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Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

(passingtime.substack.com)
460 points paulpauper | 4 comments | 06 Nov 24 17:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.619s | source
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Centigonal ◴[06 Nov 24 18:07 UTC] No.42066519[source]▶
There was the opendoor ipo, there was Jason Calacanis "sharpening the knives" ahead of the Twitter acquisition, there was what David Sacks did to Zenefits, and there's more. People are going to keep trusting these guys, simply because they have a hard-on for charismatic people with a lot of money, an extremely short memory, and refusal to believe that they will be the next ones to be scammed.
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schnable ◴[06 Nov 24 18:21 UTC] No.42066755[source]▶
I find these guys are pretty insightful when discussing tech and VC news. The politics talk is awful. Chamath is a lightweight who doesn't know anything about how our government works but speaks confidently -- I remember one time he was talking about how raising the debt ceiling will allow the President to spend more money. Sacks is a partisan hack who will spin everything as a positive for Trump and MAGA politics. That's after he was a hack for Desantis.
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olix0r ◴[06 Nov 24 18:45 UTC] No.42067213[source]▶
"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

"In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

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digdugdirk ◴[06 Nov 24 20:14 UTC] No.42068629[source]▶
It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same trap himself. It really shows how difficult it is for the human mind to have perspective on itself.
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tomcam ◴[07 Nov 24 09:35 UTC] No.42075152[source]▶
> It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same trap himself.

For example?

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1. rikkert ◴[07 Nov 24 12:10 UTC] No.42075950[source]▶
Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is a prominent example of climate science denial wrapped in a techno-thriller narrative. In the book, he portrays mainstream climate science as alarmist and driven by political motives rather than factual evidence. Crichton uses the plot to imply that climate change fears are exaggerated, fueled by a coalition of media, scientists, and activists with hidden agendas. Despite claiming to be based on scientific data, the book misrepresents studies, cherry-picks data, and cites outlier opinions to undermine the overwhelming consensus on human-caused climate change. The novel’s presentation has been criticized for promoting misinformation and distorting the complexities of climate science to fit a skeptical narrative.
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2. greenie_beans ◴[07 Nov 24 12:25 UTC] No.42076018[source]▶
that actually makes sense that he'd write that book if he's going around talking about gell-mann in interviews
3. tomcam ◴[07 Nov 24 12:59 UTC] No.42076254[source]▶
Thanks. I read the book and feel he’ll be proven largely correct. Won’t relitigate here but I very much appreciate your reply.

It was one of his worst books but not due to his evaluation of the science world. Just way too heavy-handed. He usually had a far lighter touch.

4. TeaBrain ◴[07 Nov 24 15:51 UTC] No.42077699[source]▶
That isn't actually an example of the Gell-Mann Amnesia, as he described, but just an example of the cherry picking of data and selective interpretation. The Gell-Mann Amnesia, as he described it, refers to how people will not read a source with skepticism when they are not familiar with it's subject matter, even when they have read an inaccurate article from the same source about subject matter that they are familiar with enough to spot the inaccuracies.