this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (16 children)

Well, I don't know you personally. I'm saying anybody who has to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, and thus is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job.

Which explains a lot of how the 21st century is going, honestly.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

[…] I’m saying anybody who has to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, and thus is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job. […]

What, in your opinion, would determine if someone is qualified to fact check a news article? Do you have criteria?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think you might have missed the subtle point @mudman was making about marginal probabilities. Its not about their thresholds; any reasonable threshold would exclude the vast majority of people, mostly because the vast majority of people aren't journalists / don't have that training.

Do you own a dog house?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Do you own a dog house?

Classic Norm MacDonald. Never gets old.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

[…] any reasonable threshold would exclude the vast majority of people, mostly because the vast majority of people aren’t journalists […]

Perhaps I should clarify that I don't agree with @[email protected]'s opinion, which was stated in my comment. By their use of the term "unqualified", it made me think that they had qualifications in mind which would be required to be met, in their opinion, before someone could be a journalist — I was simply curious what those qualifications were.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (38 children)

Like I said, we should get research methods taught in school from very early on. For one thing, understanding what even counts as a source is not a trivial problem, let alone an independent source, let alone a credible independent source.

There's the mechanics of sourcing things (from home and on a computer, I presume we don't want every private citizen to be making phone calls to verify every claim they come across in social media), a basic understanding of archival and how to get access to it and either a light understanding of the subject matter or how to get access to somebody who has it.

There's a reason it's supposed to be a full time job, but you can definitely teach kids enough of the basics to both assess the quality of what they come across and how to mitigate the worst of it. In all seriousness.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

is an acting journalist is statistically very likely to be extremely unqualified for the job

Wait wait.. are you saying I'm unqualified to be a journalist? Because yeah you are probably right.

Also Bayes and stat pilled.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

[…] are you saying I’m unqualified to be a journalist? Because yeah you are probably right. […]

What makes you think that you are unqualified?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What makes you think that you are unqualified?

A more than cursory knowledge of statistics.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Statistics of what?

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