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Comment by agentgt | Hacker News Reader

What pains me is before reading this article I was slightly biased because of previous articles.

Actually it doesn't pain me... it really pisses me off that so many journalist are fooling people... particularly me.

When I read the bloomberg article (which I submitted to HN and now I want to just bang my head on the table for doing it) I was actually slightly siding with Google. Even though I was constantly telling myself "lets see the memo before judging" I could feel myself making a biased assumption.

I'm so annoyed with myself.

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I feel the same. When I first read the censored Gizmodo version, I thought to myself, "Whoah, this guy is making up too many assumptions without any references!" Later, when I found the original version with references, I felt a bit stupid for judging him.

For me it was the other way around. I was aware of the references, so I just nodded and moved on, not realizing how incendiary some of these things sound when you don't have the context.

For example, "neuroticism" being just a technical term for a normally varying personality trait, not "mental illness".

Yeah, I was surprised to see that Neuroticism was a technical term for a phenomenon with a well studied gender gap. If you don't know that it sounds pretty mean.

I've been there. Anybody who says that they've never been blinded by biased journalism or fallen for an internet hoax is lying to you, and possibly their own egos as well.

That being said, this episode is an excellent example of why it is always best to avoid taking "sides." When someone takes a "side", the newspapers, data brokers, social media companies, advertisers, and everyone else rejoice in the profits of "engagement." Meanwhile, precious time in this life is wasted on a trivial concern, forgotten within a month.

I see what you're saying. People have a natural tendency to form an us-vs-them mentality and form their own little tribes. It is an ideological extreme.

However, I believe that there exists a growing extreme on the opposite side of the spectrum that believes there is no right or wrong, and thus we need to be accepting of everything that everyone has to say, which goes too far in my opinion.

I believe that it stems from multiculturalism teaching people that all cultures(and thus values) are valid, which is true on a global scale, but ignores the fact that having a particular culture locally helps in defining what is right or wrong socially and form a communal cohesion. I understand this is controversial. If you disagree, please comment so I may learn the flaws in my argument.

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