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How liars create the ‘illusion of truth’
- shitgoose 10y agobbc, eh? from the horse's mouth...
- wpietri 10y agoI'm sorry to immediately take this off on a tangent, but the article lists "a prune is a dried plum" as a true statement. I agree with that, but does anybody know why it's "prune juice" instead of "plum juice"? It makes as little sense to me as saying that wine is made from raisin juice.
- yareally 10y agoPrun is derived from the Latin word for plum. At one time, it also referred to the fresh fruit, not just the dried one.
- woofyman 10y agoIf a plum variety is raised for drying, you refer to the fresh fruit as a prune.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- didgeoridoo 10y agoGood nerd-sniping question. Just spent the last 5 minutes looking around for an answer, and it seems like the grape/raisin comparison is actually quite apt; both (raisins, prunes) are made from a specific cultivar of (grapes, plums) that is particularly well-suited to drying. Prune juice is made from the same cultivar of plum used for drying, so it makes sense to call it "prune juice" because it's more specific. -- conjecture below, 0 facts contained -- Grape juice is (I believe) made from different types of grapes than raisins are, so it wouldn't make sense to call it "raisin juice" because you would never make raisins from those grapes.
- jonsen 10y agohttp://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=prune http://etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=pr...
- eth0up 10y agoWhile on the subject of gustatory shenanigans, a few which irk me are: "Contains 100% juice" - This one is clever, and true, albeit that the product probably only contains 3% of actual 100% juice. "Packed in x" - Packed in x, sure. But in smaller print, Product of y. "Cholesterol Free" - Thanks. I was terribly worried that my non-animal product contained some despite it not being an animal. "Made from: pure a" displayed prominently on front label, while ingredients read: b,c,d,e,f,...etc, etc. "No added growth hormones" - Clearly there's little point anyway, in adding hormones to a chicken breast or hotdog.
- hueving 10y agoIIRC twizlers has a giant "fat free" statement on the front. Always bothers me when I see that in the store even though it's true.
- loopbit 10y agoRecently, a friend of mine gave me a box of tea that claimed to be: - fairtrade - organic - gluten free - suitable for vegans - kosher - halal Now, I like the first one (and maybe the second one), 3 and 4 are just what I would expect from a product that, according to its ingredients, is just tea leaves. I feel that 5 and 6 are simply taking the piss.
- ars 10y agoEh? Not all tea is kosher, especially flavored kinds, and those with more processing. So what's wrong with them telling you it's kosher? And there are non-gluten-free teas, they have barley malt, or roasted barley in them.
- lomnakkus 10y agoFor some reason (and not being very familiar with kosher law) I couldn't help thinking of shellfish-flavoured tea and wondering why anyone would ever want to drink that. Anyway, here's a little more information for anyone who's curious: http://www.learn-about-tea.com/kosher-tea.html http://www.learn-about-tea.com/kosher-tea.html
- chestervonwinch 10y agoThe juice is actually made from prunes as far as I understand: > Canned prune juice is the food prepared from a water extract of dried prunes and contains not less than 18.5 percent by weight of water-soluble solids extracted from dried prunes. See: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=146.187 http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRS...
- wpietri 10y agoOh my! It's literally prune juice! I never would have guessed.
- jasonkostempski 10y agowpietri Martin
- itsadok 10y agoThis is similar to the "Contamination" effect, of how completely false statements can affect a person's judgement, even if they are told the statement are false. http://lesswrong.com/lw/k3/priming_and_contamination/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/k3/priming_and_contamination/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/k4/do_we_believe_everything_were_told/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/k4/do_we_believe_everything_were_tol...
- XaYdEk 10y agoI don't know, the Contamination effect seems more like buffer overflow in our neural network and the Repetition effect more like a poor implementation of caching.
- will_brown 10y agoI have been thinking about the following lately... Myth: Student loans are not dischargable in bankruptcy. Truth: Student loans are dischargable in bankruptcy, albeit at a higher standard than other personal debts. Now the myth, or what one might call the propaganda, is generally attributable student loan debt holders who don't want debtors knowing and worse availing themselves to their rights. However, what I find most odd is the myth/propaganda is now actually perpetuated more by people who know the truth but want student loan reforms. For example, they will generally ignore the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy at all or other methods of forgiveness such as "total and permenant disability". Also I notice when confronted with the truth they perpetuate the myth by exaggerating how many people actually qualify for relief.
- hackits 10y agoIs a student loan a full Full Recourse debt? My understanding with the bankruptcy process here in Australia is even though you may declare bankruptcy it is still up the proceeding Judge to make the determination based on your circumstance and sometimes can deny the claim for bankruptcy but require the creditor to re-adjust the term of the mortgage either via change in the debit amount or the repayment schedule.
- breischl 10y agoI imagine this kind of thing varies between countries. It appears the standard in the US is that if repaying the debt would be an "undue hardship" then a judge may discharge it in bankruptcy. You can also file a different kind of bankruptcy that can change your repayment terms, though I think mostly the schedule rather than the actual amounts. This is all from ~5 minutes of research though, so take with salt as appropriate. http://www.studentloanborrowerassistance.org/bankruptcy/ http://www.studentloanborrowerassistance.org/bankruptcy/
- MOARDONGZPLZ 10y agoThat's not really a "lie" per se. In the USA it would only be dischargeable by 0.01% of people, or some freakishly low number. The standard of discharge wrt student loans is so ridiculously high. The case law shows that a person, to get them discharged, essentially needs to have zero chance of ever being able to hold a job or work again. There have been quadriplegics who couldn't get them discharged for hardship. The bar is so high, it is essentially impossible for all but the severely, severely unfortunate among us. If you have the potential to hold any sort of job at any point in the future, it's effectively impossible to discharge. So while it's not technically true, the ability to discharge student loans is such an edge case, saying they're nondishargeable is effectively true.
- hamhamed 10y agoConsequently, repeating something too many times is a flag to detect a lie. Amateur liars usually forget that rule. Good liars create doubt. Bad liars create certainty. However, the former knowns how to gain ppl's trust. You learn that with camp fire based games like Mafia/Werewolf
- zigzigzag 10y agoObligatory warning about interesting sounding psychological studies that may or may not replicate.
- markingram 10y agoIs this about trump?
- dschiptsov 10y agoAdvertising explained.
- whack 10y ago"But part of guarding against the illusion is the obligation it puts on us to stop repeating falsehoods. We live in a world where the facts matter, and should matter. If you repeat things without bothering to check if they are true, you are helping to make a world where lies and truth are easier to confuse. So, please, think before you repeat." Someone really should drill this into the head of every reporter and journalism student. Talking points put forward by political campaigns and special interest groups, if they are untrue or deliberately misleading, should not be given air time. Simply parroting such false statements does a grave disservice to society.
- tdkl 10y agoSadly he's being/will be paid by the amount of clicks...
- tsunamifury 10y agoJournalism students don't get hired as journalists anymore.
- tropo 10y agoHiring them wouldn't be an improvement. Journalism students are notoriously biased. Then there is the matter of clear logical thinking... look, they didn't get computer science degrees and there could be a reason why.
- XaYdEk 10y agoAnd there's the difference between journalist and reporter. ;) Journalists seem to be going extinct.
- jsprogrammer 10y agoThose points should be given airtime as they are destroyed in public and the responsible parties brought to justice. Censorship is never the answer.
- inimino 10y ago
- tumbas 10y agojust look at vatican, george soros , cnn, bbc, and other western media they create it by threats and repressions of those who would watch for example Russian news so people are scared of watching RT fearing their kids might not have a job
- thght 10y agoI am especially worried by the lies that we all create in our own minds by repeating erroneous thoughts with our own thinking. People being convinced about things that are not true or only partially true can be quite scary, more so when those people are in power. Fair chance that Goebbels really believed what he was saying. What we consider to be the 'truth' is very relative in my perception.
- projektir 10y agoIt kind of goes both ways, too. If you have a belief, and it is correct, but you don't reinforce it, it may get quickly replaced by some other belief.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- josephpmay 10y agoI wonder what would happen if you repeated those same experiments with a neural network. I think it might act the same way as humans do.
- debt 10y agosometimes i talk about things that haven't happened yet as if they've already happened because i'm so certain they will happen. i think this throws people off sometimes. as an example, instead of saying "people will move away from the coasts once the sea levels rise due to climate change" i'll just start with "once everyone has moved away from the coasts etc" usually people need some clarification.
- tdkl 10y agoI wish people would stop parroting about Goebbels to this phenomena, because the real "innovator" in the propaganda was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays [1] (Goebbels was a big fan of him). His manipulation techniques and tricks are what started the profession of public relations (PR) in USA. He also helped spreading the lie that helped CIA overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan president [2]. [1] http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393 http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
- dredmorbius 10y agoSee also Adam Curtis's The Century of the Self, which focuses extensively on Bernays. Bernays' books are avaialble via the Internet Archive. Fascinating reading.
- tdkl 10y agoYep, as soon I've found about him, I've checked out the documentary series, it should be viewed in schools. But that would probably be bad for business as it's not OK for masses to be aware of the techniques.
- rbobby 10y ago"Wrong!" - D.Trump
- peterwwillis 10y agoThis only works if it's something people want to believe. If it goes against some existing strong belief, like, "there is a God that really exists", they will continue to believe what they want to no matter how many times scientists, atheists and the like say otherwise. Certain things you will just naturally want to believe more often. For example, people are more likely to believe something fearful. Or something that feeds the ego. Or something that reinforces an existing belief. But the opposite of those things might not influence the person. The illusion of truth is just a heuristic. It's probably how we learn everything as children. We hear things and every time we hear them they are reinforced. Teaching someone that something they've learned is wrong is incredibly difficult.
- tripzilch 10y agoIs it me, or is this title actually not-super-obvious clickbait but clickbait nonetheless? I mean, the story isn't about liars at all. It implies some sort of insight about the workings of a liar's psyche or their methods, schemes, etc. But instead it's about how repetition affects our perception of truth, and the article (as well as common knowledge) is very clear about how it doesn't matter whether this repetition comes from a singular intentional actor (a liar), or if you get the statement repeatedly from a variety of sources. It even nearly admits as much by hand-waving that of course liars have many other, stronger, methods of manipulation but we're not going to cover any those. A more honest title would be "How repetition creates the illusion of truth". But then nobody would click that because people would think "um yeah, cool I already know that". And they'd be right. Tying into this, are the rather bold and hard-to-believe claims made initially by the BBC article (as opposed to the research): "people tend to rate items they've seen before as more likely to be true, regardless of whether they are true or not" "[the] effect worked just as strongly for known as for unknown items" "For statements that were actually fact or fiction, known or unknown, repetition made them all seem more believable." Only to, in the second half, completely contradict these claims: "What Fazio and colleagues actually found, is that the biggest influence on whether a statement was judged to be true was... whether it actually was true. The repetition effect couldn’t mask the truth. With or without repetition, people were still more likely to believe the actual facts as opposed to the lies." Wait, what? You just spent half the article boldly claiming pretty much the opposite, and then surprise! If you found the earlier claims hard to believe, it's because they weren't actually what the research found at all! You don't say! We'll have a nice and intelligent discussion thread about it on HN, sure, it's what we do, but c'mon the article itself is garbage.