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Now these platforms hide behind "external fact checkers", "black box algorithms", etc. The real problem is that every fact is theory-laden, a lesson learned fro

Now these platforms hide behind "external fact checkers", "black box algorithms", etc. The real problem is that every fact is theory-laden, a lesson learned from the history and philosophy of (natural) sciences. Today, we are in a state of disputing facts, because people are disputing theories behind stating such facts. Let me give you an example: a reporter finds two dead bodies. The fact that two dead bodies discovered may not be under dispute. The moment, one says that these two were killed, the other says that these two committed suicide--you see, two theories (homicide vs suicide) are presenting the phenomenon in two different ways. Further accept that these two were indeed killed. Now look at possible reasons behind these deaths. Multiple people offer often competing, contradictory, reasons behind these deaths. Basically, there are no facts. What we call facts are theory-laden facts that are agreed up on by all sides; in other words, all side agree on the underlying theory (say, homicide).

philipov 8y ago
There are facts. You said yourself "The fact that two dead bodies discovered may not be under dispute." That's the fact. Everything else you said isn't a fact, it's a hypothesis. Just because people don't know the difference between a fact and a hypothesis/conclusion doesn't mean there are no facts; unless you want to go full ontological skeptic and dispute that it is possible to ever know anything (never go full sophist!). The real issue is that we have a breakdown of good faith in civil conversation. That makes society impossible. At the point where you argue that there are not two bodies in front of me, even though there are two bodies in front of me, I might as well stop arguing with you and instead start punching you. Then you can argue that your pain is just theoretical.
- apocalypstyx 8y ago
  What if they were conjoined twins who couldn't have previously been separated without killing both? *edit Or, in less cutesy terms, considering that much of the pro/anti-abortion argument (on both sides) often rests on tacit and irreconcilable definitions of what a person is, the point where the woman's body ends and another begins, when is it appropriate (other than perhaps under the most obvious of circumstances) to charge and assailant that there were two homicides, rather than one? That is, when does the definition become more than personal belief?
- coldtea 8y ago
  >There are facts. You said yourself "The fact that two dead bodies discovered may not be under dispute." That's the fact. Everything else you said isn't a fact, it's a hypothesis. Just because people don't know the difference between a fact and a hypothesis/conclusion doesn't mean there are no facts; The distinction between fact and hypothesis is a red herring. First, unless one has verified something themselves, with their own eyes or carefully checked primary sources, there are no facts, just reporting of things claimed to be facts. In other words, there are no "two bodies in front of you" and you're not being denied by some fellow you discuss with while you're both looking at them. Just reporting that such two bodies exist somewhere, that one believes and the other doesn't. And more often than not, the reporting is of even more abstract things, like statistics (collected with who knows what methodology, and presented and baked to prove who knows what point, using all the tricks one can use to lie with statistics). Second, supposedly physical-domain facts can be fake as well. "This man was shot by person X" (leaving no room to hypothesis) while X might not have done it, or might have been framed - even if there were witnesses attesting that X did it and even a court found it so (many people have been later found innocent e.g. by DNA or further research decades after the fact, victims of over-jealous prosecutors, false testimony, setups, facial similarities, racist bias, and so on). Despite their guilt being not a hypothesis but a fact with "evidence", it was still bogus. Second, pure hypothesis is often presented as fact, and people are called out for not believing it, all the time.
- aikah 8y ago
  > Just because people don't know the difference between a fact and a hypothesis/conclusion doesn't mean there are no facts; unless you want to go full ontological skeptic and dispute that it is possible to ever know anything (never go full sophist!). Journalists themselves have been blurring the line between facts and opinion for a long time now. The simple act of omitting an information because the information doesn't fit a specific narrative is already an attempt at building that very narrative. And journalists have become very good at information hiding to shape points of views. First right wing media, then left wing media who broadly adopted that strategy. So it's not simply about facts. You can be factual while not giving the whole picture of an event, you can still deceive people.
- charlesism 8y ago
  > unless you want to go full ontological skeptic > and dispute that it is possible to ever know > anything The only flaw in claiming that nothing is 100% knowable is that it unsettles people. "Never go full sophist" is just an appeal to "common sense." I don't mean that in a good way, I mean it in a "everyone knows the earth is the center of the universe" way.
coldtea 8y ago
>The fact that two dead bodies discovered may not be under dispute. The moment, one says that these two were killed, the other says that these two committed suicide--you see, two theories (homicide vs suicide) are presenting the phenomenon in two different ways. Not to mention a huge history of governments and news organizations all around the world presenting it as one case, when it was the other. I'm not even talking about "conspiracy theories" here. I'm taking about the tons of later confirmed cases (when more data became available, when some whistleblowers came out, when the regime fell and a new one opened the old locked archives, and so on). Even for the US, there's a ton of history, from the Watergate and Hoover, to FBI efforts to discredit civil rights activists, the Contra affair (drug dealing, selling guns to Iran), helping Pinochet, to WMD claims, to Snowden's revelations, and so on. Imagine less transparent regimes (you don't need to go that far to exotic dictatorships either, e.g. just read Italy's political history from the 70s to 2018). Younger people used to understand this much better in the 60s and 70s and trust those sources less. Now those same outlets (and the online one's that replaced them) like their shit doesn't stink and can't ever possibly stink, and many go along with this and treat anyone casting doubt as some deranged conspiracist.
zeroname 8y ago
> Today, we are in a state of disputing facts, because people are disputing theories behind stating such facts. Let me give you an example: a reporter finds two dead bodies. The fact that two dead bodies discovered may not be under dispute. The moment, one says that these two were killed, the other says that these two committed suicide--you see, two theories (homicide vs suicide) are presenting the phenomenon in two different ways. Let me list the facts in your "story": - There are two dead bodies - One person claims a killing - Another person claims a suicide Those are the facts. The claims themselves are not facts, the fact is that there are claims. They're not theories either, they're just claims, which may themselves be supported facts not presented here. What makes something a fact is evidence: I can walk up to the dead bodies and confirm their death, I can talk to person A or B and have them repeat their claim, or maybe there are convincing records of the dead bodies and the people giving the claim. If evidence should show up supporting either person's claim, either the murder or the suicide may become fact, but not sooner. Ultimately, in such a situation, you cannot 100% rule out that it's all the most elaborate hoax ever, or that we're all in a simulation. We're just gonna have to disregard that to get on with our lives.

philipov 8y ago

There are facts. You said yourself "The fact that two dead bodies discovered may not be under dispute." That's the fact. Everything else you said isn't a fact, it's a hypothesis. Just because people don't know the difference between a fact and a hypothesis/conclusion doesn't mean there are no facts; unless you want to go full ontological skeptic and dispute that it is possible to ever know anything (never go full sophist!). The real issue is that we have a breakdown of good faith in civil conversation. That makes society impossible. At the point where you argue that there are not two bodies in front of me, even though there are two bodies in front of me, I might as well stop arguing with you and instead start punching you. Then you can argue that your pain is just theoretical.

apocalypstyx 8y ago
What if they were conjoined twins who couldn't have previously been separated without killing both? *edit Or, in less cutesy terms, considering that much of the pro/anti-abortion argument (on both sides) often rests on tacit and irreconcilable definitions of what a person is, the point where the woman's body ends and another begins, when is it appropriate (other than perhaps under the most obvious of circumstances) to charge and assailant that there were two homicides, rather than one? That is, when does the definition become more than personal belief?
coldtea 8y ago
>There are facts. You said yourself "The fact that two dead bodies discovered may not be under dispute." That's the fact. Everything else you said isn't a fact, it's a hypothesis. Just because people don't know the difference between a fact and a hypothesis/conclusion doesn't mean there are no facts; The distinction between fact and hypothesis is a red herring. First, unless one has verified something themselves, with their own eyes or carefully checked primary sources, there are no facts, just reporting of things claimed to be facts. In other words, there are no "two bodies in front of you" and you're not being denied by some fellow you discuss with while you're both looking at them. Just reporting that such two bodies exist somewhere, that one believes and the other doesn't. And more often than not, the reporting is of even more abstract things, like statistics (collected with who knows what methodology, and presented and baked to prove who knows what point, using all the tricks one can use to lie with statistics). Second, supposedly physical-domain facts can be fake as well. "This man was shot by person X" (leaving no room to hypothesis) while X might not have done it, or might have been framed - even if there were witnesses attesting that X did it and even a court found it so (many people have been later found innocent e.g. by DNA or further research decades after the fact, victims of over-jealous prosecutors, false testimony, setups, facial similarities, racist bias, and so on). Despite their guilt being not a hypothesis but a fact with "evidence", it was still bogus. Second, pure hypothesis is often presented as fact, and people are called out for not believing it, all the time.
aikah 8y ago
> Just because people don't know the difference between a fact and a hypothesis/conclusion doesn't mean there are no facts; unless you want to go full ontological skeptic and dispute that it is possible to ever know anything (never go full sophist!). Journalists themselves have been blurring the line between facts and opinion for a long time now. The simple act of omitting an information because the information doesn't fit a specific narrative is already an attempt at building that very narrative. And journalists have become very good at information hiding to shape points of views. First right wing media, then left wing media who broadly adopted that strategy. So it's not simply about facts. You can be factual while not giving the whole picture of an event, you can still deceive people.
charlesism 8y ago
> unless you want to go full ontological skeptic > and dispute that it is possible to ever know > anything The only flaw in claiming that nothing is 100% knowable is that it unsettles people. "Never go full sophist" is just an appeal to "common sense." I don't mean that in a good way, I mean it in a "everyone knows the earth is the center of the universe" way.

coldtea 8y ago

>The fact that two dead bodies discovered may not be under dispute. The moment, one says that these two were killed, the other says that these two committed suicide--you see, two theories (homicide vs suicide) are presenting the phenomenon in two different ways. Not to mention a huge history of governments and news organizations all around the world presenting it as one case, when it was the other. I'm not even talking about "conspiracy theories" here. I'm taking about the tons of later confirmed cases (when more data became available, when some whistleblowers came out, when the regime fell and a new one opened the old locked archives, and so on). Even for the US, there's a ton of history, from the Watergate and Hoover, to FBI efforts to discredit civil rights activists, the Contra affair (drug dealing, selling guns to Iran), helping Pinochet, to WMD claims, to Snowden's revelations, and so on. Imagine less transparent regimes (you don't need to go that far to exotic dictatorships either, e.g. just read Italy's political history from the 70s to 2018). Younger people used to understand this much better in the 60s and 70s and trust those sources less. Now those same outlets (and the online one's that replaced them) like their shit doesn't stink and can't ever possibly stink, and many go along with this and treat anyone casting doubt as some deranged conspiracist.

zeroname 8y ago

> Today, we are in a state of disputing facts, because people are disputing theories behind stating such facts. Let me give you an example: a reporter finds two dead bodies. The fact that two dead bodies discovered may not be under dispute. The moment, one says that these two were killed, the other says that these two committed suicide--you see, two theories (homicide vs suicide) are presenting the phenomenon in two different ways. Let me list the facts in your "story": - There are two dead bodies - One person claims a killing - Another person claims a suicide Those are the facts. The claims themselves are not facts, the fact is that there are claims. They're not theories either, they're just claims, which may themselves be supported facts not presented here. What makes something a fact is evidence: I can walk up to the dead bodies and confirm their death, I can talk to person A or B and have them repeat their claim, or maybe there are convincing records of the dead bodies and the people giving the claim. If evidence should show up supporting either person's claim, either the murder or the suicide may become fact, but not sooner. Ultimately, in such a situation, you cannot 100% rule out that it's all the most elaborate hoax ever, or that we're all in a simulation. We're just gonna have to disregard that to get on with our lives.