Comment by mandmandam | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mandmandam | Hacker News Reader

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> things like the FT and the Bloomberg terminal continue to be reliable

"Reliable" doing some heavy lifting here.

Sports figures and statistics are reliable. Stock tickers are reliable. Neither will ever lie to you, but neither are they likely to teach you anything of real value.

FT and Bloomberg are extremely biased toward class interest; in what they choose to cover, in how they cover it, etc.

Did they ever speak out against torture, or illegal war? How much? Did they ever go into the long term advantages of Jill Stein's economic plans; or Bernie's? How much?

The fact that we spent over $8 trillion in a murderous money laundering scheme should have been front page news every day for years. The costs of our incredible and historic inequality are rarely discussed, and if they are, it's in the most limp manner imaginable. The opportunity cost of all this fuckery, from a rational economic perspective, is mind blowing.

The Overton Window is now looking onto bipartisan genocide, after decades of bipartisan illegal war and an extreme agenda of Islamophobia.

> people like Musk pick news sources which confirm their biases

People like Musk buy news sources to spread their biases. Same for Murdoch, Turner, Bezos, etc.

I think the reason why the FT, among others, don't spend much space on human rights issues is because they are inherently transactional publications in nature. You have to pay to subscribe, and those who do expect something in return - I suspect that this is usually a sense of being 'in the know' on business matters. Obviously knowledge of Jill Stein's manifesto is not going to make its readers any money in the foreseeable future.

I suppose I'm defending the FT in the sense that there is no alterior motive, I believe. Compare this to the tabloids, which don't charge for online access and make money by peddling particular business or political interests - mostly shady business, I think most would agree. I'd therefore trust FT on the facts, albeit probably not for wide coverage.

> I suppose I'm defending the FT in the sense that there is no alterior motive, I believe

No ulterior motive? I really don't know about that.

They're better than most, because they generally tell the truth - a shockingly low bar - but it's a specific type of truth, as seen from a specific and very narrow window, from a deliberate vantage point.

Always viewing the world from that specific window belies a motive, conscious or not, to maintain a highly destructive status quo. They are not seeing the forest for the trees, while writing factual and detailed reports on the least consequential tree bark facts.

Which is fine, if tree bark facts are your bag, I guess - but I'm more concerned about the rapidly deteriorating forest.

I'm having a hard time understanding what your complaint is.

That the worlds premier capitalist publication publishes facts capitalists find useful?

Yes.

Also bears shit in the woods.

> I'm having a hard time understanding what your complaint is.

That the word reliable was being used to describe the FT.

'Reliable' within a certain narrow context for the people trashing our potential (ie, the capital class)? Yes.

'Reliable' within a broader context, where we get to the root causes of our catastrophic inequality, our over extraction of resources, our environmental destruction, our war mongering leaders, etc? Also yes; but in precisely the wrong way. They can be relied on to support whatever makes the yacht class more money in the next few quarters.

This matters because corporate media has been truly complicit in much of our impending doom/s; the FT being far from an exception.

Handy tip: If someone's point seems very obvious, like where bears shit, it's usually worth reading the comment again to see if you've missed something. Ie in this case, the entire second half of my comment.

> 'Reliable' within a broader context, where we get to the root causes of our catastrophic inequality, our over extraction of resources, our environmental destruction, our war mongering leaders, etc? Also yes; but in precisely the wrong way. They can be relied on to support whatever makes the yacht class more money in the next few quarters.

They are financial news, if you want to read news or opinion articles about other topics go read something else. Something being important doesn't mean it should be written about everywhere.

> They are financial news, if you want to read news or opinion articles about other topics go read something else.

Financial news from a specific and narrow viewpoint. There are others.

This is the third time I've said it now. It would be nice to know where the confusion is coming from. Is it simply that many people can't imagine any alternate view of finance news, other than that sold by FT?

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

I'll try one more time - just for you llm.

What if, back in the slavery days, a newspaper reported solely from the perspective of slaveholders, never slaves. They only printed 'facts' - how much a slave could be expected to depreciate by age, which regions produced the hardest working slaves, etc.

Would this be a 'reliable' paper? Would it just be 'financial news'? Would it simply be a 'premier capitalist publication publishing facts capitalists find useful'? Well, yes, in a way.

And that's exactly what financial newspapers back then did. They traded in dry, money making facts - in support of a deeply exploitative and unsustainable system. Always from one particular perspective - the slaveholder's; that of the ownership class.

'Reliable' isn't a word I would have chosen to describe them.

In more modern times, FT takes huge ad money from fossil fuel companies, cheer-leads the likes of Thatcher and Reagan, has never met a neoliberal/neocon since that they didn't love; and takes the view of the 0.1% 99.9% of the time. Almost completely heedless of the permanent damage that is being done to all life on Earth as a result, except as a side note in an article about how apocalypse might affect your portfolio.

Will any of this sink in? Can you change your mind, or at least the subject? Let's see.

> How much?

Such an important (and often unpopular) followup question.

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