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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

>I think that most people would read this as "by in large, most are lying".

This is still too extreme. "Lying" requires intentionality and implies maliciousness. It suggests that people who work in media are mostly evil people with the primary goal of misleading you. It both ignores and shows ignorance of how the media industry actually works. It also removes any hope of actually fixing the media industry because the only solution according to this mindset is getting rid of all the lying journalists. It doesn't leave any room to understand or address the incentives that actually got us to our current situation.

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Disagree. "Lying" is objectively deceit, or intending to deceive. It can be, and often is, malicious, but to ascribe all lying as malicious is a step too far.

I lie to my children when I say that the TV needs to recharge after their morning shows. A way to divert their attention elsewhere, but not out of malice.

Probably media organizations pushing a pro war message dont believe that theyre being malicious either.

So the news organizations aren't malicious, but simply treating their viewers as children when they are lying to them to divert their attention.

Certainly makes me feel warm and fuzzy that our news orgs are looking out for us! :)

You're comparing this to the news media lying about things like the Iraq War that kill hundreds of thousands of people and cost trillions of dollars.

Do you not understand how horrifying a comparison this is?

It is pretty funny to see this reply from you. You are guilty here of the exact thing you were criticizing in your last comment. It is "Perhaps the most wooden way to interpret what [I'm] saying".

I never described "all lying as malicious". I said it "implies maliciousness" and you said it "often is, malicious". I don't see a disagreement here.

> It is pretty funny to see this reply from you.

:). My apologies, I've misread what you wrote.

I think the tension we're walking here is to keep one hand grounded in the fact that words can have a discrete, objective meaning *while also* allowing for individual freedom of expression. Modernity vs unhinged relativism.

Lying by omission is still lying.

One form of obvious lying is the modern headline. Now that clicks drive revenue many story's don't even come close to what the headline suggests. I do think this is maliciousness, they're telling a lie to draw you in to make money off of you.

This is an example of what I'm talking about. Journalist by and large are not in favor of editors slapping misleading headlines on their work. You are ascribing this practice to maliciousness when it is actually a reluctant response to incentives.

Yeah, it does baffle me when audiences that are supposed to tackle complex topics everyday (and complexity in general) have to fallback to black and white explanations in social aspects.

"You're talking about my stealing as a crime, when in fact it was a reluctant response to the incentive of my needing money!"

It's dishonest. End of story.

What do you think is the proper response if someone steals of loaf of bread? Would you label them a dishonest irredeemable criminal and throw them in jail for life?

If there was an abundant, inexpensive, legal supply of bread and all the thief had to do was value honesty more than free bread, rather than continuing to steal, across decades, thousands of loafs of bread, yes.

I think it's ok to take the illustration to that extreme, given the postulation that you say someone thinks that you should destroy a person's life over one loaf of bread.

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