#alternativefacts

[marplots]

@marplots

to prevent the narrative bias, we try to stick as close to the objectively observable facts as we can, and only draw what conclusions they provide.

So in the case of the Inauguration crowd:

- we have two pictures of the same place from the same angle, both good quality. One shows a lot more people than the other.
Without any context: which is the larger crowd?
- we have data on public transport on two different days. One shows many more travelers than the other.
Without any context: on which day did more people travel with public transport?

These are as close to natural facts as we can get: functionally identical machines making two measurements we can compare.

How is this open to interpretation?

Two ways off the top of my head.
1) The pictures were taken at different times during crowd wax and wane or were altered in some fashion.
2) The public transport tells you how many people used the service but not where they went or how often the same individual was counted.

How's that?

(Please note I am not advocating one answer as more correct than the other.)

 

[marplots]

Again, you are entitled to your own interpretation, you are not entitled to your own fact. Your kitchen balance flaw is not a good example. A good example would be that you have 2 container, 1 with 3.5 pounds of sugar, and 1 with unknown quantity. You see that the unknown quantity is smaller in volume than the 3.5 pounds, you see the balance showing 2.5 pounds, but you state that you don't care about the balance or the volume, this is the biggest pounds of presidential sugar, and decide it is 4 pounds. You decide to ignore the measurement and decide to state as a fact that it is 4 pounds. In spite of factually and obviously not being so. And make a tantrum when people reject that as non factual.

That's why it is called alternative facts e.g. complete bunkum, and not alternative interpretation which would be acceptable.

It's worse than that. You don't have two containers at all, what you have is your neighbor telling you about two containers that he didn't measure himself but heard about on Fox News and in a clip on Facebook.

Let me try it from a different direction. How is it possible that there are two narratives in play instead of just one? How could there be any dispute at all?

 

[Puppycow]

Trump won the popular vote, once you subtract all of the illegal aliens who voted. #alternativefacts

 

[C_Felix]

Semantics - bad ones but that's all it is, I think. What she seemed to be doing was poking fun at the media by saying they each had their own facts. "Well let's see our facts compared with yours because yours have been wrong."

That's my take on it.

I don't mind that these people are a bit (or a lot) clumsy with their speaking (if that's all it is). Who needs another forked tongue slick talking politician that lies and gets nothing done? Gawd I hope that's all this is anyways.

I read she is the first woman to successfully (win) run a presidential campaign. Any credit for that?

Good for her.

Nothing to do with anything I thought of when I started this thread.

I get that. But when you tell me it is gold and I have a chemical analysis done and it is chalcopyrite, don't insult my intelligence by telling me you have an "alternative fact" or an "alternative perception" which goes against facts and only seems to benefit you, the pusher of said "alternative fact"

 

[MRC_Hans]

There is no such thing as alternative facts. That a representative of the president of the United States should refer to it with a straight face is a scandal. Nothing less.

That you may be unaware that your kitchen scale is defective is not alternative facts. It is just a fact you are unaware of (and may be unimportant, since you will get the right proportion of ingredients, just a different amount of muffin dough).

The fact that the value of a five-dollar bill is a construct is not alternative facts. It is a fact that the value of money is a construct.

The number of people present at an event is a fact. There IS no alternative to that fact.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Semantics - bad ones but that's all it is, I think. What she seemed to be doing was poking fun at the media by saying they each had their own facts. "Well let's see our facts compared with yours because yours have been wrong."

That's my take on it.

I don't mind that these people are a bit (or a lot) clumsy with their speaking (if that's all it is). Who needs another forked tongue slick talking politician that lies and gets nothing done? Gawd I hope that's all this is anyways.

I read she is the first woman to successfully (win) run a presidential campaign. Any credit for that?

No, you don't get particular credit for being a woman. Nor the opposite.

Hans

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction that were ready to fire in 45 Minutes!

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Two ways off the top of my head.
1) The pictures were taken at different times during crowd wax and wane or were altered in some fashion.
2) The public transport tells you how many people used the service but not where they went or how often the same individual was counted.

How's that?

(Please note I am not advocating one answer as more correct than the other.)

Again, you are trying to interpret the given data, but provide none of your own. This is exactly what Conway and Spicer did.
But without additional data, what he have yields clear conclusions: Trump's crowd was smaller.

concerning 1)
you are right - Trump's picture is taking right at the time of the swearing-in, i.e. true peak.
Obama's picture was considerably earlier - so maybe not everyone who wanted to be there was.

concerning 2) seriously? Do you have a good argument why hundreds of thousands of Obama supporters would ride a couple of extra times around DC, but Trump supporters wouldn't?

We have two different sources of data, each supporting the other.
We have no data contradicting them.

Claiming that Trump had a bigger crowd is an extraordinary claim, and thus requires extraordinary evidence.

 

[The Don]

concerning 2) seriously? Do you have a good argument why hundreds of thousands of Obama supporters would ride a couple of extra times around DC, but Trump supporters wouldn't?

Omaba supporters were probably darker-complected individuals who lacked the intellectual capacity to navigate their way efficiently through the Metro

 

[marplots]

The number of people present at an event is a fact. There IS no alternative to that fact.

Hans

There is no alternative to that fact, but there are alternative claims as to what the fact actually is.

This is so common it's trivial. Walk into any court of law and you'll find people arguing for one set of facts over another. Both parties agree there is only one true state of affairs, yet each side feels confident their story is correct.

 

[marplots]

Again, you are trying to interpret the given data, but provide none of your own. This is exactly what Conway and Spicer did.

I thought that's what was asked of me - use the data and tell a different story about it.

Claiming that Trump had a bigger crowd is an extraordinary claim, and thus requires extraordinary evidence.

I don't think it's particularly extraordinary. I wouldn't fall off my chair if it had gone the other way and Trump had higher numbers. Considering how many people voted, there are plenty of bodies who didn't show up.

 

[uke2se]

I don't think it's particularly extraordinary. I wouldn't fall off my chair if it had gone the other way and Trump had higher numbers. Considering how many people voted, there are plenty of bodies who didn't show up.

It wouldn't have surprised me either, but the facts tells us that wasn't the case. Trump's numbers were considerably smaller, as evidenced by the photo, the time-lapse and the metro statistics.

Denying it is irrational.

The point here isn't that Trumps numbers were smaller (which they undeniably were), but that Trump is none theless denying it.

 

[Foolmewunz]

It wouldn't have surprised me either, but the facts tells us that wasn't the case. Trump's numbers were considerably smaller, as evidenced by the photo, the time-lapse and the metro statistics.

Denying it is irrational.

The point here isn't that Trumps numbers were smaller (which they undeniably were), but that Trump is none theless denying it.

[Trump Spokesperson Mode] Says who? Huh? Says who? A bunch of people who can count? We're tired of so-called experts running our lives! [/TSM]

 

[thaiboxerken]

Trump had a size-able crowd. It was not small by any means. However, it was about 80% of what Obama's crowd was in 2009. If Trump made no big deal about the difference, no one would be talking about it today. This issue isn't about crowd sizes. It's about Trump's ego and his need to believe in "alternative facts" so that he can claim he's the best at everything he's ever done, ever.

 

[The Don]

Trump had a size-able crowd. It was not small by any means. However, it was about 80% of what Obama's crowd was in 2009. If Trump made no big deal about the difference, no one would be talking about it today. This issue isn't about crowd sizes. It's about Trump's ego and his need to believe in "alternative facts" so that he can claim he's the best at everything he's ever done, ever.

I thought it was c800,000 (by some estimates) vs. 1.8 million

It may have been 80% of the 2013 inauguration crowd size....

President Bill Clinton, 1993: 800,000 people
President Bill Clinton, 1997: 250,000 people
President George W. Bush, 2001: 300,000 people
President George W. Bush, 2005: 400,000 people
President Barack Obama, 2009: 1.8 million people
President Barack Obama, 2013: 1 million people

http://www.snopes.com/2017/01/20/obamas-inauguration-crowd-larger-than-trumps/

 

[Foolmewunz]

Trump had a size-able crowd. It was not small by any means. However, it was about 80% of what Obama's crowd was in 2009. If Trump made no big deal about the difference, no one would be talking about it today. This issue isn't about crowd sizes. It's about Trump's ego and his need to believe in "alternative facts" so that he can claim he's the best at everything he's ever done, ever.

Yeah, a great parallel example of that (so not a complete derail) was the ever-escalating #alternatefacts count of illegal immigrants who voted. As the popular vote went over a one million margin it was "a million illegals voted", then "people are saying two million illegals voted for Clinton" and finally settled on, what a coincidence, "three million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary".

The parameters of the lie move as required to bolster the fragile ego of Clueless Leader.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I thought it was c800,000 (by some estimates) vs. 1.8 million

It may have been 80% of the 2013 inauguration crowd size....



http://www.snopes.com/2017/01/20/obamas-inauguration-crowd-larger-than-trumps/

Ok, it was smaller, but still a very large gathering. The point is, if Trump did not make a big deal about it, the crowd size would only be a meme thing on Facebook for a few days and forgotten.

 

[ponderingturtle]

@marplots

to prevent the narrative bias, we try to stick as close to the objectively observable facts as we can, and only draw what conclusions they provide.

So in the case of the Inauguration crowd:

- we have two pictures of the same place from the same angle, both good quality. One shows a lot more people than the other.
Without any context: which is the larger crowd?
- we have data on public transport on two different days. One shows many more travelers than the other.
Without any context: on which day did more people travel with public transport?

These are as close to natural facts as we can get: functionally identical machines making two measurements we can compare.

How is this open to interpretation?


Edit: I would grant you your kitchen scale example IF we actually had two scales. But Trump and his team have not provided any other data AT ALL. They have just stated that they are right and a lot of data to the contrary is wrong. No explanation why, just false, period.
Even flawed data is better to make an argument with than absolutely no data whatsoever.

You are falling for the liberal thinking that there is such a thing as objective reality. Reality is what ever each person decides it is.

 

[Belz...]

You are falling for the liberal thinking that there is such a thing as objective reality. Reality is what ever each person decides it is.

It's what WoW players call an 'instance'.

 

[Spindrift]

Ok, it was smaller, but still a very large gathering. The point is, if Trump did not make a big deal about it, the crowd size would only be a meme thing on Facebook for a few days and forgotten.

In historical terms it was a very big turnout, not the biggest but bigger than many. But Trump's ego doesn't allow him to accept very good, everything has to be the best ever. And that need to always be the best ever, regardless of reality, is going to get us in trouble. Harry Truman dropped two bombs? I'll drop 20!