The anterolateral ligament: Wrong information on the Internet | Hacker News Reader

The anterolateral ligament: Wrong information on the Internet

blog.sfgate.com

64 pointscalebgarling41 comments

> And though Second Commenter is lazy, we recognize the dismissive potato-potahto sentiment. “Come on, don’t be a party pooper.” We feel that in social situations. Don’t challenge. It’ll be awkward. If someone posts the Time piece on their Facebook wall, it’s a little jerky to post LaPrade’s rebuttal in the comments. That’s why the good doctor’s post won’t have as strong legs in correcting the record; a lot of the people who cared about posting the “discovery” the first time will shy from posting that it actually wasn’t. It makes them look duped.

This seems to me like the most important takeaway here. I've corrected people on Facebook many times and gotten pretty nasty replies for doing so, but honestly it's for the better if just one person isn't fooled by a misleading story or outright lie.

On the same note, I give things a lot of time and thought before posting anything on any network, especially if it's opinionated.

This is one thing I will probably just never understand about people. If I'm wrong, I want to know about it. Why wouldn't you?

I get that there are a multitude of reasons, yadda yadda, but it's just so difficult for me to empathize with someone who has that mentality. You really want to live with a bunch of (potentially dangerous) misconceptions? Doesn't that go against basic survival instincts (lizard brain) at the very least?

Doesn't that go against basic survival instincts (lizard brain) at the very least?

It's a form of tribalism and I'd argue that tribalism is the king of "lizard brain" survival instincts.

Hasn't the whole "lizard brain" thing been debunked? See for example http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/09/07/re....

Sure, but it is still a catch-all term for base, low-cognitive mental processes. I don't literally think lizards are tribal, if anything the opposite.

I find that it helps get a better reception if you let the poster save face by saying something like "Someone discovered that the article had a mistake" or "You were lied to", to deflect the focus from "you are wrong/stupid"

Even the phrase "you were lied to" is bound to make some people defensive. People generally feel embarrassed when they've been conned or deceived, like it's a personal failing on their own part, and that statement is just bluntly calling them out for being a fool.

It's pretty tricky to point these things out without offending anyone.

That's the first time I've ever had a website involuntarily redirect me to the Play Store app. Didn't advertisers learn their popup lesson ages ago? I will no longer visit sfgate on my phone until I have an ad blocker.

Didn't do it for me, must be a specific ad in the rotation or whatever.

I bet if you told sfgate what happened, they'd get the ad removed. So maybe instead of stealing content from a website, you could just not visit that website until the problem is resolved.

Seriously? Choosing to not load ads is now "stealing".

I believe it is. You're consuming content while blocking the content creator's revenue stream.

It's not stealing in the sense of deprivation, but in a world of bits, it's as close to digital theft as anything.

Last time I disagreed with nitrogen however I was hellbanned, so maybe it's not in my best interest to voice dissent around here.

Last time I disagreed with nitrogen however I was hellbanned

I'm not anybody special around here. Whatever happened, it didn't have anything to do with me.

I said Snowden wasn't a good guy and got hellbanned. It was an upsetting experience. I'll survive, sorry for saying it was your fault.

I remember that thread. I disagreed with you, but I don't think the particular comments I read were worthy of a ban.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: posting your stuff on the Web and putting ads on your page does not automagically entitle you to any revenue. [1]

You can call it "stealing" as much as you want, but it doesn't make it so.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6638345

You're absolutely right. Hosting content on the web does not automagically entitle a person to revenue.

What it does entitle a person to, however, is the ability to dictate the rules of the continued use of that website, and if, as part of the rules of the continued use of that website, viewing the ads is a requirement of viewing the content, a consumer is not entitled to the content without viewing the ads as well.

Stealing, theft, banana-hammocking - it doesn't matter what we call it. It's detrimental to the website and detrimental to the health of the web.

People need to be able to make money off of content on websites, or else they won't be able to specialize in the making of that content. If people can't specialize, society suffers from its inability to support the growth of skill. People can't get very good at things, and growth is limited.

Frankly, you're not murdering any kittens, but you're not exactly petting them either.

What it does entitle a person to, however, is the ability to dictate the rules of the continued use of that website, and if, as part of the rules of the continued use of that website

I like how terms of service are not only equivalent to laws now, but genuine entitlements.

advertising is detrimental to society.

"Anything that interferes with my business model" == stealing

How can you not see the unsustainability of consuming content without compensating the creator of that content?

Ad supported content is compensated by the advertiser. I can read a free paper without browsing the adverts, but the bet by the advertiser is that they will get enough views that it doesn't matter. Also, adverts that drive people away are bad for the advertiser and if ads are universally blocked then the advertiser will go elsewhere, though if we are in a situation where 100% of people are blocking ads then something else is already afoot and other business models will emerge.

Ad supported content won't be compensated by the advertiser if you block the ads. Web advertising is not analogous to any other kind of advertisement, because every user is counted.

If you were never going to click on the ad, what's the difference?

Many ads pay per pageview, so if you never load the image in the page, the website doesn't get credit for that person's pageview.

...you could just not visit that website until the problem is resolved.

That's my plan. But, ads can be more than just annoying. Adblock with FlashBlock/click-to-play make the web quite a bit safer from 0-days on the desktop; I should probably have installed an ad blocker on my phone a long time ago for the same reason.

This is the primary reason I use ad blocking. Privacy is another (e.g., http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2013/10/mozilla-lightbeam-ad...). I don't mind ads so much as I mind surveillance.

I used to be a freedom advocate. But making money from ads is making me think of ways to protect that income source. I should start looking at alternative sources of income or draw up some business plans. But I am not sure I will be able to. Eventually, you will find me at an association of adsense publishers pushing for laws to make adblocking illegal. With charges equivalent to piracy or stealing. I am not joking. I seriously believe I am becoming that person.

Well, at least you're honest about it. :\

Do better. I'm serious. Do better so that you don't have to make money from ads.

If I'm a writer, I measure how well I do by the number of people who read my work, or more specifically, by the number of people who draw meaning from my work.

If I can't be compensated for giving people new insight, then I can't do it exclusively, which means I'll do it less. If I do it less, I'll be less skilled at it, which means I won't contribute to the collective knowledge as much as I potentially could if I didn't have to, for example, grow my own food.

By putting ads in my writings, I'm able to write more, and get better. I can do better only if I get paid to do it. So when you say, "Do better", you're saying, "make money from what you write", which on the web means, "put advertisements on your writings".

No, you're very badly mistaken. Are you a shill for an advertising company, by the way?

Deciding to put ads on your work means you are primarily making money by serving people ads, not from what you create.

You are now probably writing stories like "1 Weird Trick To Get People To Read This Blog..." - populist work that fulfils your essential need for pageviews. This is not content of the type you claim, whereby people think or draw meaning from the work.

That aspirational type of work normally has a small audience - at first - that wouldn't satisfy your need for advertising revenue: you can't make ends meet by depending just on that during your lifetime.

The beast of advertising only takes talent and creativity away from human society.

Nate Silver wouldn't have a job without advertisement. Neither would Glenn Greenwald, Walter Cronchite, Dan Rather, Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, or Peter Jennings.

TV shows like Seinfeld, Friends, The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and M.A.S.H. would not exist without ads.

Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Peyton Manning, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Michael Tyson, Tiger Woods, and Larry Byrd would not have done the things they did without ads - no one would have paid them to.

Ads pay for people who are good at what they do to do what they're good at what they do as a means to pay for the other things they have to do. You couldn't possibly be more wrong about advertisements - without ads, there would be no US as you know it today.

People made similar arguments for slavery.

What I'm trying to say is your argument for ads is full of logical fallacies.

Without ads, the US would be a better place.

Ads are not slavery, Walter Cronkite has no such evil on his consciousness.

Thanks. I recently removed all ads from all but one of my websites (and got a job). The one is to study trends. Concentrating on learning for now.

Also:

1. not hating on sites that run on ad money, which is a very valid business model.

2. You can detect and choose to not show content, if you detect adblock(should work for casual users).

3. Do something that reddit does - "Thank you for not using Adblock" banners or something that game-debate.com does - "Pics of kittens asking you to add them to Adblock's whitelist"

4. You can use adblock-friendly ads

Well done for experimenting and good luck :)

I especially like #2 -

Blocking ads is the only reasonable way for me to say "You don't have permission to show me ads". Let's say it's part of my Terms & Conditions for displaying content on my browser.

If a site owner doesn't agree to my terms, they don't have to show me the content either. If we can't agree, then there's no problem.

In our society many of us subconsciously or sometimes consciously turn down the volume of our own conscience, because we'd rather not come face to face with our hypocrisy, our complicity with banal and not so banal evil [1], because we don't want to give up the benefits. In the Internet tech community, its ultimate manifestation is how we pretend advertising is not evil, while deep down know it is [2].

[1] The Banality of Systemic Evil, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/the-banality....

[2] No free lunch, no free web, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6624666

>Advertising simply shifts the cost of the "fee lunch" to the price of the advertised products. In other words we still end up paying. It may even shift costs regressively, toward lower incomes and the less educated, in which case the poor are subsidizing the better off.

From the second link. However,

>Without more data, we can't know.

Cool story, bro. A regular Flowers for Algernon.

Haha. I admit, I went a bit over the top with the piracy and stealing bit. Given that a large part of the blogging/pageviews based crowd is very pro-freedom, I doubt things will change. But you can't be very sure. Sadly, money is very important. You go from "I'll do what I like. Money is secondary" to "Money, money, money" very quickly. That and corporations owning content farms running on clicks.

Eh, the key part that was misleading wasn't "discovered", it was "entirely new". It was not entirely new. It was not even vaguely new. It was old.

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