Rottcodd

I didn’t say it was a competition or anything remotely like that. Please show me where I did if you believe otherwise.

Okay

So you have a very high opinion of your own discretion but assume everyone else is trash or what?

Where would you put yourself as a percentile?

Right there. Obviously. In fact, that's the exact point of a percentile - it's a ranking system, which is to say, a competition.

So are you going to answer or not?

No.

No - actually I do the bulk of it based on presentation.

"Facts" fall into two categories - ones that can be independently verified, which are generally reported accurately regardless of bias, and ones that cannot be independently verified, which should be treated as mere possibilities, the likelihood of which can generally be at least better judged by the rest of the article. In neither case are the nominal facts particularly relevant.

Rather, if for instance the article has an incendiary title, a buried lede and a lot of emotive language, that clearly implies bias, regardless of the nominal facts.

That still doesn't mean or even imply that it's factually incorrect, and to the contrary, the odds are that it's technically not - most journalists at least possess the basic skill of framing things such that they're not technically untrue. If nothing else, they can always fall back on the tried and true, "According to informed sources..." phrasing. That phrase can then be followed by literally anything, and in order to be true, all it requires is that somebody who might colorably be called an "informed source" said it.

The assertion itself doesn't have to be true, because they're not reporting that it's true. They're just reporting that someone said that it's true.

So again, nominal facts aren't really the issue. Bias is better recognized by technique, and that's something that any attentive reader can learn to recognize.

The main problem that I see with MBFC, aside from the simple fact that it's a third party rather than ones own judgment (which is not infallible, but should still certainly be exercised, in both senses of the term) is that it appears to only measure factuality, which is just a tiny part of bias.

In spite of all of the noise about "fake news," very little news is actually fake. The vast majority of bias resides not in the nominal facts of a story, but in which stories are run and how they're reported - how those nominal facts are presented.

As an example, admittedly exaggerated for effect, compare:

Tom walked his dog Rex.

with

Rex the mangy cur was only barely restrained by Tom's limp hold on his thin leash.

Both relay the same basic facts, and it's likely that by MBFC's standards, both would be rated the same for that reason alone. But it's plain to see that the two are not even vaguely similar.

Again, exaggerated for effect.

The only competition here is between relying on ones own judgment vs. relying on a third party.

No it doesn't. That assumption just fits the strawman living inside your head.

Of course I'm not "immune" - nobody and nothing is perfect.

But I pay attention and weigh and analyze and review and question, which beats the shit out of slavishly believing whatever I read.

The alternative is to use your own brain.

The fact that people are so often so ignorant and/or ideologically blinkered that they can't see plain bias when it's staring them in the face is the problem, and relying on a bot to tell you what to believe does not in any way, shape or form help to solve that problem. If anything, it makes it even worse.

If enough people want to end capitalism, they can’t kill everyone and they lose. It’s about winning over enough people to make sure that you cannot just be assassinated to keep the regime in power.

Not only that, but vanguardism, in whatever form, demonstrably inevitably fails. If the revolution is led by a relatively small group with the majority of people simply being relegated to being subjects of the new order rather than subjects of the old one, those positions of authority will sooner or later be captured by the greedy and power-hungry and self-serving, and the society will be reduced to just another aurocracy, only notable for making a passing nod to some different ideological rhetoric than that favored by the previous autocracy.

So not only in bringing it about but in maintaining it as well, it must be the case that the people as a whole advocate for it and take part in it and defend it. It won't, and in fact can't, work any other way.

Coward.

I'm having another of those "Damn - I'm still not cynical enough" moments at the thought that anyone would actually believe that Trump could do a better job than anyone else at anything having anything at all to do with the economy.

It'd make sense if the measure of an effective president was their skill at lying, filing false financial reports, dodging creditors and filing bankruptcy - then Trump would clearly be unequalled. But since it's not...?

And Israeli leaders.

Only "near" historic low?

Since we already have at least two overtly corrupt justices whose entire defense consists essentially of "nobody has the authority to do anything about it so fuck you," and the highlights of their last session include ruling that bribery is entirely legal just so long as the check is postdated and that presidents are completely and totally immune from even being investigated over anything that is in any way connected to anything that might by any stretch of the most fevered imagination be considered an "official act " I have to wonder what it will take to actually hit rock bottom.

I have no doubt that, since they have no integrity, no ethics and no regard for either law or the well-being of the country, we'll see.