up well below market returns.

> As the saying goes, Zerohedge has predicted 28 of the last 4 recessions.

I wonder if that's actually true.

> > As the saying goes, Zerohedge has predicted 28 of the last 4 recessions.

> I wonder if that's actually true.

Its not, as ZH was founded during the Great Recession, and there's only been one since.

That's at least 10 less than they've predicted, though, so the quote, while not literally true, understates the degree to which ZH overpredicts recessions.

> Separately I view Twitter as breaking section 230 free speech regulatory agreements in meddling with what they 'publish'

Section 230 isn't an agreement, it's a section of the Communication Decency Act.[1] There is no prohibition on the publisher "meddling", or moderating. Section 230 was specifically carved out to encourage voluntary content moderation on the nascent internet.

It states that hosting or republishing someone else's speech does not make you the speaker, even if you moderate. Which is to say that just because Twitter locks down accounts or stops a link from being shared, they still are not the Speaker (legally) of anything their users post. That's it, that basically the whole thing.

[1]https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

> Separately I view Twitter as breaking section 230 free speech regulatory agreements in meddling with what they 'publish'

Section 230 was overtly adopted so that platforms would make efforts to censor content that they found to be objectionable; there are no "free speech regulatory agreements" associated with it.

It is the only surviving part of a law whose sole and entire purpose was internet censorship, the rest of which was struck down for violating Free Speech protections.

https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

Twitter (and FB) have crossed the rubicon in editorializing other people's posts with 'fact checks' (sic), shadow bans and public bans.

Practically the opposite of the free speech maxim 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' and alarmingly close to totalitarian use of their publishing power.

Your link supports GP's assertion. There is no rubicon to be crossed. Both the letter and the intent of Section 230 is to allow Twitter and Facebook to moderate however they wish. (Although the fact checks are authored by them, and therefore don't fall under Section 230; Twitter would be liable if they were shown to be defamatory).

Fact checks on Facebook at least aren't authored by them. They come from third party "fact checkers" of dubious legitimacy.

Nothing about section 230 says that platforms have to publish what people say, or that they are unable to moderate or editorialize the content:

>This legal protection can still hold even if a blogger is aware of the objectionable content or makes editorial judgments.

Hall's quote from "The Friends of Voltaire" describes Voltaire's views concerning the revoking of Helvétius's right to publish De l'esprit, its ban in Rome, and more. By my reading, Hall doesn't imply that Voltaire meant to also 'defend to the death' the right for Helvétius to force a given company to publish his book - something which wasn't needed as it was quickly re-published across Europe.

Caesar has crossed this Rubicon so many times there's a 4-lane highway with a Waffle House at the rest stop. Forum moderators have been exercising their right of free association for a long time.

Why would Twitter (and FB) agree to be regulated as common carrier, with limited ability to discriminate in its service to the general public? What should it/they get in exchange?

When people say "violating section 230," rather than correcting them it's more instructive to understand what they're trying to communicate.

Usually it seems to be they're really saying "this shows section 230 is a bad idea."

If we could move past the reflexive "well actually" there's a real issue people feel needs to be addressed.

It does reveal that there's an issue that bothers people, but I'm not sure it needs to be addressed beyond explaining that Section 230--or something just like it--is what gives us the free and open internet we enjoy today.

Without it, there is likely no Hacker News, nor any other social media.

There certainly are more fine-grained solutions possible.

My believe is that if this is forced into a take it or leave it scenario, we're not going to like the outcome.

Nobody will, because changes to Section 230 will likely kill all social media.

Which, come to think of it, might be a net gain to society overall. Hard to say.

>When people say "violating section 230," rather than correcting them it's more instructive to understand what they're trying to communicate.

I think the first priority is to ensure that the poster's misinformation (i.e., telling people that 230 says/does something it is explicitly designed not to do) does not propagate through this medium. It's a public forum, not a conversation with just the poster.

Then, if possible, you can engage with their disfunction. But given the weaponized role of misinformation today that's the first item in the checklist to be addressed.

I really do disagree. I think it's far more important to understand and address the actual concern. Someone is going to. It would be far better if it was someone who understands what is at stake.

From my viewpoint, it's very likely Section 230 will be modified. Once that action is underway, you'll be well behind the curve if you're just starting to grasp what people want. Others will have taken that time and effort and figured out how to mold it to their own ends, and the momentum will be building.

Can you say more about how this violates 230? That wasn’t my understanding of how the law works, but I could be wrong.

https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

'Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. The protected intermediaries include not only regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also a range of "interactive computer service providers," including basically any online service that publishes third-party content. Though there are important exceptions for certain criminal and intellectual property-based claims, CDA 230 creates a broad protection that has allowed innovation and free speech online to flourish'.

That doesn't explain what "agreements" you think twitter is "breaking". There's a lot of disinformation about 230 floating around, but as the EFF page points out, it's a broad protection. It isn't at all contingent on them behaving like a common carrier.

Section 230 has been a political and legal football all year.

Example for Twitter editorializing and cancelling https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1804a02d-a015...

Ammending S230 Bezos/WashPo

'...new legislation would target Section 230, a decades-old portion of law that spares social media sites from being held liable for the posts, photos and videos uploaded to their sites by their users. The proposal would pave the way for steep sanctions on major online platforms if they don’t act to remove a range of illicit content, from child exploitation to terrorism, according to Justice Department officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity Wednesday.

The agency also seeks to force tech giants to be more transparent about their content-moderation decisions and more consistent in their enforcement of them, according to a report the department released Wednesday. The move might offer the U.S. government a new avenue to probe and punish companies over allegations of political bias'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/06/17/doj-bar...

Twitter's actions prompting legislators to be interested in modifying section 230 is different than Twitter not acting in accordance with section 230. Section 230 explicitly allows them to moderate, and says that they do not lose their protections just because they do some moderation.

Section 230 also says:

> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— (A)any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected

With that it seems reasonable to read Section 230 as "you don't have to proactively moderate, and any good faith moderation you do doesn't break that protection".

Regardless of whether or not this is the right thing for society, it seems that Facebook and Twitter are well within the bounds of section 230 to do some moderation without losing the protection of section 230.

It seems "Otherwise objectionable" is doing a lot of work in that paragraph. The intent seems pretty clearly "censorship of stuff that violates 1990s era morality is OK". Extrapolating to that to arbitrary censorship of ordinary political views isn't what Congress meant with this clause, and presumably adjusting Section 230 to tighten or simply remove "otherwise objectionable" would mean they could no longer do moderation for political reasons without losing that protection.

> 'follow the money to find out what the b@stards are thinking'

The slightly less cynical way I think of this is that finance will directly be impacted vs non-finance so news targetted at them is more helpful, or at least not actively harming.

In the financial independence community most articles on mainstream sites are considered jokes or to have insufficient detail to actually improve your finances

A good non-money example: If you get a chronic disease, reading blogs and forums by people who have the disease is going to me more helpful than whatever a staff writer can do in 2 hours of research

What is one example of ZH’s accuracy?

ZeroHedge was one of the first outlets to cover Coronavirus and raise the alarm about it.

follow this story posted on ZH today over the next few days

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/youll-bury-everyone-invo...

It may be incorrect &/or partisan but you are likely to read these sort of revelations on ZH first for better or worse.

Did you read that link you sent me? It’s a collection of tweets and with a paragraph about QAnon at the end

Of course. I think the Bobulinski revelations will be a huge news story eventually. Right now the corporate media are doing their best to ignore it. It's not just 'a collection of tweets with a paragraph about QAnon at the end'. Did you actually read it?

I miss when ZH was an investment blog.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com