9.4 KiB
Any rational evidence-based newspapers?
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Author: u/Sailor_Vulcan Champion of Justice and Reason*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5c8y7q/any_rational_evidencebased_newspapers/
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Score: 4
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Created: 2016-11-10T17:07:15
Post:
[removed]
Comments:
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+6] (34 minutes later)
Contrary to its name, this is actually the rational fiction board. You probably want r/lesswrong, except insofar as newspapers count as fiction.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+1] Champion of Justice and Reason (an hour later)
you know that subreddit is dead, right? whether you like it or not, regardless of the reasons for it, the fact is that this subreddit has become the main online hub of the rationalist community. there is no other more appropriate subreddit where I can post about this where it is on-topic and where people are likely to see it and respond to it, and it is ridiculous to prevent rationalists from posting about non-fictional rationality-related things in the main online hub of the rationalist community except on one day of the week. If you want this subreddit to be only for rational fiction, either try to revive Less Wrong or create something to replace it and then get rid of the monday general rationality thread.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (an hour later)
Or, you know, talk to the mods about it and, till then, stick this in the Monday thread.
How is this so important that you can't wait a few days?
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+1] Champion of Justice and Reason (an hour later)
it's not a matter of importance, it's a matter of unimportance. recent events have set my priorities straight. If i had to wait until monday, I might have forgotten, and then I would have had to wait an entire two weeks before I could post about this, and it is something that I needed to ask about at some point because it is something I am considering pursuing work in. That, and it didn't occur to me that posting it now would be a problem until after I posted it. Probably part of the reason for that is that this subreddit isn't just a fiction subreddit, despite the moderators' attempts to turn it back into one. The only alternatives to this subreddit that I know of are SlateStarCodex and WaitButWhy. Unfortunately, neither of those are the online hub of the rationalist community, this subreddit is. Denying that only hurts our community, and likely drives people away. The rational fiction subreddit used to be more active. The HPMOR subreddit now has about twice the number of subscribers as this subreddit. But not everyone is an HPMOR fan. SlateStarCodex and WaitButWhy are each communities centered around only a single specific blog writer, Scott Alexander and Tim Urban respectively, and therefore are too limited in their scope to function as an online rationalist community hub, like this subreddit already is. If the moderators want to take down this thread they can go ahead and do it. But if they do, I will kindly remind them that there are no sufficient alternatives. If they take it down here, I will have to post it on Slate Star Codex or on Wait But Why, and it will be barely on topic if at all there as well, and in the case of SSC, only being allowed to be posted on certain days of the week. I'm not sure if I even can post this on wait but why or its subreddit, because ive never seen an open thread where people can post about anything on Wait But Why.
The only difference here between Slate Star Codex/Wait But Why and this subreddit, is that other rationalists will be more likely to see what I post here, and they won't be as likely to see it if I posted elsewhere.
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+1] (an hour later)
Our Off-Topic threads aren't exactly overflowing. If we really are the nucleus of the diaspora, that would imply there isn't much demand for that discussion. To provide anecdotal evidence, I'm not interested in having that discussion, which is why I'm here instead of on r/lesswrong. I can't speak for everyone, but I think we're here because we want to discuss rational fiction, not because we want to be a community hub. The failure of another board does not obligate us to dilute our subject matter.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+1] Champion of Justice and Reason (an hour later)
it's not just the number of people, it's that there are literally NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVES. Less Wrong is dead. The lesswrong subreddit is dead. The reason that more people aren't posting here could very well be because they either A) left before the monday general rationality thread was first started, or B) Mondays are not a convenient time for them to talk on here, or C) they recognized that the moderators don't actually want them to talk about general rationality stuff on this subreddit, and that they only reluctantly started the monday general rationality threads, and so they gave it up as a lost cause.
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+2] (4 hours later)
r/lesswrong didn't die by sheer random chance, it died because people chose not to post on it. The strength of the r/rational subreddit is in its narrow focus on a subject people actually want to discuss. If you fill it up with a whole bunch of barely-connected links about things like control groups, audiobooks, new blogs, and FAI, it loses that strength. We come here to read about rational fiction, therefore we are not dead, capisce?
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (45 minutes later)
Nope, never heard of any such thing. A common assignment in my undergraduate classes is to read a scientific paper and then find 1-3 news articles that reported on the same paper and write about how accurately it did (not!) do so.
I'll be surprised to find even one article that does so much less an entire paper.
There's a reason why we only see villainous characters as reporters nowadays on TV. Heroic reporters like Lois Lane are a thing of the past.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+1] Champion of Justice and Reason (55 minutes later)
What would it take to start one, then?
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (an hour later)
A significantly different society than the one we live in now. Sorry to sound so morbid.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+1] Champion of Justice and Reason (an hour later)
why? couldn't you just get a bunch of rationalists--people who would actually care about things like scientific accuracy and intellectual integrity in jounalism--to write a newspaper?
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (2 hours later)
Because it will be a full-time job to do something like this and I think one would need to have a company behind this paper to get anywhere beyond a tiny audience. But let's say you can find people who fulfill the criteria you desired and not go broke for the first few months. The main issue in my mind isn't starting it, but rather sustaining it.
Newspapers depend on attracting people and keeping them which is why they use sensationalist headlines and so often misreport so much information by tossing out any complicated details or twisting arguments to their side. Many of them depend on writing articles fast. Which is why many articles read as if the journalist is only supporting one side of the argument. It's easy to write for the side one supports.
Not only would the rationalist writers have to be careful to remain unbiased and write quickly, they also have to make their articles at least as interesting as the other papers.
Something like this.....it's like trying to build a Friendly AI when everyone else is focused on just getting an AI at all. You need a newspaper at least as good as others (a difficult task in the first place) plus making it rationalist.
It would be a lifetime goal if you want to be able to accomplish it.
u/Protikon [+2] very model of a singularitarian (an hour later)
Nothing but dedication.
u/rational_rob [+1] (43 minutes later)
newspaper
evidence
Dude, that's like expecting Chinese factories to be OSHA-compliant. Use your own judgement. Subscribe to the most despicable propaganda newspapers you can find on either side, as to not underestimate any one view. (This bears repeating: use your own brain, but never trust it.)
I don't recommend starting your own. What you consider rational evidence is probably not what the other side does, and politics will make any good intentions irrelevant.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+2] Champion of Justice and Reason (an hour later)
Not everything that a newspaper reports on is political though. Also, not every news article has to be an opinion piece. This is news we're talking about. There are real situations with real fairly objective truths about them which can be reported on fairly. The truth isn't determined by sides or the number of people who believe that it is true. As long as they back up their claims well and cite their sources and actually prioritize truth over persuasion or number of viewers then a rational-evidence based newspaper should be doable.
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (an hour later)
Removed for being off-topic, but please repost this in either the Monday General Rationality Thread or the Friday Off-Topic Thread.