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I think it's important to realise that anybody can be influenced, even smart people who look at any information with healthy criticism. Unfortunately, the huma

by ath92 6y ago

I think it's important to realise that anybody can be influenced, even smart people who look at any information with healthy criticism. Unfortunately, the human brain is not without its problems. One of those problems is that information that is repeated often will start to "feel" true, even if it is false. If you want to read about these kinds of biases, I'd recommend the book Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman. With platforms like YouTube, it's incredibly easy to get stuck in a filter bubble. Their recommendation algorithm is more than happy to keep recommending you conspiracy theories, because users seem to like those, and the algorithm doesn't care about the actual content. And once you've watched 10 of those videos, the 11th will no longer sound as ridiculous as it would have if you had watched it without first being (perhaps subconsciously) influenced by those first 10 videos. This is a real risk of algorithm-based recommendation platforms, and something that Google/Facebook are trying to address now because it has already caused real problems in society.

feralimal 6y ago
Yes. But do you mean to use conspiracy in a pejorative sense? I think its pretty obvious that people 'breathe together' and formulate plans that work best for them. So with us, at the individual level, and so with those who have all the money and operate at the macro level. Are you saying that conspiracies don't happen? What is your method of finding the true ones? The answer is that we require unfiltered information, and open communication with others. We need to personally engage in verifying claims. We can only confirm or deny whatever claims are made, if we have the information. If that is unavailable because of censorship we can only verify very little. This is where we are today. As we can only verify very little, the problem is that we are not getting the information. Who is restricting information then? Is the world's leading, corporate-sponsored, search indexer (google), preventing the free flow of information? Well, yes it is. So we can say google is part of the problem, not the solution.

by ath92 6y ago

feralimal 6y ago

Yes. But do you mean to use conspiracy in a pejorative sense? I think its pretty obvious that people 'breathe together' and formulate plans that work best for them. So with us, at the individual level, and so with those who have all the money and operate at the macro level. Are you saying that conspiracies don't happen? What is your method of finding the true ones? The answer is that we require unfiltered information, and open communication with others. We need to personally engage in verifying claims. We can only confirm or deny whatever claims are made, if we have the information. If that is unavailable because of censorship we can only verify very little. This is where we are today. As we can only verify very little, the problem is that we are not getting the information. Who is restricting information then? Is the world's leading, corporate-sponsored, search indexer (google), preventing the free flow of information? Well, yes it is. So we can say google is part of the problem, not the solution.