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This example doesn't survive even a shallow consideration. The National Enquirer isn't piped into our smartphones all day long, mixed in with notes from friend

This example doesn't survive even a shallow consideration. The National Enquirer isn't piped into our smartphones all day long, mixed in with notes from friends, repeated on local TV news stations, and broadcast over FM radio. They've never put the money into figuring out how to manipulate people into consuming their content as often as possible. As the whole anti-vaccination problem has clearly shown, people aren't equipped to sort out fact from fiction all on their own, despite (or maybe because of...) living in the most information-rich society in human history. However, a large enough group of ill-informed people is sufficient to force social change or even incite violence and stoke the fires of xenophobic hatred. So it is a problem that needs to be addressed; it's wrong and morally lazy for intellectuals to lean back and say, "well, free speech, and people will sort themselves out anyway." There is an imperative here to resolve this new problem our society has.

Varcht 9y ago
The thing is, being well informed on vaccinations tells you that there are real risks. While on a societal level the risks are clearly well worth the outcome but at an individual level are they? For instance, if 1 in 100 will be harmed, 98 get the vaccine and are fine, 1 is harmed and the other forgoes the vaccine with zero risk from the vaccine and near zero risk of contracting the target of the vaccination.
- thaumaturgy 9y ago
  It took just 32 minutes for someone to show up and demonstrate my example of vaccinations and false information. Good job, HN.
  - nkurz 9y ago
    1) Your probably take your nickname for granted at this point, but it's a little rich for a user named 'thaumaturgy' to (implicitly) accuse others of magical thinking. :) 2) How exactly did 'Varcht' demonstrate that "people aren't equipped to sort out fact from fiction"? Do you disagree that vaccines have both benefits and risks? I thought he made a good point.
    - thaumaturgy 9y ago
      This is not the time nor thread for a debate on the merits of vaccination, and I'm not in a good enough mood for it right now anyway. If someone honestly believes that 1 in 100 people is going to be harmed by a vaccine, and that the number harmed by refusing vaccinations is less than 1 in 100, then there's probably nothing I could say nor any literature I could cite which would change their mind.
      - nkurz 9y ago
        OK, but I think your "mood" may have caused you to lash out at an innocent bystander. 'Varcht' prefaces his comment with "While on a societal level the risks are clearly well worth the outcome", which implies that he agrees that the number who benefit is greater than the number who are harmed. Instead, he's raising the subtler (and I think reasonable) issue of whether despite the societal benefit there may be individuals within the population for whom the risk/reward ratio is reversed. If your goal is persuasion, I think it's better to engage rather than resorting to sarcastic responses of "Good job, HN". Your comments are usually excellent, but I thought this one fell short.
        thaumaturgy 9y ago
        > Instead, he's raising the subtler (and I think reasonable) issue of whether despite the societal benefit there may be individuals within the population for whom the risk/reward ratio is reversed. FWIW, this is a variant of a debate tactic known as "just asking questions" (on rationalwiki) or the "loaded question" (wikipedia). I won't accuse ~Varcht of doing this intentionally, because I don't know them well enough to assume bad faith, but the end result is the same: the question, appearing innocent enough, is based on false premises and derails the conversation. It's especially common coming from people who have been misinformed on some controversial subject and have developed vague doubts towards established science on that subject, but don't have a sufficient library of information at-hand to argue directly. Instead, they just try to raise the same doubts in others. Their conversations follow the form, "Okay, but what if...?" It works because people in civilized forums don't want to be seen as unkind towards people asking innocent-looking questions. For instance, here we are being distracted by ~Varcht's 1-in-100 question, but the patently false statement they started with is being ignored. To bring this back to the subject of the thread, ~Varcht unintentionally -- I assume -- made themselves an excellent example of a victim of the modern problems of misinformation. I would wager that they don't regularly read the National Enquirer, and probably wouldn't believe most or any of the stuff in one, but here they are to raise the spectre of the dangers of vaccination -- a popular belief, I would add, that kills people, especially young children. So that we don't let ourselves become too emotionally detached from the consequences people suffer from this pandemic of misinformation, here's a reminder of what infant whooping cough looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3oZrMGDMMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3oZrMGDMMw > If your goal is persuasion, I think it's better to engage rather than resorting to sarcastic responses of "Good job, HN". Sometimes persuasion is a reasonable goal. Other times, bad ideas should be mercilessly mocked before they have an opportunity to germinate in fertile ground. You were around here then, do you remember what HN's attitude towards established science was shortly after the CRU email compromise? But yeah, I could've left that last part off. But I can't -- and shouldn't -- be dispassionate all the time, either. > Your comments are usually excellent, but I thought this one fell short. Thanks, and fair 'nuff.
freehunter 9y ago
Right. Everyone knew the National Enquirer was junk. But big cable news companies are big cable news companies. You trust them. Your local news anchors, you've watched them your whole life. You trust them. You trust your mom and your preacher and your coworkers, so when they tell you something, your guard is lowered. All the time Facebook shows me "[My mother] likes [News Outlet]" and then shows me stories from that news outlet. That is a recommendation from my mom, or at least Facebook would have you believe so.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  It's kind of like, trust-hijacking, isn't it. The news outlet uses your mom's auth token to get access to your brain's API endpoint!
  - freehunter 9y ago
    I like that. Trust-hijacking. It sums up what "influencers" have been used for since the dawn of social media.
lr4444lr 9y ago
I can't read your comment without hearing faint echoes of extremist clerics telling me how the world today is "saturated with porn", which in turn is responsible for "widespread sexual immorality" and "gender confusion" in your comments.
- thaumaturgy 9y ago
  We all perceive the world through the echoes in our heads, I suppose. None of those things were implied in my comment, or a subtext in it, or a conscious or subconscious component of it, or even statements I would typically agree with. But, if you prefer to approach this from, "this guy disagreed with me and said something I don't like, so I bet that means he likes other things I don't like, so I'm going to accuse him of that", then ... well, okay. Go on dismissing the modern problems with widespread misinformation as exactly comparable to the National Enquirer, I suppose. Other people are having a more serious discussion about the subject though and you'll be missing out.

Varcht 9y ago

The thing is, being well informed on vaccinations tells you that there are real risks. While on a societal level the risks are clearly well worth the outcome but at an individual level are they? For instance, if 1 in 100 will be harmed, 98 get the vaccine and are fine, 1 is harmed and the other forgoes the vaccine with zero risk from the vaccine and near zero risk of contracting the target of the vaccination.

thaumaturgy 9y ago
It took just 32 minutes for someone to show up and demonstrate my example of vaccinations and false information. Good job, HN.
- nkurz 9y ago
  1) Your probably take your nickname for granted at this point, but it's a little rich for a user named 'thaumaturgy' to (implicitly) accuse others of magical thinking. :) 2) How exactly did 'Varcht' demonstrate that "people aren't equipped to sort out fact from fiction"? Do you disagree that vaccines have both benefits and risks? I thought he made a good point.
  - thaumaturgy 9y ago
    This is not the time nor thread for a debate on the merits of vaccination, and I'm not in a good enough mood for it right now anyway. If someone honestly believes that 1 in 100 people is going to be harmed by a vaccine, and that the number harmed by refusing vaccinations is less than 1 in 100, then there's probably nothing I could say nor any literature I could cite which would change their mind.
    - nkurz 9y ago
      OK, but I think your "mood" may have caused you to lash out at an innocent bystander. 'Varcht' prefaces his comment with "While on a societal level the risks are clearly well worth the outcome", which implies that he agrees that the number who benefit is greater than the number who are harmed. Instead, he's raising the subtler (and I think reasonable) issue of whether despite the societal benefit there may be individuals within the population for whom the risk/reward ratio is reversed. If your goal is persuasion, I think it's better to engage rather than resorting to sarcastic responses of "Good job, HN". Your comments are usually excellent, but I thought this one fell short.
      - thaumaturgy 9y ago
        > Instead, he's raising the subtler (and I think reasonable) issue of whether despite the societal benefit there may be individuals within the population for whom the risk/reward ratio is reversed. FWIW, this is a variant of a debate tactic known as "just asking questions" (on rationalwiki) or the "loaded question" (wikipedia). I won't accuse ~Varcht of doing this intentionally, because I don't know them well enough to assume bad faith, but the end result is the same: the question, appearing innocent enough, is based on false premises and derails the conversation. It's especially common coming from people who have been misinformed on some controversial subject and have developed vague doubts towards established science on that subject, but don't have a sufficient library of information at-hand to argue directly. Instead, they just try to raise the same doubts in others. Their conversations follow the form, "Okay, but what if...?" It works because people in civilized forums don't want to be seen as unkind towards people asking innocent-looking questions. For instance, here we are being distracted by ~Varcht's 1-in-100 question, but the patently false statement they started with is being ignored. To bring this back to the subject of the thread, ~Varcht unintentionally -- I assume -- made themselves an excellent example of a victim of the modern problems of misinformation. I would wager that they don't regularly read the National Enquirer, and probably wouldn't believe most or any of the stuff in one, but here they are to raise the spectre of the dangers of vaccination -- a popular belief, I would add, that kills people, especially young children. So that we don't let ourselves become too emotionally detached from the consequences people suffer from this pandemic of misinformation, here's a reminder of what infant whooping cough looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3oZrMGDMMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3oZrMGDMMw > If your goal is persuasion, I think it's better to engage rather than resorting to sarcastic responses of "Good job, HN". Sometimes persuasion is a reasonable goal. Other times, bad ideas should be mercilessly mocked before they have an opportunity to germinate in fertile ground. You were around here then, do you remember what HN's attitude towards established science was shortly after the CRU email compromise? But yeah, I could've left that last part off. But I can't -- and shouldn't -- be dispassionate all the time, either. > Your comments are usually excellent, but I thought this one fell short. Thanks, and fair 'nuff.

freehunter 9y ago

Right. Everyone knew the National Enquirer was junk. But big cable news companies are big cable news companies. You trust them. Your local news anchors, you've watched them your whole life. You trust them. You trust your mom and your preacher and your coworkers, so when they tell you something, your guard is lowered. All the time Facebook shows me "[My mother] likes [News Outlet]" and then shows me stories from that news outlet. That is a recommendation from my mom, or at least Facebook would have you believe so.

rdiddly 9y ago
It's kind of like, trust-hijacking, isn't it. The news outlet uses your mom's auth token to get access to your brain's API endpoint!
- freehunter 9y ago
  I like that. Trust-hijacking. It sums up what "influencers" have been used for since the dawn of social media.

lr4444lr 9y ago

I can't read your comment without hearing faint echoes of extremist clerics telling me how the world today is "saturated with porn", which in turn is responsible for "widespread sexual immorality" and "gender confusion" in your comments.

thaumaturgy 9y ago
We all perceive the world through the echoes in our heads, I suppose. None of those things were implied in my comment, or a subtext in it, or a conscious or subconscious component of it, or even statements I would typically agree with. But, if you prefer to approach this from, "this guy disagreed with me and said something I don't like, so I bet that means he likes other things I don't like, so I'm going to accuse him of that", then ... well, okay. Go on dismissing the modern problems with widespread misinformation as exactly comparable to the National Enquirer, I suppose. Other people are having a more serious discussion about the subject though and you'll be missing out.