It's too easy to come up with, spam and spread bad ideas, but actual work to refute them. As long as people are not paid to refute bad actors with an agenda, bad views will eventually stand unchallenged and make life worse for everyone for the profit an amusement of a view. As said refuting partially worked in small communities, but not on a global audience scale where the is no effective way of social sanctions, that would happen in smaller knit ones.
So, in the light of this spreading provenly bad ideas shouldn't be made as cheap of a process that it is now.
A lie is half-way around the world before the truth has its pants on. — Mark Twain
Younger me was a free speech ultimatist. Alas, human nature.
Propaganda works, so well that people aren’t even aware of changing their minds. Overton windows. Blowback, where refuting further cements the falsehood. Belief as attire.
And, as has been clearly illustrated, "trusted" news source can't always be trusted either. So preventing "lies" (lie is almost always a matter of perspective) to spread ... is really always also preventing people from finding out the truth.
We just used to find that acceptable. Wars have been started by fake news from "reputable" sources. If fake news regulations become widespread and usable, they would be trivially easy for the rich and the government to abuse for censorship.
Can you imagine how this would have gone had the president had the ability to prevent "fake news" from spreading ?
(I would argue that in Europe this "fake news" censorship is in fact pretty much normal. Only ... a part of the fake news isn't fake at all, but rather embarrassing to the government. The situation with rioting in French cities is 100x worse than sites like "Le Monde" report (which ones? Let's just say any > 1 mil ppl and there's only a few you'd be wrong about. Nice is pretty damn bad, for instance. Destruction in the city center every friday. You should see the security measures shops are taking, wtf). And other things that the government doesn't like get extremely downplayed as well : France was pretty much shut down due to a student strike in Paris for Macron's labor laws 3 times, and twice for his agricultural policy (both of which are downright abusive, and I'd say the protests were very justified) ... and there was a small mention of a protest march in Le Monde. Mass car torchings are a weekly occurrence since 2005 or so where I live. It baffles me, but it really looks like they're literally doing this just to save face for that asshole Macron. I get it ... I get it. He "saved Europe", especially after Brexit. He also fucked up France, and that matters more to me, and should matter more to French media and French voters. It's absurd because there literally isn't a single person in France that doesn't know these events happen, so what's the point of keeping them out of newspapers ? Do they think people will just forget ?)
This meme I do not understand. There is one physical reality[0]. A thing either happened, or it didn't. Physics doesn't change its workings because of perspective. A precise enough statement about reality can be either true or false, there's no middle. There's no "depends on perspective". If I say, "the Sun is shining", the truth of that fact does not depend on perspective.
Of course, very often we're dealing with complex statements that deal with many aspects of reality simultaneously. We often talk about indirect evidence. But that doesn't suddenly open a wormhole to a post-truth dimension. We have tools and frameworks to deal with that. We can say, there is strong evidence that this occurred. Or, there's strong evidence that it didn't. Or, the current evidence points in neither way.
Arguing that truth and lies are a matter of perspective is just trying to deliberately confuse people. After all, if we really accept this view, then reality doesn't exist, nothing makes sense, and we can all go back to the caves we came from.
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[0] - simulation ideas and other things aside, though they are all conveniently defined in a way indistinguishable from us all being separate minds inhabiting one reality.
I do agree that there's one objective physical reality that's accessible to us. There is quantum level stuff, where indeterminacy is an issue. But at the macroscopic level, that's pretty much averaged out. Except maybe entanglement.
But anyway, as you say, complex statements typically involve multiple facts, assumptions, inferences, conclusions and speculation. And yes, we have language for that.
The problem, though, is that people often express complex statements in simple language. They gloss over complexity, and hide assumptions, inferences, speculation, etc. So it's easy to have multiple stories claiming to be true. And it takes considerable work to decompose them, and determine which best fits the facts.
> So it's easy to have multiple stories claiming to be true. And it takes considerable work to decompose them, and determine which best fits the facts.
That's very true. My point is that we need to do that work - and encourage people to do that work, and teach them how to do it - instead of just saying that "lie is a matter of perspective" and giving up.
The idea that objective truth about reality not only exists but is accessible to the sufficiently enlightened, at least if they use the right "tools and frameworks", is a bold philosophical thesis that has undergone quite a lot of criticism in the past few thousand years. The idea that advocates of 'perspectivism' are simply trying to confuse people is absurd. "There are not facts, only interpretations" people are just as passionate about trying to make themselves understood as anyone else.
Your comment is exactly why it is so important that we continue to value free speech. Many people are utterly convinced that their views of reality represent absolute and objective truth, totally unaware of the philosophical assumptions underpinning their woldview. History is full of people convinced their view of reality represented absolute and objective truth. They seldom agreed.
Giving such people the tools to censor their opponents is very dangerous. First, the set of people who are wielding those tools will inevitably change. Secondly, well, where they burn books, they will someday burn people.
At no point I was trying to argue against free speech. Just about the notion that "lie is almost always a matter of perspective". I'm aware there has been criticism of the concept of objective reality in philosophy, but I'm also not aware of any framework of thought that would fit the observable reality better. In fact, all the progress of science and technology, as well as all communications we do with each other, are based on assumption that there is an objective reality which we can observe, and about which we can exchange information that lead us to create a consistent, shared view.
I have no idea how to articulate these notions, please forgive.
#1
While I think of myself as a Popperian, I've begun to adopt a "true enough to act now" view of the world. It's close to the notion "a good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow".
Mostly, I'm sick of the debate. I have relatives and friends who are creationists, climate change deniers, supply-siders, etc. Instead of trying to convince (persuade) people about the truth, opposing the torrent of bullshit forces pushing these idealogical rocks up hill, I now focus on "ok, what can we do today?"
In the case of evolution (vs creationism). The value of the theory isn't that it's true (or not). Rather, the value is a set of axioms that allows us to make reasonably good predictions about the world.
So when it comes to the complicated topics (eg current events), I'm trying to relax my standards for objective truth, be satisfied with "true enough, for now".
#2
We need more data. (aka You can't manage what you can't measure.)
I was a tree hugger when GIS and satellite imagery were being rolled out. They completely changed the conversation about clearcutting, habitat loss, impacts, etc. It was no longer a just propaganda war. Legislators could see for themselves, if they wanted to, what was happening.
#3
Stop fighting "fake news". There's a better way.
Verifiable attribution, sources. All source data needs to be published.
Every publisher (that wants to be verifiable) would have their own blockchain(s), sign their own works. Whenever a reader sees a news item, they could verify the authenticity by checking the block chain.
This is no different than adding SHAs to software releases.
Each blockchain would be seeded with a CA, leveraging our current chain of trust infrastructure.
#4
Also, the story is made in the edit. So publishers need to show their work. Just like in science. Sure, cut down a two-hour interview to just 5 minutes. But you still have to post the original footage.
#5
No one challenged my abandonment of "free speech ultimatism." So what's the alternative?
Recognizing that cognition is social, that we (mostly) cohabitant a shared reality:
[Maybe call it the "marketplace of ideas" to engage the Freedom Markets™ zealots.]
I have no idea how to police the commons.
But I do think punishing parties for knowingly lying would be a good start.
There was a time when FCC broadcast licenses where contingent on serving the public good. And license renewals were serious business.
I'd be okay with doing the same for online mediums as well.
There would be two classes of speech: anonymous and verified (per #3 above). Verified speech, and the aggregators, would vouch for what they say.
If someone is found guilty of using verified speech to harm the public good (jury of their peers, public hearings), their root CA would get revoked.
They can still publish anonymously, of course. But they can no longer claim to be telling the truth.
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Okay. Thanks for listening, humoring me. I have these notions rattling around in my head. And I like your comment history. And wanted to share with someone(s), in case I get hit by a bus.
Upon reflection, that is truly a great analysis! I just read Larry Sanger's Everipedia proposal, and believe that the concept of trust revocation would be a useful addition.
Would you be interested in fleshing it out as an Everipedia page? If you're not editing Everipedia yet, I can help you with that. Anonymously,if you like. Or I could write the page, with your permission and perhaps input.
That is what I call 'thermodynamic truth', or the truth we would see if we ran time backwards. The problem is, we can't run time backwards and because of information loss there, many times, can be many possible situations that create the outcome we see.
> The problem is, we can't run time backwards and because of information loss there, many times, can be many possible situations that create the outcome we see.
We can still quantify that fact and include it in our reasoning.
Also, the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle, or Brandolini’s Law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."
I agree, but I also think there’s some effect of censorship that drives people toward the censored idea. Part of it is a rebellion against authority (“who are YOU to tell ME what ideas are fit or unfit to consume?”); I think there’s some related effect that is driving Trump’s popularity—some people are rebelling against the cultural authority of the left (by which I mean major news publications, entertainment media, university faculty, social media companies, etc—powerful cultural institutions).
Another problem is what happens when bad actors come into power and get to do the censoring? We’ve just handed them a nice precedent, have we not?
For refutations to be both true and better clickbait requires not merely good communicators, but excellent or even world-class communicators, to adequately satisfy both sets of constraints.
Meanwhile, bullshitters have a much easier job.
eg. the creationist argument "If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?" doesn't even make sense, it just sounds good, confirms existing bias, conveys the (false) feeling of understanding, etc. As a result, it is unfortunately very persuasive, and continues to spread much faster than the refutations, which aren't as simple and don't give the same superficial "aha" jolt of satisfaction.
In fact, the closest I've come to a refutation that works as well is "well, if selective breeding of dogs is true, why do we still have wolves?", but of course then you still have to follow up with one or more examples of natural selection mechanisms & the idea of non-uniform environments (more small and fast prey over here, dry and cold weather over there, etc.), or you're inadvertently confirming their bias by introducing an intelligent selecting agency as part of your argument.
Hatred simply feels good. Unless you are saying that is something defensible or praiseworthy, then I am not sure where you are going with this thread of thought.
Who gets to determine what is "hatred"? The natural upvote/downvote economy of the internet or a self-appointed anonymous class of bigtech mass-censors? When you go on the internet would you prefer to see reality or an artificial selection of on-canon content pre-approved by the priest-media class as in the age of television? In many ways it doesn't matter because infotech decentralization will slowly find a way, and forcible censorship will no longer be possible.
Whoa there buddy, there's other options for moderation besides media-priests || free market.
How about we just let the people who own the machines decide what data sits on their machines?
So I agree, decentralization will allow some communities to be total free market reddits and chans where anything goes, and I expect them to be very unpleasant places to hang out for some and not others.
I'll be over here in my private community where Microsoft can't read my discussions and anyone whining about the priest-media will be booted.
With more decentralization comes more freedom of association; I will choose to be a part of communities that I judge to have a reasonable view of what is "hatred", and those communities will, just like they do today, kick out offenders.
Decentralization will give people the opportunity to spread their hatred among themselves, without involving me, which is... exactly how things operate today.
So... Bring on infotech decentralization, I guess. It's got its merits, and for me, nothing about all this hate speech will change.
I remember national TV talking about UFOs, proofs of WMD in Irak, Homosexuality being a disease, conspiracy magazines in every gas station shop, and no easy way to verify anything.
I have the impression that the general quality of available information has only gone up.
Promoting those things back than had significant opportunity costs for getting things published and reaching an audience. And bad actors even got denied free or even paid communication channels after a number of bad faith offenses, so gatekeepers to mass communication were a good thing in that respect. Of course they also work the other way around, if a bad idea manages to creep in, but it took a significant amount of coordinated resources in analog times.
I think it's no accident, that the rise of fascism and totalitarian Stalinism is coincident with the rise of radio and the maturing fields of advertising and mass psychology. This is the first wave it got a magnitude cheaper, to reach big audiences. We're witnessing the second one. (Third one if you count the printing press, but the adoption happened over generations, so societies had time to adopt)
Nowadays intentionally bad ideas work like spam, they have only an very small individual chance to get hold of a person, but with an near infinite number of permutations for free, it's way more likely to hit each individuals psychological weak spot eventually.
So it was never easier to spread ideas for individuals, but so it for all sorts of corporate and even nation actors posing as individuals.
> (Third one if you count the printing press, but the adoption happened over generations, so societies had time to adopt)
Even though the printing press kicked off societal changes that took a few centuries to mature and settle down, it was only slow by our current standards. The societies and institutions that were being disrupted evolved in an environment that changed on millenial timescales, so they were, in some senses, shell shocked for most of those 'few centuries' due to a failure to adapt despite having ample (by our standards) time, and the new institutions that arose were regarded as disruptive upstarts for generations (eg. the Lutheran church).
Anyway. An order-of-magnitude change is going to be just as disruptive, even if the change is from "snail's pace" to "tortoise-like".
> It's too easy to come up with, spam and spread bad ideas, but actual work to refute them.
That makes sense for shared forums. But not in the case of someone like Alex Jones, where he has his own media platform on his own site and various channels, and not in the case of Gab where they're hosting their own forum.
So, in the light of this spreading provenly bad ideas shouldn't be made as cheap of a process that it is now.