Vox

[wufwugy]

Its mission is to be a revolutionary news source that explains issues in a palatable way. I'm not yet sure what level of expertise it will try to bring to the media, but it's off to a far above average start since one of its core guys, Matthew Yglesias, is one of the best economics bloggers there is. The site launched a week or whatever ago, and I just started reading today. My view is that while streamlining user friendliness is important, the primary problem of the media is a lack of expertise and a focus on trivialities and reaction-grabbing. Vox appears to be looking for substantive improvements on all these fronts. At first I was afraid the expertise front will still be lacking too much, but I could end up wrong about that. So far it appears to be much better than the other popular mediums like Huffpo, Motherjones, and Slate (the latter of which I got hooked into because it's where Yglesias use to blog)

http://www.vox.com/

[Renton]

Is it another leftist or progressive lib editorial channel or does it attempt semi-objective news?

[wufwugy]

More the latter I presume. Yglesias isn't a leftist at least. It doesn't appear to be the garbage you're talking about with ones like ThinkProgress or Alternet

[wufwugy]

Granted it likely does have a leftist bent. It's virtually impossible to find sources that don't have some sort of bent, largely because journalists are themselves usually leftist and that influences what they find important and why

[wufwugy]

The "cards" are great. They're like mini-wikipedias of current events and hot topics, written by the Vox editors for maximum information and accessibility. It took me hours of reading Reddit and Slate to get an understanding of the whole Ukraine thing. Apparently Vox intends to provide readers with a streamlined way of gathering information that would otherwise take much more effort

[wufwugy]

At the very least, I'm excited about Vox since it's Yglesias' new home. I tend to agree with him slightly less than I do an economist like Scott Sumner, but he's still a writer with better equipment to address economics in a more credible and intriguing way than just about any other

[spoonitnow]

the huffington post makes me want to gauge out my eyes so that i can never read again

[Renton]

I think some amount of editorializing is a good thing and probably unavoidable anyway. I just think there's a fine line where it becomes propaganda. I talk to you a lot about the young turks and how I used to like them, and even still watch them out of habit. It's hilarious how can I can so easily predict their views on an issue before I even begin watching the video, and its even funnier how often I check their channel to get actual news about something that has happened (i.e. Crimea) and not seeing a single video on the topic, just a bunch of stupid political shit. They don't even report news when it happens, they just report on whatever is the latest threat to their agenda at the moment.

[MadMojoMonkey]

There is no single source of unbiased news. Hunter S. Thompson made that blatantly clear 40 years ago. Even the choice by the editor over which reporter to assign to a story is biased. Each reporter has their own voice, and the choice of which voice to apply to a story affects the telling of the story.

I think the only way to deal with this is to get news from multiple sources (with a diverse range of biases, not more of the same). Then piece it all together yourself and see what actual sense you can make of it.

Not one of them is telling you the unvarnished account of what happened, but if you hear multiple sides of the story, you can probably figure out pretty much what happened.


Thoughts on AJE? (Al-Jazeera English) I know they have vids, but I prefer their written media.
I think it's funny that any anti-America news hits AJE ~3 hours before it hits American news, and pro-America news is the other way around.

On the whole, though, I think it adds a nice addition to the American news by adding an outside perspective.

[jackvance]

How much are they paying you wuf?

[OngBonga]

Let's have a look at the front page then...

ooh I like this story -

Most Americans don't believe in the Big Bang — here's why they should

I love it when people are shown a vague phrase and conclusions are drawn from it.

The phrase Americans were shown is thus...

The universe began 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang

And they're asked to say how confident they are this statement is true.

It's a vague comment. I wouldn't say I'm very confident about this, but I'm given no chance to explain why, so I'm automatically stupid, right?

Let's rephrase the comment to suit me...

The universe as we know it began 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang

Now I'm very confident.

The article goes on to show us proof of how we know the universe started with a bang. There are three points, which are all very solid points indeed, but they are not proof the universe STARTED with a bang, they are very strong evidence that there was a huge bang 13.8 billion years ago, which humans have then assumed was the start of the universe. The only reason people jump to this conclusion is because people can't think what might have been going on before the bang, it's just easier to say that was the beginning. But this is not proof, it's merely compelling evidence based on the limitations of our mental capacity.

There are other theories which allow for a big bang, while not insisting it was the start of the universe. The big bang could still be happening for all we know, it could be a central point of the universe, where a huge expansion-contraction cycle reaches its climax.

I don't like the idea of a start to the universe. It implies an end. And it also implies divine intervention. How did it start? I prefer to imagine that the universe has always been here, and has always been rotating around a central point. That makes more sense to me than the universe starting with a bang.

Oh wait we're talking about vox, not the big bang. Sorry did I hijack?

[MadMojoMonkey]

Your definition of universe is different than a physicists definition of universe, and that's causing you some grief.

A physicist says it's the start of the universe because the universe is "all that can possibly be observed". If anything happened before the big bang, it is isolated from our observation (detection in the broadest sense) by any known or theoretical method.

So - in that sense - the big bang is the beginning of "our" universe... and there is simply no way known to determine if our universe is the only one. Furthermore: if we managed to observe another universe... it would by definition be our universe... not another one... because our ability to observe it makes it ours to understand.

[OngBonga]

I'm not talking about multiple universes, but I get your point. What was "before" then big bang, in my stoned opinion, is totally part of our universe. We can't observe it now because we don't know how to, but that doesn't mean we can never observe it. This is why I wanted to rephrase the question to suit me. The universe as we know it is a totally different concept than simply the universe. The former accepts there is more to learn, the latter assumes we have observed all there is to observe.

[Renton]

[aubreymcfate]

The idea of something having always been there is so mind-boggling, only Lovecraft could come close to describing how irrational that is to the human brain. The thought of infinity (and by extension, death) used to keep me up as a child - I'd have to pace around the house to calm my ass down about it. My mom once off-handedly said something like (in the context of talking about the universe's neverendingness) "well if something ends at one door, there has to be something on the other side of that door. There's always something on the other side." Ughhhh, she has no idea how much that door thing tormented me. And why the hell we were talking about that when I was like, 7, I have no idea, lol.

Even though the idea of something coming from nothing is still inscrutable when I try to reason it, it sits more comfortably in my mind than something that's just always been.

[OngBonga]

Even though the idea of something coming from nothing is still inscrutable when I try to reason it, it sits more comfortably in my mind than something that's just always been.

This is interesting as hell. It's the opposite position to me, but of course neither of us have any basis for our positions other than how we try to imagine it.

The idea of something always being there bends my head too, just not as much as something suddenly appearing from nowhere.

I too had problems trying to imagine infinity when I was a child, it just made no sense to me that something is limitless, because everything I observe has limits. The closest I could get to understanding infinity is to keep counting... I didn't need to actually do that to realise there is no limit to the number you can theoretically count to, one would die before ever reaching the highest possible number because there is no highest possible number. Or another means of trying to perceive infinity is placing two mirrors against each other to get infinite reflections. But of course to truly reach an infinite number of reflections, one would need to align the mirrors perfectly, which is impossible for many reasons.

But to say it all started 13.8 billion years ago, it just makes no sense to me at all. Infinity makes some sense. That's the difference for me between a universe that actually began with the big bang, and a universe that had an existence before the big bang.

[aubreymcfate]

That is interesting, because like you said, we're both coming at it from essentially the same baseless position, but I find a starting point to be more intuitive to me than something just having always existed. The idea of nothingness bursting at the seams with some latent "something" at least has some kind of linearity to it that I can follow. But at a certain point, no matter how you look at it, the potential for something to come from nothing must have always existed too.

I think that whatever the answer it is, it lies beyond our finite language (lol @ people trying to discuss the infinite using finite tools)... AKA let's all go on visions quests and experience the universe and claim to know the answers! Hooray!

[OngBonga]

I guess I can compare it to looking for a corner in a circle to start counting how many sides it has. If we succeed, it's not a circle.

This is one simple example of something not having a starting point.

[aubreymcfate]

Right, but any circle you're ever going to look at was once formed from a starting point, no? If I draw a circle and show it to you, there was a place where my pen met the paper to begin forming the shape. Only the theoretical circle has no starting point.

[OngBonga]

Yeah it's not a flawless example. I mean any "circle" you draw isn't going to be perfect anyway. Yet another flaw in our search for infinity.

[OngBonga]

I suppose a better way to try to understand inifnity is to take the value 1, and halve it. Now halve it again, and keep doing so. We will approach zero with every step, but we will never actually reach zero because at each step we have a finite number, and we can always halve a finite number. The difference between 0 and 1 is infinite, because there are a infinite amount of fractions between 0 and 1, yet it's finite at the same time because the difference is definitively 1. This is where we start moving into fractal territory, a better example in nature of infinity.

Now try halving pi. Well that's not possible, other than to say pi/2, because it's not possible to calculate the exact value of pi. In pi, we have a mathematical example of infinity, one that is directly related to the geometric example of infinity - the circle.

And unless you're saying that the universe has an end, then the universe will continue to expand into infinity, right? Alternatively, the universe does have an end... so everything disappears into non-existence?

One way or another, there is a breakdown in understanding. Our brains are capable of doing so much more than our senses allow us, which in itself is incredible. But we're still stuck when it comes to understanding infinity.

I need to hit some DMT and think about this shit.

[Savy]

What on earth are you two going on about?

[MadMojoMonkey]

Preface: Treating scientific statements like they're "true" is a misunderstanding of scientific progress. Well over 99% of the statements made by science have been later disproved by science.

***
My suspicion is that our human understanding of space and time (space-time) is a perversion of the reality in which we live.

Quantum Mechanics has the peculiar quality of being symmetrical in time. I mean - any process that happens one way in time (an electron moving to a lower energy state and releasing energy) happens the other way in time, too (an electron absorbing energy and moving to a higher energy state). This is true of all QM phenomena.

While you and I can usually quickly determine if a video is being played backwards or forwards on the macroscopic scale of our lives, we could not possibly tell this if we were observing quantum interactions individually. So there's something screwy about the way we understand time. Also - there is no such thing as "empty" space. There is always a non-zero ground state energy. So the idea that there could be "nothing" from which a universe is born is antithetical to our current knowledge.

Einstein discovered that space and time are intrinsically interwoven. You can't have one without the other. So if there is anything that is outside of space, it is outside of time.

The notion of "a region that contains no space" makes absolutely no sense to me (not that my sense is a guide)... but that's what we're hypothesizing when we say that the universe "came from" something. We're saying there was no space and no time, then there was... From where did the space and time come, if there was no space from which it could come and no time was passing for anything to change?

IF no time was passing before the Big Bang... THEN the Big Bang is the "beginning" - it came from some form of eternal nothingness that is non-space-time - AND the universe has "always" existed... for all time... because before the universe, there was no such thing as time.

***
The singularity that preceded the Big Bang was such an unfathomably hot mess that "information" was absolutely scrambled. So any information that could have existed prior to the Big Bang is lost to us. So in that sense... why not consider it the beginning? (not a rhetorical question)

***
I guess what I'm saying is that the most highly trained physicists in the world are not certain how to phrase the questions about our universe's origins... and certainly can not describe from what the universe originated.

So what you (or I or anyone - taking a poll or otherwise) believe on the issue is kind of irrelevant, since the experts don't have belief, just suspicion.

Whether a people believe the "The universe began 13.8 billion years ago with a Big Bag" statement is less important that that they've heard it... and the motivations for it.

[OngBonga]

What on earth are you two going on about?

vox, ldo

[OngBonga]

Nice post mojo.

The singularity that preceded the Big Bang was such an unfathomably hot mess that "information" was absolutely scrambled. So any information that could have existed prior to the Big Bang is lost to us. So in that sense... why not consider it the beginning? (not a rhetorical question)

I guess the suggestion I'm making is that the big bang was not the beginning of time. It was the beginning of our time. And if there's a beginning, there's an end. But when our time ends, another one begins.

I imagine the universe to be a huge rotation of spacetime, half of which is expanding, half of which is contracting, with the "big bang" the centre. It's perfectly balanced, has always been, and will always be. This is the only model I can conceive that allows for a perfect balance of inifinity and finity. It adheres to what we understand about the laws of motion, or at least how I undertsand it.

Of course this is very likely to be flawed, but show me a universal model that isn't.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Understand the universe.

VOX

[wufwugy]

Also I expected Vox to not be as good as I see it now is. I largely disagree with its premise (that the problem with the news is a lack of user-friendly, palatable explanations), because I think the bigger problem is a lack of expertise. However, it appears that Vox is trying to fix all of the above

[wufwugy]

I think some amount of editorializing is a good thing and probably unavoidable anyway. I just think there's a fine line where it becomes propaganda. I talk to you a lot about the young turks and how I used to like them, and even still watch them out of habit. It's hilarious how can I can so easily predict their views on an issue before I even begin watching the video, and its even funnier how often I check their channel to get actual news about something that has happened (i.e. Crimea) and not seeing a single video on the topic, just a bunch of stupid political shit. They don't even report news when it happens, they just report on whatever is the latest threat to their agenda at the moment.

This. I don't watch TYT anymore. It took me so long to finally give it up. I still kinda love them because I think they're cool as people, but they're not a good news source. Part of the problem is that Cenk is at least as arrogant as O'Reilly yet won't acknowledge it, and the rest of the problem is that they don't have enough funds to simply hire expertise. So it ends up just being a bunch of journo enthusiasts expressing opinions on policies and events

[oskar]

From the front page this looks like they're trying to make the ultimate hipster/new media news content site: All titles must start with a question word. Very thick lines must be next to very thin lines. Every article must relate to a keyword. No keywords may be used twice!

I am willing to make a bet that in the coming weeks there will be an article relating to one of each on the front page: Sex, Health, Video Games, Obama, War, Money and Movies.

[wufwugy]

From the front page this looks like they're trying to make the ultimate hipster/new media news content site: All titles must start with a question word. Very thick lines must be next to very thin lines. Every article must relate to a keyword. No keywords may be used twice!

I am willing to make a bet that in the coming weeks there will be an article relating to one of each on the front page: Sex, Health, Video Games, Obama, War, Money and Movies.

It's irritating, but you would make more of a mistake by faulting a site for this practice than the mistake they make by doing it. Any news organization that doesn't try to snatch views like this would declare bankruptcy, guaranteed

Do you think journalists like covering bullshit in bullshit ways all the time? No. Most don't. But if they don't get views, they don't get paid.

[oskar]

If you want to rival content aggregators, maybe you shouldn't aspire to look like one.

[oskar]

When I want news on anything specific, I use google. If I want to read a well written article in a pleasing typeset, I go to Playboy or Vanity fair. If the two could come together somehow, that would be nice, but I don't think the Vox thing is doing it for me. They seem to have all the ingredients but they're not sure how to put them together.

[wufwugy]

If you want to rival content aggregators, maybe you shouldn't aspire to look like one.

Looking like one is precisely what they should do. The goal isn't to not cover interesting topics or to not grab viewers' attention, but to not stumble at accuracy and ease-of-understanding

Vox's mission statement is basically "so you read huffpo and you still don't understand what's going on? well come read vox and you will"

[oskar]

So their target audience are people who are too dumb for huffington?

jk

I kind of like it past the front page. I guess it's ok. It's just more fun to complain.

[wufwugy]

So their target audience are people who are too dumb for huffington?

They would probably say the target audience is for people Huffpo is too dumb for. Huffpo is catchy and little substance. Vox wants to be catchy but with substance

[wufwugy]

fwiw i just checked huffpo and vox clearly isn't doing the garbage they are. a lot of sites don't do that

[wufwugy]

Here's an example of the kind reason I like Vox or the concept of Vox at least. Hear about the new net neutrality ruling, go to Reddit to see what's going on, find a bunch of people saying how it's the "end of net neutrality", go to Vox to see what actually happened, find this http://www.vox.com/cards/network-neu...e-court-ruling and see that the ruling will hurt the internet in exactly zero ways and the whiny bitches on Reddit don't even know what the ruling was in the first place

[agnesamurphy]

I really like Vox because they are covering topics and angles that others aren't covering but ought to be covered. I use their articles for my job every time I'm no shift. Case in point: http://www.vox.com/2014/4/23/5637044...own-96-percent Stories

Vox is also Ezra Klein's new venture, who was previously with the Washington Post. Part of the venture's purpose is to rival FiveThirtyEight. Klein tried to make it part of WashPo but they said no, so Klein struck out on his own. A well-respected guy in the journalism industry is running it, so I trust the content as well as the overall direction of the site.

[wufwugy]

Well it's definitely better than FiveThirtyEight. I've been quite underwhelmed by 538's quality since the new launch, because it appears that, in order to generate content, the site is writing articles on things that aren't real stories and the writers are getting analysis wrong because they're trying to make something out of a handful of otherwise bland statistics. I commend the idea of data journalism and like the concept, but the start is rocky

[agnesamurphy]

I don't read 538 and the primary reason is the web design. With Vox, it's easier to pinpoint what's important and it's much more organized. 538 is too busy, and there isn't any categorical organization for the stories above the fold, so it's tough for a reader to pick out something besides the big headline on the left with the picture. No, the design doesn't necessarily reflect content quality, but anything that hurts user experience isn't a good sign.

This article does a good job of discussing the web design of five new journalistic enterprises. http://digiday.com/publishers/digital-news-design/

Vox is the best, followed by Re/code. Intercept is the worst, in my opinion, as it seems the least professional of the five.

[jackvance]

It does look very nice.