[megumax]

So these "factcheckers" are literally the media aka the propaganda machine. I wonder if that's the future we want, a future only politically correct opinions are accepted, otherwise you're called a liar and you lose social points. It doesn't sound like democracy, but who knows.

[dachryn]

you are abusing the word 'fact' here. A political opinion is by definition not a fact.

The whole problem is that nuance is getting lost. In the 80s, a scientist could say 'I have found some troubling signals, there is a 90% chance something bad is going to happen, can we discuss this?' and they would discuss, do risk analysis, come up with mitigating steps.

But now it is 'are you sure this will happen' and of course any scientist will say 'it is very probably, but naturally one can never be 100% sure' and the media will slam him for false news and shape it into their politically advantageous story.

These factcheckers should try to dilute the extremes, and bring nuance in the debate. That's what we need, and that has nothing to do with being politically correct. This is literally the job of the media, which they start to neglect.

[gruez]

>These factcheckers should try to dilute the extremes, and bring nuance in the debate.

That's what they should be doing, but instead we get stuff like this[1], which poisons the well for "fact checking" as a whole.

[1] https://twitter.com/msnbc/status/785299708730339328

[netizen-936824]

What does that even mean, to "acid wash" a server?

[maest]

You may be conflating "false information" with "politically incorrect statements".

[megumax]

I'm not an American, but these "fact checks" are not really based on actual facts, but mostly on "correct" opinions.

For example, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/06/january-6... or https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/04/bidens-cl...

[marginalia_nu]

The whole notion of facts is problematic.

Facts are, from a epistemological point of view, things as they are. We do not have access to facts about the physical world, science does not produce such facts. Empirical science is a process that asymptotically approximates facts by eliminating false propositions.

[YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo]

If I take 200mg of cyanid I am dead that's a fact.

[marginalia_nu]

That is a true statement, but it is not a fact in the epistemological sense. When we say a statement is true, what we mean is that the statement agrees with the facts.

Or flipped around: The facts are the things that true statements correspond to, the things in themselves.

[YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo]

I think we have different oppinions of what the word fact means but the general consens is something like this. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fact

[wanda]

That would be a fact only after you did it, and it's a fact only to those who witness it.

It could never be a fact to you, because if you're dead, you'll be quite incapable of knowing it to be fact, and if you survive, it will be wrong.

The person with whom you're debating appears to have a philosophical understanding (likely logical positivist or early Wittgensteinian) of the term "fact" rather than the common dictionary definition.

The dictionary definition isn't necessarily wrong, but it's a different language-game (i.e. different context).

The consensus on the definition of the term is irrelevant to the subject of this thread. There is no way to form of a body or committee dedicated to the identification and preservation of what is fact and fiction because the facts, the things that are the case are based on our perception of them, and we can be wrong.

People make mistakes, and can persuade others to agree with their mistaken interpretation, or people can be persuaded to deliberately falsify their interpretation of data in exchange for something they want.

What is fact and fiction is ultimately impossible for any group of people to be responsible for without bias -- people have their personal beliefs, their own agendas, they can be bribed, lobbied, persuaded, agitated...

The wise among us do not trust newspapers or media outlets, and even treat scientific discovery with academic scepticism until the math checks out. Fortunately in the sciences, we can check the work of others by making predictions and testing them, as well as checking the math.

Take a news article and filter out everything that would be considered weak or bad science. You will be left with a statement of something that happened, perhaps a picture or video of the thing happening, or in many cases you may even be left with an entirely blank page.

There has always been fake news, as long as within the news there has been the expression of opinion. People aren't motivated by a pursuit of the truth, they're motivated by earning money and notoriety (and thence more money). Motivated by ego. This is what people are instructed to do from childhood.

As long as our primary currency isn't truth, you cannot trust anything but what you can prove for yourself. And even in that world where truth is what we all aspire to find, you still can't trust anything blindly -- because people can still make mistakes.

Nothing is fact to you unless you can prove it based on something else you accept as a certainty, and nothing is a fact to people other than you unless you can prove it based on something they accept as a certainty.

[YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo]

Sorry, but language does not work like that. I am not going into a discussion about Schoppenhauer and the world as will and representation on HackerNews lol.

[hackflip]

Those in power will always conflate the two.

[boppo1]

Google "BMI letter to Mark Zuckerberg"