Show HN: Identify car crash editorial anti-patterns using NLP
I don&#x27;t think that &quot;the cyclist was not wearing a helmet&quot; or &quot;impairment was not an issue&quot; are examples of counterfactuals; the authors should crack open a dictionary look up what that word means in general use, and additionally how it is used in philosophy and science.<p>If you have word from the police that the driver was not found to have any alcohol or if the cyclist wasn&#x27;t wearing a helmet, those are simply <i>facts</i>, not <i>counterfactuals</i>.<p>(An article about an accident should report all the hitherto known facts; then it can&#x27;t be accused of having a bias with regard to cherry-picking the facts.)<p>There is a problem with &quot;alcohol <i>doesn&#x27;t appear</i> to be a factor&quot; in that it lacks conclusiveness. Appear to whom? For what reasons, and why aren&#x27;t they sure? The driver was able to  touch their nose with their eyes closed, is that it? I think a reasonable rule should be to cull any probabilistic statements, or statements with hedge words introducing uncertainty: remove all such statements from third parties, and under no circumstances invent new probabilistic statements in the process of editorializing.<p>In fact, it&#x27;s the use of the word <i>accident</i> that may have the counterfactual issue (and good point here). There is a supposition behind it which may be false. Maybe it wasn&#x27;t an accident? You can&#x27;t logically call a pedestrian hit an accident until other hypotheses have been ruled out, like the driver had a specific murder motive, or is crazy. It&#x27;s also hard to call it an accident if the driver was blatantly reckless: acted contrary to the rules of the road which are intended to prevent such occurrences, and which the driver is legally obliged to follow as a matter of licensing. If a walking person falls into a fountain due to texting on their phone, it&#x27;s difficult to swallow the word <i>accident</i>, since they were practically begging for something to happen by moving through an environment while choosing to block it out.