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>Not merely a world where politicians and media lie – they have always lied – but one where they don’t care whether they tell the truth or not. >How did we get

>Not merely a world where politicians and media lie – they have always lied – but one where they don’t care whether they tell the truth or not. >How did we get here? This whole article is based on the false assumption that we ever lived in a fact-based world. Before recently people never had accurate and cheap means of data recording and information sharing that let them look behind the curtain and realize that they have been lied to all along. From the Lusitania to the Gulf of Tonkin to the USS Liberty to WMD in Iraq, history is built on lies and distortions. The internet allows people to get occasional glimpses behind the curtain, which is one of the reasons restricting the internet and stifling free speech is the dream of dictators from Beijing to Moscow to Washington DC.

DrScump 10y ago
<The internet allows people to get occasional glimpses behind the curtain, which is one of the reasons restricting the internet and stifling free speech is the dream of dictators...> The freedom of, and instant access to, objective sources via the Internet inspired great hope in me that media-driven fake news narratives could be overcome once and for all. For example, once access to Federal U.S. legislation online was created after the 1995 turnover of Congress, people were able to actually see what legislators were doing rather than media narratives creating or inhibiting advocacy. Alas, all that even otherwise-literate people seem to care about now is forwarding (often utterly false) memes to one another. It's easier than ever to get at original sources, yet few bother.
- tedunangst 10y ago
  But original sources don't tell me what to think...
- StanislavPetrov 10y ago
  The internet certainly hasn't been a panacea for the spread of information or the dissemination of "truth", but it is nonetheless a valuable communication tool that didn't exist before. As an older person, I can't stress how difficult it was to get timely news and information a few decades ago that didn't come from NBC, CBS, or ABC. Many of us knew that pundits and politicians were telling just as many lies back then as they were today, but there were no avenues to distribute proof of these lies in a timely manner. Their disdain for facts was just as great, but their lies were harder to expose.
Dr_tldr 10y ago
Chomsky can be a bit tiresome, but when talking about domestic US politics and media his descriptions fit the undisputed-but-largely-unknown record better than anyone else's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Illusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Illusions
mortenjorck 10y ago
Indeed, this is the question I must always ask whenever the meme of the post-fact era comes up: When was this supposed era of empirical facts in politics? There may well be a greater brazenness in the cynical manipulation of voters this election cycle, but it is historically naive to call it an unprecedented development.
Analemma_ 10y ago
You are really missing the point, to such an extent that your entire comment looks like a non sequitur that has nothing to do with what the article was talking about. It's not saying anything about whether lying by the elites has become more or less common, or whether people have more or less ability to expose the lies than they used to. The point is that people no longer care about exposing the lies; facts have become irrelevant compared to cheering for your team, right or wrong. That is the recent development, and a very worrying one despite what the usual lofty detachment of the HN comments here thus far seems to think. You can't have democracy if people don't care about the difference between true and false (well, you can, but it will be unable to accomplish anything; it will just stagger along dysfunctionally until it is replaced by an autarch when the people get sufficiently sick at the lack of results from the government)
- StanislavPetrov 10y ago
  >You are really missing the point, to the point where your entire comment looks like a non sequitur that has nothing to do Perhaps you should read the article again or work on your reading comprehension. >The point is that people no longer care about exposing the lies; facts have become irrelevant compared to cheering for your team, right or wrong. That is the recent development, and a very worrying one despite what the usual lofty detachment of the HN comments here thus far seems to think. Facts have always been irrelevant compared to cheering for your team. Facts have never mattered when it comes to partisanship or tribalism. The point is that recent technological developments and the mass communication of information have allowed this dichotomy to come to light, so that our disdain for facts is just more apparent, not a new phenomenon.
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    > our disdain for facts is just more apparent, not a new phenomenon. If the disdain for facts is having macroscopic effects on society now, and was not before, this is a distinction without a difference. Simply redefine "post-fact era" in your own view to, "now it can have a much greater impact than it could before" and the article's analysis remains mostly intact. > Facts have always been irrelevant compared to cheering for your team. Facts have never mattered when it comes to partisanship or tribalism. This is the crux of our disagreement, I think. I believe you are mistaken, or at least that the degree to which "facts are irrelevant" to people has undergone such a large increase that it is having many more visible and serious effects on society. Consider something like Watergate, which caused the President's party to demand his resignation. Would that happen today if the exact same events transpired? It absolutely would not. People in the same tribe as the sitting President, whichever that is, would just brush off the whole thing as lies and spin created by the media. The "post-fact era" is what changed between then and now.
x0x0 10y ago
And here's the biggest lie of them all -- both sides do it. Not merely a world where politicians and media lie – they have always lied – but one where they don’t care whether they tell the truth or not. It's not politicians. It's Republicans and the pro-Brexit camp. I'm not saying every Democratic politician is perfect, but there simply are no widespread beliefs in the Democratic party or base equivalent to * 43% of republicans believe Obama was born abroad [1] * the usual lies about anthropogenic global warming * Iraq had WMDs * Sarah Palin or Donald Trump are fit for office * crime is up (it's down; American hasn't been this safe in ~50 years) * racism doesn't exist, or anti-white racism exists [1] http://www.salon.com/2015/09/14/a_staggering_number_of_republicans_believe_president_obama_is_a_muslim/ http://www.salon.com/2015/09/14/a_staggering_number_of_repub...
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  I really really don't want to get in an argument about politics, but if you really believe what you are saying you need to look yourself in the mirror. > anti-white racism exists Yeah, so Dallas didn't happen. Go read some extreme BLM propaganda. Some (a lot) of it is blatantly racist. And if we're talking about lies, one only needs to look at Clinton's political career. Excuse me, you only need to look at the last month. That's the whole point of this article. Don't delude yourself. Both parties are controlled by a bunch of liars.
  - sinxoveretothex 10y ago
    I can't talk about "extreme BLM propaganda" (although there are issues with some people directly affiliated with BLM), but there definitely are black race-extremists out there: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/black-separatist https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideo...
  - logandavis 10y ago
    I should make a bot that trawls HN for the phrases "anti-white racism" and "reverse racism" and replies with the following: "When people say that reverse racism (AKA anti-white racism) does not exist, they are using the word 'racism' to mean 'a socioeconomic power structure that systematically disadvantages people of a particular race'. By this definition of racism, they are absolutely correct. There is no systematic oppression or disenfranchisement of white people in America. However, many people (especially those less familiar with modern feminist discourse) understand the word 'racism' to mean 'an instance of a person or group treating another person or group poorly because of their race'. By this definition, anti-white racism does exist. White people are certainly sometimes treated poorly because of their whiteness. Arguments over the existence of 'reverse racism' almost always occur between people who do not agree on the definition of the word 'racism'. Before you respond to this post about reverse racism, please consider the possibility that the person to whom you are responding is neither crazy nor stupid. Instead, they may simply be using a different definition of 'racism' than the one to which you subscribe. If you interpret their post with a different definition of 'racism' than your own, do you suddenly find it to be much more reasonable? If so, you may have been missing the point. It is always best to agree upon shared terminology before engaging in debate."
MichaelGG 10y ago
Another "unbelievable" one is the Lavon Affair. A major US ally actually planned terrorist actions to blame an enemy and gain support. They denied it for half a century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
nl 10y ago
This whole article is based on the false assumption that we ever lived in a fact-based world No it's not, and it is important. It explicitly calls out this argument in the last paragraph. Talking about the period leading up to the second Gulf war: But for all their cynicism, the spin doctors and political technologists were, at this point, still trying to pull off an illusion of the truth.... Now, ~10 years later though: one reaction has been to double down, to deny that facts matter at all..... Putin doesn’t need to have a more convincing story, he just has to make it clear that everybody lies, undermine the moral superiority of his enemies and convince his people there is no alternative to him. ‘When Putin lies brazenly he wants the West to point out that he lies’ says the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, ‘so he can point back and say, “but you lie too”’. And if everyone is lying then anything goes, whether it’s in your personal life or in invading foreign countries.

DrScump 10y ago

<The internet allows people to get occasional glimpses behind the curtain, which is one of the reasons restricting the internet and stifling free speech is the dream of dictators...> The freedom of, and instant access to, objective sources via the Internet inspired great hope in me that media-driven fake news narratives could be overcome once and for all. For example, once access to Federal U.S. legislation online was created after the 1995 turnover of Congress, people were able to actually see what legislators were doing rather than media narratives creating or inhibiting advocacy. Alas, all that even otherwise-literate people seem to care about now is forwarding (often utterly false) memes to one another. It's easier than ever to get at original sources, yet few bother.

tedunangst 10y ago
But original sources don't tell me what to think...
StanislavPetrov 10y ago
The internet certainly hasn't been a panacea for the spread of information or the dissemination of "truth", but it is nonetheless a valuable communication tool that didn't exist before. As an older person, I can't stress how difficult it was to get timely news and information a few decades ago that didn't come from NBC, CBS, or ABC. Many of us knew that pundits and politicians were telling just as many lies back then as they were today, but there were no avenues to distribute proof of these lies in a timely manner. Their disdain for facts was just as great, but their lies were harder to expose.

Dr_tldr 10y ago

Chomsky can be a bit tiresome, but when talking about domestic US politics and media his descriptions fit the undisputed-but-largely-unknown record better than anyone else's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Illusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Illusions

mortenjorck 10y ago

Indeed, this is the question I must always ask whenever the meme of the post-fact era comes up: When was this supposed era of empirical facts in politics? There may well be a greater brazenness in the cynical manipulation of voters this election cycle, but it is historically naive to call it an unprecedented development.

Analemma_ 10y ago

You are really missing the point, to such an extent that your entire comment looks like a non sequitur that has nothing to do with what the article was talking about. It's not saying anything about whether lying by the elites has become more or less common, or whether people have more or less ability to expose the lies than they used to. The point is that people no longer care about exposing the lies; facts have become irrelevant compared to cheering for your team, right or wrong. That is the recent development, and a very worrying one despite what the usual lofty detachment of the HN comments here thus far seems to think. You can't have democracy if people don't care about the difference between true and false (well, you can, but it will be unable to accomplish anything; it will just stagger along dysfunctionally until it is replaced by an autarch when the people get sufficiently sick at the lack of results from the government)

StanislavPetrov 10y ago
>You are really missing the point, to the point where your entire comment looks like a non sequitur that has nothing to do Perhaps you should read the article again or work on your reading comprehension. >The point is that people no longer care about exposing the lies; facts have become irrelevant compared to cheering for your team, right or wrong. That is the recent development, and a very worrying one despite what the usual lofty detachment of the HN comments here thus far seems to think. Facts have always been irrelevant compared to cheering for your team. Facts have never mattered when it comes to partisanship or tribalism. The point is that recent technological developments and the mass communication of information have allowed this dichotomy to come to light, so that our disdain for facts is just more apparent, not a new phenomenon.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  > our disdain for facts is just more apparent, not a new phenomenon. If the disdain for facts is having macroscopic effects on society now, and was not before, this is a distinction without a difference. Simply redefine "post-fact era" in your own view to, "now it can have a much greater impact than it could before" and the article's analysis remains mostly intact. > Facts have always been irrelevant compared to cheering for your team. Facts have never mattered when it comes to partisanship or tribalism. This is the crux of our disagreement, I think. I believe you are mistaken, or at least that the degree to which "facts are irrelevant" to people has undergone such a large increase that it is having many more visible and serious effects on society. Consider something like Watergate, which caused the President's party to demand his resignation. Would that happen today if the exact same events transpired? It absolutely would not. People in the same tribe as the sitting President, whichever that is, would just brush off the whole thing as lies and spin created by the media. The "post-fact era" is what changed between then and now.

x0x0 10y ago

And here's the biggest lie of them all -- both sides do it. Not merely a world where politicians and media lie – they have always lied – but one where they don’t care whether they tell the truth or not. It's not politicians. It's Republicans and the pro-Brexit camp. I'm not saying every Democratic politician is perfect, but there simply are no widespread beliefs in the Democratic party or base equivalent to * 43% of republicans believe Obama was born abroad [1] * the usual lies about anthropogenic global warming * Iraq had WMDs * Sarah Palin or Donald Trump are fit for office * crime is up (it's down; American hasn't been this safe in ~50 years) * racism doesn't exist, or anti-white racism exists [1] http://www.salon.com/2015/09/14/a_staggering_number_of_republicans_believe_president_obama_is_a_muslim/ http://www.salon.com/2015/09/14/a_staggering_number_of_repub...

aaron-lebo 10y ago
I really really don't want to get in an argument about politics, but if you really believe what you are saying you need to look yourself in the mirror. > anti-white racism exists Yeah, so Dallas didn't happen. Go read some extreme BLM propaganda. Some (a lot) of it is blatantly racist. And if we're talking about lies, one only needs to look at Clinton's political career. Excuse me, you only need to look at the last month. That's the whole point of this article. Don't delude yourself. Both parties are controlled by a bunch of liars.
- sinxoveretothex 10y ago
  I can't talk about "extreme BLM propaganda" (although there are issues with some people directly affiliated with BLM), but there definitely are black race-extremists out there: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/black-separatist https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideo...
- logandavis 10y ago
  I should make a bot that trawls HN for the phrases "anti-white racism" and "reverse racism" and replies with the following: "When people say that reverse racism (AKA anti-white racism) does not exist, they are using the word 'racism' to mean 'a socioeconomic power structure that systematically disadvantages people of a particular race'. By this definition of racism, they are absolutely correct. There is no systematic oppression or disenfranchisement of white people in America. However, many people (especially those less familiar with modern feminist discourse) understand the word 'racism' to mean 'an instance of a person or group treating another person or group poorly because of their race'. By this definition, anti-white racism does exist. White people are certainly sometimes treated poorly because of their whiteness. Arguments over the existence of 'reverse racism' almost always occur between people who do not agree on the definition of the word 'racism'. Before you respond to this post about reverse racism, please consider the possibility that the person to whom you are responding is neither crazy nor stupid. Instead, they may simply be using a different definition of 'racism' than the one to which you subscribe. If you interpret their post with a different definition of 'racism' than your own, do you suddenly find it to be much more reasonable? If so, you may have been missing the point. It is always best to agree upon shared terminology before engaging in debate."

MichaelGG 10y ago

Another "unbelievable" one is the Lavon Affair. A major US ally actually planned terrorist actions to blame an enemy and gain support. They denied it for half a century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair

nl 10y ago

This whole article is based on the false assumption that we ever lived in a fact-based world No it's not, and it is important. It explicitly calls out this argument in the last paragraph. Talking about the period leading up to the second Gulf war: But for all their cynicism, the spin doctors and political technologists were, at this point, still trying to pull off an illusion of the truth.... Now, ~10 years later though: one reaction has been to double down, to deny that facts matter at all..... Putin doesn’t need to have a more convincing story, he just has to make it clear that everybody lies, undermine the moral superiority of his enemies and convince his people there is no alternative to him. ‘When Putin lies brazenly he wants the West to point out that he lies’ says the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, ‘so he can point back and say, “but you lie too”’. And if everyone is lying then anything goes, whether it’s in your personal life or in invading foreign countries.