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It's hard to come up with good policy around this outside of educating people.

by qaq 8y ago

ThomPete 8y ago
Being educated does not shield you from misinformation, unfortunately. I fact I wouldn't be surprised that the well educated is part of the problem when they get into politics because they abstract things and start to think too much in statistics and lose a feeling for what it means to be most people in this world. The end up creating their own misinformation filter. The current political climate has no shortage of well-educated people on both sides who have been doing more damage than good the last 40 years.
- 0x445442 8y ago
  Yes this and Joeri’s post are on point. Unless you’re in the realm of mathematics or the physical sciences the more the education the stronger the disputes over “facts”. It’s hubris to think any group can be the objective gatekeeper of truth unless they’re just reporting demonstrable facts like ball scores or weather.
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    Of course more random education doesn't educate people specifically about influence and propaganda. Why would it?
    - ThomPete 8y ago
      I don't think there is a specific education you can take that will shield you from influence or propaganda. In my experience, it's about something else. Something more fundamental.
      - zzzcpan 8y ago
        Currently it's part of political science / politology mixed with psychology. It could change your worldview so much that it would completely destroy any trust in governments, media, political systems. Which is actually a necessary first step in order to understand how these things work. I guess this is the fundamental thing you are talking about. Once you get there, you can start learning more in depth about these things. It's something for life. You will never be able to trust any government again.
        ThomPete 8y ago
        "You will never be able to trust any government again." which is itself prone to lead to you accepting misinformation. That's the point though. You can't escape these things.
  - someguydave 8y ago
    Not only is it hubris in the sense that nobody has all the answers, it is also hubris in the sense that it is a naked power grab. Whoever decides what is true also rules.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  There's a management anti-pattern called "management by aggregate statistic" It goes something like this: take a large human population doing something, like working at Division X. Take a multivariate problem. Abstract out an aggregate statistic along one variable. Report that one data point, generalize, then assume some correlation-causation magic. Manage to make that number better. This causes a lot of the pain and suffering we see in large companies. People are working and managing to a number that's supposed to mean one thing, but it doesn't. (Whatever metric you manage, they'll game). And it happens over and over again. Worst thing about it? The smarter you are, generally, the more difficult it is to see yourself engaging in this anti-pattern. Sure, it's easy to spot others. But for some reason, it's nothing you'd ever fall for. It's the way our brains are supposed to work. Guess the "right enough" answer from lots of noisy, inconsistent input. Intelligence and education are not magic fairy dust that prevent us from being human. They may make it easier to describe what's happening in general terms, but they don't upgrade us to Human 2.0 or anything.
  - ThomPete 8y ago
    Yeah, it always reminds me of the observation that humans on average have one testicle :)
empath75 8y ago
A lot of very smart, very educated people are creating and spreading this misinformation intentionally or unintentionally.
- qaq 8y ago
  I guess should have being more specific as in educate people to identify misinformation campaigns. The alternative of giving government powers to sensor information looks even less reasonable.
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    Education works, except that the whole system relies on the same propaganda tricks. Governments use education to spread ideology and they would never properly teach people about their tricks, they want people to believe in all the bullshit, get used to the system, participate in the system, obey it, they don't want to prepare dissidents at schools.
    - qaq 8y ago
      good point I guess it up to people to organize and not rely on gov. for this
Joeri 8y ago
It’s not that simple, because there have been many attempts at educating and things haven’t improved. There’s evidence that awareness of biases makes one more susceptible to them, and that intelligence is also correlated with a higher susceptibility to bias. Intelligence and education give us tools to strengthen the form of our argument, and that enables us to better hang on to bias. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/why-smart-people-are-stupid https://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/why-smart-peop... Also, giving people evidence that disproves their core beliefs tends to strengthen those beliefs, until a certain tipping point, so incomplete education may actually be worse than no education. https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/ https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/ Fixing misinformation is a hard problem. It’s not just a matter of getting people into contact with facts.
- qaq 8y ago
  I think if people can clearly identify even the more obvious misinformation campaigns by foreign powers targeting them that would already help a good bit.
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    What about the much more dangerous domestic misinformation/disinformation campaigns? The ones that make you go buy a 12 pack of Coke you don't need that's going to effect your health. What about things like COINTELPRO? What about the beauty product ad telling me I'm ugly and need mascara? We should make Manufacturing Consent and The People's History of The United States mandatory reading for high school students, but that would probably change too many minds against our own system as kids would know how things really work, and how history really happened instead of the wishy-washy 'everything wasn't that bad!' crap they teach in grade school.

It's hard to come up with good policy around this outside of educating people.

by qaq 8y ago

It's hard to come up with good policy around this outside of educating people.

Being educated does not shield you from misinformation, unfortunately. I fact I wouldn't be surprised that the well educated is part of the problem when they get into politics because they abstract things and start to think too much in statistics and lose a feeling for what it means to be most people in this world. The end up creating their own misinformation filter. The current political climate has no shortage of well-educated people on both sides who have been doing more damage than good the last 40 years.

0x445442 8y ago
Yes this and Joeri’s post are on point. Unless you’re in the realm of mathematics or the physical sciences the more the education the stronger the disputes over “facts”. It’s hubris to think any group can be the objective gatekeeper of truth unless they’re just reporting demonstrable facts like ball scores or weather.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  Of course more random education doesn't educate people specifically about influence and propaganda. Why would it?
  - ThomPete 8y ago
    I don't think there is a specific education you can take that will shield you from influence or propaganda. In my experience, it's about something else. Something more fundamental.
    - zzzcpan 8y ago
      Currently it's part of political science / politology mixed with psychology. It could change your worldview so much that it would completely destroy any trust in governments, media, political systems. Which is actually a necessary first step in order to understand how these things work. I guess this is the fundamental thing you are talking about. Once you get there, you can start learning more in depth about these things. It's something for life. You will never be able to trust any government again.
      - ThomPete 8y ago
        "You will never be able to trust any government again." which is itself prone to lead to you accepting misinformation. That's the point though. You can't escape these things.
- someguydave 8y ago
  Not only is it hubris in the sense that nobody has all the answers, it is also hubris in the sense that it is a naked power grab. Whoever decides what is true also rules.
DanielBMarkham 8y ago
There's a management anti-pattern called "management by aggregate statistic" It goes something like this: take a large human population doing something, like working at Division X. Take a multivariate problem. Abstract out an aggregate statistic along one variable. Report that one data point, generalize, then assume some correlation-causation magic. Manage to make that number better. This causes a lot of the pain and suffering we see in large companies. People are working and managing to a number that's supposed to mean one thing, but it doesn't. (Whatever metric you manage, they'll game). And it happens over and over again. Worst thing about it? The smarter you are, generally, the more difficult it is to see yourself engaging in this anti-pattern. Sure, it's easy to spot others. But for some reason, it's nothing you'd ever fall for. It's the way our brains are supposed to work. Guess the "right enough" answer from lots of noisy, inconsistent input. Intelligence and education are not magic fairy dust that prevent us from being human. They may make it easier to describe what's happening in general terms, but they don't upgrade us to Human 2.0 or anything.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  Yeah, it always reminds me of the observation that humans on average have one testicle :)

empath75 8y ago

A lot of very smart, very educated people are creating and spreading this misinformation intentionally or unintentionally.

qaq 8y ago
I guess should have being more specific as in educate people to identify misinformation campaigns. The alternative of giving government powers to sensor information looks even less reasonable.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  Education works, except that the whole system relies on the same propaganda tricks. Governments use education to spread ideology and they would never properly teach people about their tricks, they want people to believe in all the bullshit, get used to the system, participate in the system, obey it, they don't want to prepare dissidents at schools.
  - qaq 8y ago
    good point I guess it up to people to organize and not rely on gov. for this

Joeri 8y ago

It’s not that simple, because there have been many attempts at educating and things haven’t improved. There’s evidence that awareness of biases makes one more susceptible to them, and that intelligence is also correlated with a higher susceptibility to bias. Intelligence and education give us tools to strengthen the form of our argument, and that enables us to better hang on to bias. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/why-smart-people-are-stupid https://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/why-smart-peop... Also, giving people evidence that disproves their core beliefs tends to strengthen those beliefs, until a certain tipping point, so incomplete education may actually be worse than no education. https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/ https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/ Fixing misinformation is a hard problem. It’s not just a matter of getting people into contact with facts.

qaq 8y ago
I think if people can clearly identify even the more obvious misinformation campaigns by foreign powers targeting them that would already help a good bit.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  What about the much more dangerous domestic misinformation/disinformation campaigns? The ones that make you go buy a 12 pack of Coke you don't need that's going to effect your health. What about things like COINTELPRO? What about the beauty product ad telling me I'm ugly and need mascara? We should make Manufacturing Consent and The People's History of The United States mandatory reading for high school students, but that would probably change too many minds against our own system as kids would know how things really work, and how history really happened instead of the wishy-washy 'everything wasn't that bad!' crap they teach in grade school.