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[UXLZ]

Conversely, if it doesn't support your viewpoint, it becomes non-credible. Both sides are guilty of this.

Honestly, there's almost no media agency in existence that's credible. Wikileaks is probably a bit more credible than the big mainstream news agencies, but by exactly how much I cannot really say.

Just out of curiosity, which media agencies in existence do you regard as credible? Besides wikileaks.

It's true that just about all media agencies have some level of bias, that's just human nature really, it's how they handle the bias that makes the difference.

I don't actually really regard wikileaks as massively credible (they do have an agenda after all), just more credible than your big news agencies that are looking to make a buck and will broadcast the most flagrant of bullshit if they think it will sell. There are some that I like, because they agree with what I believe (for the most part), but I'm not really aware of anything larger than a youtube channel that could ever be called very credible, and as a result of being so small, those youtube channels also cannot be called credible.

I suppose it comes from living in a country where most of the news media is controlled by one dude.

I'm not saying to just "believe what you want," I'm saying to "look in a lot of different places and remember that they're probably all pushing an agenda."

[RedKing]

So you're taking the Unitarian approach to truth? Pick and choose bits from all over and roll your own?

That might work okay for creating a banal, benign religion, but not for answering tough questions.

[UXLZ]

So you're taking the Unitarian approach to truth? Pick and choose bits from all over and roll your own?

That might work okay for creating a banal, benign religion, but not for answering tough questions.

And taking the "truth" as gospel from one or three almost certainly biased sources is better how, exactly?

[mainiac]

quote author=PTTG?? link=topic=159257.msg7221458#msg7221458 date=1476751240]Texas will be a new California.
[/quote]

Gun folks doesn't want embracing of an individual right to bear arms, they want hostility towards anyone who questions them.  The democrats tried the big tent approach.  It failed because the constituency is really small.  It might win over a few crucial congressional districts but it aint gonna turn Texas into California.

The hispanic vote on the other hand...

So you're taking the Unitarian approach to truth? Pick and choose bits from all over and roll your own?

That might work okay for creating a banal, benign religion, but not for answering tough questions.

And taking the "truth" as gospel from one or three almost certainly biased sources is better how, exactly?

Why are you assuming that everyone who disagrees with you is just parroting the same talking points.  I mean the people you think are all parrots for the same news sources happen to have a massive range of opinions.  In particular Redking and I hate each others guts.  But somehow we have managed to hate each others guts for like a year now without resorting to this sort of silly accusation you have resorted to in a day.

[UXLZ]

Why are you assuming that everyone who disagrees with you is just parroting the same talking points.  I mean the people you think are all parrots for the same news sources happen to have a massive range of opinions.  In particular Redking and I hate each others guts.  But somehow we have managed to hate each others guts for like a year now without resorting to this sort of silly accusation you have resorted to in a day.

Way to totally miss the context. I'm not saying he's a god damn parrot, I'm asking him why attempting to assemble the truth from varied sources is worse than taking it as gospel from a select few. (A select few that, let me be plain, are going to be biased in some way or another.)

[smjjames]

Why are you assuming that everyone who disagrees with you is just parroting the same talking points.  I mean the people you think are all parrots for the same news sources happen to have a massive range of opinions.  In particular Redking and I hate each others guts.  But somehow we have managed to hate each others guts for like a year now without resorting to this sort of silly accusation you have resorted to in a day.

Way to totally miss the context. I'm not saying he's a god damn parrot, I'm asking him why attempting to assemble the truth from varied sources is worse than taking it as gospel from a select few. (A select few that, let me be plain, are going to be biased in some way or another.)

And what are these 'select few' media agencies, if I may ask?

Also, you seem to be contradicting your earlier statement of "And taking the "truth" as gospel from one or three almost certainly biased sources is better how, exactly? " because in the above quote, you're saying the opposite. I think.

[mainiac]

Why are you assuming that everyone who disagrees with you is just parroting the same talking points.  I mean the people you think are all parrots for the same news sources happen to have a massive range of opinions.  In particular Redking and I hate each others guts.  But somehow we have managed to hate each others guts for like a year now without resorting to this sort of silly accusation you have resorted to in a day.

Way to totally miss the context. I'm not saying he's a god damn parrot, I'm asking him why attempting to assemble the truth from varied sources is worse than taking it as gospel from a select few. (A select few that, let me be plain, are going to be biased in some way or another.)

Yes, you are assuming that he is uninformed and just repeating the talking points of the small amount of outlets that pierces his cloud of ignorance.

I assure you this is not true.  Redking draws from a very large number of sources before arriving at the opinions he stubbornly repeats.

[UXLZ]

And what are these 'select few' media agencies, if I may ask?

Any media agency. They're all biased, they all have an agenda. Some are better than others, to be sure. Left-wing news sources are usually less openly crazy than their right-wing counterparts, but also usually more manipulative. Youtube-based sources can be really nice and have a broad spectrum, but their low scale and non-traditionalism means that others are less likely to accept them as legitimate, and they're all just as biased anyway. (Though at least in their case you can find ones that admit and are aware of their own bias and try to make it clear that they might not be presenting things in the most neutral way.)

[RedKing]

YouTube-based anything needs more than a grain of salt, it takes truckloads of salt. I can literally say anything I goddamn want and present it as God's honest truth on YouTube. And people do.

Do we really want to start saying that Time Cube Guy is equally as valid a source as the New York Times? Really?? Because that way lies madness.

[Max™]

God it's embarrassing thinking about how I sounded sometimes back in the late 90's.

[alway]

Na man, the Large-Hadron-Collider-is-a-Stargate youtube guy is biased, sure, but so is the BBC! They're practically the same thing!

[nenjin]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/17/politics/juanita-broaddrick-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-2016-election/index.html

Any feels about this? To be honest I'd not heard about this woman. I mean, it'd be par for the course in this election that neither candidate has ever truly been on the right side of the issue their whole lives. I can kinda see a young Hilary putting Bill's career above the right thing.

[UXLZ]

If it supports your viewpoint, it becomes credible.

Conversely, if it doesn't support your viewpoint, it becomes non-credible.

I'd mutter something about that not being the converse but the inverse, but eh. Your point (and mine) still stand, though; your acceptance of a source as "valid" directly correlates with how much you actually agree with the information they provide. At the same time, the credibility of the source should determine your willingness to accept the information it provides (contrapositive and negation), but that's often not the case by the consequence of the original implication.


Unrelated note: there's a threshold in mathematical studies in which you cross over into seeing everything as math. Everything. The world looks weird as a mathematician, I must say.

Honestly speaking it's probably neither of those things. Ultimately the same statement and idea, but presented with a difference emphasis and implication. ( x-2 vs -(2-x) )
The spin I put on it is more cynical and negative, the idea being that if someone doesn't like what a certain source is presenting they will trend towards dismissing it as non-credible so they don't have to confront the truth. There's a certain point of already-existing credibility that forces you to accept the new truth, but it's unlikely to happen because a source that reaches that level of credibility with you likely conforms so closely to your viewpoint that its own bias will prevent it from showing that truth. At least, not as bluntly and neutrally as it could have.

There's a point in logical thinking where you realize the future is set but your choices do still matter. It's irritating.

[smjjames]

There's a point in logical thinking where you realize the future is set but your choices do still matter. It's irritating.

Such as California being a safe democrat state and voting democrat. The vote matters in a sense, but still, gets lost in the sea of millions of votes and Clinton is going to win California anyway, barring some sort of drop in turnout of Democrat voters.

Or maybe that's not a correct example, dunno. Still irritating regardless. I'm thinking of witholding the presidential vote if she's going to win anyway. But then, if enough like-minded people do that, she might lose, so, does that mean I should vote anyway?

[Max™]

Calling a source credible or untrustworthy doesn't require some sort of willingness to "accept the truth", when something contradicts known information or misrepresents statements to push a particular argument, you note the bias and move on. Applying a false equivalence of "I see bias in all these sources, so all sources are biased" is absurd, you are no more qualified to be an arbiter of truth than the rest of us.

In political discussion though: http://www.scientificjournals.org/journals2007/articles/1014.htm is an examination of how Bill made use of the town hall debate format, which I had mentioned at some point in the past here but never found the info that I wanted to post more info about, though it is more relevant because you can see many of the same techniques in action with Hillary vs Trump.