
The man who studies the spread of ignorance - lnguyen
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance
======
amelius
The biggest problem we have today is that uninformed people form such a large
percentage of the voting pool.

The best solution I've heard so far: on the age of 18, you will be given the
following choice: a free scooter, or voting rights.

~~~
tomp
Wasn't this always the case? (Well, as long as there was democracy)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
No, the problem back then was more often that a small group of people were
relatively well informed and voting in their own narrow interests, but not in
the interests of those who didn't yet have the vote.

Once people rioted etc. to actually win the vote, more subtle approaches had
to be found to continue doing whatever was in the interests of the well
connected few. Having lots of uninformed voters distracted by fluff is one of
those tactics.

------
tomp
I know it's popular in certain circles to oppose, shame and attack Trump, but
when you really think about it, _all_ politicians do this, none of them is
using facts in their campaign.

~~~
pjc50
Trump doesn't care about his proposals being even remotely feasible. He's
simply not interested in keeping the discussion within the realms of what
people are likely to agree might work in practice.

[https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-
reform](https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform)

"Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will,
among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal
wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and
diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing
cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a
major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from
Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of
entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also
options]. We will not be taken advantage of anymore."

Mexico is never going to pay for the wall. I know it's been standard practice
to make Latin American countries pay for US drugs policy, but this is over the
top. "Impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages" is in
particular going to be a Drugs War x2; how do you identify illegal wages? The
gunboat diplomacy thing is likely to do huge damage to US-Mexican relations
and probably contradicts NAFTA. Starting a trade war works in both directions:
Mexico could start kicking out US companies.

"End birthright citizenship": he's put this under "Defend The Laws And
Constitution Of The United States", despite the fact that it directly
contradicts the 14th Amendment. This is probably the biggest anti-factual
thing in the whole document, as it contradicts itself. It also results in
stateless children, and the problem of trying to deport people from the US to
Mexico who aren't Mexican nationals either.

"End welfare abuse. Applicants for entry to the United States should be
required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and
other needs before coming to the U.S.": does that apply to tourist visas? Is
this the end of the visa waiver programme? Either he's completely serious
about ending tourism to America or he's eliding the fact that people will
illegally immigrate on tourist visas.

~~~
mason240
As if Sanders is putting up proposals that are even remotely feasible.

~~~
pjc50
Given that I've gone to the trouble of citing Trump's website rather than
hostile media and explained why his proposal contravenes the 14th Amendment,
could you give an example?

(I chose not to go near the "refuse to let any Muslims into the country"
proposal, which is even more extraordinarily unworkable, but not on that bit
of his website)

~~~
TheGirondin
>I chose not to go near the "refuse to let any Muslims into the country"
proposal, which is even more extraordinarily unworkable.

It worked for Jimmy Carter when he blocked all Iranians from entering the US.

~~~
pc86
Are you serious? Islam is not a nationality.

~~~
TheGirondin
I never said it was, and have no idea how you came to that conclusion.

~~~
pc86
Banning visas originating in a particular country as part of sanctions v.
banning travel/immigration based on someone's religion? Because they're
complete separate things. To the point where even implying they're comparable
would make me think you're a troll if it weren't such a widespread thing to
say.

~~~
TheGirondin
For for starters, I don't think he actually said "ban all Muslims." He was
talking about temporarily halting anyone from the Middle East until better
screening could be put in place.

At any rate, it was pretty clear to me that the actual implementation would be
people from north Africa, the Middle East, Iran, ect. When Sanders says that
he wants to "make college more affordable," I doubt that the actual bill he
would present to Congress would be one sheet of paper saying "make college
more affordable."

Finally, if you are incapable of having a discussion without attacking people,
find another forum. I hear Twitter is good for vitriolic people.

~~~
zepto
Firstly, he certainly did say 'all Muslims' \- it's easy to check since it was
surely reported and repeated in his campaign television Ad. It doesn't look
good for you when you try to distort this.

Secondly - there is no such clarity around this being a ban on people from
specific countries. If he wanted to clarify this, he could have done, but he
has not.

He _has_ specifically mentioned the UK as place where there are radical Muslim
terrorists (which is true). Would they be freely allowed into the US?

How about non-Muslim people from North Africa and the Middle East?

It may be temporarily reasonable to put a list of countries on a 'no visa'
list, but that is not what he said at all.

Given that people across the world have not understood this as what he meant,
he could easily have clarified himself but he has chosen not to.

Since he knows how he was understood, either he did mean what he said, or he
is intentionally inflaming the situation.

Either way this is disqualifying behavior for a presidential candidate.

------
fffrad
One of the problems is that facts are usually presented in the most boring
ways, think lectures. Facts, should be spread the same way. Using propaganda,
using sex, using means as creative as those who decide to spread false
information.

Next time you watch a speech by Donald Trump, don't look at him, look at the
faces of the people behind him. He is winning them emotionally, not factually.

Maybe all scientists and researchers should take classes in creative writing,
fiction, and speech.

~~~
Swizec
As many people have said: Good stories are true, not factual.

True. Not factual.

A lot of us in the sciences forget that the distinction exist. Or worse, want
to pretend it doesn't.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'd like to think of it as general population operating under a different
definition of the word "truth".

~~~
Swizec
No, it's deeper than that.

For instance: the fact is that 32,727 people died from terrorist attacks
worldwide in 2014.

The _truth_ is that this is number is insignificant. Over 55 million people
died in 2014.

The _truth_ is also that we fear what we feel is random more than what we feel
is the result of our actions. We are disproportionately afraid of black swan
events. This is why terrorism is so effective despite being an irrelevant
statistical blimp.

Facts are just facts. Truth is the interpretation of facts.

~~~
kwhitefoot
A little off-topic perhaps:

> This is why terrorism is so effective despite being an irrelevant
> statistical blimp.

Is it effective? What are the criteria by which one could judge?

I lived half my life in England while the IRA was active, I have a friend who
was in a building in London when the IRA threatened to blow it up (it wasn't
an empty threat, the device was in place and armed). Neither of us lose any
sleep over it.

My children have friends and acquaintances who were shot at Utøya (we live not
far away). None of them are letting the event stop them being politically
active.

But if I read English language newspapers like the Daily Mail now I am
bombarded with 'terrorism' related 'news' and the newspaper tries very hard to
give the impression that everyone is really worried.

I'm not convinced that people are that worried.

~~~
GFischer
It is effective. I know of people that have changed their travel plans to
avoid France, and apparently they weren't alone:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3338173/Terror-
attac...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3338173/Terror-attacks-
Paris-means-visitor-numbers-Europe-tumble-France-lost-1-4bn-tourism-
revenue.html)

 _Terror attacks in Paris means visitor numbers across Europe tumble and
France has already lost £1.4bn in tourism revenue_

~~~
icebraining
Yeap. Tunisia was hit even harder, with y/y growth dropping from around 10% to
-90% in the months after the attacks.

------
cconcepts
Is there a name for the effect, or at least percieved effect, that people are
becoming less "teachable" because we're so used to just googling stuff that we
sometimes percieve ourselves as a fount of knowledge because we mistakenly
attribute all the answers to ourselves and not the little gadget in our
pocket?

I don't think the Flynn effect is applicable.

~~~
SFLemonade
I would love to know if any research is being done on this. On a comedic note,
Bill Burr refers to it as the "www.IAmRight.com effect", where people develop
absurd opinions and then just Google sources to support their opinions (rather
than the other way around, where they would begin with sources and form a
logical opinion from there).

~~~
TeMPOraL
This remind me of something I learned in high school while doing my math
homework. An assignment becomes _much_ easier when you first look at the
answer in the back. When you know what to aim for, it's easier to weave the
right path from the data to results. You aren't learning much in the process,
but technically, you've done the job.

~~~
kaybe
Even better, when you're doing particularly 'wordy' calculations with many
many greek letters where one line goes over two actual lines one the paper,
you can start from both ends and just drop a little here and add a little
there until you have woven them together (if you cannot get it done properly).
Chances are good that whoever corrects it won't notice..

------
pizza
Perhaps relevant: Predicting Successful Memes using Network and Community
Structure. [http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6199](http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6199)

------
dawnbreez
Given the position these people take, it's easy to assume that you can solve
this by taking away the right of certain people to vote.

The problem is that this concentrates the power in the hands of a few, who can
be manipulated by more traditional means.

------
crimsonalucard
I would say that the ignorance comes from unverified 3rd party sources. But
isn't that where actual knowledge comes from? In the end we all put faith on
other experts and choose to believe what they tell us is true. To this day I
cannot for the life of me prove that we went to the moon or that global
warming is real without citing sources created by other "experts."

So really I can't blame ignorant people. I only believe in global warming over
the other opposing claims made by corporate sponsored studies only because one
conclusion seems more likely then the other. I cannot definitively say that I
believe in global warming because the logic categorically says it is true.
There rarely exists any logic that tells me a=c because b=a and b=c, if you
catch my drift.

I've only found such logic to exist for atheism. Yet a good number of people
in this world are still ignorant in that regard.

------
ageofwant
So a agnotologist is basically a evil troll ?

I propose a new word: "agnotroll"

"He is a well know agnotroll, you should just ignore his agitprop."

