Comment on Some Tools For Optimizing Our Media Use

Fri, 14 Feb 2014 14:29:25 GMT

That sounds naive. If you ask yourself whether there disinformation in the coverage of topic X in the mainstream media, the answer is "yes" no matter the issue. Journalist write stories under tight timetables without much time to fact check. They are also under all sorts of other pressures that aren't about telling the truth as it happens to be.

Yes, it's ubiquitous, but some fields and issues are more affected than others, usually due to politicization. Tight timetables may apply to all stories but not all pressures do.

From what I personally experienced in doing Quantified Self press interviews I don't think that's the case. I see no reason why a journalist shouldn't want to report about effective altruism.

You're right that effective altruism isn't so radical that a broader public wouldn't take interest in it. I probably shouldn't have included it alongside existential risks and AGI. I'm editing my post to remove it from that sentence.

AGI is more complicated than being for or against it. We have specific objectives such as increasing FAI research that are complex issues. Making people associate AGI with depictions of ugly humanoids makes them model the problems of AGI wrong.

As you already suggested, oversimplification and distortion are routine parts of journalism. Limiting yourself to coverage appropriately modelling the problems of AGI essentially means exiling yourself from news sources that people unlike yourself want to read. My suggestion is also a kind of cheap marketing trick or flourish rather than a full on FAI outreach campaign. I'm not all that confident this trick would accomplish anything.

I don't see the point of Medium.com. Why should you focus effort on it? On the other hand I agree that the Guardian is a good place when you want to publish an article about a topic. Editing Wikipedia in a way that important topics get proper representation seems to be effective.

Medium.com wasn't selected for its being optimal - it's just a random example of a website you could post to with a very different viewership. I agree that The Guardian and Wikipedia are better bets.

I however can point you to Ryan Holiday's book "Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator".

Thanks. I'll check this out.

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