It's useful to understand the biases of an author when reading an article. We all have them, and no media is free from them. It contextualizes a piece, and it's information I found useful to my understanding of the piece.

Also adds to it to see where the author have been wrong before. Doesn’t mean they are wrong this time, but a piece of data.

It might, but a given tidbit is only so much context.

A random bit of context with no obvious connection isn't much context. Context is more than a single given fact.

I agree, but at the same time, it could also introduce a bias and prejudice into your perception of the article. This would be especially true if you already had strong feelings and opinions about the author. Maybe the ideal way would be to read it without any knowledge of the author. And then go back and reread it after knowing who wrote it.

And what better way to find out who wrote it than to scan the comments after reading the article? In all seriousness, I don't see how wilful ignorance on the first-read through is some ideal analytic strategy.

Not knowing who the author is is actually a component of an ideal analytic strategy.

Same principle behind why double-blind tests have high efficacy.

Double blind studies help with biases during data collection, not during analysis. It doesn't matter if you have the perfect double blind clinical trial for diabetes medication if you measure efficacy using body thetans as a proxy when you get the results back.

Reading news articles or analyses is in effect a metastudy and doing it double blind is pointless - a metastudy requires an analysis of the provenance of the information in order to weigh the results from multiple sources.

Reading an article is different than a double blind test. Reputation exists because it is critical shorthand when dealing with other humans. It's not always right. It's not always useful. But it shortcuts a lot of preamble.

Also, most geopolitical problems aren't simple analytical problems. There isn't a 'right answer' that one can divine by approaching the space with an emotionless evaluation.

Especially in complex "human" problems like geopolitics where every action has 5 re-actions, some of which are only apparent 5 years later. When there aren't scientifically right answers then deceit can become an important part of the field. See - all politics. Pretending that there is no deceit in political writing and that it's in any way objective seems completely naive.

You know the expression let the chips fall where they may? Well this is just stating "here are the chips." i.e the author is knowledgeable in the field and either is offering expert opinion or expert manipulation.

Not sure why you are being modded.

A third option, which I consider most likely, is that this piece is doing both. The author most likely believes in what they are saying and are trying to manipulate things in a certain direction. There is noting wrong with this, and I think understanding the bias is merely a more effective way to gain more from reading this.

no idea what modded means. That's a fair point. so you're saying that maybe the author doesn't know they are being manipulated despite being an expert -- that's also possible!

> the author doesn't know they are being manipulated despite being an expert

Actually I meant the author was aware of his view and is being both manipulative while fairly forwarding his agenda. Your option would be a fourth possibility? Which would make sense since any two binary outcomes will give a 2x2 sample space for a total of 4 outcomes.