7 ms·

You might find that the people you see posting and repeating these lies see the things that you post and repeat as lies.

organsnyder 7y ago
And one of the sides has to be right. Sometimes the facts are difficult to ascertain, but so many of the lies spread via social media are easily disproved by consulting primary sources.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  >And one of the sides has to be right Not necessarily. In the US one of our presidents taught us a long time ago that "both may be" wrong, and "one must be" wrong.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
  Perhaps the following is obvious, but other possibilities may exist: - both sides are wrong - the participants are unwittingly talking past each each other Etc.
- JackFr 7y ago
  But the thing is, while facts are objectively true or false, a policy choice can't be objectively right. What you often see is, policy masquerading as facts. "If you accept X then we need to do Y." "I don't think we should do Y" "Then you reject facts." Something everyone seems to have forgotten is that intelligent, well-informed, people of good will can look at the same facts and come up with different policy prescriptions.
  - claytongulick 7y ago
    As I've gotten older, I've started to doubt the idea that there are any objective facts at all, or at least if there are, the human brain has a limited capacity to comprehend and communicate them. (Edit) This doesn't mean I don't believe in truth, right/wrong etc... it means that I'm constantly balancing what's most likely to be trueish - subject to higher quality information at a later time.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    a policy choice can't be objectively right A policy choice is the linkage of a fact to a particular goal; while few policy choices are so simple as to admit of a binary choice, you can certainly rank them on a gradient. Of course, it helps if your goal is clearly definable and you maintain awareness of consistency. Otherwise, a goal of, say, improving life expectancy might be satisfied by a eugenics policy which made unpersons of those with medical conditions that would lower life expectancy.
    - JackFr 7y ago
      But a goal cannot objectively be right or wrong. It could be agreed upon, but it can never be true in the sense that objective facts are true. To go even further, people may agree on the 'what' of a goal, but disagree on the 'why' of a goal, which very much inform what policy choices they are amenable.
- claytongulick 7y ago
  Even more than this- the desire to silence and destroy those who disagree, sometimes physically. Some have called this increased polarization. I see it as a slide towards violent authoritarianism.
- ideonexus 7y ago
  > but so many of the lies spread via social media are easily disproved by consulting primary sources. I wish this were true. I used to post snopes links and primary sources to Baby Boomer posts on Facebook, but it's hopeless. They either don't trust the fact-check, can rationalize it away, or just don't care. One of the most shocking realizations of my adult life has been learning that a very large portion of my otherwise high-functioning friends will believe anything, no matter how crazy or self-contradictory, if it reinforces their sense of self-righteousness.
  - organsnyder 7y ago
    Oh, no doubt. Easily disproving something is very different than convincing someone that it's disproven.
  - meheleventyone 7y ago
    And a whole bunch of people that see the minority or unpopular opinion as more valid because of it.
  - pnako 7y ago
    Why exactly should they trust Snopes in particular, as opposed to Washington Post, Fox News, RT, the North Korean news agency, etc.
gbrown 7y ago
They frequently do see things in that way - and they're wrong. In fact, they're worse than wrong, because many people see the dueling assertions of fact and give up on knowing the truth of a situation altogether. This is a classic disinformation technique. We do have the ability to determine truth from fiction, it just takes more work than cynically throwing up your hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying.
- etangent 7y ago
  The desire to "correct" other people who are wrong is the fundamental impulse of authoritarianism.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    No, the desire to correct other people who are wrong is the fundamental impulse of pedantry. The desire to compel others to conform to one’s ideal of correctness is the fundamental impulse of authoritarianism. ...but also libertarianism, for a particular aspect of correctness.
    - claytongulick 7y ago
      Huh? Can you explain? My understanding is that the core value / principle of libertarianism is individual liberty. How do you derive compelling others from that?
      - Jamwinner 7y ago
        Yeah, I agreed until his comment went off the rails there. I have noticed a movement to try to brand libs as 'crypto-republicans' recently for whatever reason. Its okay, and rational to not only think along 2 (or 3 or 5) party lines.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
iso1631 7y ago
The biggest problem from the last 10 years is the spread of "everyone's entitled to an opinion". It seems that objective truth no longer exists in the eyes of the population. This is both a cause and a consequence of the defunding of journalism and the change of the profession from news to views.
- claytongulick 7y ago
  Erm... defunding journalism by who? Private funding is making the situation worse. Public funding is the instrument of authoritarian regimes- state sponsored media. I think the root cause is lack of objective, critical thinking skills, and the glorification of "how it makes you feel" being more important than "is this reasonable". I.e. emotion driving reason, rather than reason driving emotion.
  - iso1631 7y ago
    By society. We don't want to fund people to separate fact from fiction, yet we lack the time and ability as a population to do it ourselves, so we latch onto outlets (especially celebrities) that seem to match our world view, and we treat what they say as gospel.
    - lukifer 7y ago
      I think the vast majority of humans are simply disinterested in objective truth, except to the extent it's actionable in our day-to-day lives; otherwise, our sense-making is driven largely by the utility of social signaling: https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/ https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/ See also: Donald Hoffman's experiments in truth-maximizing vs. fitness-maximizing: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25450 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25450
- quotemstr 7y ago
  Isn't everyone entitled to an opinion though? What you're hitting on, I think, is that the so-called "toxicity" of the internet is just broad disintermediation. Previously, a few people controlled the public narrative. Now, everyone does. Turns out most people don't very much like the worldview that the media elite pushes. Journalism is dying because it's become not only useless as a means of information dissemination --- new media is better at that --- but also because journalists have become contemptuous of the public. They have only themselves to blame.
watwut 7y ago
In the root, there are people who knowingly lie. Hitler knowingly lied. Stalin knowingly lied. Many many people lie being fully aware they lie. The hell, average maanger lies.

organsnyder 7y ago

And one of the sides has to be right. Sometimes the facts are difficult to ascertain, but so many of the lies spread via social media are easily disproved by consulting primary sources.

bilbo0s 7y ago
>And one of the sides has to be right Not necessarily. In the US one of our presidents taught us a long time ago that "both may be" wrong, and "one must be" wrong.
DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
Perhaps the following is obvious, but other possibilities may exist: - both sides are wrong - the participants are unwittingly talking past each each other Etc.
JackFr 7y ago
But the thing is, while facts are objectively true or false, a policy choice can't be objectively right. What you often see is, policy masquerading as facts. "If you accept X then we need to do Y." "I don't think we should do Y" "Then you reject facts." Something everyone seems to have forgotten is that intelligent, well-informed, people of good will can look at the same facts and come up with different policy prescriptions.
- claytongulick 7y ago
  As I've gotten older, I've started to doubt the idea that there are any objective facts at all, or at least if there are, the human brain has a limited capacity to comprehend and communicate them. (Edit) This doesn't mean I don't believe in truth, right/wrong etc... it means that I'm constantly balancing what's most likely to be trueish - subject to higher quality information at a later time.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  a policy choice can't be objectively right A policy choice is the linkage of a fact to a particular goal; while few policy choices are so simple as to admit of a binary choice, you can certainly rank them on a gradient. Of course, it helps if your goal is clearly definable and you maintain awareness of consistency. Otherwise, a goal of, say, improving life expectancy might be satisfied by a eugenics policy which made unpersons of those with medical conditions that would lower life expectancy.
  - JackFr 7y ago
    But a goal cannot objectively be right or wrong. It could be agreed upon, but it can never be true in the sense that objective facts are true. To go even further, people may agree on the 'what' of a goal, but disagree on the 'why' of a goal, which very much inform what policy choices they are amenable.
claytongulick 7y ago
Even more than this- the desire to silence and destroy those who disagree, sometimes physically. Some have called this increased polarization. I see it as a slide towards violent authoritarianism.
ideonexus 7y ago
> but so many of the lies spread via social media are easily disproved by consulting primary sources. I wish this were true. I used to post snopes links and primary sources to Baby Boomer posts on Facebook, but it's hopeless. They either don't trust the fact-check, can rationalize it away, or just don't care. One of the most shocking realizations of my adult life has been learning that a very large portion of my otherwise high-functioning friends will believe anything, no matter how crazy or self-contradictory, if it reinforces their sense of self-righteousness.
- organsnyder 7y ago
  Oh, no doubt. Easily disproving something is very different than convincing someone that it's disproven.
- meheleventyone 7y ago
  And a whole bunch of people that see the minority or unpopular opinion as more valid because of it.
- pnako 7y ago
  Why exactly should they trust Snopes in particular, as opposed to Washington Post, Fox News, RT, the North Korean news agency, etc.

gbrown 7y ago

They frequently do see things in that way - and they're wrong. In fact, they're worse than wrong, because many people see the dueling assertions of fact and give up on knowing the truth of a situation altogether. This is a classic disinformation technique. We do have the ability to determine truth from fiction, it just takes more work than cynically throwing up your hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying.

etangent 7y ago
The desire to "correct" other people who are wrong is the fundamental impulse of authoritarianism.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  No, the desire to correct other people who are wrong is the fundamental impulse of pedantry. The desire to compel others to conform to one’s ideal of correctness is the fundamental impulse of authoritarianism. ...but also libertarianism, for a particular aspect of correctness.
  - claytongulick 7y ago
    Huh? Can you explain? My understanding is that the core value / principle of libertarianism is individual liberty. How do you derive compelling others from that?
    - Jamwinner 7y ago
      Yeah, I agreed until his comment went off the rails there. I have noticed a movement to try to brand libs as 'crypto-republicans' recently for whatever reason. Its okay, and rational to not only think along 2 (or 3 or 5) party lines.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago

iso1631 7y ago

The biggest problem from the last 10 years is the spread of "everyone's entitled to an opinion". It seems that objective truth no longer exists in the eyes of the population. This is both a cause and a consequence of the defunding of journalism and the change of the profession from news to views.

claytongulick 7y ago
Erm... defunding journalism by who? Private funding is making the situation worse. Public funding is the instrument of authoritarian regimes- state sponsored media. I think the root cause is lack of objective, critical thinking skills, and the glorification of "how it makes you feel" being more important than "is this reasonable". I.e. emotion driving reason, rather than reason driving emotion.
- iso1631 7y ago
  By society. We don't want to fund people to separate fact from fiction, yet we lack the time and ability as a population to do it ourselves, so we latch onto outlets (especially celebrities) that seem to match our world view, and we treat what they say as gospel.
  - lukifer 7y ago
    I think the vast majority of humans are simply disinterested in objective truth, except to the extent it's actionable in our day-to-day lives; otherwise, our sense-making is driven largely by the utility of social signaling: https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/ https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/ See also: Donald Hoffman's experiments in truth-maximizing vs. fitness-maximizing: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25450 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25450
quotemstr 7y ago
Isn't everyone entitled to an opinion though? What you're hitting on, I think, is that the so-called "toxicity" of the internet is just broad disintermediation. Previously, a few people controlled the public narrative. Now, everyone does. Turns out most people don't very much like the worldview that the media elite pushes. Journalism is dying because it's become not only useless as a means of information dissemination --- new media is better at that --- but also because journalists have become contemptuous of the public. They have only themselves to blame.

watwut 7y ago

In the root, there are people who knowingly lie. Hitler knowingly lied. Stalin knowingly lied. Many many people lie being fully aware they lie. The hell, average maanger lies.