4 ms·

This resonates with me. I sometimes used to have similar arguments about some forwarded messages with my late father, who was an electronics engineer and really

This resonates with me. I sometimes used to have similar arguments about some forwarded messages with my late father, who was an electronics engineer and really sharp in his prime. Intuitively it'd seem that the greater dissemination of information with social media and messaging apps would make people smarter and promote critical thinking, but in reality they seem to have the opposite effect. I still keep wondering if it's the environment or his age that was the primary factor. Do we become more gullible and less discerning as we grow older?. Perhaps I'll be much worse when I'll be as old as he was.

abathur 6y ago
These concerns, in turn, resonate with me. I think my father is still sharp and have several competing quotidian explanations (projections?) of what's going on. But, it's impossible to silence the nagging worry that there's a chemical/mental imbalance brewing, or that this will be one of those things I'll look back on some day as an early sign of something.
munificent 6y ago
> Intuitively it'd seem that the greater dissemination of information with social media and messaging apps would make people smarter and promote critical thinking I naively believed this too. It's wrong. The Internet and the various apps, sites, and social media things running on it aren't an information dissemination system, they are a data dissemination system. They take bytes and get them in front of many humans. The system itself cares not one whit as to whether the data it transmits has any connection to reality. The result is that the Internet functions as a mostly indiscriminate amplifier of its inputs. Sadly, it is much easier to input lies than truth. First of all, creating lies takes much less effort since no measurement or fact checking is required. I could tell you a hundred lies about what the neighbor next door is doing in the time it took you to go over there and ring the doorbell. Worse, my lies can be crafted to take full advantage of all of the human biases and flaws in the social media systems. I can make lies that are emotionally loaded, play into stereotypical narratives, or have evocative photos. Meanwhile, you foolish truth-teller are restricted to only the narratives that actually happened and the imagery that you actually took of the event. When you think of London in the Industrial Revolution, do you picture all of the bright shiny products of industrialization? The newly affordable textiles? Or is it more an image of a city covered filthy coal soot? It feels like we're in the latter state right now: buried under the pollution of disinformation. We need to think of "information pollution" and need an "information environmentalism" movement if we're going to survive the Information Age.

abathur 6y ago

These concerns, in turn, resonate with me. I think my father is still sharp and have several competing quotidian explanations (projections?) of what's going on. But, it's impossible to silence the nagging worry that there's a chemical/mental imbalance brewing, or that this will be one of those things I'll look back on some day as an early sign of something.

munificent 6y ago

> Intuitively it'd seem that the greater dissemination of information with social media and messaging apps would make people smarter and promote critical thinking I naively believed this too. It's wrong. The Internet and the various apps, sites, and social media things running on it aren't an information dissemination system, they are a data dissemination system. They take bytes and get them in front of many humans. The system itself cares not one whit as to whether the data it transmits has any connection to reality. The result is that the Internet functions as a mostly indiscriminate amplifier of its inputs. Sadly, it is much easier to input lies than truth. First of all, creating lies takes much less effort since no measurement or fact checking is required. I could tell you a hundred lies about what the neighbor next door is doing in the time it took you to go over there and ring the doorbell. Worse, my lies can be crafted to take full advantage of all of the human biases and flaws in the social media systems. I can make lies that are emotionally loaded, play into stereotypical narratives, or have evocative photos. Meanwhile, you foolish truth-teller are restricted to only the narratives that actually happened and the imagery that you actually took of the event. When you think of London in the Industrial Revolution, do you picture all of the bright shiny products of industrialization? The newly affordable textiles? Or is it more an image of a city covered filthy coal soot? It feels like we're in the latter state right now: buried under the pollution of disinformation. We need to think of "information pollution" and need an "information environmentalism" movement if we're going to survive the Information Age.