
Seeking Truth in a Time of Misinformation - crawshaw
https://raphlinus.github.io/covid/2020/07/08/seeking-truth.html
======
bhawks
A significant part of the problem is social media technology and our
relationship with it. The platforms encourage low effort hot takes and gamify
narcissistic tendencies (likes, karma, rts, friends, followers). Nuanced
discussion or having a deep engagement with a person is often impossible. It
fosters divisiveness and tribalism at an amazing scale.

I'd wager in a world without Twitter, Facebook, et al we'd have a healthier &
stronger society. Humans aren't meant to communicate this way and numerous
studies show the physiological toll on the individual and we are all
witnessing the societal toll play out in front of us.

~~~
chalst
> Nuanced discussion or having a deep engagement with a person is often
> impossible.

Of course this is impossible if the other party is not interested, but the
format doesn't prevent engagement. The problem is that this engagement takes
work and is rewarded less than the "hot takes" you describe.

The literature on trust metrics that Raph has made a contribution to does
suggest that the gamification can be tuned to reward constructive
interactions. Given the recent advertiser boycott of Facebook, it is possible
that there is now an incentive for applying these ideas in the context of
popular social metrics.

~~~
nullc
Prevent might be too strong a description, but discourage deeper engagement
while radically facilitating the opposite?

> can be tuned

Sure, maybe. But thus far they haven't been. I'm a bit dubious that
intentional interventions wouldn't also have their own substantial negative
effects.

Our online communications platforms have a much greater effect on many people
than a great many drugs that we only make available by prescription do... yet
we've tapped in most of the country to them on a 16-hour a day central line
drip feed before we ever really began studying their effects.

~~~
chalst
> But thus far they haven't been.

They haven't been because the social media platforms have been chasing
engagement as their only target and that favours toxicity. But many
advertisers are allergic to toxicity: there may be space for a social media
platform that tries to avoid the toxic forms of engagement.

> I'm a bit dubious that intentional interventions wouldn't also have their
> own substantial negative effects.

The current system has been shaped by intentional interventions. The
alternative regime should be judged relative to the status quo.

I recommend Richard Seymour's 'The Twittering Machine' on the nature of those
intentional interventions; cf. review:
[https://www.rs21.org.uk/2019/11/16/review-the-twittering-
mac...](https://www.rs21.org.uk/2019/11/16/review-the-twittering-machine/)

------
hihoheythere
Thank you, this is an important and timely article. If, however, you believe
that only one faction is anti-truth, you are blind or willfully dissonant.

~~~
raphlinus
I probably could have worded that a bit more clearly. I was trying to make the
argument that there is an anti-truth faction and that this faction is
_currently_ in a much stronger alliance with the right. I'm under no illusions
that it's exclusive to the right, though, and was thinking of adding a section
on anti-vax to clarify this.

In any case, I wanted to stay away from reflexive both-siderism as I've most
often seen it used as a bad faith argument.

~~~
exmadscientist
As someone who agrees in sentiment with GP (but leans similarly to you), I
thought you communicated that well enough in the article. For what little my
opinion's worth.

------
mensetmanusman
I would like some comments on this:

I have been grappling with how to discuss issues related to covid as
truthfully as possible, and I’m wondering if anyone disagrees.

My intuition as a physicist says that any discussion or comparison of covid
effects that look at total numbers, while true, is less meaningful than
looking at these numbers normalized by population size.

Both sets of numbers are true, both lead the intuition to different
conclusions. What conclusion should the intuition land on?

Isn’t it strange that people can argue behind truthful data to lead people to
completely different conclusions?

~~~
raphlinus
Both sets of numbers are meaningful, for understanding different parts of the
problem. The spread of an infectious disease like Covid-19 is not a virus
moving through a relatively homogeneous population, but rather the overlay of
a lot of small outbreaks. Early on, when the total number of cases is small,
absolute numbers are most meaningful as a basis for comparison. [1] is a
thread from Mar 29 (from the brilliant visualization expert John Burn-Murdoch)
arguing that absolute numbers are more predictive of "death toll one week
after 10th death" and that normalizing by population only makes smaller
countries look worse.

But as the spread continues (a process which takes time), per-capita numbers
make sense. Mr. Burn-Murdoch revised his position (see [2] for a podcast with
transcript where he talks about his thinking), and now the FT graphs have a
normalized option (though their focus has moved on to other metrics such as
excess mortality).

Carl Bergstrom also has a great thread [3] where he talks about the choice,
concluding that both are valid as long as you're careful about context.

HTH

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1244380095164420101](https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1244380095164420101)

[2]: [https://voices.media/transcript-john-burn-murdoch-senior-
dat...](https://voices.media/transcript-john-burn-murdoch-senior-data-
visualisation-journalist-financial-times/)

[3]:
[https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1249930293928030209](https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1249930293928030209)

~~~
mensetmanusman
It sounds like we would ideally have a geographical heat-map overlaid on to
every county in America that was per-capita based.

Then, even small numbers in an initial outbreak are meaningful because you
aren’t dividing by the population of the world.

This would also let local policy makers and citizens gauge risk levels.

It seems to me that the media scared everyone in the country in March/April
based on what was happening in NYC, and now people are numb to any
recommendations.

This miscommunication cost us dearly.

------
mikedilger
This author is mostly on to it. However, I'm hearing the dog that is not
barking.

We hear about listening to the science when it comes to COVID-19 and climate
change. I totally agree. Why not also listen to the science when it comes to
police shootings? And about whether George Floyd protesters further spread the
virus or magically spookily didn't? We hear about criticism of the CDC, and I
concur. Why not also admit the WHO made a long series of dangerous
misstatements to such a degree that it's gotten hard to believe they were just
accidents?

IMHO the right-wing is leading the way in conspiracy theories and downright
dangerous viewpoints. On this we agree. But the left-wing legacy media has its
fair share of fake news as well, especially in continually to mischaracterize
statements made by Trump, and in framing the narrative in extremely unhelpful
ways. Why not report actual death statistics regarding race relations? Why is
it never news when a black police officer shoots a white person? Our brains
make inferences based on frequency of events, but the events we are bombarded
with are biased in a way to lead us to wrong politically-motivated
conclusions, time and time again.

I'd like to think I'm in the middle. At the very least, I try to heap
criticism on everybody. I'd like to see reasonable people to converge in the
middle, en masse, and break America out of this dangerous partisan death
spiral. This author is clearly reasonable, and on the right track, but seems
to still be too much living in the main left-wing bubble and/or too afraid to
criticize the left.

~~~
mikedilger
I've dug further into this and have become less impressed. I'll leave just one
example (I had many but I won't hog this space).

Apparently this is "high end science journalism". Kai Kupferschmidt tweets
this "Some people in the US actually seem to think that rising #covid19 cases
won’t lead to rising deaths eventually. It’s like they are watching lightning
flash across the sky thinking the thunder won‘t come crashing."

Cases don't measure infections, they measure measured infections. Ramping up
testing will ramp up cases even if infections do not ramp up. There is a
credible theory that more cases are due to more testing, not due to more
infections, and if that is true, the death rate will not follow. I don't
personally accept that theory, but it's disingenuous and not "high end science
journalism" when you fail to actually address the alternate theory.

~~~
raphlinus
This might be a good opportunity to make some distinctions. @kakape is a
professional journalist, and his work product is the articles he publishes in
Science. The Twitter feed is not the journalism, but is participating in a
conversation. I find following Twitter feeds of journalists particularly
useful, because they tend to have their ear to the ground about what is
interesting, but of course it's no substitute for vetted, edited articles.

That particular tweet resonates poetically for me, and speaks to major themes
in my essay. The belief that you can have rising cases and mortality will stay
low is, as we speak, a major narrative in what I refer to as "idiot Twitter."
What I get from the Tweet is that a basic theoretical understanding of the
underlying processes should be enough to dispel the notion. Just as a child
might not know that thunder follows lightning, the people espousing this
theory do not understand basic epidemiology. It's not a scientific proof that
thunder follows lightning, or that there might not be edge cases such as the
flash being so far away that the sound dissipates.

Increased testing is absolutely a factor in explaining why we're seeing this
puzzling pattern, but doesn't by itself explain what we're seeing. Part of the
answer is lead time bias, which from what I can tell is a reasonably obscure
epidemiological concept but relevant in this context. Dr. Ellie Murray
explains it in this linked "tweetorial":

[https://twitter.com/EpiEllie/status/1280305393516904448](https://twitter.com/EpiEllie/status/1280305393516904448)

Simpson's Paradox is another major factor: to really gain an understanding of
what's going on, you need to look at individual states or even finer regional
divisions, and aggregating them can obscure important patterns. The effect is
especially important these days because different states are _very_ different.

------
sbussard
The appeal is to “listen to these people.” Unfortunately intellect doesn’t
imply integrity, and appeal to authority is what got America to where it is. I
would’ve preferred a framework for critical thinking, or at least more
emphasis on that aspect rather than saying “you can trust these people.”
That’s what everyone is saying, PhDs everywhere. I have an unfinished PhD too,
and I’m saying “find out what makes it tick” and “follow the money”

~~~
raphlinus
I had another section on "is this an echo chamber?" that didn't make it into
the final version. It would have gone into internal consistency and evolution
of thought in the face of evidence as reasonably objective yardsticks. I'm not
sure how much I'd be able to accomplish trying to establish a framework for
critical thinking in a blog post.

In any case, the message is much more, "I've been paying close attention and
have found these people worth listening to," and I don't think "authority" is
really the word I'd use to express my criteria. I mean, I had a whole section
_against_ authority, and in my penultimate graf I implore readers to do their
own critical thinking and not blindly follow.

------
totetsu
Some more reading on this topic:

\- This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality -- Peter
Pomerantsev

\- A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on
Democracy -- Nancy L. Rosenblum

\- Trust, Facts, And Democracy In A Polarized World [podcast ]
[https://www.democracyworkspodcast.com/pew/](https://www.democracyworkspodcast.com/pew/)

\- darknetdiaries EP 65: PSYOP [podcast]
[https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/65/](https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/65/)
(interview with psychological operations worker)

\- Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare
-- Thomas Rid

------
m0zg
I've read that 40% of all deaths as of the first week of June were in elder
care homes, a lot of them in NY and NJ where C19 patients were _sent to the
nursing homes_. It's not so much a partisan issue as it is absolute shit state
government issue. The decision to decimate the elderly was made at the state
level, without exception. Governor Cuomo in particular needs to go to jail, in
spite of granting himself immunity for this.

~~~
anon9001
What a good example. I heard this claim recently from a family member and
decided to look it up. It sounds unbelievable and deeply disturbing that Cuomo
would knowingly send infected people to be admitted to nursing homes. The way
the story is told, it sounds like he's actually trying to spread the disease
and kill old people.

It turns out it's all spin. I'll admit it took quite a bit of digging to get
beyond all the nypost/wsj/fox stories spreading misinformation. Yes, Cuomo
said a COVID-19 diagnosis was not a reason to exclude patients from returning
to a nursing home in March. But also, hospital bed space was absolutely
critical during that time. While this was happening, about 25% of the nursing
home workforce was infected anyway, and staff seems to have been the primary
means of transmission. Also, after a week or so of showing symptoms, it was
thought that the patients are no longer infectious to others.

The reason that you, my family, and the right-wing media are going crazy over
Cuomo's decision is because Trump is making it a political issue and using
this as a talking point. The reality is that Cuomo arguably made the best
decision possible at the time, and there wasn't really an alternative. Other
states made the same decision at the time, and based on the outbreak numbers
we're seeing today, we'll see that decision again in the near future. The only
other option was to let hospitals overflow their capacity. Maybe there should
have been centers for COVID patients that are released from hospitals, but
that's a massive logistical problem to be solved on short notice in the middle
of a pandemic.

Cuomo's executive order happened in March. By May, once things were getting
under control, Cuomo changed that order, presumably because hospitals now had
more capacity to house patients. Take a look at the curve from NY and tell me
you could have made a better decision at the time:
[https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus-
ny/](https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus-ny/)

If you want a reason to be outraged at Cuomo, the real scandal here is NY
state providing immunity from lawsuits to nursing homes who mishandled the
outbreak. The reason you're not hearing outrage about that from right-wing
press is that it's also a republican strategy. States across the country are
granting lawsuit immunity to protect insurance companies and care facilities.

This is the closest you're going to get to the real story, if you'd like to
learn more: [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/nyregion/nursing-homes-
de...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/nyregion/nursing-homes-deaths-
coronavirus.html)

~~~
m0zg
What's "spin" here? 40% of all deaths being in nursing homes? That it's not a
good idea to send C19 patients to nursing homes? That NY has three times the
death rate of Italy? That states which locked down nursing homes have much
lower fatalities? I don't see how you can even begin to argue that Cuomo's
handling of the crisis was at least atrocious, if not outright malicious.

> about 25% of the nursing home workforce was infected anyway

The logical thing to do would be to _move them out_, not get that number to
100%.

~~~
anon9001
If this wasn't HN, I'd dismiss you as a troll, but because I think you're
legitimately trying to engage here, I'll bite:

> It's not so much a partisan issue as it is absolute shit state government
> issue. The decision to decimate the elderly was made at the state level,
> without exception. Governor Cuomo in particular needs to go to jail, in
> spite of granting himself immunity for this.

This is the spin.

The fact that you're aware of this order being enacted in New York and unaware
that the same guidelines existed in 12 other states, including New Jersey,
should make it really clear that this is anti-Cuomo spin. Another indication
is that searching for "cuomo covid nursing homes" yields almost exclusively
right-wing publications of questionable veracity. Also he's a Democrat from
New York, and the governor of New York is traditionally a high profile target.
Also, at the time the story broke, Cuomo's daily press briefings were seen as
competing with Trump's daily briefings. When you add all that together, it's
pretty obvious to me that there's going to be some spin here, which doesn't
mean the spin isn't true, but it's good to be aware that it's happening.

> 40% of all deaths being in nursing homes? That it's not a good idea to send
> C19 patients to nursing homes? That NY has three times the death rate of
> Italy?

I'm not disputing any of that. COVID disproportionately impacts the elderly.
Sending patients to _any_ facility not specifically designed for it is a bad
idea. I don't know enough about Italy to comment as to why they may have fared
better.

> That states which locked down nursing homes have much lower fatalities?

I assume you're talking about places that stood up COVID-only facilities
quickly. I think everyone, even Cuomo, knew that this was the best thing to
do, but for whatever reasons it couldn't be executed in NY. But as we know, NY
wasn't the only state that failed this test. I'm fairly certain Cuomo would
have picked separate facilities if that was a possibility and the better
option for public health.

> I don't see how you can even begin to argue that Cuomo's handling of the
> crisis was at least atrocious, if not outright malicious.

Cuomo was a rational actor here, unfortunately.

The problem has at least two significant dimensions:

1) Elder care is for profit, and not having those patients causes a financial
loss for the care facilities. This has always been a moral hazard and is why
these facilities are known for their poor standards of care. If a facility can
figure out a way to cut expense or accept more patients, the facility will
make more money. Like many problems, it's always been there, but it's made
much worse by the pandemic. I don't know if Cuomo was lobbied to make the
decision for care facilities to accept discharged COVID patients, but it is a
possibility.

2) There's been a lack of federal leadership on pandemic preparedness. Cuomo's
decision was to free up hospital resources by releasing patients back to care
facilities. It's hard to fault him for that given the predictions at the time
and the very real threat of saturating the entire health care system.
Pandemics cross state lines and the federal government should take charge of
the situation and ensure a uniform response. The current administration has
decided to leave the majority of the response for the states to figure out.
Additionally, somewhat famously, the current administration disbanded their
pandemic response team: [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-
pandemic-team/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/)

I would be super happy if you read this whole comment and think "oh no, maybe
i was deceived by disinformation" and take steps to make sure you're less
vulnerable in the future. Unfortunately, truth is now partisan, and I don't
think you and I will be able to reach a shared truth about what Cuomo did or
why. It's particularly disappointing because this is such a clean textbook
example of a disinformation campaign.

Also, for what it's worth, I don't even _like_ Cuomo. He just happens to be a
legitimate victim of disinformation in this particular instance.

------
bigpumpkin
Just look at the difference in mask recommendations between governments over
time will give people a feel on how difficult it is to ascertain truths in an
evolving epidemic.

There is also the issue of whether the absence of evidence constitutes
evidence for absence, notably surrounding the controversies regarding the
effectiveness of masks and hydroxychloroquine

------
raphlinus
Some reflections, having slept on it.

I am disappointed but not at all surprised that many of the reactions here are
responses to my partisan position. I worked pretty hard to reduce that without
compromising what I was trying to say. Certainly in the Twitter list I'm
promoting I think I succeeded; it includes Scott Gottlieb, who was FDA
commissioner under Trump and now advising two Republican governors on
Covid-19, but doesn't have anybody (D or R) who uses their platform to push
partisan political messages.

But I think the reduction of everything to partisanship is one of the ways in
which we're broken. It's impossible to have a productive conversation under
those circumstances. I think it's a kind of learned helplessness. We don't
want to solve problems ourselves, we want our political party (and
institutions in general) to do it. I'm sure many of us on this thread have
fantasies of our party vanquishing the other one on the political stage and
carrying out our wishes. Or if our party is in power, then we reflexively want
to rationalize away whatever flaws they have. (For the record, I am equally
upset by what's going on in blue states and red. Seeing the numbers go up in
California, where I live, is at odds with any simplistic narrative that
Democrats embrace science and Republicans deny it, with direct consequences
for Covid response)

In any case, thanks for the responses, they're all respectful, and I
appreciate that.

------
archagon
Thank you for this excellent post! Out of curiosity, how much time do you
spend sifting through COVID-related material every day? Or is it mostly
passive (Twitter experts, etc.) at this point?

~~~
raphlinus
It goes up and down depending on how busy I am with other things, but aside
from keeping on top of Twitter I try to read about a paper a day. I went
pretty deep into a few topics, including HCQ and trying to understand the
capabilities and limitations of isothermal PCR.

One interesting pattern I found from discussions on HN is that when people
cite papers, they very often don't support what the poster seems to be
claiming. That's maybe I something I could expand on, because it's similar to
cherry-picking but still not quite the same. In any case, I still appreciate
the references because often I learn something :)

~~~
exmadscientist
>One interesting pattern I found from discussions on HN is that when people
cite papers, they very often don't support what the poster seems to be
claiming.

This is not unique to HN. Heck, often the _data_ in the paper doesn't support
the _words_ in the paper! Science is hard.

------
trilinearnz
Presumably most of this applies to the issue of climate change, also.

~~~
raphlinus
Yes, and I refer to that at least in passing. I've observed that the political
and informational environment around climate change and Covid-19 are basically
identical, with the exception of about a couple orders of magnitude of time
scale. That gives the opportunity to see how well arguments hold up in more or
less real time, which is much less of a luxury with climate change.

------
Blahagun
I've read this article several times, each time trying to understand what the
author want to say, but it's just impossible and the title is completely
misleading. For months since all of this started there has been an extremely
large division between not just ordinary people, but between people competent
enough to discuss the issue like doctors and scientists. To be completely on
one side is naive and telling people what the "truth" is is arrogant. Now
there is tons of data to be working with and continuing with the narrative
that we're in some serious and deadly pandemic is just ridiculous.

------
leric
Hint: "china" didn't appear in this article.

~~~
raphlinus
It did not, because there are many many threads of disinformation and I wasn't
trying to catalog them all. I'm happy to engage a discussion of how to avoid
misinformation specifically related to China, but not really clear what point
you're trying to make here. I also think it's pretty far down on the list of
threats we face right now, but understand others may feel differently about
that.

~~~
leric
You are talking about disinfomation and Covid19 without mentioning the state-
of-the-art player: CCP, you won't get it right. This is an advice from a
native Chinese.

~~~
raphlinus
I'm not knowledgeable enough about the CCP's disinformation efforts to do the
topic justice. But if you'd be willing to write something in the same general
spirit as my essay, I would be more than happy to link it.

~~~
411111111111111
well, they started off actually going to credible sources, telling them to
portrait them positively. i don't know of any _proof_ for comment-style
disinformation from them, but considering that its basically impossible to
prove that.... i'm not sure someone could write a good article about that. its
a sad reality we live in, imo.

its also telling that very few published that attempt. i doubt it was only
done to germany... others likely went ahead.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-
german...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-
china/germany-says-china-sought-to-encourage-positive-covid-19-comments-
idUSKCN2280JW)

------
jdkee
This is a fantastic piece. I am going to share it with my students tomorrow.

~~~
apatters
I disagree strenuously and I believe the piece will be damaging to the
intellectual future of your students.

The title is "Seeking Truth" but the author doesn't appear to be doing that. A
more accurate title would be "Declaring Truth Without Supporting My Claims!"

\- Author makes an extraordinary, vague, unfalsifiable claim that "America is
Broken," but does not provide extraordinary or rigorous evidence

\- Author makes the further claim that it's all the fault of Republicans,
again providing little in the way of evidence

\- Author appeals to the authority of science, but doesn't apply the rigor of
good science to his own arguments; we are ironically expected to take his own
claims on faith

For the most part this article is just another piece of incendiary rhetoric
with little compelling evidence of anything, all it adds to the debate is
emotion.

The author should narrow the scope of his claims and address opposing
viewpoints in good faith if he wishes to construct a credible argument.

If this shit passes for academic nowadays, no wonder a growing number of
Americans feel we no longer need academia.

Teach your students a dialectical method instead, where opposing and specific
viewpoints are presented with the requirement to make a rational, evidence-
based defense of their positions:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic)

~~~
chalst
"damaging to the intellectual future of your students"

This might be true, if the teaching environment suppresses criticism of
material presented. This is not what is supposed to happen, though: materials
should be presented as an opportunity for critical evaluation and the
multiplicity of views presented by _students_ should provide the dialectical
input needed, possibly supplemeted by interjections by the instructor if the
students are showing groupthink. This is better that presenting two opposite
claims and leaving it to the students to figure out on their own if one of
them is correct. (Usually neither is entirely, and in real life, not every
pirce of information comes helpfully accompanied by an appropriately matched
opposing viewpoint).

You're quick to assume the worst. Why is that?

~~~
claudiawerner
Not to disagree with your overall point, but Marcuse wrote about plurality as
a poor substitute for critical thought in the 60s:

"Now in recalling John Stuart Mill's passage, I drew attention to the premise
hidden in this assumption: free and equal discussion can fulfill the function
attributed to it only if it is rational expression and development of
independent thinking, free from indoctrination, manipulation, extraneous
authority. The notion of pluralism and countervailing powers is no substitute
for this requirement. One might in theory construct a state in which a
multitude of different pressures, interests, and authorities balance each
other out and result in a truly general and rational interest. However, such a
construction badly fits a society in which powers are and remain unequal and
even increase their unequal weight when they run their own course. It fits
even worse when the variety of pressures unifies and coagulates into an
overwhelming whole, integrating the particular countervailing powers by virtue
of an increasing standard of living and an increasing concentration of power."

The instructor's interjections provide a look-in here, but the whole
presupposition is that the students have learned and sufficiently refined the
capacity for critical thought inside and outside the classroom setting.

~~~
chalst
It is, of course, not any kind of substitute for critical thought. But the GP
referenced dialectic by way of arguing for contrary materials to be presented
in class: my point was that a living argument among the students is better for
teaching dialectic than a curated selection of contrary views. The
responsibility of the instructor goes beyond this elementary requirement for
ensuring multiple viewpoints are presented.

