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Helsing, can you give an example of particularly bad reporting in this regard (preferably mainstream, for example a Rachel Maddow piece, and maybe not older than a year)? This is an honest request, I would like to have something to compare to what will eventually be publicly known to callibrate my worldview so to speak.
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Mar 29, 2019 23:04
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Helsing, Ytlaya, do you agree with Taibbi's and Greenwald's recent takes on Barr and the Mueller report? In particular the framing and not so much whether what they say is technically correct in some narrow sense. Also thank you both for your replies before. They have been helpful and I will come back to them once I am more free. [EDIT]: The opinion piece you quoted above is bonkers Helsing, but that was your point right?
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May 3, 2019 11:20
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Given that some of the most incriminating information concerning Russian involvement comes from Durch sources, I don't really buy that it's all just a conspiracy driven by American warmongers. Yes, the sources are anonymous iirc but something like this being made up completely strikes me as unlikely.
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Jul 29, 2019 19:27
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Mercrom posted:"There is some truth to it" is not a valid defense though. If Israeli conspiracies got the same treatment as Russian conspiracies it would actually be worse than the status quo.
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Jul 29, 2019 21:09
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Ytlaya posted:The way you phrase this is kind of misleading, since, as far as I'm aware, the statement by Dutch sources is literally the only source outside of US intelligence claims. I'm inclined to think it is likely that the IRA was working with the Russian government, but there isn't actually any hard evidence of this - just pretty persuasive circumstantial evidence. And it's not like the Dutch are friendly with Russia, so that evidence isn't exactly unassailable. Let me give you a couple of questions that I believe are useful when deciding on the veracity of claims by intelligence agencies: 1. Is there any outside pressure on the agencies? (This was obvious for the Iraq war. Not apparent in this case, Obama seemed hands-off, well and Trump...) 2. Why would the intelligence agencies lie about this? (Connected to 1. in the Iraq war. Incredibly vague in this case. Because they hate Russia? Because they want war? Pure jingoism?) 3. Is there some effort to use this for something concrete? (Connected to 1. and 2., obvious in the Iraq case, completely unclear here.) 4. How are the reactions in other countries? (This is the big one Americans tend to forget about the Iraq war. Countries like Germany and France had a very critical overall reaction in the run-up to the war. No major dissent (by allies) in this case.) 5. Does whatever is claimed itself make sense? (Can be debated for the Iraq war, but generally yes in this case.) There is a difference between blindly trusting and making reasonable conclusions in situations of imperfect information (that you update when necessary). Now, it is perfectly possible that many "liberals" did not reach a conclusion in a reasonable way but rather through blind trust in authority or hatred of Russia or whatever and you are right to be worried about this (see the Iraq war). However, as far as I am concerned, it was possible to reasonably believe that Russia was behind this relatively early and has since then only become more reasonable. We will likely disagree on this and that is fine. One last point, the agnostic position of simply not believing anything is not neutral. If Russia was indeed behind this, such a viewpoint would likely play directly into their hand. Additionally, I think you find yourself in a situation where even if the predictions of people you aggressively doubted turn out to be true, you still think they were wrong for making the prediction at the time. This can be correct but if you have been wrong for a couple of times in this way (say for example Assads poison gas, Skripal, MH17 and so on) you need the flexibility to reevaluate your premises.
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Jul 29, 2019 23:11
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