http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli#top

Quote :

"Take the following event (borrowed from Nassim Taleb). A car drives over a bridge, and the bridge collapses. What does the news media focus on? The car. The person in the car. Where he came from. Where he planned to go. How he experienced the crash (if he survived). But that is all irrelevant. What's relevant? The structural stability of the bridge. That's the underlying risk that has been lurking, and could lurk in other bridges. But the car is flashy, it's dramatic, it's a person (non-abstract), and it's news that's cheap to produce. News leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our heads. So terrorism is over-rated. Chronic stress is under-rated. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is under-rated. Astronauts are over-rated. Nurses are under-rated."

4/15/2013 1:37:33 PM

Quote :

"Astronauts are over-rated."

4/15/2013 1:55:30 PM

^that's what you take away from the article / quote?

4/15/2013 2:03:05 PM

http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-Markets/dp/0812975219

Fooled by Randomness is awesome, that quote comes from it.

4/15/2013 2:03:31 PM

crazy people make the best posts

thanks to salisburyboy, I put the guardian slightly above infowars

[Edited on April 15, 2013 at 10:09 PM. Reason : .]

4/15/2013 10:08:52 PM

i see where the article is coming from 100%

but as long as the media aims to make money, they could not care less about what news is "good for you"

[Edited on April 15, 2013 at 11:02 PM. Reason : .]

4/15/2013 11:01:44 PM

I'm often amazed when I'm researching something and come upon an article in popular media.

With blogs, wikis, and everything else, I expect references. When they're not there, someone's often commenting "source?" "you're an idiot". Even when they do back up their stuff, it's open for attack, and people do attack it.

The major media sources act like these requirements just don't apply to them. I honestly don't understand how they survive. The people they hire to write stories don't have a fucking clue what they're doing, and somehow they still drive traffic and make money because their audience is even dumber than their editors.

4/16/2013 9:18:24 AM

i love it when the article does actually include a link to the source study/report and when you follow it you find that the conclusion made there is very different from the one in the article. Or that the conclusion in the article was a side point in the original study, that the study author mentioned as something that may be true as a result of their findings, and warrants additional study.

4/16/2013 9:59:40 AM

http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=616032

Quote :

"NEW YORK (AP) — The extreme heat that's been roasting the eastern U.S. is only expected to get worse, and residents are bracing themselves for temperatures near and above boiling point."

4/16/2013 10:56:23 AM

Quote :

"thanks to salisburyboy, I put the guardian slightly above infowars"

The funny thing is how the infowars crowd tends to think "Don't believe everything you read" only applies to mainstream sources.

4/16/2013 2:04:13 PM

^^that was a pretty serious emergency. I'm glad the media tried to get the word out about the extreme heat. From what I remember, only one person melted.

4/16/2013 2:17:57 PM