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I feel like it’s time to bring in Heinlein’s Fair Witness concept: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fair%20Witness https://www.urbandictionary.co

I feel like it’s time to bring in Heinlein’s Fair Witness concept: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fair%20Witness https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fair%20Witne... If you think about it, when we had relatively few journalists and their reputation was on the line with every story they wrote they in a way were fair witnesses. Since we have moved to a hybrid model of professional journalists and a huge caste of YouTubers, podcasters, bloggers, and twitters, it has become impossible to hold everyone to a high journalistic standard. At the same time Fox News has brought on an era of politicized news so the bias is now inherent. Maybe if we had a few hundred fair witnesses that offered a professional service we could have a way to verify facts. Then again, it’s one thing to have a fair witness present facts, it’s another to have that witness’s likeness be deep faked and broadcast all over the web saying something they didn’t actually say. Another solution may be regulatory: anyone broadcasting a deep fake with a huge disclaimer that it is a fake gets a 20% of their net worth fine. Draconian but I can see it working.

ben_w 6y ago
We need something, but Fair Witnesses seem both exploitable and unachievable given the way human memories work.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  “Expert witnesses” then?
  - ben_w 6y ago
    “Expert” is a misused term, much like “exponential”. I see the value of the press as being as much of an intelligence agency as the combined CIA, NSA, and FBI, but serving the electorate and investigating all those with power — politicians, police, military, religious, business, and so on — so that the electorate can make informed decisions. I don’t know how to get there from here. Heck, I don’t even know if we’ve ever really been there, or if the press has always been comfortably manipulated by those with power. But yeah, I assume genuine experts are part of the solution.
    - contravariant 6y ago
      Off topic, but 'exponential decrease' is my favourite misuse, simply because exponential decrease is slower than a linear (steady) decrease.
- contravariant 6y ago
  Even if achievable it seem inhumane. And besides it seems far more achievable to just have trustworthy journalists, even though that's already difficult in itself.

ben_w 6y ago

We need something, but Fair Witnesses seem both exploitable and unachievable given the way human memories work.

dvtrn 6y ago
“Expert witnesses” then?
- ben_w 6y ago
  “Expert” is a misused term, much like “exponential”. I see the value of the press as being as much of an intelligence agency as the combined CIA, NSA, and FBI, but serving the electorate and investigating all those with power — politicians, police, military, religious, business, and so on — so that the electorate can make informed decisions. I don’t know how to get there from here. Heck, I don’t even know if we’ve ever really been there, or if the press has always been comfortably manipulated by those with power. But yeah, I assume genuine experts are part of the solution.
  - contravariant 6y ago
    Off topic, but 'exponential decrease' is my favourite misuse, simply because exponential decrease is slower than a linear (steady) decrease.
contravariant 6y ago
Even if achievable it seem inhumane. And besides it seems far more achievable to just have trustworthy journalists, even though that's already difficult in itself.