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One of the more interesting results from dynamic systems theory is that all simultaneously complex and stable systems are stable because they are stabilized by
by lostmyoldone 7y ago
One of the more interesting results from dynamic systems theory is that all simultaneously complex and stable systems are stable because they are stabilized by internal opposing forces.
As authoritarianism imply trying to shape the world through power and authority, the society must then either become unstable, stop being complex (?!), or respond with equivalent power by eg. overthrowing the government.
One could say that the courts of public opinion perform worse, and is thus better as it decrease the total amount of power/energy in the system. Ie, it's ultimately less lethal in most cases. Not to say that the public can't be terrifying, but on average it seems to be a much better bet.
Allowing large scale disinformation campaigns is a problem for democracies, and it must be combated vigorously, or one could get into an situation where the disinformants have too much power, with much of the same systemic results as an authoritarian leadership.
- quotemstr 7y agoWho gets to decide what counts as "disinformation"? Combatting disinformation campaigns is just a euphemism for giving someone the power to decide what's true, and a policy of enforcing some official truth just leads to errors in decision-making.
- pjc50 7y agoCertain things are definitely false, but in attractive ways. If you don't have a process for getting them out of public decision making you end up making policy based on Protocols of the Elders of Zion or the 21st century garbage equivalent.
- quotemstr 7y agoAgain: who operates this process? Who gets to decide the official truth? You? Why? We have a process for filtering untruths out of common knowledge: ideas competing on a fair basis in public has worked for hundreds of years. We should continue relying on the marketplace of ideas instead of just accepting pjc50's official list of true facts.
- pjc50 7y agoI don't have a solution, and I don't even have a list of facts, but I can find out where things have been thoroughly investigated and determined to be false. It's rather like climate change, there is no one single solution and it requires continuous effort by almost everybody. Giving up on truth is like giving up on the environment and throwing your trash in the street.
- quotemstr 7y ago"I don't have a solution" is a cop-out. You clearly have a solution in mind, because you've rejected the option of just letting people form their own opinions. Every single time I've seen someone make an argument similar to yours about how we need to protect the public from "disinformation", I've found that once you probe deeply enough, the real argument is that what the person talking about "disinformation" really wants is to put himself and his friends in charge of constructing official truths for consumption by the public. No, thanks.
- pjc50 7y agoMeanwhile, doing nothing allows "vaccines are dangerous" and "Jews are dangerous" messages to become popular to the point that people get killed. And your response to that is that any number of deaths is better than even the most limited attempt to remove known lies from public discourse?
- quotemstr 7y agoIt's interesting how you offer censorship as the only alternative to "doing nothing". People trying to gain extraordinary power over others always that they need special authority to deal with some extraordinary emergency. I refuse to accept the idea that edgy things said on the internet constitute some kind of Reichstag fire justifying giving tech companies or politicians or NGOs the right to decide the truth. If an idea is bad, you can discredit it using argumentation and evidence. If you can't, your alternative probably isn't as correct as you think. Who are you to decide a priori which ideas are good and which ones are bad? Who gave you that authority?
- someguyorother 7y agoAuthoritarianism has its share of opposing forces too, I would wager. The vassals-clients are trying to switch places with the lords-patrons, and the patrons have to neutralize those attempts. A lot of work is wasted on policing: watching the suspects and watching the watchers.
- FpUser 7y ago"Allowing large scale disinformation campaigns is a problem for democracies" It does not have to be disinformation. Given how easily the majority is brainwashed by propaganda it is not that difficult to imagine mass postings that while being technically true are presented in a way that helps to form needed state of mind and just progress from there. How do you fight that?
- quotemstr 7y agoYou don't. If the masses change their minds in a way that you don't like in response to true facts, either put out your own competing true facts or just accept that you make have been wrong. A worldview that can exist only with the support of censorship doesn't deserve to exist at all.
- damnyou 7y agoI've always subscribed to the notion that while there is an objective reality, in many cases humans have no hope of finding it directly and instead only have access to it through cultural filters. What this means is that cultural processes can change what facts are considered true over time.
- quotemstr 7y agoThat's postmodernist baloney. There is an objective truth, and we can asymptotically approach it. Humanity can access facts. It's nonsense to suggest that we can't distinguish between claims because everything is false.