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Comment by julianpye | Hacker News Reader

The FT Editorial Board: "America has turned" - https://www.ft.com/content/1511aa42-a9ad-4952-99c8-98bea07d0...

Max Hastings: The trauma of Trump: can we still do business with his America? - https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/the-trau...

FT: US tech will pay a price for Donald Trump’s approval - https://www.ft.com/content/2347e5d3-cbc2-4128-a108-bb89558e3...

FT: How Washington plans to defend the dollar - this is about Crypto - https://www.ft.com/content/bfafb8f7-bd1c-48bb-85f4-8ba25475c...

FT: Donald Trump considers tarriffs to counter Big Tech service taxes: - https://www.ft.com/content/558b5a20-c25e-483d-8fdc-bbfd2923a...

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

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I suggest you expand your information sources to include contrary perspectives. These read like the typical hysteriaporn to freak normies out. It would be equivalent to my sharing supporting links from the NYTimes or WaPo.

In my experience, the Financial Times aren't terribly biased one way or the other, and do a good job of presenting the relevant facts and views.

If you have similarly significant, unbiased sources presenting some contrary view, it would behoove you to share them, rather than chiding.

If you just want to share your personal views, that is also welcome. The tone-policing and attacking reliable, unbiased sources is pretty empty, though.

I honestly believe the only way to get at "unbiased" sources is to triangulate all the bias. Mainstream publications are largely staffed by paid propagandists. To get at my opinion, you would need to hold all the propaganda in your mind at once, consider "qui bono?", and then find the point of common sense that all these positions are talking around. I would also avoid contemporary professional opinionators except as points of reference. Literally nothing said in such a context by such a person should be taken at face value. Go back to books on history or reflections/memoirs by people who were in the room when decisions were made to get a sense of how political reality operates. Long story short: there are no unbiased mainstream media opinions. If they were unbiased, they wouldn't appear in those publications.

When I said,

> If you just want to share your personal views, that is also welcome

I meant your personal views on the topic (how Europeans view America lately), rather than your personal views on media bias.

Not that you can't share those, too, but it doesn't add to the discussion about how Europeans view America lately, and to be honest, the talking points I saw were pretty tired.

> I honestly believe the only way to get at "unbiased" sources is to triangulate all the bias

If you indeed believe that, and you have any sources with a reliability and bias level equal to FT (whatever you feel that may be) which you think are necessary to "triangulate all the bias" on this topic, please go ahead and share them.

The topic, as I see it, is propaganda. There are no sources of truth, only competing claims and differing levels of sincerity and reach. I'm sorry you find the subject tiresome. I do, too. But many in HN accept these sources as sincere when they are clearly factional and "biased". I'm not using "bias" in the Rationalist fallacy sense. That is very tired. I'm using it in two ways: a) the ideological, which is also tiresome but without which it's very hard to grok b) the progandistic function of "media" in the modern political order. It's not just the policing of the Overton window. There are certain thoughts you cannot take seriously until you shed some of this "bias". If you do you risk being "bad" and losing status. That is the ultimate function of mainstream media, to police status markers. Hence they are the cultural gatekeepers.

I mean that quite literally. Go ahead and try it. Assume the devil's advocate for any contemporary sacred cow and see how far you take it before you reject the position as not merely wrong but absurd or declasse.

Are you European? Do you live in Europe? Tell me how "Europeans" view the US at the moment.

> Tell me how "Europeans" view the US at the moment.

You were linked a reliable, low-bias source answering this question, but it's seeming more like you just want to spread FUD about the answer and complain about the media, rather than actually discuss the topic.

Your empty talking points about media bias, while unhinged ("propaganda" thrown out multiple times), are quite tired, and it doesn't seem like anyone here (least of all myself), is interested in the distraction of retreading such tired metadiscussion that one could see repeated ten times an hour from bots and humans alike while browsing truth social, if they were so inclined to so subject themselves (I no longer am).

Feel free to reengage with the actual topic if you're interested in talking about it, rather than being upset that other people are talking about it. Please don't reply just to complain at me about the media again.

I didn't think I was complaining about "the media." The links you're referring to are just fluff. As far as I'm concerned you could have just sent me advertorials. You seem very tired, but if you actually want to know my arguments, go ahead and read some of the other comments I made on the topic recently. I, myself, am too tired to spend much time ignoring your condescension in order to take your comments with more seriousness than you intend them. If you still think my points are "tired," I really do wonder what you think qualifies as interesting political discourse.

I'm not really interested in further engaging here unless you're willing to engage with the topic** in a manner more substantive than 'I personally feel this topic is fluff* / propaganda* / advertorial* / biased* / ideological* / hysteriaporn* / some other shallow dismissal / etc, and I don't want to discuss it'.

I don't expect that I'll change your feelings about the topic**, and I don't want to oblige you to keep replying in a post about a topic** which you personally don't like and personally don't want to discuss.

* – all of these are shallow dismissals from you here

** – how europeans feel about american tech lately

To be fair, you've offered nothing of substance to this thread. Just demanding that I accept the authority of an FT op-ed when I provide elaborated reasons not to is extremely lazy. Need I trace FT's funding sources, institutional backing, and factionalism for you? If you don't want to put in any effort, that's fine. Just bow out. Otherwise, stop sealioning me and do some work.

There's no need for you to accept anything, the minimal bias and high factuality of FT stands on its own regardless of what a single random internet commentator says or accepts.

You have an opportunity here to share these equally-biased, equally-factual sources you've been talking about which provide alternative perspectives on the topic*. You can take that opportunity or leave it. Personally, I'd love to read them and learn their perspectives, but as far as I can tell from what you've linked, they don't exist. Don't you want to help others "triangulate", as you called it?

If you just don't like FT or don't like the topic*, that'd be a different topic (and not one that interests me).

* – how europeans feel about american tech lately

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