Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: How to Bounded Distrust, published by Zvi on January 9, 2023 on LessWrong.

Scott Alexander points out that the media, from The New York Times to Infowars, very rarely lies explicitly and directly.

Alas, the media often misleads. It implies and insinuates that which is not. It abuses the language. It selectively omits. It is highly motivated by partisanship and ideology and its own interests. It does not do or understand the research. It is terrible at interpreting science. It confuses cause and effect. It purports to use technically accurate data to show, even prove, conclusions known to be false, in ways that are designed to mislead and obviously in bad faith.

Nor does it much care.

They cite someone else, and claim this excuses them from all responsibility. All they said was ‘police say this guy is guilty’ or ‘this ‘expert’ irregularities he says shows fraud.’

The rules are not what they used to be.

Then there are the op-ed pages and headlines, which are far worse.

This leads to a situation of Bounded Distrust, which I analyze at length here. I then work through some examples here. If you want to think about the problem in detail, start at these links.

A shorter, more practical version was needed.

This attempts to offer that. It leaves a lot out. Consider reading the long version.

What are the Rules?

Some special rules about the headline. They also apply to op-eds. Headlines are:

Not chosen by the author.

Allowed to lie.

Allowed to blatantly contradict the article’s content.

Laying out a Narrative the source wants you to believe.

The body of a news article is more reliable. The rules are simple. The article:

Has a Narrative, likely revealed by the headline.

Is not allowed to lie, in a way that could count as being physically falsified.

Is not allowed to assert facts without reliable sources.

Is allowed to do almost anything else.

Is often part of an implicit conspiracy to suppress true information or spread false information, without explicit denial of the true info or explicit claims of the false info.

Is allowed to repeat any claim if it attributes that claim to its source.

Can call anyone an expert. Expert consensus means three people. ‘Some investors’ and similar phrases mean two (as does ‘surrounded by.’)

Is allowed to withhold or not seek relevant information, selectively quote, frame, insinuate, imply, condemn via association, misconstrue. This includes calling true things lies or ‘misinformation’ if they imply disliked things.

Is allowed to change meanings of words in different contexts or over time.

Will draw conclusions in ways that defy logic, or that would be obvious errors to anyone with ordinary skill in the art. This is allowed.

Can and will find an ‘expert’ to support anything they want.

Will maximallyshape the story to fit the Narrative and reality tunnel.

Will face potential negative reputational and other consequences for breaking these rules, and sometimes choose to break all of them.

Won’t face consequences for breaking these rules if everyone else is also breaking them to the same degree in similar spots.

Will face other negative consequences for insufficient Narrative support.

When the expected consequences of rule breaking exceed any plausible benefits from breaking the rules, you can mostly trust that the rules above are followed.

When the stakes are so high that the consequences could be seen as worth paying for either the reporter or the outlet, they might do that, which can be called Using the One Time. You must be extra careful.

The reporter is allowed to lie in order to get the story, the way a cop can lie during their investigation. Both often do so.

Consider the Source

There is no getting around the need to consider and examine the original source.

For each source at all levels, and each class of source, one must maintain a Translati...