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It is not sufficient to have a record of facts when others have alternative facts. To your signed record of facts they would just introduce alternate facts with
by angry_octet 10y ago
It is not sufficient to have a record of facts when others have alternative facts. To your signed record of facts they would just introduce alternate facts with alternative signatures and claim you had made it up. Normal people don't have the tools or experience to differentiate, and the alternative facts support a story they want to believe, rather than hard truths.
News media won't even mention your so-called 'real facts', facebook and twitter might not let others see them. Before you know it you'll be denounced by your neighbours, work colleagues and friends as a traitor, a madman. You'll lose your job, or your partner will. There may be a show trial and public denunciation. This has all happened before: the USSR, McCarthy.
If you don't want that you need an alternate means of distributing real facts, and countering fake ones. It has to be hosted so deeply in our tech infrastructure that it can't be firewalled or jammed. It needs to be accessible covertly. And it needs to record all the alternative facts too, because they like to change their facts.
Let's call it Samizdat.
- wybiral 10y agoThe US government can't make all of the real scientists out there just disappear. Climate models have an impact on many different fields of research and unless there's a total shutdown of science (which seems absurd) those people and facts will still be there. There's a portion of the population who's wanted to deny climate change for a long time and I believe they'll accept the alt-facts to justify their position. But I'm skeptical about the efficacy of successfully silencing existing news groups and the majority of scientists. Has anything like that ever been successful in the connected world? That being said, we do absolutely need to make protect our internet from censorship.
- sandworm101 10y agoGo look at any list of recently-cancelled television shows. You will be shocked at the number of them that you liked, but have now slipped from your mind. Public memory is fickle and it is very possible to remove even widespread facts. Example: a few years back a uk submarine was stuck high aground. As the tide went out the prop was exposed. I and a billion other people saw it live on bbc news. (Blue poly fins, at least 10 inside a housing). Good luck trying to find that image now. It has been sucessfully removed. The internet isnt the great memory well we all want it to be. With effort, facts can be changed, events scrubbed.
- wybiral 10y ago> Go look at any list of recently-cancelled television shows. You will be shocked at the number of them that you liked, but have now slipped from your mind. Public memory is fickle and it is very possible to remove even widespread facts. Change and censorship aren't synonymous and I have no expectation that anything will last forever. But it's easier to ignore and forget about something like a television show than something like global climate change. My post was in relation to the mass censorship required to create a world like the parent post described. As for your submarine, that's interesting. Was it this one? http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-11605365 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-116053... I'm not doubting the ability to censor things, especially before they become widespread, but climate change will be much harder because it's already a part of our vocabulary.
- sandworm101 10y agoId say that mass-censorship isnt the goal. You only have to keep a small mumber of influential americans distracted. That group (the perhaps 25% who have both a vote and money/time to donate), they dictate national policy. Everyone else can scream all they want to no end. The internet allows for such focused censorship.
- facetube 10y agoEven fewer if you have a gerrymandered election system. Steve Bannon, now senior advisor to Trump, is on the board of Cambridge Analytica, a company that built (and presumably enabled the exploitation of) psychological profiles to maximize shares/distribution of content on social media, targeting specific geographic clusters: 1: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-crunchers-who-say-they-helped-donald-trump-to-win/ http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-cruncher... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica 3: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-de... The Trump campaign paid this group millions of dollars beginning in the summer of 2016.
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- switchbak 10y agoThe previous Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper did just this, muzzling or shutting down essentially any form of scientific research that was politically inconvenient. The chilling effect can be very real, and I think you'd be surprised how quickly it can take hold. And Harper was an absolute pussycat compared to Trump.
- battlebot 10y agoYou talk about facts like you don't live in a post-positivist world! You have no idea what you are talking about. "Facts" and "truth" are part of philosophy, but bear very little value in the real world. Just get used to it.
- angry_octet 10y agoIn reply, let me first quote your own words: > There was once "broad consensus" that the world was flat. I am not at all comfortable when there is so much consensus. There needs to be debate, disagreement, and healthy skepticism at all times. The key point is that the flat earthers kept believing (and angrily counter-attacking) despite the solid evidence to the contrary. Post-positivism is not claiming that everything is subjective and bias is insurmountable. You're not being sceptical, just delusional.
- NOSHSHNACKERS 10y agoAngry_octet I love you. this was one of the best comments..