When I first read it, I didn't get the impression that the author was implying PG said FB stock wouldn't go up.

In reading the PG post, it seems that a conversation with prominent investor, who was confident that FB's bad stock performance would hurt the IPO, led PG to write a post exploring how that may happen.

In re-reading the NYT blurb, I still don't see it as the author saying PG said the FB stock would not go up but rather as the author believed that PG said that "start-up investments would dry up."

And I think it's in that last sentence, in particular, the third to last word, "would," where the majority of the problem lies.

PG in his post included a tremendous amount of ifs, mays, and qualifying statements talking about how he wasn't sure in which direction it would go. The NYT author, I think, just changed his uncertainty into certainty, both with putting "would" in that last sentence, and removing the "If you haven't raised money yet," part of the quoted link.

So, I see it as the author attributing more certainty to PG than he had in his post, and yet, at the end of the author's post, saying that there is less certainty about this, "The party can’t go on forever, but the infamous question must be asked: Is this time different?"

By you saying, "they're actively misleading," I'm assuming you're attributing malice to the NYT author. I guess I just see journalists and politicians (and many people in general) speaking with an utmost certainty on behalf of people who speak with qualifications and attribute it more to the desire to condense words and present a confident argument than the former. Qualifying statements often use a lot of words. I like to qualify most things that I say and I think journalists and editors often remove them out of seeing them as extraneous—e.g., removing the "I'm assuming", "I guess", "often", "most", and "I think" out of the previous paragraph.

The NYT was bullshiting, writing an article with no thesis and no meaningful evidence to push a vague opinion, which is pretty normal for them. PG was mad that they replaced his thoughtful letter with a junk article and pretended there was a connection.

I thought the thesis was that some prominent startup investors have proclaimed the end of startup investing throughout history and often it hasnt happened, so how does one know it will happen this time?

Again, I can understand why PG would be upset they misrepresented his words, but I admittedly am confused you don't seem to think that other investors, including the one PG referenced in his post, have boldly proclaimed that the bubble will burst and then it doesn't. I think if I were PG I'd feel frustrated the author lumped me into the category of bold predictors, especially if I had written such a qualified essay.

> "By you saying, "they're actively misleading," I'm assuming you're attributing malice to the NYT author."

Not so much malice, but having what they want to say predetermined and looking to frame support in what they already believe to be true. (Rather than trying to find out what's true and reporting that).

Basically the writer believes X to be true or wants to write a story that X is true and digs through things to find quotes they can narrowly pull to support X.

Ahhh, yes, I think that may have been the case. I still think if the author just put "might" instead of "would," then the article would be quite accurate.

However, to your point, I find myself doing that sometimes without even realizing it and I wonder what drives it internally and externally.

Me too, I think to some extent everyone does it and learning to recognize your own motivated reasoning and pushing back against it is an important way to think better. I think motivated reasoning is probably the default behavior (and once you start looking for it, you see it everywhere).

This post dives into it a bit: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/34XxbRFe54FycoCDw/the-bottom...

Just because an argument comes from motivated reasoning doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but I think it's more likely to be wrong (and it's also likely to be framed in a misleading way or ignoring good contradictory examples). It's also hard to discuss things with the person to learn what's true because they're often not arguing in good faith.

I think this is actually a reason people are often skeptical of debate (since a clever arguer can argue a wrong position and win against someone who is right, but not as good at manipulating rhetorical devices). Also why lawyers can have a bad reputation. People can know something is wrong, but may themselves be bad at articulating why. Other people that are wrong may be good at making themselves seem right. The smarter the person is the more they can effectively rationalize bullshit.

A good example of this is Ben Shapiro and a lot of his arguments (particularly the ones I've seen around religion/abortion) are mostly motivated reasoning nonsense.

That said, while this may be true on an individual level debate should still be true at scale (the best argument from one side should still be pitted against the best argument from another). I think this is what free society and liberal democracy is all about.

This answer you've written is one of the reasons why I keep coming back to HN. I think I expect most online conversations to devolve into ad hominem attacks, whether towards me or the third party to whom we refer, and yet this didn't. I worried it may become antagonistic, but on the contrary, I feel grateful for what you've said and how you've given me more to think about.

I often prefer dialogue to debate—a conversation of cooperative learning instead of competitive proving.

Oh, and the LessWrong article confused me lol. I'll take another look when I'm in a more calm, less rushed, state of being :-D

Yeah it's a little unnecessarily complicated with the many worlds bit.

The main idea is a clever arguer can start with any conclusion and then retroactively select the points that support their conclusion while ignoring any evidence or points that contradict it. If you do this then the points you bring up don't inform much because you've already decided the conclusion based on something else (in the example it's whoever paid the most for their arguments).

It's better to start with trying to understand things and then using what you learn to inform a conclusion.

Sadly, NYT does this frequently to push their own ends.

In one story, they tried really hard to push for authoritarian laws to protect children and ended up wading through history to find a retracted and discredited paper. All this to make criminals look more dangerous than they actually are. They even admitted it was an old retracted paper in the article. But downplayed it.

If the evidence was so solid, they could have cited a more recent paper of higher prestige.