This makes sense to me as a characterization, thank you, although I don't understand why people get so upset about these distinctions as if I had personally offended them. Where I am from dragging the US into wars is naturally seen critically across parties, so far left is just about the issues you mentioned.
Readit Newsnaturalgradient commented on New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers nytimes.com/2018/08/08/bu... · Posted by u/aaronbrethorst
"Far left" is a pretty polarising way to describe them.
I'm from the UK, which is a country which is firmly on the right of most of Europe, and policy in the US is extremely far right of here. The reporting I've seen from the New York Times is barely left, let alone "far left".
The right seems to have moved so far out to the far right, and yet people act like the centre-point of the Repbulicans and Democrats is still somehow the neutral position.
I did not call the NYT a far left magazine.
I said their reporting on EUROPEAN politics ("politics here") copies points from the far left (e.g. all mass migration is unquestionably good, parties against it must be right wing populists if not racists, etc).
I think their reporting on campus politics, identity politics is also far left, but other than that their stance on Iraq war etc is more Hillary-left than traditional 'left'. It's pointless semantics though, outrage mode is already engaged in this thread and it will probably soon turn into a dumpster fire.
Someone cannot just be wrong or inaccurate, they must be the enemy ('right rant'), and culture wars demand I first clarify I am on 'the right side of the issues' before saying anything. The more objective people think they are, the blinder towards their own bias. Of course I am biased too, but what people engage with in my post is the 'far left' comment on European politics instead of the actual point.
My point was that the NYT engages in culture war because it sells. I can agree with many issues on the NYT but still observe that and be annoyed by it, but that does not matter in tribalistic discourse.
You're just saying you don't like their editorial. So.. don't subscribe!
There is no trickery here.
Far left.. you really have no idea how silly you look. There is almost no institution in the USA which actively publishes a broadsheet newspaper you could call left, let alone "far" left. Middle of the road looks pretty left from a ranty right view maybe.
(I'm a Guardian subscriber btw)
To be honest I think you are just proving my point by getting upset and calling me 'ranty right'. Tribalism sells because it triggers emotions like these. It works for the Guardian just as well as it works for the NYT, Fox news or anyone else.
Being a liberal (the philosophy) is equivalent to being neutral and objective according to all the mainstream media, which are all liberals.
A good read on this is (at least to me as an outsider to American politics):
https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberal...
The greatest marketing trick the NYT has ever pulled off is presenting themselves as the last bastion of objectivity in the trump era.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the most recent Sarah Jeong controversy and virtually all reporting on migration, feminism, campus politics etc shows this. Mind you this is from a European perspective where I see almost all reporting about politics here as copying off talking points from the far left.
This is the true genius of their marketing though: They are actually as polarized as any other source in the culture war, but market themselves to an audience that likes to think of themselves as rational, objective, sensible.
Offtopic: I am a European, and I like to read quality journalism. Which do you recommend, a subscruption to Washington Post or NYT?
The Washington Post. The NYT is unapologetically taking a side in the culture war and on many issues (campus politics, feminism, title IX, migration..) will ever only let one side make their point. The Wapo in my observation has a much better mix of both sides.
If you think that Jeong's tweets are equivalent to actual racism, you don't understand what racism is and how it affects people.
Racism is not just a matter of politeness. It is not arbitrary rules of decorum that you have to follow. It is not a semantic property of a sentence in isolation. Racism is a systemic problem that threatens people and limits their opportunities.
When Sarah Jeong snarks at Andrew Sullivan for being an old white man, old white men are not actually threatened.
Yes, this means you can switch races in a comment and it will change from racist to not racist, or not racist to racist, and that's because there's context, it's not just arbitrary rules about words.
Your argument buys into the core of identity politics, namely creating a hierarchy of oppressors and victims, where the supposed victims can do no wrong. I find this an incredibly patronising worldview.
naturalgradient commented on Three Levels of Wealth awealthofcommonsense.com/... · Posted by u/acconrad
I think about this very topic sometimes, but my levels are different. Mine are something like
1. Paycheck to paycheck. Includes constant worry and frustration about living expenses and basic necessities. Any unexpected cost will lead to not being able to pay the bills. Money is on your mind 24/7, life in this category is hell. Very difficulty to escape this category once you fall into it.
2. Able to afford living expenses with a little left over. I guess you'd call this middle class? Or maybe upper lower class. These people have an income that lets them pay their bills without worry, so they have a cushion of a few hundred/thousand dollars a month. These people don't experience stress over standard bills anymore, they are free to enjoy living life a bit fancy. Can go out to eat at good restaurants, can afford to do miscellaneous activities.
3. Anything above #2 really. This is the bracket and beyond that has plenty of income in that expenses don't matter anymore. Stress about affording living expenses is non-existent.
I would disagree with 3 because there are many in 2 and 3 which can go to 1 just by losing their job and e.g. having one high medical bill (in the states at least).
So surely there must be differentiation on whether any given job or emergency can affect your standard of living significantly.
naturalgradient commented on Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations code.fb.com/ai-research/f... · Posted by u/TamoC
I think Facebook hate is clouding out reasonability in this thread. E.g., there's even a comment asserting that people who collaborate with facebook (a.k.a., Jessica Hodgins, Andrea Vedaldi, and Jitendra Malik) are "not worth their salt" (?!?!?!).
IDK. Maybe -- just possibly -- there do exist researchers who have their choice of funding spigots and are choosing to work with Facebook. Either that or HN has some damn high standards for what it means to be "worth their salt".
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with industry collaboration, even when it involves companies whose impact on the world you might not like. The big oil companies are, unlike FB, an actual existential threat to humanity. But I wouldn't fault renewable energy researchers for taking research dollars from those companies.
The question is: will the funded research agendas push science forward in the direction it was headed anyways, or will this money distort the type of research being done?
In any case, in a week we'll be back to our regular programming bemoaning the fall of the industry research lab and the paltry salaries offered to phd students...
You are referring to my comment about 'worth their salt' in a gross misreading. I said anyone worth their salt has other choices, so going to FB is a deliberate choice on these professors.
naturalgradient commented on Facebook AI Research Expands with New Academic Collaborations code.fb.com/ai-research/f... · Posted by u/TamoC
FB and Google are the only ones pushing the industry forward. The huge amount of data and computing power is what brings these researchers, its not all about money. In the long run the scientific advancements from these companies is a much higher positive than the negatives they have in the present.
Any researcher in this area worth their salt can easily get cloud credit grants and collaborations from Google, Microsoft, Amazon. I pose if you go to Facebook, it's very much about money.