From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun May 11 2003 - 15:50:31 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> Of interest regarding when the "system" fails and self-corrects:
>
> May 11, 2003
> Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/11PAPE.html?pagewanted=print
>
> Gives one lots of food for thought -- if a system where there
> are supposed to be checks and balances can fall on its sword
> so effectively, one has to wonder about other systems (e.g.
> scientific peer review) where one is supposed to be seeking
> the truth or "authoritative" reports (the ETCgroup [RAFI] or
> the Greenpeace/"Plant Research International") are worth
> the paper they are printed on.
You must be joking. Checks and balances? Reporting? Have you ever been
reported on? They make up anything they damn well please. Fact checking
by editors? A joke. Amateurs lie for reasons. Reporters lie to make
their five column inches for the day.
Read this article carefully. What is astonishing is not that this person
lied, but that his lies grew to the point where even the newspaper he was
working for had to take notice. Consider just how large those lies had to
be, and how many of them had to accumulate, before the newspaper could no
longer ignore them, as is usual. That is the real picture of reporting.
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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