Hacker News Reader

Comment by coding123 | Hacker News Reader

Title says after not because...

That feels like trying to get by on a technicality. The casual reader would reasonably interpret "after" to imply some causation the way this headline is written.

Yes. Financial articles do the same with “as”.

“Tech stocks down as trade talks stall with China”

They’re rarely related. Two things happened, and they put “as” between them.

By this logic, the title would be equally correct if they wrote "Jimmy Buffet Dies After Cruise Robotaxi Blocked Ambulance"

Exactly. Everyone knows exactly why it was worded like that and I don't understand why anyone would even pretend to play dumb.

This. The article is a hit piece. The more you know the more you see media bias. Pamela Price is another media favorite in the Bay Area.

Was Jimmy Buffet anywhere near this taxi?

Was this person in SF anywhere near this taxi?

I’m not a linguist but this use of after seems to at least imply a link. Strictly speaking it’s only the temporal relation of two facts but I’d reckon that a lot of people will read this after in the sense of because.

Most journalism tip-toes around this line by declining to assert direct cause. They use terms like “after” instead of “because” as it specifically does not imply a link, only the order in which two events (possibly related) occurred. Others you might see, “experts say” and “possible link”.

I’m not commenting on the ethical implications of this usage, only the specific mechanisms they use to avoid assigning cause in the event that they end up wrong.

I agree.

The intent is the link them together.

"Man dies after brushing teeth in morning." <- Might be true, but completely useless and irrelevant.

Isn't there a link between the taxi and the ambulance person?

Yeah when was this, Augh 14th?

> 160k People Die in USA After Cruise Robotaxi...

Someone died. Stop and think about that for a bit and tone down the stupid "but logic!" BS. Recognize that we don't know exactly what happened and it's worth digging into. This is a great time to practice empathy instead of stroking your ego.

"Man dies after being shot in the head."

The causation/correlation is strong in that type of sentence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com