Hacker News Reader

Comment by llm_trw | Hacker News Reader

I had that same argument, the teacher who told me to not trust non peer reviewed articles ended up flooding her Facebook was with pro-brexit lies a decade later. Turns out critical thinking is not outsourcing your thinking to a third party, be it a peer reviewes journal, google search results, or chatgpt.

View on HN

"not trust non peer reviewed articles" - this is such naive advice. It is not black and white, peer reviewed articles only increase chance that information included in article is legit because it was verified in some formal process. I wonder how many times people giving such simple advices mention how often peer reviewed articles are retracted or can't even be replicated and how this vary accross disciplines.

And, like all formal processes, it has been gamed. Many journals are full of high quality material; others are full of peer reviewed bullshit.

What is a 'pro brexit lie'?

£350m a week for the NHS

Immigration will be reduced

We will be able to negotiate excellent trade deals outside the EU effortlessly

The EU need our trade so badly we will be able to negotiate a seamless trade deal with them

… and many others.

interesting, thank you! I hadnt followed it when it happened.

I think believing the first lie that conservatives would really reduce immigration is the product of trusting politicians too much.

Another faction of the pro-Brexiteers would think of the system in terms of a uniparty. The fundamentalists like Farage have no chance of getting elected as PM in the British system, though he did get an MP seat now.

Would things change if Farage were PM? I'm cynical, probably not.

There was a fundamental lie / delusion at the heart of the claim. The second thing a trade deal with another country implies "allow more of our nationals to migrate, and make it easier for them to come over". (The first thing is obviously: "let our products in".)

And this can be seen from the raw numbers too. Before brexit, the annual net migration to UK was about 300k. After brexit, the annual net migration to UK is ~700k.[0] (745k in 2022, 680k in 2023.) And quite a bit of that from the fresh trade partners.

The best way I have heard anyone describe the disaster that's Brexit was as "nostalgic self-immolation for the population who still dream of the Britain where faces were white, passports were blue, and the map was Imperial Pink."

0: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06...

Indeed, you could apply the same argument to peer-reviewed articles, although at the moment they are still much (much!) more reliable than ChatGPT.

Ever heard of replication crisis?

Still better than ChatGPT.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com