Hacker News Reader

Comment by tonystubblebine | Hacker News Reader

Not all opinions deserve equal airtime. Fringe opinions should have to work harder to get to the mainstream. Isn’t that exactly what happened here? This is the fringe opinion that had the most inherent value and it’s proved that by breaking through. IMO I wish the platforms had censored more bad info than this. It’s crazy to me that there isn’t more friction for bad ideas.

View on HN

1. Who decides what is a "fringe" theory? You? The Government? The scientific community? Facebook/Twitter etc...?

2. ..Fringe opinions should have to work harder to get to the mainstream... No they shouldn't it is you the reader of those news who should make the decision of how much "brain time" this "fringe" news get.

3. Denying airtime to certain topics doesn't make them go away or sways people that believe them otherwise.

Well, since you asked if I should decide what a fringe theory is, yes, sometimes I do make that decision. But when I'm wrong those things have a habit of breaking through. I remember being pretty skeptical of intermittent fasting for awhile. I'd held it out of a study we did in 2014 and then held it out of our publishing. Something about it smelled like anorexia light. So on the one hand I kept hearing people swear by it and then on the other hand I hadn't done enough research to be comfortable. I ended up having a detailed conversation with a doctor about the physiological side and then with a therapist about eating disorders (especially in men) before I was ready to allow it into our work. So for about a year I was wrongly gatekeeping on this topic. But that's what I mean about fringe ideas need to work harder. The fringes is where those ideas get stress tested and refined. And since ideas break out of the fringes all the time, I don't have any real fear that gatekeeping other places is overly oppressive.

This is some impressive mental gymnastics.

Why was the lab leak claim labeled “fringe” in the first place?

You want Zuckerberg deciding what ideas you should and shouldn’t see?

On the contrary, actors who are bad at judging what qualifies as a "good" idea should be removed from the filtering process.

How is that contrary? MSM got one wrong in the same time that alternative media has gotten hundreds wrong. MSM isn't just better at rejecting misinformation, it's a lot better.

Wrong. The things it does get wrong have more impact. Russiagate is just one prior example. It was patently false from the outset, but led to mass delusions, promotions of fake news propagandists to the point that they are now embedded within and celebrated by the MSM, the discrediting of the media and the intelligence community, breakdown of trust of those institutions by those who had been clear-headed, and fever-dream level hysteria by those who were misled, greatly fracturing Americans who were already divided.

It may be true that they get fewer specific points wrong, but if the ones they do get wrong count for a lot more, that's not better. That's worse.

> Russiagate is just one prior example. It was patently false from the outset

What is "Russiagate"? What about it was "patently false"?

The Mueller investigation got multiple indictments against Russian nationals. They also obtained convictions of people working in the Trump campaign or administration for election-related offenses. They found evidence of Russian attempts to influence voters in swing states by illegally buying ads on social media. That Russia attempted to meddle in the 2016 elections isn't in doubt - only whether the meddling worked.

> What is "Russiagate"?

It's talk-radioese for the Mueller investigation.

> What about it was "patently false"?

IIRC, a lot of misunderstandings about it (e.g. misunderstanding the proven claims that Russia made signficant efforts to interfere with the election as a claim that they successfully rigged it).

This is a very interesting comment for future historians, as it shows how people convince themselves that they have absorbed substance when in fact there is no such substance.

Virtually no aspect of your statement extends beyond press headlines, where the content and follow-on of each of these stories entirely defused the substance of the respective headline. That is why the whole thing that you believe is very important amounted to a pile of dust.

This comment would be more valuable if you’d made it in a constructive way with even one detailed example of defused substance.

That's the irony. Their own views don't have any actual substance.

The irony of talking about substance when offering practically none in one's own comment.

> Virtually no aspect of your statement extends beyond press headlines

I didn't realize I was writing an exam with essay-type questions.

DOJ indicted ham-sandwich Russians, then later retreated. Only process crimes charged (lying, interfering). Buying ads on social media isn't illegal, and the amount was de minimus (< $30k). FARA crimes were reverse-engineered, selectively prosecuted, and didn't related to Russia in any way. Everything about these headlines is an utter farce.

> indicted ham-sandwich Russians, then later retreated.

Citation needed.

> Only process crimes charged (lying, interfering).

Why lie or interfere if you didn't commit any crimes? These aren't random Joes with bad/no legal representation who didn't know what they were doing. You have to assume they were doing it to cover up more serious crimes and assumed they would be pardoned. Which turned out to be true.

> Buying ads on social media isn't illegal

Foreigners buying political ads is illegal. Citizens using money owned by foreigners to buy political ads is also illegal.

>Citation needed. read the docs > Why lie or interfere if you didn't commit any crimes? Fundamental misunderstanding of justice and the US justice system. > buy political ads "political"

Not here to open your eyes for you, but again I appreciate you exposing your perspectives to the light.

> Fundamental misunderstanding of justice and the US justice system

Because the people committing those crimes didn't know the Fifth Amendment? You don't have to say anything. There's really no reason to lie; other than to cover up something worse. Explain the pardons.

It seems you may be unfamiliar with the theoretical and practice application of the legal system. Here is some food for thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1279681

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

Reply on news.ycombinator.com