
Our Problem Is Gullibility, Not Disinformation - danielrm26
https://danielmiessler.com/blog/our-real-weakness-is-gullibility-not-disinformation/
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ZeroGravitas
I disagree.

Taking the religion example. If you look around the world, most people follow
their parents faith.

It seems likely that many have been exposed to other faiths. Do we think that
those other faiths seem less credible and so people are seeing through them on
some logical basis? Or has their parents/local community's faith simply spent
a lot longer on convincing them it's true.

Similarly, the ideas that the author seems to consider dangerous didn't grow
in vaccum. I dont think a russian agent could bet his colleagues that he'd get
Americans to believe anything they named, like George Washington invented the
grilled cheese sandwich.

Buy they don't need to convince people of anything specific, just amplify
existing messages like:

Scientists are lying to you about covid.

Which feeds off extensive prep work from "scientists are lying to you about
climate change" which is probably the best funded disinformation campaign in
history.

And is further reinforced by authority positions in their communities,
repeating the disinformation.

The GOP in it's current incarnation can't exist without disinformation, and so
they'll fight any attempt to educate their base, and if they fail they'll just
disenfranchise the ones that wise up.

~~~
thu2111
Are you saying, "Scientists are lying to you about covid" is a false statement
and has always been false?

Because I'm pretty sure that when "scientists" (not all of them but those in
power) suddenly flipped from saying masks did nothing to masks are essential,
the justification given was that they had previously been lying but now didn't
need to anymore. So the statement is unambiguously true, if taken over the
entire course of events.

Moreover, I think most people are too smart to believe that whether COVID-19
is spread at protests depends on the views of those who are protesting, but
plenty of scientists have made exactly that claim too. They were quite clearly
lying.

The idea that scientists never lie is the biggest lie of all. Of course they
lie. They routinely write fraudulent papers and hope nobody tries to replicate
them, but there's also the issue that lying isn't binary. There's a big
spectrum between full honesty and lying, with a big area of murky intellectual
practices in the middle, practices like woeful exaggeration, cherry picking,
abusive citations (e.g. citing a document in support of a statement that
doesn't actually support that statement) and all the other problems that meta-
science writers complain about.

If society accepted that scientists don't actually have better souls than
politicians, business owners or journalists then we'd already be a long way
towards solving the gullibility problem.

As for climate change, well, the whole ClimateGate thing did involve
destruction of emails by researchers and then lying about it: to the British
Parliament, no less! Even the Guardian bailed out at that point. Again, the
idea that scientists can and do lie isn't some disinformation campaign. It's
obvious and true.

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dmerks
The patch to gullibility is critical thinking. Rudimentary critical thinking
in any field requires general knowledge of it. Citizens of democracies need to
think critically on many topics, hence they need to know a lot in many fields,
and to learn ongoingly throughout their lives. Education becomes important.
But Education costs a lot...

Maybe the solution is to gradually make learning as accessible, inexpensive
and beneficial as possible.

~~~
notduncansmith
I think you’re spot-on with making learning as accessible as possible to have
a more informed populace, but making the information available is only half of
getting people to take it in. Trauma blocks critical thinking and internal
honesty, and we have a massive trauma and PTSD problem, to the point where
poverty and food insecurity meaningfully reduces effective IQ. Thankfully MAPS
is working on treating PTSD at scale. I have set up a recurring monthly
donation and I encourage anyone who values intellectualism to do the same, so
that we may swell our ranks with those who are currently too hurt to think
clearly.

~~~
dmerks
Helping those in need overcome their difficulties and become ready to learn is
a part of accessibility to Education. It's a part of offering equal
opportunity to all.

~~~
dmerks
Pro-democracy votes also go a long way, for your distantly involved citizen.

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xkcd-sucks
Most examples cited in this article seem like problems of faith, in that they
concern matters that individual Deplorables cannot (practically) observe
themselves. Or of "misplaced" faith, in the case of Jesus, demons and ghosts.

Which is not too surprising - people have gotten screwed by faith forever:
Uncritical belief of the Church, the State, the salesman or prophet, etc.
often leads to the believers' exploitation for the basest of ends.

Which is not to say that killing bullshit once and for all is impossible or an
unworthy goal, but it's high effort and messy.

~~~
redis_mlc
> matters that individual Deplorables cannot (practically) observe themselves.

During this pandemic, the deplorables continued to farm and deliver food,
keeping us alive while the elites burned our cities down. (Dr. VDH.)

The deplorables voted in Trump because the elites couldn't be bothered
enforcing immigration (the wall) or maintaining factory jobs in the USA
(outsourcing to China.) (Dr. VDH.)

So I would suggest you develop an understanding of how our country was
hollowed out before criticizing the very people the elites destroyed
financially.

Regarding religion, at the moment, our young people worship Tinder hookups and
Instagram selfies, the twin gods of narcissism, instead of Jesus, resulting in
the total destruction of the family unit. How's that working out? (RPMH)

FYI: you sound exactly like the coastal elites that got us into this mess. The
California HSR is a perfect example of how worthless they are - all hot air,
no rail.

When Trump wins his second election by a landslide, you can refer to this post
for the reasons why.

~~~
krageon
You present a lot of opinions but not really anything to back them up.
Furthermore, this is incredibly US-centric in a way that's just not relatable
at all if you're not mired in all the tv drama there.

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AtlasBarfed
Unfortunately, if you have a subconscious, you have some degree of gullibility
/ susceptibility to propaganda.

------
growlist
Can't we all just trust Snopes though? /s

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jl2718
Education? A non-gullible student would not graduate high school. What most
people, seemingly author included, consider to be 'knowledge' is no better
than rote. Consider that one person can have the exact same experience, and
come out of it with exact opposite beliefs. The difference is whether they are
told to believe it, movie versus news, novel versus history book. Just try to
verify you kids' history lessons with observable non-narrative evidence. If
you do have evidence, does it actually prove the entire narrative, or does it
simply bolster a tiny piece within a mosaic of myth? In science and law, the
standard of proof is massively greater than the standard of disproof. Any
'knowledge' tested by a different standard is at best a guess, most likely
dogma, and at worst, propaganda, intentional disinformation. High school
teachers assign Orwell, "He who controls the past controls the future. He who
controls the present, controls the past.", and somehow believe that this is a
warning about somebody else, that they are not the primary agents of the
second statement, and that they are themselves immune to such manipulation.
Has a student ever been asked who controls and manipulates them and received a
passing grade by pointing the finger right back at the teacher themselves? No;
it's always some boogeyman that they have never met, but must girder
themselves against with the dogma taught within these walls. And if you don't
believe it, not only will the boogeyman get you, but we will fail you and
destroy your life. It's for your own good; you'll understand someday.

I will choose the most basic fact on his list. I want to see the author prove
that the earth is a sphere by his own observations. I can almost guarantee
that no mandated high school curriculum teaches even how to do this,
nonetheless asks students to do so. The standard of belief is 'rational'
narrative, as in, a story that contains no major contradictions within itself,
and for expediency, is not subject to cross-examination. Dogma. If I recall
correctly, this question was asked in an astronomy PhD seminar at MIT, and
nobody knew how to do it.

So smug is the author in his ignorance. 'Not believing' should be the default.
Narratives should be understood as culture, good to know, possibly true, and
likely imperfect, but ultimately just a story that may be learned from just
like religion or myth, whether true or not. I have a sense that ancient people
understood this better than we do today.

His criticism of others is nothing but tribalism. He's not educating in the
sense of providing evidence toward a rational conclusion, or even bolstering
his own narrative. He's simply labeling other people as lesser than himself.
And, to head off any accusations of hypocrisy, to some extent, so am I with
him. The point here is that so-called 'knowledge' is an ancient battleground
rooted in disparate sets of values. People should know that they are being
indoctrinated, and also that it's nearly impossible to survive among other
humans without choosing some flavor of that. But it does have implications for
your life, whether your own beliefs serve you, harm you, or shames you into
serving someone else.

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adamnemecek
This feels like a rehash of "guns don't kill people, people kill people".

~~~
lapcatsoftware
The major difference is that your own brain can stop disinformation, but it
can't stop a bullet.

~~~
adamnemecek
Why does propaganda work if it's so simple then?

~~~
lapcatsoftware
Who said it's simple?

It's simpler than literally dodging a bullet, but that doesn't make it simple.

~~~
adamnemecek
Right so you can't really stop it right?

~~~
lapcatsoftware
Heh, right. Because there's no degree of difficulty that exists between simple
and Neo from The Matrix.

