EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
6d ago
I mean the "smoking jars" link quite literally says that the PD hadn't yet determined if it was a real bomb or just window dressing. I mean, yeah at some point you have to judge how to present uncertain information, and bias can creep in, but news is hard and often the desire of end-users for news outstrips the pace at which the highest-quality information can come out, much less be processed and contextualized appropriately by journalists.
Again, news is hard. Nothing new here. I don't get why this is suddenly "a new low", this is just ... how news works?? Savvy readers were provided plenty of information in the NYT article itself to make their own judgement.
And it's not like that's the only thing the NYT has produced. 3 minutes ago I see this (I think new, separate article) headline and its "dek" (I learned a new word! the summary thing) saying:
U.S. Authorities Are Investigating Device Thrown Near Gracie Mansion
The device that emitted smoke during a protest near Gracie Mansion Saturday was designed to be deadly, a person with knowledge of the investigation said.
And to be fair, there's a bit of genuine ambiguity here: what do we call it? An IED? A grenade? A bomb? Some of these definitions strongly imply a certain amount of actual explosives, and that seemed to be the main sticking point/source of doubt, yes? You can "design something to be deadly" without, you know, successfully making it deadly. Obviously the device did NOT explode, so on a pedantic level "smoking device" is probably the most technically accurate term even if people with brains (you and I) obviously know that it's probably intended to be something like a grenade. I don't have a sub but I assume there's more, up to date info inside. Or are you bothered by a lack of an update on the OG article? Where it's positioned in relative terms to the other news?
Like sure, you can call it bias. That's fine. But I don't think it's this horror show of propaganda you're imagining.
I addressed this:
I stated right at the top that in terms of an actual conflict, I think China would win relatively decisively. But even if you think you will probably win, that's not the only option on the table. I think that on balance, military options should be downweighted because of pre-existing preferences to take it over without US intervention. Why?
To oversimplify, to take Taiwan without a major intervention, you're counting on one of these:
Here's my logic. Since China has realized that it's bad at meaningfully bluffing, this makes the relative chances of pulling off a non-intervention takeover much lower in relation to the risk of an intervention. The risk shifts to military conflict. And of course in all of this, there's the "nothing happens/waiting" scenario. Since China's "utility function" is afraid of risk, and weights a nonintervention so much higher than a risky direct conflict, the overall effect of this risk shift is, somewhat counterintuitively but valid mathematically, towards "nothing happens". That's what I'm trying to get across: not all these options are of equal desirability, and this new reality where Chinese deterrence is ineffective means the most desirable options are less likely to work.
More options
Context Copy link