
The age of distributed truth - gmays
http://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2017/6/28/the-truth-is-distributed
======
jonloldrup
Actually, it's pretty easy for people in power to avoid the truth revealing
effect that 'common knowledge'presents: simply label your less powerful
adversary as a 'conspiracy theorist', and nobody will want to deal with that
matter again. Nobody likes being labeled, or associated with, a loony. Simple
social dynamics tricks can mitigate the 'annoying' liberating effect that the
internet poses. Want an example? The content of this article by journalist
Seymour Hersh will never become public knowledge. For reasons pertaining to
simple social dynamics.
[https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905578/Trump-s...](https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905578/Trump-
s-Red-Line.html)

~~~
veidr
Regarding the linked article, I was alarmed after reading reading it in its
entirety.

The portrayal of incompetence and worse at the nexus of the Trump
administration is horrifying, but entirely believable, and even predictable at
this point.

It also seems fairly plausible to me that the US military might have
ultimately attacked Syria even though it knew Syria had _not_ actually used
chemical weapons in their attack. That wouldn't be unprecedented.

However, it didn't seem at all plausible to me that such knowledge, if it
could be substantiated/corroborated, wouldn't be a _major, stop-the-presses,
huge-font-headline_ story in most of the many newspapers we still do have that
do real journalism (e.g., the Washington Post, New York Times, or many many
others).

It's pretty hard to believe that such news wouldn't get out, regardless of
social dynamics. Not knowing much about it beyond the articles (and horrific
photos of dead kids) I'd seen in the papers, I googled it a little more.

But there seems to be pretty compelling evidence that it was, in fact, a sarin
gas attack perpetrated by Syria. I mean, the OPCW has issued a report
concluding that[1].

So it strikes me that the content of the article by Seymour Hersh might not
become public knowledge simply because it's one guy's anonymous sources vs.
various entities that seem pretty credible, even if you entirely rejected the
US government itself.

[1] [https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-fact-finding-
mission-...](https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-fact-finding-mission-
confirms-use-of-chemical-weapons-in-khan-shaykhun-on-4-april-2017/)

------
scalio
Pretty thought provoking. It ties into my view that a free internet is a major
democratizing force (like the next stepping stone after printing): anyone may
speak up, anyone may distribute knowledge, it spreads at near light speed. And
possibly, given an initial investment, basically for free. This is very
powerful, which is why I don't approve of the glorification of the
developments in many governments or Silicon Valley or elsewhere. A walled
internet is just as powerful as an open one, but in the wrong direction.

~~~
Stranger43
The problem is that when anyone can speak equally how do you tell the sage
apart from the village idiot.

This is why fox news survived as fox.com along with most of the existing
journalistic culture of never digging too deep into something the authorities
are going to react to badly to having dug up survived the transition from
airwaves to Internet. You might have some blogger somewhere knowing the truth
but you also have some blogger somewhere who thinks the truth is something
radical different then it is and when those are equal they are equally easy
for the "press" to dismiss.

~~~
scalio
True, but I think this problem can only be solved sustainably through
education. At some point, we may just have to accept that one has to deal with
some number of idiots a day and get over it. Discovery suffers dramatically,
sadly.

~~~
Stranger43
But at what point does the structure of how our economy work ensure that the
educated becomes the majority.

I agree that as underground media network the Internet as the xerox machine
before it are the first time the natural monopoly of the printing press and
the broadcast tower have been truly challenged, but ultimately the real
problem is culture not tech, i.e. we have to get to the point where real
education becomes commonplace and don't stop just because someone leaves
school to start working, and that wont happen unless were ready to eradicate
the current media/education industries and replace it with something far more
egalitarian.

------
pasbesoin
This one is interesting -- worth the time to read.

