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Re:A Profile of Claire Lehmann of Quillette by mancerayder on Sunday November 11, 2018 @07:14PM (#18429619)
We read rags all day: Politico, Vox, even the Guardian and the NYT do plenty of ragging. It's not all flak-jacket reporting with helicopters buzzing overhead and sandstorms; there's plenty of polemics to go around.

The article I linked above is very rational and supported with references.

Re:A Profile of Claire Lehmann of Quillette by Kye on Sunday November 11, 2018 @07:36PM (#18429724)
I'm sure it is, but I don't see why Quillete needs to be given attention. It's bad media. It feeds on people without enough patience to resist skilled manipulation. It leans on confirmation bias and hammers it in.

Someone elsewhere likened it to Galileo. Quillette is more like the Church. It says "the Earth is flat!" How many times do you walk someone through the math of proving the Earth is roundish before you realize it's futile? Unchecked confirmation bias always wins. The best treatment is to starve it of air.

It doesn't need profiles in mostly credible outlets. It needs a faulty backup and restoration plan and a power surge.

Re:A Profile of Claire Lehmann of Quillette by klagermkii on Sunday November 11, 2018 @08:18PM (#18429907)
> Someone elsewhere likened it to Galileo. Quillette is more like the Church. It says "the Earth is flat!" How many times do you walk someone through the math of proving the Earth is roundish before you realize it's futile? Unchecked confirmation bias always wins. The best treatment is to starve it of air.

I don't think this is a healthy view for the long term success of a culture built around social justice (the combination of how-often-do-I-have-to-repeat-this with it's-not-my-job-to-educate-you). It's been less than two decades since swinging popular opinion over onto the side of broader rights and already the people who should be the stanchest advocates seem tired of trying to persuade people.

This is a fundamental part of human culture, you have to keep explaining the so-called basics again and again, rather than being exasperated whenever people want it explained for the umpteenth time. Learn from religions, and see how even when Christianity was the absolute dominant Western culture, that they were happy to explain it again and again to anyone that wanted to listen. That is what you need to do if you want to keep your gains and keep everyone on the same page.

Re:A Profile of Claire Lehmann of Quillette by Kye on Sunday November 11, 2018 @08:55PM (#18430035)
Inoreader's stats say it posts 14 articles a week to 306 subscribers, just on Inoreader. Their Twitter has close to 100k followers.

I might persuade one person in the time they convince or reinforce 10 beliefs in 1000 people. What hope does good information have against that kind of persuasion engine? There's a reason religion's decline started with the rise of mass media. It had competition.

Re:A Profile of Claire Lehmann of Quillette by natalyarostova on Sunday November 11, 2018 @10:06PM (#18430306)
Plenty of bright and well-educated people, myself included, like Quillete. One possibility is that we are all suffering from the same intellectual malady, which results in our general success across a wide range of fields, but a critical failure where we cannot distinguish good from bad media.

Another alternative is there is some more value in Quillete than you have evaluated.

Re:A Profile of Claire Lehmann of Quillette by Kye on Sunday November 11, 2018 @10:40PM (#18430428)
That's always possible. Maybe they were just having a run of weak reasoning when I looked at it the last few times.
Re:A Profile of Claire Lehmann of Quillette by natalyarostova on Sunday November 11, 2018 @10:45PM (#18430452)
Yeah, I wouldn't blanket defend everything written there (I haven't even read it all). But some are great.
Re:A Profile of Claire Lehmann of Quillette by markdog12 on Sunday November 11, 2018 @07:43PM (#18429760)
> It doesn't need profiles in mostly credible outlets. It needs a faulty backup and restoration plan and a power surge.

Who sounds like the church?