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Comment by TallGuyShort | Hacker News Reader

I'm talking about images like this: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump.... You can count the lanes that run across the mall before you see any open space, and the photo on the right was clearly not taken any time near the actual ceremony because my memory of live video and recorded video during the ceremony simply doesn't come close to matching.

I really don't care how it actually compares to Obama, and I really don't see why Trump cared so much, but the fact is the pictures are clearly not "facts" either. Yet disputing them is still held up as a common example of "deniers".

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That's a photo by the National Parks Service, timestamped 11:51AM, according to the Washington Post. Frankly I trust high-resolution photographic evidence vetted by the National Parks Service and the Washington Post reporting staff, over your memory of unnamed, unsourced live video. But yeah both sides, totally.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/03/06/...

http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-in...

Really - there are stronger arguments against Trump.

Yea that picture definitely reinforces the original Parks Service one. You can see all the empty space and people milling around, not that far in the background. The Obama inauguration was shoulder to shoulder standing room only.

It's funny, I never bothered much analyzing these photos but now that I have it's obvious how much the Gigapixel backs up the WaPo photos.

And yet the parent seems to believe that pointing out optical perspective differences means we're calling those pictures "right-leaning".

They're using an increasingly popular derailment technique called the common ground fallacy.

The parent is asserting that the truth is merely a compromise between two different opinions, when in reality there's evidence enough to assert the truth, without making it a matter of 'right' or 'left' opinion. Their inability to provide their credible sources ("high def video") is because their opinion doesn't align with the reality of the situation.

And that photo is from the opposite direction, focuses on a different part of the crowd, and in no way contradicts the smaller crowd shown in the other picture.

You know you can rotate the image, right? There are clear landmarks along the mall, countable rows of people, and but a single section where it even comes close to matching up.

Of course I rotated it. And my point stands. The perspective is still different. The rows of people are countable, and looking at some of the further sections there is no way I would be able to count as many rows as at the other. There are 2 sections filled with people at the Obama one that are completely blocked off on the Trump one. That can't be argued with at all.

There are people who are good at estimating crowd sizes and I'll let them do their job. But, once again, this picture in no way contradicts the others.

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