8 ms·

Great for someone like you or me who know not to trust everything you read on facebook. Not so great for my 60yo dad who still believes pretty much everything h

by mkaziz 10y ago

Great for someone like you or me who know not to trust everything you read on facebook. Not so great for my 60yo dad who still believes pretty much everything he sees online, and doubly so when he reads it on facebook because it was a "forward" from someone he trusts. This is a complex question and there are no easy answers.

rafiki6 10y ago
answer is actually easy, execution is complicated...clearly too many people don't have the required IQ to participate in their own governance, as such maybe it's time to prevent them from doing so
- wu-ikkyu 10y ago
  >too many people don't have the required IQ to participate in their own governance, as such maybe it's time to prevent them from doing so ^The mantra of every authoritarian dictatorship. If the people lack the information to manage their own well-being, it is our job to inform them, not subjugate them.
  - zardo 10y ago
    Of course, one man's school is another man's government re-education camp.
  - rafiki6 10y ago
    I'm not sure why you jumped to conclusion of subjugating them. Have you heard of epistocracy? Give people a chance to participate but make them earn it. I don't believe voting is a right. When my decisions affect the lives of others I should be held to a standard.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Makes sense, except in practice. It results in rigged tests, poll taxes, and generally racist bigoted systems that keep some classes down. We don't have a 'one man - one vote' system in America by accident, but in response to a wide understanding of how prevalent such rigging was back then.
      - rafiki6 10y ago
        With all due respect I don't even think America has a "one man one vote system" in practice. The idea of super pacs and an easily manipulated populace combined with a bipartisan political system seems to me like America is living the illusion of democracy. The current system already keeps certain classes down. Blacks and Hispanics don't tend to have the same voter turn out as wealthy white folks do. Besides, does the current system even address their needs? It seems biased towards helping the wealthy. So I'm not sure in practice democracy is doing a great job.
    - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
      >many people don't have the required IQ to participate in their own governance, as such maybe it's time to prevent them from doing so Subjugate: to make someone or something subordinate. Does your statement not fit the definition? Forcing someone out of their inalienable rights because they don't pass an arbitrarily dictated exam is to make them subordinates or untermensch. Epistocracy was a common method used to prevent blacks from voting in the southern United States.
      - rafiki6 10y ago
        You made the incorrect assumption that voting is an inalienable right. By who's standard? We've lived most of our history without the right to vote and survival of the fittest was the way humanity and nature functioned (I.e. the strongest rule). And no, episitocracy wasn't used in the south. Blacks weren't considered human. That's not the same as episitocracy. Those are two very different issues. It's not quite episitocracy if the same standard isn't being applied to the entire population. In the south the literacy tests were being given ONLY to black people even though alot of the white people who were allowed to vote simply for being white probably wouldn't have passed those tests. http://www.wpr.org/georgetown-philosopher-right-vote-defect-democracy http://www.wpr.org/georgetown-philosopher-right-vote-defect-...
        wu-ikkyu 10y ago
        >It's not quite episitocracy if the same standard isn't being applied to the entire population. What about the people who get to determine what the test questions are? Are they not by default held at a higher standard than the rest of the population?
- mulletbum 10y ago
  I think there is another option you might have missed.
  - rafiki6 10y ago
    What's that?
- eddiecalzone 10y ago
  Yeah... perhaps something like an electoral college, except functional?
  - rafiki6 10y ago
    I think the electoral college is probably the worst approach. The original intention behind the electoral college was basically to overturn the decision of the people if the wealthy elite didn't like it. That's translated into "preventing mob rule". Why not just make sure the mob is actually capable of picking their own leader, or even better teaching them to lead themselves?
wu-ikkyu 10y ago
>This is a complex questions and there are no easy answers. What precisely is the question?
- mkaziz 10y ago
  How should we handle the phenomenon of fake news being virally circulated in social media
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    The vaccination that provides herd immunity from viral nonsense is instruction in critical thinking skills. The treatment for misinformation and disinformation is genuine, accurate information. Censorship and regulation of information is absolutely the wrong way to handle it. If you ever grant any government the power to be final arbiter over what truth is, you deserve what will surely happen to you next.
- derefr 10y ago
  I believe the question is whether "news" is similar-enough in kind to "food" or "drugs" that it would make sense for the state to regulate it a bit, with the goal (like the "food" and "drugs" categories) of protecting people from their own mistakes. In the "food" and "drug" cases, the state does this because large corporations have far more resources available to be applied to the goal of fooling people into consuming something that might be harmful to them, than people have available to figure out they were fooled. The "news" case, though sometimes being similar to that, is also often very different: private individuals can be sources of news, news is often delivered without cost to the reader, and even news that is sourced from commercial institutions often reaches the majority of its readers through redistribution, without attribution, by private individuals (e.g. word of mouth; posting paraphrases on Facebook; etc.) So, leaving alone whether the same principle could apply to "news" (or whether it's consistently trumped by free speech concerns, etc.), the implementation of such a policy would be quite different, perhaps different enough as to make it unfeasible. That is a complex question.
booleandilemma 10y ago
As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Don't believe everything you read online."
probablybanned 10y ago
This is different from what 60 year olds were doing with e-mail a decade ago in what way, exactly? As someone who grew up around AM radio and gun show culture, the sudden pearl-clutching is amusing, but also disturbing since it's so coordinated and with clear political motivations. The question is this: Do you support fake news or do you support the construction of a censorship apparatus? For me, there is a very easy answer.
- mkaziz 10y ago
  False dichotomy. You can have a censorship apparatus that allows only fake news. At the same time, it's also clear that fake news is being used to justify all sorts of political things that are leading to intensified divisions and hatred (on /both/ ends of the spectrum) which is leading society down a different slippery slope, but one that's slippery all the same.
  - probablybanned 10y ago
    I expected the cry of false dichotomy. Here's the thing: all simplifications are inaccurate because they involve a loss of fidelity. Simplifications that are tolerably inaccurate but useful are the basis of clear thinking. When you resist simplification, ask yourself whether you are seeking to avoid inaccuracy or seeking to avoid clear thinking. People tend to resist clear thinking when it leads to difficult decisions. I'm not sure what you mean by bringing up a hypothetical "censorship apparatus that allows only fake news" -- my contention is that you cannot "beat" fake news without a censorship apparatus. Of course you can have a "good" censorship apparatus that only allows things you believe are good and true or you could have a "bad" one that only allows fake news. I'm sure yours would be very, very good indeed. But I think it's much better not to play that game at all.
    - mkaziz 10y ago
      Upvoted you for the civil response. I think you are viewing censorship apparatus as on a good -> bad spectrum. There is also the spectrum of the scale of censorship. For example: HRC's "sex ring" (obviously false facts misrepresented as the truth) is fake news that should be suppressed. But on the flip side, we obviously don't want a USSR-style control of the press, where the wrong word/opinion can land you in the gulag. You seem to think that because any kind of censorship apparatus can be subverted for nefarious means, you should have no censorship apparatus at all. But I'll counter that that in itself is a form of intellectual laziness: Should we not explore the possibility of building a decentralized apparatus with appropriate checks and balances, that keeps the bare minimum of "fake news" out of general circulation? The answer may be no, but we should at least explore it.

by mkaziz 10y ago

rafiki6 10y ago

answer is actually easy, execution is complicated...clearly too many people don't have the required IQ to participate in their own governance, as such maybe it's time to prevent them from doing so

wu-ikkyu 10y ago
>too many people don't have the required IQ to participate in their own governance, as such maybe it's time to prevent them from doing so ^The mantra of every authoritarian dictatorship. If the people lack the information to manage their own well-being, it is our job to inform them, not subjugate them.
- zardo 10y ago
  Of course, one man's school is another man's government re-education camp.
- rafiki6 10y ago
  I'm not sure why you jumped to conclusion of subjugating them. Have you heard of epistocracy? Give people a chance to participate but make them earn it. I don't believe voting is a right. When my decisions affect the lives of others I should be held to a standard.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Makes sense, except in practice. It results in rigged tests, poll taxes, and generally racist bigoted systems that keep some classes down. We don't have a 'one man - one vote' system in America by accident, but in response to a wide understanding of how prevalent such rigging was back then.
    - rafiki6 10y ago
      With all due respect I don't even think America has a "one man one vote system" in practice. The idea of super pacs and an easily manipulated populace combined with a bipartisan political system seems to me like America is living the illusion of democracy. The current system already keeps certain classes down. Blacks and Hispanics don't tend to have the same voter turn out as wealthy white folks do. Besides, does the current system even address their needs? It seems biased towards helping the wealthy. So I'm not sure in practice democracy is doing a great job.
  - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
    >many people don't have the required IQ to participate in their own governance, as such maybe it's time to prevent them from doing so Subjugate: to make someone or something subordinate. Does your statement not fit the definition? Forcing someone out of their inalienable rights because they don't pass an arbitrarily dictated exam is to make them subordinates or untermensch. Epistocracy was a common method used to prevent blacks from voting in the southern United States.
    - rafiki6 10y ago
      You made the incorrect assumption that voting is an inalienable right. By who's standard? We've lived most of our history without the right to vote and survival of the fittest was the way humanity and nature functioned (I.e. the strongest rule). And no, episitocracy wasn't used in the south. Blacks weren't considered human. That's not the same as episitocracy. Those are two very different issues. It's not quite episitocracy if the same standard isn't being applied to the entire population. In the south the literacy tests were being given ONLY to black people even though alot of the white people who were allowed to vote simply for being white probably wouldn't have passed those tests. http://www.wpr.org/georgetown-philosopher-right-vote-defect-democracy http://www.wpr.org/georgetown-philosopher-right-vote-defect-...
      - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
        >It's not quite episitocracy if the same standard isn't being applied to the entire population. What about the people who get to determine what the test questions are? Are they not by default held at a higher standard than the rest of the population?
mulletbum 10y ago
I think there is another option you might have missed.
- rafiki6 10y ago
  What's that?
eddiecalzone 10y ago
Yeah... perhaps something like an electoral college, except functional?
- rafiki6 10y ago
  I think the electoral college is probably the worst approach. The original intention behind the electoral college was basically to overturn the decision of the people if the wealthy elite didn't like it. That's translated into "preventing mob rule". Why not just make sure the mob is actually capable of picking their own leader, or even better teaching them to lead themselves?

wu-ikkyu 10y ago

>This is a complex questions and there are no easy answers. What precisely is the question?

mkaziz 10y ago
How should we handle the phenomenon of fake news being virally circulated in social media
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  The vaccination that provides herd immunity from viral nonsense is instruction in critical thinking skills. The treatment for misinformation and disinformation is genuine, accurate information. Censorship and regulation of information is absolutely the wrong way to handle it. If you ever grant any government the power to be final arbiter over what truth is, you deserve what will surely happen to you next.
derefr 10y ago
I believe the question is whether "news" is similar-enough in kind to "food" or "drugs" that it would make sense for the state to regulate it a bit, with the goal (like the "food" and "drugs" categories) of protecting people from their own mistakes. In the "food" and "drug" cases, the state does this because large corporations have far more resources available to be applied to the goal of fooling people into consuming something that might be harmful to them, than people have available to figure out they were fooled. The "news" case, though sometimes being similar to that, is also often very different: private individuals can be sources of news, news is often delivered without cost to the reader, and even news that is sourced from commercial institutions often reaches the majority of its readers through redistribution, without attribution, by private individuals (e.g. word of mouth; posting paraphrases on Facebook; etc.) So, leaving alone whether the same principle could apply to "news" (or whether it's consistently trumped by free speech concerns, etc.), the implementation of such a policy would be quite different, perhaps different enough as to make it unfeasible. That is a complex question.

booleandilemma 10y ago

As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Don't believe everything you read online."

probablybanned 10y ago

This is different from what 60 year olds were doing with e-mail a decade ago in what way, exactly? As someone who grew up around AM radio and gun show culture, the sudden pearl-clutching is amusing, but also disturbing since it's so coordinated and with clear political motivations. The question is this: Do you support fake news or do you support the construction of a censorship apparatus? For me, there is a very easy answer.

mkaziz 10y ago
False dichotomy. You can have a censorship apparatus that allows only fake news. At the same time, it's also clear that fake news is being used to justify all sorts of political things that are leading to intensified divisions and hatred (on /both/ ends of the spectrum) which is leading society down a different slippery slope, but one that's slippery all the same.
- probablybanned 10y ago
  I expected the cry of false dichotomy. Here's the thing: all simplifications are inaccurate because they involve a loss of fidelity. Simplifications that are tolerably inaccurate but useful are the basis of clear thinking. When you resist simplification, ask yourself whether you are seeking to avoid inaccuracy or seeking to avoid clear thinking. People tend to resist clear thinking when it leads to difficult decisions. I'm not sure what you mean by bringing up a hypothetical "censorship apparatus that allows only fake news" -- my contention is that you cannot "beat" fake news without a censorship apparatus. Of course you can have a "good" censorship apparatus that only allows things you believe are good and true or you could have a "bad" one that only allows fake news. I'm sure yours would be very, very good indeed. But I think it's much better not to play that game at all.
  - mkaziz 10y ago
    Upvoted you for the civil response. I think you are viewing censorship apparatus as on a good -> bad spectrum. There is also the spectrum of the scale of censorship. For example: HRC's "sex ring" (obviously false facts misrepresented as the truth) is fake news that should be suppressed. But on the flip side, we obviously don't want a USSR-style control of the press, where the wrong word/opinion can land you in the gulag. You seem to think that because any kind of censorship apparatus can be subverted for nefarious means, you should have no censorship apparatus at all. But I'll counter that that in itself is a form of intellectual laziness: Should we not explore the possibility of building a decentralized apparatus with appropriate checks and balances, that keeps the bare minimum of "fake news" out of general circulation? The answer may be no, but we should at least explore it.