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Google Search Results Have Liberal Bias, Study Finds (thedenverchannel.com)
According to a new study reported by The Wall Street Journal, Google's search results tend to lean liberal. "An analysis by online-search marketer CanIRank.com found that 50 recent searches for political terms on Google surfaced more liberal-leaning webpages than conservative ones, as rated by a panel of four people." The Denver Channel reports: "Minimum wage" tended to yield more liberal results, while "does gun control reduce crime" resulted in more conservative ones. Searches for "financial regulation" and "federal reserve" found mostly nonpartisan links. CanIRank used the opinions of four people to determine how liberal or conservative each website was. For 16 percent of the political search terms studied, no right-leaning results showed up at all on the first page of results. CanIRank noted this could be a problem for democracy. A different study found most people click on one of the first five search results. Users rarely move on to the second page. A Google spokesperson said in an email to the WSJ: "From the beginning, our approach to search has been to provide the most relevant answers and results to our users, and it would undermine people's trust in our results, and our company, if we were to change course." According to Google, their results are "determined by algorithms using hundreds of factors" and "reflect the content and information that is available on the internet."
It is a well known fact that reality has a strong liberal bias.
Well, as they say, truth has a liberal bias, so if your search engine weights things that provide more credible factual information, and more credible factual information is associated with liberal news/information sources, what's the problem?
If the effect however, is that conservative opinions / viewpoints based on factual information are being deemphasized, then that's a valid point - but I don't think that's the effect going on here. Or perhaps conservative viewpoint webpages tend not to contain the same amount of credible factual information...
Intelligence has a liberal bias.
Google is a smart search engine built by smart people.
CanIRank.com found that 50 recent searches for political terms on Google surfaced more liberal-leaning webpages than conservative ones, as rated by a panel of four people.
Four people rated the results? That sounds like pretty flimsy evidence. Why are their opinions some definitive source of truth?
That's is because liberal information tends to be science-based, while conservative information tends to be faith-based. eg "I believe this is true because people/jesus told me it is."
That doesn't mean that all Liberal information is correct, nor does it mean conservative information is incorrect, it just means that the basis for forming that information tends to lean liberal because liberals put more value on science or fact-checking than conservatives do. You would never use breitbart or foxnews as a primary source because the information is at best misleading and at worse outright fabrication. Likewise Liberals would would not use CNN as a primary source either because the information tends to be hype-based. Liberals tend to have to look at CBC in Canada or BBC in the UK for a unbiased fact-checking, but may still need a truth filter because both CBC and BBC are government broadcasters. The US has no government broadcaster (NPR/PBS is about as close as you get as a neutral source.)
And will continue to, regardless of recent election results.
Global warming? Still happening,
Evolution? That too.
Your favorite invisible friend? Maybe not.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
As the summary indicates the bias varies with the topic. Having a conservative bias on gun control suggests the engine is getting things correct. In this case the conservative side is more fact based and less appealing to emotion and placebo "solutions". So yeah, maybe the search engine page ranking is working fine.
... can cite this damaging evidence, provided by four fucking people , to contest the election.
Oh, wait.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
a fact bias? Because that could explain things. . .
Note: Moderators that modded this down had a small penis bias.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
You probably meant to type "According to a new study reported by a fox-media-pwned newspaper ..."
The summary in fact offers an example where conservative websites are emphasized and it happens to be on a topic where the conservatives usually have the facts on their side. Gun control. Like it or not the facts from an engineering and historical point of view favor the conservatives. The liberal side of the argument seems mostly emotion and embracing placebo "solutions".
I have read a lot of lines about 'the truth has a liberal bias', or 'liberal information tends to be science based', and I have to shake my head.
Try googling for any information on how to 'combat the rise of gender-fluidity', or 'how to explain physiology is a binary gender system', or 'how to explain gender fluidity is a social construct' and you get Nothing, Zip, Nada, that isn't in support of this brand of mental disorder.
Science based? Truth? Not even close. Everywhere you see sex that's outside a human social construct there's a male and female. Only humans social structure describes non-existent genders in liberal circles.
Not a troll, or flamebait, but I have asbestos underwear on, and I can already feel the flames from the mod-activism firing up.
Fact is, The science and truth hurt the liberal cause acutely no matter how much spin they try and put on it.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
> SJW
DRINK!
You'd have to be a fool, not to know that Google slants results. It's how they make money.
50 recent searches for political terms on Google surfaced more liberal-leaning webpages than conservative ones, as rated by a panel of four people.
In other words, four people have a conservative bias. :)
With just 4 people, it seems like a randomly correct result.
I get it slashdot is american blah blah blah.
But many of the issues that are raising in the US as conservative vs liberal are not in the same camp when in other countries. Gun control is a prime example. In Australia the strict gun control laws were put in place by the strongly conservative party. Also minimum wage legislation was introduced by Deakin in 1904 who was the leader of the then right wing party.
Google's results are not the same for every searcher in every locale. They are dependent on what you've searched for in the past, where you're at, what is in the news at the moment, etc.
In other words, they are quite intentionally biased to meet the likely desires of the user. This article has no basis in science, though it cloaks itself in that fashion to those who know nothing about science, and is far more biased than Google's search results.
Is that what liberals tell themselves to keep their minds off of their irrelevancy?
... and Google search results are just reflecting the web. In other words, don't blame the messenger for the message conveyed.
I've got news for you... (Score:2)
Reality has a liberal bias. The google search results merely reflect reality.
--
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Now that's comedy!
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
"How about a search engine that just searches?"
It's obvious you've put a tremendous amount of time thinking about this.
So, what does this mean? What does the search engine return, Mr. Wizard? Web sites that have the most occurrences of the search phrase in them? Search engines have to be written to do something. It's not magic. It seems that Google is trying to return results that are the most relevant. I would imagine that part of "relevant" would be factual, which means that it's not going to point to lots of sites run by people using the "SJW" acronym.
.
If that center benchmark is too far towards the conservative side, then the web (and, subsequently, google's search results) will appear to have a liberal bias.
In other words, maybe the web does not have a liberal bias, maybe the center benchmark that the researchers used is too far towards the conservative side.
I can't think of ANY study where 4 people would be a statistically valid sample size.
Somebody is either a cheapskate, or using tricks to yank our crank.
Table-ized A.I.
I have observed that liberals tend to be idealists, conservatives realists. The song Imagine by John Lennon is a beautiful expression of liberal thinking.
Liberals speak of what they desire *could* be, and very often of how things *should* be. Conservatives focus much more on the cold, hard facts of how things *are*. So much so that it often makes discussions difficult:
Conservative: That doesn't work, X% of y are Z.
Liberal: No! X shouldn't be Z!
Conservative: "Should" doesn't matter, X -are- Z.
Liberal: You racist fuck, you think X should be Z!? That makes you a bigot!
So, you would prefer a search engine that makes absolutely no value judgments? I bet if you really think about it, you'll figure out why that's a bad idea. And it has nothing at all to do with ideology.
If you're having trouble, I bet someone here can help you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
My first post may have cast liberals in a negative role. Both viewpoints are needed, so ideally we'd all respect the others' ways of looking at things. Liberals are strong at imagining a great thing, as dream end state. Then respect the conservatives' that the budget won't cover all that, but we CAN afford to do A, B, and C.
Proved again that fact, truth, science, and honesty has a liberal bias.
Given a specific selection of searches a putatively unbiased panel said the results were biased. Some of the serches were: ... liberal bias ... conservative bias ... non-partisan ... non-partisan
"Minimum wage"
"does gun control reduce crime"
"financial regulation"
"federal reserve"
Why do I feel accurate reporting of web pages would produce a that kind of bias? This seems to be a non-story tricked up to try to appear shocking.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This study is just way, way too small to have the conclusion it claims to have.
Whether left-leaning or right-leaning results turn up depends upon a wide variety of factors, not least of which is wording (left-leaning sites and right-leaning sites often use slightly different wording for the same issue). I don't see how it is even remotely possible for a group of four people to review enough searches to make up a representative sample, and four people is too small a number to provide a solid opinion.
Also, there's a distinct possibility that for some issues, left-leaning sites have talked about those issues far more frequently and in far more depth, while right-leaning sites will have discussed other, different issues.
Finally, I see no reason why Google should be held to any sort of standard of false balance: there are many issues for which the facts very solidly support the left, and it makes sense for Google's search results to reflect that bias. One of the clearest examples here would be global warming, but there are many others.
Google results are biased towards what users at a particular location using a particular computer and a particular account find to be correct.
I.e. Billy Bob and William Jefferson the Third just may not get the same results when googling for things. Particularly when it comes to cigars.
You know... Search engine giving YOU results YOU are searching for... not what someone else might be searching for...
Something tells me that Google may be spending a lot of time and resources on getting that to actually work.
On the other hand... both the list of "50 politically-relevant keywords" and their methodology ARE left-leaning by default.
Their methodology includes MANY "relevance" checks - which is bound to select for left-leaning results when googling for terms such as "abortion" instead of "baby murder" or "global warming" instead of "global warming hoax".
Hell... they didn't even search for "Mexicans", "Muslims", "N-word", "terrorist"... Nor was there a single search for "Pepe".
Or "pussy" for that matter. And speaking of matter...
Don't these people know that it's not just "black lives matter" but that "all lives matter" and "blue lives matter" too?
You know... Actual right-leaning vocabulary.
BTW... Apparently Slashdot also has a left-leaning bias. Wont' let me say "Nig.ers" with two 'g's.
Remember that as you read all the other posts here. This is a left-leaning site.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Re "So, you would prefer a search engine that makes absolutely no value judgments?"
Yes.
How much SJW staff work is needed to set the tone for "offensive or disparaging" alterations?
Just for a serving politician that has the same outlook as staff?
Do search results have to protect a political dynasty over decades? Book results too? Free digital results from city and state newspapers from the 1970-90 get found or not so much?
How far and deep does a top down policy of party political "offensive or disparaging" protection go?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The summary in fact offers an example where conservative websites are emphasized and it happens to be on a topic where the conservatives usually have the facts on their side. Gun control.
Sorry to burst your American bubble but there is a simpler explanation: Google searches the web worldwide with the emphasis on "world". On the US political spectrum the average person in Europe and Canada probably maps to somewhere marginally right of communism and since Google will use links to judge interest those of us in the rest of the world could produce a 'liberal bias' compared to the US.
This would also explain why gun control came back more conservative. Whatever your views on it are the only country which really debates gun control now is the US, everywhere else the debate is pretty much over except for the odd discussion about changes to the gun control regulations in a particular country which is far less of an emotive discussion and usually affects only a small fraction of the population.
Reality has a liberal bias ...... Because many people are afraid of being labeled as sexist, racist, intolerant, etc if they don't follow "the Truth". And so we have that Cancer that is political correctness and true intolerance.
Study results aside, Google returns search results that are most likely relevant and ranked by what people looked at in the past. This means, if the first 8 results are no good and everyone clicks (and stays at) on the ninth result, it will make it's way toward number one. Liberal or conservative, these are the pages people looked at the most. It could be more liberal people use Google or maybe conservatives are seeking out results they disagree with but that's not really important. What is important is that Google is simply returning the results that people are seeking.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I'll tell you what I want. I want a Google research with exactly the following changes:
Don't take geography into consideration.
Don't take my prior search history into consideration.
Ignore clicked-on result frequency in page ranking.
The same query issued at the same time (i would say between crawls but Google doesn't batch anymore) for any two people in the world yield the same result.
I don't trust Google any farther than I can throw them, but they've got orders of magnitude more credibility than the WSJ. There's absolutely zero doubt that each and every murdock "news outlet" has a severe conservative bias. More than four people have confirmed that.
Search phrase wording affects results returned. GASP!!! Almost like the algorithms are working as designed.....
Or....just a thought, you see... the phrasing of the query affects the results returned, in which case, it's working as designed. If, say, I searched for "Liberals are bed-wetting pussies" I doubt I'd get results pointing me towards DailyKos, HuffPost, etc.
... depending on whether the search is by a liberal or conservative.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I tested the theory several times through the election process. "How do I vote" would immediately fill in "for Hillary Clinton" and the name "Donald Trump" would not appear even when you typed in "Donald Trum". Searching for "Presidential Candidates" would show Hillary and Obama, with Trump being down between 6 and 9 places in the list. When millions of people report the same exact symptom, it no longer remains something you can explain with a personal anecdote.
Google Management and executives have a bias toward Democratic/Liberal politics. This can show up in their product with relative ease, and if you don't believe so perhaps spend a bit of time with data analysts who can show you how to manipulate data for the effect you want. Study Statistics, which is all about manipulating data for effect.
While it's true that the study will be accepted by people who have the world view that Google censors content, people who happen to favor Democratic/Liberal politics will disbelieve it.
Reality is not distorted, only our view of it is distorted. Without facts, such as the question in my subject, we can only speculate on the facts that we do have.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
There was an OTM episode a few months ago that talked honestly about bias in reporting on gun issues. Most reporters for the main stream media live in large metropolitan areas where guns aren't common (for non-criminals anyway) and their knowledge is extremely lacking. They interviewed a journalist from the midwest that took the MSM to task for getting so many basic things about gun control reporting incorrect. Basic facts like the difference between semi-automatic and automatic weapons and how it amplifies the mistrust of MSM for gun owners.
For those that don't know, OTM is produced by WNYC, a pretty liberal NPR affiliate.
Go use another search engine that caters to your political persuasion.
a small group of people brought together to investigate or decide on a particular matter.
"an interview panel"
synonyms: group, advisory group, team, body, committee, jury, council, board, commission
"a panel of judges"
You know... like those people who score individual performances at sports events... or those people on that supreme court thing...
Some might even call such a group a "panel of experts".
On the other hand, "the four people" part seems to be a Wall Street Journal invention.
All that the actual CanIRank.com analysis mentions is "scorers from both sides of the political spectrum" and that they "were in agreement as to the degree and direction of bias for about half of the results, and were within 1 point on approximately 90%".
On the other hand, I wouldn't trust someone who references "four people" either. Might as well say "four guys", "four dudes" or "four humans".
Which leaves us with a question - why would a Wall Street Journal writer use such a 4th grade language when he should know better?
Particularly when it's a phrase he invented... and he only writes about Google...
There are other biases out there other than the left- or right- bias.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
No, you really don't. You just can't think outside the "SJW''s want to kill my mama" cage you've built for yourself.
If search engines didn't make value judgements of some kind, you would search for, "Is the Earth flat" and be likely to get an answer that would be wrong. You might search for, "What do I do if I have seriously swollen testicles" and get sent to a faith healer or homeopath and then die horribly of something that could have been cured with penicillin.
In those cases, you might as well not have a search engine at all and just ask your dog for the answer.
People have spent a lot of time figuring out how to look for information. There is no "liberal bias" to Google, despite what Alex Jones and some dipshit at Breitbart tell you. And if you think a "study" with four people who work for Rupert Murdoch deciding whether something is biased or not is indication of anything, then you shouldn't be messing with search engines, computers or any technology more advanced than a soft rubber ball.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Either way stop or leave. I fucking hate you."
You're not looking at this in the right way: what in hell's wrong with having an easy way to identify flamebait?
Re 'People have spent a lot of time figuring out how to look for information." :)
The news on the "offensive or disparaging" results is rather easy to find
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
what evidence is there that it's an issue?
I see it in school children who come home and have pronounced that they have decided they aren't happy in their bodies at a critically young age when sexuality shouldn't even be a topic. I see a lot of these kids forced into it by activist parents or encouraged by their peers as the latest fashion.
I see it in full grown men that should have been treated for prostrate issues instead of given hormones and surgically mutilated while leaving the real potential problem untreated and possibly leading to a mans death that could be prevented.
It's one thing to be Gay, that's fine. I don't care. Bugger whoever or whatever you want. But leave the kids out of it. And leave it out of the streets. You don't see straight folk getting in your face and having parades etc.
X and Y makes you male or female. If you aren't comfortable in your body then the problem is in your own head, and you need to take responsibility for it, not make everyone around you treat you like a special snowflake.
I'm curious what did you expect to find?
Links to forums or resources for the rational expulsion of mental disease being pushed onto young children in school.
you'll likely see it founded by fundamentalists who have already decided that gender-fluidity is a problem
If that's all that can get through the filters I would take it.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Since liberal opinions are far closer to reality, or actuality, if you prefer, then the best answers will tend to be liberal answers. Obviously the cloud of total idiocy covers many conservative minds. You know, dullards like Trumpenstein have conservative and incorrect beliefs and warped minds.
Like stats about the uselessness of gun control, for example.
What's wrong about the fact:
If you have a gun and a toddler in your house, you are more likely to be shot by your toddler than to fire the gun in self defense.
Go on, prove it wrong. Tell me how it's not true. Yes, I know the non-fact based argument that most "self defense" uses are brandishing, not firing. But I've not found anyone that can find (objective, factual) fault in the fact presented.
Learn to love Alaska
That's what Google does. When the search engine classifies based on use, and the world is liberal-biased, then the results will be liberal-biased.
The one thing that they didn't correct for is searching for things that have liberal and conservative biases. Search for "SJW BLM" and tell me if the results are liberal or conservative. The look I did showed very conservative results. Try again with "crooked hillary" and tell me the results. If conservatives use a different language in doing searches, then the results they see will match what they are looking for. If Liberals use more neutral-sounding searches, then neutral-sounding searches will be more liberal.
The study (only 4-people, lack of variety in search terms) is obviously limited.
Learn to love Alaska
Is there a bias or are we as people on this planet just more frequently linking to these types of content which influences search results in this way?
This is just basic human nature here. Get a set of results randomly with out any particular bias. Those far on the right will perceive a left wing bias. Those far on the left will perceive a right wing bias.
Of course, that is also very wrong since there is no clearly defined "center" anyway. It's silly to lump all of politics into left versus right.
Wow a study based on four people.
Four people. That's enough to split a large cheese pizza. That's enough to fill a Mini Cooper S. Play double tennis/volleyball, bowling team. Run a dungeon on World of Warcraft. Last but not least, run a polling place during elections.
The true irony is that Hux sig is from Redgum, a far left Australian band, led by a well known left wing activist, John Schumann exactly the sort of person an ignorant RWNJ like him would call an SJW. Ive met John several times, im sure he would find the irony hillarious. Then again, nobody ever accused the right of being smart.
What's wrong about the fact: If you have a gun and a toddler in your house, you are more likely to be shot by your toddler than to fire the gun in self defense. Go on, prove it wrong. Tell me how it's not true. Yes, I know the non-fact based argument that most "self defense" uses are brandishing, not firing. But I've not found anyone that can find (objective, factual) fault in the fact presented.
What's wrong with this fact is that it implicitly assumes that you throw a dice to see whether you need to use the gun in self-defence and another dice to see whether you'll be shot by your toddler
This is untrue. The chance of using it or the chance of being shot by your toddler are dependent on the area you live in, the attractiveness of your house to burglars, the discipline you use in storing your weapons, the care you take in overseeing your daughter, etc. These are individual factors and while an average statistic is interesting, it won't say much about your personal situation. It might be that in your particular case, you're better of with a gun. Even only if it makes you sleep better.
BTW: I live in the Netherlands and hate guns, but I also don't think that flawed arguments against it will work.
I hope no one spent any money on this because this is a complete joke.
I have a feeling that whoever put this together did so without any sense of direction, any consideration for experimental control or any other way of offering something in lieu of proof, anything. Just anything, period. This person that did this study and wrote about it has a fucking cabbage for a head. That's how that works.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Any articles that feature the strings 'liberal', 'conservative' or any superlative should immediately be piped to /dev/null and you should volunteer to put your own head in the toilet for wasting everyone's time.
What's wrong with this fact is that it implicitly assumes that you throw a dice to see whether you need to use the gun in self-defence and another dice to see whether you'll be shot by your toddler
If you can't identify factors that affect the odds, assuming the average for everyone is the most statistically valid assumption. If you disagree, then provide a study or proof of my wrongness. Part of the odds is that they are valid for the population, even when wrong. If you don't understand that, go take some statistics classes and come back when you grasp the basics. A normal curve for the odds for the population mean that, by definition, you are usually wrong, but that the average comes back to the mean/median (which match for a normal curve).
These are individual factors and while an average statistic is interesting, it won't say much about your personal situation. It might be that in your particular case, you're better of with a gun. Even only if it makes you sleep better.
Your "personal situation" doesn't actually affect the odds. You haven't proided any facts (substantiated or otherwise) but appealed to emotion. Like was said, fact-based arguments favor the Liberal, and the factless emotional arguments are the tool of the conservatives.
Learn to love Alaska
You see, we can continue walking on that thread of logic and say that if you aren't comfortable with people that aren't comfortable in their bodies, then the problem is in your own head and you need to take responsibility for it, not make everyone around you treat you like a special snowflake. And this can go on and on and on to reductio ad absurdum, which, contrary to what people thing, is a very useful tool - if an idea, reduced to the absurd, still makes sense, it is probably an excellent idea, but I digress.
Anyway, do yourself a favour and truly stop caring instead of merely saying that you don't.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Is this a bias with respect to the U.S. political center? Then shouldn't this result be expected if Google returns an unbiased view of the Internet? After all, the Internet is much larger than the U.S., and large parts of the world are on the left of the U.S. political center.
If search engines didn't make value judgements of some kind, you would search for, "Is the Earth flat" and be likely to get an answer that would be wrong
Actually you'd be more likely to get a porn site that had just dumped every phrase they could find into a obscured element on the page. In fact come to think of it that's exactly what it was like in the late 90s. You might think it would be good getting porn relevant to the flat earth debate, but sadly it was just generic aggregators.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Reality has a liberal bias too, that's been shown again and again. That's not surprising since the other side is based on beliefs.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I will explain you why. Most right wing party are what we call "conservative". Which means a tendency to not change the status quo, to ark back to position which static , "what was done before is good enough" etc... It is only a tendency so look at the average. By nature conservative stay on the habitual position we had. The problem is, science and the new technology we have had for the last 100 years and especially 20-30 years are disruptive. New knowledge is disruptive of the habits of the old one. For example science discovered that spanking is contra productive. Science pointed out at global warning. The problem is that that "new" fact , is disruptive of "old" fact. So they go AGAINST the current for conservative. That is why even it is said in jest, science and new stuff , as disruptive of old stuff as they are, have an anti-conservative bias by nature. New discovery by necessity disrupt old habits/old knowledge, and so by definition will be anti conservative. Some people say "liberal" bias but I would say "disruptive" as politically neutral, as some of the cow of "liberals" (I hate those term) are also slaughtered by disruptive new findings.
So yes, even if said in jest, there is a base of truth in it.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Just consider this: Google works using a (modified) version of the pagerank algorithm. That algorithm ranks pages on importance as measured by referral links weighted by their rank, etc. etc.. Meaning that if the internet contains more coherent clusters of cross-referring pages of a lliberal/consevative signature referring to a page with a certain match string, those results will end up in Google results. It sort of reflects the intensity of discussion.
Apparently there are fewer conservative leaning pages in referring clusters than that link to "minimum wage" than liberal ones.
Surprised?
Try googling for "protect our second amenment rights" and count the liberal hits.
I have observed that liberals tend to be idealists, conservatives realists.
Complete nonsense. Conservatives aren't realists at all. They just have different ideals than the liberals but they at least as unrealistic if not more so. Many conservative ideals are not grounded in pragmatism at all. Evidence supported by data seems to be unknown to a good portion of them. Many conservative ideals come straight out of religious dogma which has no basis in objective reality.
I'm not saying they are necessarily better or worse but to pretend that conservatives are more "realists" than liberals is just ridiculous. They are nothing of the sort as a general proposition
I suspect if you actually dug into Google's algorithms you'd discover that Google is probably not biased but that the internet almost certainly is
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Then respect the conservatives' that the budget won't cover all that, but we CAN afford to do A, B, and C.
Baloney. The conservatives NEVER argue to cut the things that actually matter from the budget. They just borrow the money instead of raising taxes but are just as irresponsible. Conservatives NEVER bring up cutting social security, medicare/medicaid, or the defense budget which together account for about 3/4 of the federal budget. Any politician that claims to be about fiscal responsibility who doesn't talk about how they are going to cut the defense budget or medicare is lying through their teeth about what the budget will cover. They are unwilling to make the hard choices and cut the programs that matter.
You could cut every cent of every program except for medicare, medicaid, defense and social security and you STILL couldn't balance the budget. So anyone who talks about "cutting pork" without discussing those four programs is full of shit about being fiscally responsible.
I have to wonder where you get your news. Name ANY conservative leader and I'll give you some links of them addressing exactly those issues. The leading Republican right now is the guy who was unanimously voted Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. He said, very clearly, that fixing Medicare is a top priority for the new Congress. The headlines of left-leaning publications currently are things like "Paul Ryan to dismantle Medicare". The LA Times just had that headline, for example. This Washington Post article is a tad more factual.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
I don't know where you've been getting your information, but obviously not from any of the major media. Chris Christie's speeches about Social Security are legendary. So anyway go ahead and name ANY conservative leader and I'll show you video of them covering those topics or specific policy proposals to address them.
Is it really a shock that, when asking about liberal-leaning ideas (i.e., minimum wage) the results are more liberal-leaning, and vice versa?
I trust the WSJ to relay corporate press releases adequately but their editorial slant is the sort of murdochian right wing nutjobbery that leads to 'conservapedia'. Anything except extreme climate denialism and laffer curve idolatry is likely to register with them as a liberal plot to destroy america.
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was the response of a conservative friend to fact checking of some anti Obama propaganda he Cc'd to our mailing list.
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> And they don't even talk about cutting defense spending which is the biggest issue.
As far as "the biggest issue", it's about 1% of GDP. That's significant. Obamacare probably has larger economic effects, but 1% is significant.
Here's a chart of defense spending over 30 years. You can see the largest cuts, which are significant, were the cuts passed in 1989, starting with the 1990 budget and phased in over ten years. You probably remember who was president.
http://www.usgovernmentspendin...
I mentioned 1%, then the chart I linked is just since 1990.
The two don't go together, of course. 1% is a very long term number.
It might be that in your particular case, you're better of with a gun. Even only if it makes you sleep better.
That's irrelevant.
If you're a rapist you no doubt think it's better for you if you can rape. Society at large disagrees, so there is a law against rape.
If you let everyone do whatever they want to do in their own self interest then you have anarchy. And, yes, this does mean that civilisation puts limit on freedom.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
As with most human genetics, it's more complicated than that, and we can get physiologically female brains in male bodies. If you aren't comfortable in your body, you've got a problem. Being generally a nice guy, I'd like to see your problem solved. We don't know how to change a mind between male and female, but we can do surgical alteration and hormone therapy to get the body more suited to the mind. Most people with this problem just want to fix it somehow, and don't want to be treated as anyone special because of it. I've got a few surgical modifications and body chemistry alterations that I don't bring up in conversations until they seem relevant.
Lastly, we're all special snowflakes, each in their own way. That's what makes humanity so wonderful.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
This entire media "bias" meme really separates those who allowed their schooling to interfere with their education, and those of us who didn't. What would unbiased media even look like? I don't know, but it would certainly be a state propaganda feed, because something can only be unbiased as measured against a ratified, societal norm.
For Act II, how about we stick our little strip of pink/blue bias-detection litmus paper into the baptismal bowl at Lakewood Church? Bias? Just imagine. Part of a giant, orchestrated, financially flush media empire? Absolutely. Harder to Google than the printed word? Who would have guessed?
There's a good sociological reason Wikipedia is largely authored by literate, STEM-positive, over-educated, middle-aged white males such as myself—many of us keep our Sunday morning calendars free and clear of conflicting obligations.
Journalism—the kind that operates outside the church—also, tilts toward a literate, STEM-positive, over-educated, professional cadre.
I once read a book by an IT consultant from way back. (Gerald Weinberg would have been on my desk at the time, but I'm not sure it was him.) As the story went, he was shooting the shit in the cubical of the middle manager who was likely to retain him, and noticed a huge, fancy chart on the wall documenting the weekly software defect rate. Seeing an in, his mouth shot out "looks like you have a problem here with software quality".
Already steaming, the middle manager shot right back, "what the fuck do you mean?" and proceeded to explain that the chart was just one artefact of an industry-leading quality management program that actually bothered to meticulously self-assess, which was almost unheard of in its time. The consultant had been brought in to forestall future pain, rather than medicate human folly. Lesson learned: think before you assume that smoke means unmanaged fire.
Journalism self assesses, bias purportedly found (by an otherwise unloved wolf-calling sub-population whose standard of hard thinking is managing to distinguish red from blue along a single axis).
Wikipedia self assesses, huge pockets of white male nerds discovered.
The church self assesses, oh noes we've got a few here who haven't swallowed the catechism lock, stock, and barrel; we should redouble our efforts.
Hmmm, different agendas.
At the end of the day, bias is mainly found in the organizations leading the curve in self-assessment (not hard to do, as this is so rarely done at all).
has a liberal bias.
Furries make the internet go.
Measuring only US intelligences, that never lived in communism?
Just after posting, I realized I had swapped the variables. I figured I'd get about two idiots saying "haha you stupid idiot. You used the wrong variable, so you're a moron." Or perhaps more likely:
your a idiot you said x not y your stupid fucker
Your post was slightly more clever.
There, I fixed the title for ya.
Think globally but act within local variable scope.
It is a well known fact that reality has a strong liberal bias.
Correct... although I think it was more correct 10 years ago than it is today. This is particularly evident with issues requiring nuance. With broad brush strokes and in the big picture, liberals still completely blow conservatives away (at least in this country), but I've noticed that they are becoming less and less able or willing to delve into more detailed rational analysis. The obvious examples generally involve calling out the overeager progressives (/ SJWs) on their statistical fabrications, but it's not limited to that.
For example, in the past three days I've had two people around here foe me for daring to point out things like the fact that Trump did not "admit" to sexually assaulting anyone, but rather was babbling about being a magnet for beautiful women and said that they "let you" do things with them. They don't continue the debate past a post or two; they just shut up and foe me. That let is a very common word with a perfectly agreed-on definition does not appear to matter to these people:
"They didn't really let him; they were coerced! He was in a position of power!"
"Well, that may well be, but there's no indication of that on the tape. I'm definitely not claiming he's innocent; I'm just saying that he didn't admit to what you (and the New York Times, for crying out loud) are claiming he admitted to. He was clearly engaged in some over the top macho bragging that women were *that into him* that he didn't have to 'wait' for a bunch of tedious flirting or courting. He wasn't bragging about not waiting for any form of express or implied consent; that's ridiculous. The whole context of this cringingly bad boasting is that they know who he is and exhibit attraction to his wealth."
"But he apologized! Why would he apologize if he wasn't talking about grabbing pussy without permission?!"
"Uh, well, he was running as a *Republican* and he was caught red-handed talking extremely crudely about extramarital sex. Maybe that might have something to do with it?"
It seems that minor quibbles like these are conversation-enders with a lot of people these days, even if you include (as I try to remember to do so) a bunch disclaimers about how you're a liberal/leftist, can't stand Trump, didn't vote for him, and acknowledge that he may well have assaulted one or more of the women who accused him. It's fairly astonishing. And worrying. The echo chambers are being reinforced and the heretics cast out... hmm. I confess I was rather looking forward to seeing this kind of self-destruction on the right in this country. This is less fun to behold.
I guess the bottom line is I'm not sure reality will always have a liberal bias. Don't count on it. Don't take it for granted. I say that partially because we need to constantly strive to stay in touch with the world as it really is, but also I simply don't think the left needs more smugness right now.