monsecchris wrote "If that’s the best they can say about $750 a month, it sounds like a terrible investment."
Good point that there is no explicit reference to the headline. And yet it was completely clear to me, at first glance, that this was about the headline.
There is a reference. "THAT" refers to the headline's criteria ("improved"). The headline is the closest thing to this "that" - rather than some other part of the article. It's still slim because really the rest of the article is not much further (Good luck LLMs). What clinches it is "that" reference matches logically:
Logically: First this was also my immediate reaction to the headline: it is content-free. "$750/m no questions asked" would improve anyone's life. "improve" is not a useful way to judge this experiment. The headline is absurd. Second: I expected that the study looked at more than that - but only so far - more "hoped" than expected. Third: Then "If THAT's the best they can say" makes sense. It's a quip (short, sarcastic, funny, sadly true) and a realistic one, at the bar that the article editorial crew picked. We often see studies that boast ... but show very marginal results. Is THAT really the best the study got? In fact no, the study measured more (arguably - it's far from bullet proof because of dumb self reporting [did you buy drugs with this? how about with other money?]). They have more of a claim to success. But either the editors were stupid in writing their headline, OR - quite possible - they were sarcastic. Indeed people are aware that it's going to be easy to dismiss the study "It may not be earth-shattering that providing money is going to help meet basic needs" says one of the people involved.
So anyway, "that" was a weak reference. But it had a strong logical match to the headline.
Good point that there is no explicit reference to the headline. And yet it was completely clear to me, at first glance, that this was about the headline.
There is a reference. "THAT" refers to the headline's criteria ("improved"). The headline is the closest thing to this "that" - rather than some other part of the article. It's still slim because really the rest of the article is not much further (Good luck LLMs). What clinches it is "that" reference matches logically:
Logically: First this was also my immediate reaction to the headline: it is content-free. "$750/m no questions asked" would improve anyone's life. "improve" is not a useful way to judge this experiment. The headline is absurd. Second: I expected that the study looked at more than that - but only so far - more "hoped" than expected. Third: Then "If THAT's the best they can say" makes sense. It's a quip (short, sarcastic, funny, sadly true) and a realistic one, at the bar that the article editorial crew picked. We often see studies that boast ... but show very marginal results. Is THAT really the best the study got? In fact no, the study measured more (arguably - it's far from bullet proof because of dumb self reporting [did you buy drugs with this? how about with other money?]). They have more of a claim to success. But either the editors were stupid in writing their headline, OR - quite possible - they were sarcastic. Indeed people are aware that it's going to be easy to dismiss the study "It may not be earth-shattering that providing money is going to help meet basic needs" says one of the people involved.
So anyway, "that" was a weak reference. But it had a strong logical match to the headline.