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A meta comment on this article: I have posted this concept here, and on other social media platforms, and seen it posted as well... usually to the tune of a few

A meta comment on this article: I have posted this concept here, and on other social media platforms, and seen it posted as well... usually to the tune of a few upvotes... It reminds me of Keyne's General Theory, where most of the ideas had already been floated for quite a while but were always derided as "crackpot," or basically heresy. It took a well-connected elite, combined with a failure to explain the current situation to really change the Groupthink of collective minds and institutions. Here, it's similar: an idea which has been floated before, but taken in the hands of an academic is formalized, given a $100,000 prize, and published. Which raises an interesting idea. If the problem with the radio--as the article showed, Hitler put one in every home--was that an authority could control a bombardment of information-assault on people--the same problem with tech today--should we not also be skeptical also of why authorities have now decided to grant credence to this idea? And here's the concern: as the article also said, the role of media and newspapers has been to be a "filter." I can imagine politicians and bureaucrats latching onto this as a power grab for authorities--as a means to further marginalize independent media and the social aspects of spreading information.

anigbrowl 9y ago
The social aspects of information propagation are anything but marginalized. The problem, as in the days of yellow journalism, is that sensation is easier to monetize than the truth and this creates opportunities for bad actors to flourish. Of course there's a possibility for over-reaction and repression, but personally I think that the best solution is more information, in the sense of accessible trackbacks (not unlike country-of-origin food labeling) so people can see where stories originate and learn to be skeptical of stuff that comes from consistently unreliable or bizarre sources. This already happens to some extent, eg if you post content from infowars you'll be rightly mocked for using such a terrible source. The Web Annotations Standard will make this vastly easier as its deployed in browsers (anyone know about progress on that, BTW?). As for the other problem of people choosing to stay in particular media bubbles where they're only presented with information they already agree with, that's not really going to change, but I think that's OK as long as it's easy to identify which cluster people are choosing to locate in.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  >so people can see where stories originate and learn to be skeptical of stuff that comes from consistently unreliable or bizarre sources. This is closer to the problem, not the solution. This caused the NASA Challenger disaster (authorities silenced engineers who warned of foam strike). This caused the US to lose the space race (all the authority and "intelligence community" was behind the Vanguard rocket). This caused the Gulf of Tonkan, Iraq, Iran-Contra... Consider the recent JPMorgan money-laundering story was for days published in English only on the site Zerohedge,[1] The WaPo literally accused Ron Paul in their news section of being a Russian Propogandist Consider CNN broadcasted that it is illegal to read Wikileaks. Collusion in Syria between the US and terrorists was always published first only on "disreputable" news sites. Democratic control is better than autocratic control. 1 - https://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/finma-jp-morgan-schweiz-verstosst-gegen-geldwascherei-normen https://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/finma-jp-morgan-sc...
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    I fail to see what my comment has to do with your laundry list of examples. I'm not arguing for centralized autocratic filtering but a mechanism for labeling points of origin and exposing that information to consumers. Your examples don't seem appropriate either. I suggested that people would choose to reject information from 'consistently unreliable or bizarre sources'. Your first counter-example is that of a NASA engineer whose warnings were overlooked, but engineers are not hired for their unreliability or bizarre opinions. Many of your other examples either ignore the well-known fact of parallel discovery or are themselves relying on the mechanism you claim to deplore of pre-emptively delegitimizing the source. Yes, I know some mainstream news outlets are inaccurate or agenda-driven. I hardly ever consume any news from CNN because I find most of their output to be low quality. I really don't understand the point of your comment. You seem to be projecting someone else's ideas onto my comment rather than evaluating what I actually wrote.
    - wallace_f 9y ago
      >I fail to see what my comment has to do with your laundry list of examples. I'm not arguing for centralized autocratic filtering but a mechanism for labeling points of origin and exposing that information to consumers. Ok so let's take a look and go down the list of examples. We can start with NASA, where the "point of origin," being mere engineers who could not match the gravitas and authority of the well-respected leadership, saw the idea rejected, not on merit, but on their point of origin being less-respected than their superiors. This problem of rejecting ideas, not on their own merit, but on the authority or gravitas of establishment figures is the thread that ties all of those ideas together--and many other setbacks in history as well. Discrediting ideas by their point of origin can do real damage not just to the democratization of information dissemination, but also to the ideas themselves even if they have merit, as well as to indepedent journalism.

anigbrowl 9y ago

The social aspects of information propagation are anything but marginalized. The problem, as in the days of yellow journalism, is that sensation is easier to monetize than the truth and this creates opportunities for bad actors to flourish. Of course there's a possibility for over-reaction and repression, but personally I think that the best solution is more information, in the sense of accessible trackbacks (not unlike country-of-origin food labeling) so people can see where stories originate and learn to be skeptical of stuff that comes from consistently unreliable or bizarre sources. This already happens to some extent, eg if you post content from infowars you'll be rightly mocked for using such a terrible source. The Web Annotations Standard will make this vastly easier as its deployed in browsers (anyone know about progress on that, BTW?). As for the other problem of people choosing to stay in particular media bubbles where they're only presented with information they already agree with, that's not really going to change, but I think that's OK as long as it's easy to identify which cluster people are choosing to locate in.

wallace_f 9y ago
>so people can see where stories originate and learn to be skeptical of stuff that comes from consistently unreliable or bizarre sources. This is closer to the problem, not the solution. This caused the NASA Challenger disaster (authorities silenced engineers who warned of foam strike). This caused the US to lose the space race (all the authority and "intelligence community" was behind the Vanguard rocket). This caused the Gulf of Tonkan, Iraq, Iran-Contra... Consider the recent JPMorgan money-laundering story was for days published in English only on the site Zerohedge,[1] The WaPo literally accused Ron Paul in their news section of being a Russian Propogandist Consider CNN broadcasted that it is illegal to read Wikileaks. Collusion in Syria between the US and terrorists was always published first only on "disreputable" news sites. Democratic control is better than autocratic control. 1 - https://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/finma-jp-morgan-schweiz-verstosst-gegen-geldwascherei-normen https://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/finma-jp-morgan-sc...
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  I fail to see what my comment has to do with your laundry list of examples. I'm not arguing for centralized autocratic filtering but a mechanism for labeling points of origin and exposing that information to consumers. Your examples don't seem appropriate either. I suggested that people would choose to reject information from 'consistently unreliable or bizarre sources'. Your first counter-example is that of a NASA engineer whose warnings were overlooked, but engineers are not hired for their unreliability or bizarre opinions. Many of your other examples either ignore the well-known fact of parallel discovery or are themselves relying on the mechanism you claim to deplore of pre-emptively delegitimizing the source. Yes, I know some mainstream news outlets are inaccurate or agenda-driven. I hardly ever consume any news from CNN because I find most of their output to be low quality. I really don't understand the point of your comment. You seem to be projecting someone else's ideas onto my comment rather than evaluating what I actually wrote.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    >I fail to see what my comment has to do with your laundry list of examples. I'm not arguing for centralized autocratic filtering but a mechanism for labeling points of origin and exposing that information to consumers. Ok so let's take a look and go down the list of examples. We can start with NASA, where the "point of origin," being mere engineers who could not match the gravitas and authority of the well-respected leadership, saw the idea rejected, not on merit, but on their point of origin being less-respected than their superiors. This problem of rejecting ideas, not on their own merit, but on the authority or gravitas of establishment figures is the thread that ties all of those ideas together--and many other setbacks in history as well. Discrediting ideas by their point of origin can do real damage not just to the democratization of information dissemination, but also to the ideas themselves even if they have merit, as well as to indepedent journalism.