[OneGuy123]

Also I must say it's ironic that on a site with a bunch of programmers you still get downvoted for posting the fact that the media lies and that you cannot do anything other than laugh when the media decides to become "disinfo fact checkers".

Do people really believe that when a company says "we will become independent fact checkers" that that is even possible?

Did you learn nothing from your past experiences of what happens when a company says "we will become an independent fact checker, TRUST US, WE WILL NEVER LIE AND BE 100% HONEST AND OBJECTIVE".

[rorykoehler]

I'm pretty sure no one here thinks what you proposed. The issue is that those protesting are also claiming to have the objective truth when most likely their "truth" is even further removed from the object truth than the mainstream media's is.

[aww_dang]

I don't accept the premise that we are qualified to judge the veracity of another man's truth. Nor do all those who protest fit within your generalization of assuming to have an exclusive license on objective truth. There's a fair amount of people who simply like to bounce ideas around and have a discussion.

[rorykoehler]

The noise is significant enough that the signal is irrelevant.

[aww_dang]

If I understand your implication correctly, I'll say:

Discussion becomes futile if we can't engage with good faith with those we disagree with. Assuming that someone's view is 'noise' is starting from a position of bad faith. If you take the position that you have an exclusive license on truthiness when debunking/disagreeing, then you're no better.

[rorykoehler]

I think you misunderstand if you think I think I have the objective truth. I see it more as a spectrum and within the spectrum there are bounds of rationality. If you happen to fall outside of that spectrum I’m not going to pay attention to you for long. Life’s too short to waste time on nonsense. I don’t owe anyone my attention.

[betwixthewires]

I agree with you, except I don't see a down vote button anywhere on this site.

But yes, generally, when a company promises to be your best buddy no strings attached it is time to get suspicious, and when someone believes them I begin to figure out if they're just naive or actually unintelligent.

[dredmorbius]

Why don't I see down arrows?

There are no down arrows on stories. They appear on comments after users reach a certain karma threshold, but never on direct replies.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

[input_sh]

Just as an FYI, you need a certain amount of "karma" before you see the downvote button.

[aww_dang]

From where I stand, I can't conceive of how it would be possible for fallible men to observe perfectly, recall it exactly and express it within the limits of imperfect language. This is all before you get into the problems of dishonesty and conflicts of interest.

Of course the above would not include abstractions like two parallel lines will never meet or overly simplistic hypotheticals.