{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Malicious Streetlight Effects Vs. "Directional Correctness" - A Semi-Non-Apology","description":"Malicious streetlights are an evil trick from Dark Data Journalism. Some annoying enemy has a valid complaint. So you use FACTS and LOGIC to prove that something similar-sounding-but-slightly-different is definitely false. Then you act like you\u2019ve debunked the complaint. My \u201cfavorite\u201d example, spotted during the 2016 election, was a response to some #BuildTheWall types saying that illegal immigration through the southern border was near record highs. Some data journalist got good statistics and proved that the number of Mexicans illegally entering the country was actually quite low. When I looked into it further, I found that this was true - illegal immigration had shifted from Mexicans to Hondurans\/Guatemalans\/Salvadoreans etc entering through Mexico. If you counted those, illegal immigration through the southern border was near record highs. But the inverse evil trick is saying something \u201cdirectionally correct\u201d, ie slightly stronger than the truth can support. If your enemy committed assault, say he committed murder. If he committed sexual harassment, say he committed rape. If your drug increases cancer survival by 5% in rats, say that it \u201ccures cancer\u201d. Then, if someone calls you on it, accuse them of \u201cliterally well ackshually-ing\u201d you, because you were \u201cdirectionally correct\u201d and it\u2019s offensive to the victims to try to defend assault-committed sexual harassers. This is the sort of pathetic defense I called out in If It\u2019s Worth Your Time To Lie, It\u2019s Worth My Time To Correct It. But trying to call out one of these failure modes looks like falling into the other. I ran into this on my series of posts on crime last week. I wrote these because I regularly saw people make the arguments I tried to debunk. https:\/\/www.astralcodexten.com\/p\/malicious-streetlight-effects-vs ","author_name":"Astral Codex Ten Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/sscpodcast.libsyn.com\/website","html":"