I once read a quote on the wall of a Japanese factory that said "for the customer of a defective part, the failure rate of the lot is 100 percent." Rare, maybe, but consequential because you aren't guaranteed to visit every corner of the space of probability. You are where you are.
But if your experience and the statistical evidence point to A and the impression given by the media is not A, then almost certainly the media impression is wrong.
Sure, but that's not enough. We need to be encouraging people to discount their own experiences in favor of empirical rigor. Otherwise, we're still fomenting a culture of anti-intellectualism.
Personal experience is often a good counter-example to media narratives, though. For example, it should have been clear to almost everyone in the run up to the 2024 election that in fact the economy was fine, because they weren't personally hurting *and* the national statistics looked fairly positive and yet people widely believed various slopulist nonsense claiming otherwise. If people won't believe national statistics you'd think they'd at least believe their own personal experience, but they don't.
I've lived in areas where violent crime was common. I currently live in Israel where terrorism is common.
I'm glad these things are often not true, terrorism is ultra rare in the US, and violent crime is rare in many if not most areas, but I'm not sure these examples are necessarily helpful.
If by "news" we mean legacy media, then I would argue that nearly EVERY form of information transmission is now less biased than news. News is increasingly simply a generator of bias... a kind of card-stacking informational machine. It only maintains a(n abdurd) veneer of objectivity because that's more useful for its propaganda aims. No one involved, and most of the people consuming, really believes that news is balanced. The producers don't care, because they have ulterior financial and political aims. The consumers don't care, because the bias they're seeing mirrors their own.
I always though it was remarkable that during the summer of 2020, when discourse around police reform had reached a fever pitch, no news agency actually thought to interview an actual police officer about his/her job and its challenges. I guess that wouldn't have served the narrative.
During covid times sometimes told me they didn't implement too heavy restrictions in Sweden because the population was taking measures like wearing on their own. I had just been to Sweden a week before and said I barely saw anyone wearing masks. He dismissed it as anecdotal -_-.
I once read a quote on the wall of a Japanese factory that said "for the customer of a defective part, the failure rate of the lot is 100 percent." Rare, maybe, but consequential because you aren't guaranteed to visit every corner of the space of probability. You are where you are.
Moonshine is distilled three times, not filtered three times.
First hand experience is less biased than the news is a pretty low bar.
It still doesn't change my pithy response to anyone who wants to talk about his/her lived experience: solipsism is no way to go through life.
But if your experience and the statistical evidence point to A and the impression given by the media is not A, then almost certainly the media impression is wrong.
Sure, but that's not enough. We need to be encouraging people to discount their own experiences in favor of empirical rigor. Otherwise, we're still fomenting a culture of anti-intellectualism.
Personal experience is often a good counter-example to media narratives, though. For example, it should have been clear to almost everyone in the run up to the 2024 election that in fact the economy was fine, because they weren't personally hurting *and* the national statistics looked fairly positive and yet people widely believed various slopulist nonsense claiming otherwise. If people won't believe national statistics you'd think they'd at least believe their own personal experience, but they don't.
First hand experience is less biased than the news is a pretty low bar.
Lol. Great li'l article! I'm all set to strongly disagree, but then you turn around and land the argument beautifully. (applause)
I've lived in areas where violent crime was common. I currently live in Israel where terrorism is common.
I'm glad these things are often not true, terrorism is ultra rare in the US, and violent crime is rare in many if not most areas, but I'm not sure these examples are necessarily helpful.
If by "news" we mean legacy media, then I would argue that nearly EVERY form of information transmission is now less biased than news. News is increasingly simply a generator of bias... a kind of card-stacking informational machine. It only maintains a(n abdurd) veneer of objectivity because that's more useful for its propaganda aims. No one involved, and most of the people consuming, really believes that news is balanced. The producers don't care, because they have ulterior financial and political aims. The consumers don't care, because the bias they're seeing mirrors their own.
I always though it was remarkable that during the summer of 2020, when discourse around police reform had reached a fever pitch, no news agency actually thought to interview an actual police officer about his/her job and its challenges. I guess that wouldn't have served the narrative.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/media-guide-part-2-narrative-uber
During covid times sometimes told me they didn't implement too heavy restrictions in Sweden because the population was taking measures like wearing on their own. I had just been to Sweden a week before and said I barely saw anyone wearing masks. He dismissed it as anecdotal -_-.
To say the media is incredibly blinkered and biased, is fine.
To then say anecdote is better than that, is also fine.
But one still must remember that anecdotal evidence remains a pretty crappy form of evidence.