Tell HN: My advice after I applied to 450 positions before getting hired

I really don't like that phrase. It should be "reality has a progressive bias". Progressive is the opposite of conservative. "Liberal" is a specific ideology, and will end up in a position somewhere on the progressive-conservative spectrum based on how progressive or conservative it is.

Specifically it is the ideology of Capitalism, representative democracy, the rule of law, etc... basically the ideology of the enlightenment.

This misuse of Liberal is easy to track the etymology. The colloquial usage of "liberal" does sound like an opposite of conservative, it's basically a synonym for "lenient". But colloquial usage is often totally incorrect in certain contexts, like this one.

People who use "liberal" as an opposite of conservative are just bad at type theory.

nicklaf · 7h ago

FWIW, Colbert quipping that "reality has a well-known liberal bias" was clearly satirical of conservatives' tendency to trot out the canard of "liberal" bias.

You could just as well say he still agrees with your point about reality comporting more with a progressive understanding of ethics, while at the same time parodying Fox News for incoherently making spurious charges of "liberalism" at every turn.

palmfacehn · 7h ago

Invoking Colbert, a well known Democrat partisan, speaks to the problems with this discussion.

Additionally, passionate invocation of "facts", "reality" and "objectively true" should be red flags for any discussion.

MattPalmer1086 · 5h ago

I believe Colbert came up with it in the first place.

jackstraw42 · 1h ago

perfect username. I guess it was too long ago for some people to remember the joke?

nixitup · 10h ago

House republicans need to focus on their job

tw04 · 10h ago

Unfortunately the internet has broken the social contract for a large swath of the country. They can find any truth they want online. Facts are no longer important, just (fake) data points that confirm their existing beliefs. The Republican Party has figured out they no longer need to acknowledge facts to win elections, they just need to support whatever idea their constituency is currently consuming from Fox News.

This election cycle it’s that “liberal” cities are overrun with criminal migrants and the only way to save the children is sending in the military. Constitution be damned.

waon · 10h ago

This is what Republicans do. It is their job.

MBCook · 9h ago

It’s exactly the platform they ran on. You’re right they’re just following through.

quantified · 7h ago

Their job is dialling for dollars to get re-elected. We are the product not the customer.

cratermoon · 10h ago

According to Republicans any facts or opinion that conflicts with their world view is "bias"

jackstraw42 · 1h ago

I'm concerned that we're entering or living in some kind of modern dark age. Everyone in the world is part of one network (more or less) for the first time in human history, and information spreads like wildfire but there's no systems in place to make sure it's "good" information. That's being put entirely on individuals to decide for themselves (family, friends, etc be damned) while at the same time, Republicans are taking away any public services that help make informed decisions. Supposedly this means more freedom (or strength?) but really it just means more ignorance.

macintux · 10h ago

A big reason why Trump is firing anyone responsible for tracking or reporting facts.

ChrisArchitect · 8h ago

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45043164

SilverElfin · 9h ago

To be fair, Wikipedia is in fact incredibly biased (towards the left). This was also noted by its cofounder:

https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

You can see this in edit history or discussions on various articles. For example whether something gets labeled as a conspiracy theory or not is a matter of opinion, but the coordinated groups of activist editors and their bots and various powers always win, and their bias is in one direction.

That said, I don’t think it’s appropriate for the government to interfere in speech, except by encouraging and supporting a diversity of ideas.

novemp · 9h ago

When one side is known for constant lies, documenting the truth will invariably look like bias toward the other side.

SilverElfin · 8h ago

This is the line that is often repeated but it is simply not convincing except to people who are on that side (which is my side too if that matters). To me, it is obvious that a number of opinionated decisions are made in writing a Wikipedia article, and those decisions are consistently biased. In the last 10 years or so it has been REALLY bad and if you consume information from many different news sources, it is easy to spot the bias Wikipedia carries despite it trying to look like a factual and neutral source.

obpe · 8h ago

Every assertion I checked from that article is false. So there is no evidence Wikipedia has a bias.

jackstraw42 · 1h ago

So now that the GOP has gone masks-off fascist, does that mean that Wikipedia is going to have an even bigger bias until the fascist revisions are complete?

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