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So if those that think the world is round and those who think it is flat both think the moderator is biased he must be doing something right? Both sides are wro

So if those that think the world is round and those who think it is flat both think the moderator is biased he must be doing something right? Both sides are wrong because technically the earth isn't exactly flat? What about climate change deniers vs climate scientists?

lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I was thinking "Democrats and Republicans" not Flat earthers vs ... umm everyone else. The problem is not the obvious cases. Child porn is a crime in every country, it can be hunted down online. Society generally agrees on that. Similarly for flat earthers. 99% of people in a pub or street will roll their eyes at this shit. It's only because it's all over youtube and so are we that we think it's big. Problems where most societies mostly agree are not the issue. We could build some kind of rebuttal system - a distributed URL based downvoting system. This would help with the labelling / tagging of dubious posts - at the prominence level of the original post. (ie some W3C tagging for fact checking) But this is also not about agreeing the same set of facts - people rarely disagree over facts unless facts lead to different political positions. And that's the real issue. Climate change is probably too huge to cover but let me try - Climate change does not have a solution - the bomb has dropped we are just waiting for the shockwave to hit. Now we can stop pouring fuel on the fire (metaphor breaking sound) by moving off fossil fuel, but also we need to handle the massive changes involving water rights (hello India China) immigration as people get displaced by flooding (hello everywhere). Denial of this is a human response - because otherwise you have to welcome massive change and people who are not confident their needs will be looked after by the establishment. This is the real reason for the disparity in numbers of deniers in US and canada / europe - if US built a welfare state tomorrow it would see a massive drop off in climate change denial. So I think I lost my thread - but fact checking is only part of the politics problem - rapid rebuttal for every stupid online statement is a fine thing to aim for - something good recommendation algorithms could really help with ! But it stops there. Yes it is fine to mandate Ford and GM build cars with airbags and seatbelts - but it is crazy to ask them to build more parking spaces or solve rush hour. Same goes for online political discussions - YouTube must "fix" (god knows what how) recommendations and facebook must fix the newsfeed and twitter must something. But it has to stop somewhere around the point that someone reading a post is informed - that it is clear and obvious there is debate around what is being said. After that it is about human biases and cognitive failures - ie politics. We should work to ensure everyone has the same set of facts. Yes. But the same set of facts when run through different mental models come up with different actions. And I don't think it is right to have FAANG ensure everyone has the same mental model. That's what politics is about - and the fact that two people can have the same facts but use different mental models is basically the difference between every political party ever - and is why everyone thinks they are being censored - because if they weren't censored then obviously everyone would vote their way. On a side note this is something software gives us hope for - I can conceive of building a politics observatory - a sort of version of that UK economy coloured water experiment - where you can view the economy globally - the shows made in China shipped to Fermany and sold - and see how immigration or welfare changes the model. I think it's possible to have people build up a real software model - to try and reflect in software what their own biases are. I think if this was an app everyone had it would have interesting repercussions- would everyone tend towards a common model? Could you ask for explanations why your model on (prejudice dunjoir) was wrong? Hang on - I just described a university education.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  Saying that the president was born in Kenya is not running facts through different mental models, it is disinformation. Saying there was widespread fraud in the election with zero evidence is disinformation. Saying jews were behind 9/11 is disinformation. If we can't recognize that these are weaponized attacks, not differences in opinion, then we can't defend against them.
  - lifeisstillgood 6y ago
    Yes ... But these are the easy edge cases. It should be trivial (it was trivial) to rebut. The problem is not that there was no evidence Obama was Kenyan, it's that there were plenty of people who wanted to believe it. Because they did not want a Black president, or because their mental model is so far away from reality that they think it's possible for someone to cheat that huge. Then the issue is not everyone having same facts in front of them - it's everyone being willing to accept facts, and so change their own mental models. And then we are back to politics. Look, I fully support some system of global rebuttal. It will mean no politician can open their mouths without opposition rebuttal - but that's pretty much where we are now in mainstream media. (it's an argument that this is an attraction of online social media - there was no rebuttal (at least no rebuttal that appeared in the same timeline) I am less happy about the idea of FAANG deleting posts - deleting criminal posts is a tough call (which crinalmlaw to use etc), deleting minsinformation - that's a huge open wound But the issue is not misinformation - the issue is fertile ground these posts find. And that is about mental models and that is about changing peoples internal mental models of the world - that is getting others to agree with you and that is human politics - and there is no tech fix for that. That is schools and education and society and diversity and a feeling of belonging and investment in society and shared protection. Surprised the countries with the poor welfare systems have this problem worst? Don't be. Worried about politicians who are always facing rebuttal - just imagine a world where politicians have to treat their statements like scientific publications - we might start getting somewhere !
    - confidantlake 6y ago
      Education was part of it but isn't a silver bullet. I had coworkers that espoused both the 9/11 and the Kenya thing, despite it being easy to rebut. Both were highly educated individuals. https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisitsownworstenemy.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisit... makes the case that there is no hard distinction between social problems and tech problems in online communication, the two are intertwined. This medium itself has moderation, if you tried posting either of the above two conspiracies as facts, you would be flagged and downvoted. That is what makes this forum readable instead of a dumpster fire. If Facebook or twitter did the same, I don't see how that would be an open wound. I don't think facebook and twitter owe people the ability to run misinformation campaigns against jewish people, black people, or anyone else. If you want to do that, go post it on your own blog, email someone, or call them. Countries with poor welfare systems are that way in large part because there is propaganda against them. Welfare in the US is painted as communist. Same thing with education.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

I was thinking "Democrats and Republicans" not Flat earthers vs ... umm everyone else. The problem is not the obvious cases. Child porn is a crime in every country, it can be hunted down online. Society generally agrees on that. Similarly for flat earthers. 99% of people in a pub or street will roll their eyes at this shit. It's only because it's all over youtube and so are we that we think it's big. Problems where most societies mostly agree are not the issue. We could build some kind of rebuttal system - a distributed URL based downvoting system. This would help with the labelling / tagging of dubious posts - at the prominence level of the original post. (ie some W3C tagging for fact checking) But this is also not about agreeing the same set of facts - people rarely disagree over facts unless facts lead to different political positions. And that's the real issue. Climate change is probably too huge to cover but let me try - Climate change does not have a solution - the bomb has dropped we are just waiting for the shockwave to hit. Now we can stop pouring fuel on the fire (metaphor breaking sound) by moving off fossil fuel, but also we need to handle the massive changes involving water rights (hello India China) immigration as people get displaced by flooding (hello everywhere). Denial of this is a human response - because otherwise you have to welcome massive change and people who are not confident their needs will be looked after by the establishment. This is the real reason for the disparity in numbers of deniers in US and canada / europe - if US built a welfare state tomorrow it would see a massive drop off in climate change denial. So I think I lost my thread - but fact checking is only part of the politics problem - rapid rebuttal for every stupid online statement is a fine thing to aim for - something good recommendation algorithms could really help with ! But it stops there. Yes it is fine to mandate Ford and GM build cars with airbags and seatbelts - but it is crazy to ask them to build more parking spaces or solve rush hour. Same goes for online political discussions - YouTube must "fix" (god knows what how) recommendations and facebook must fix the newsfeed and twitter must something. But it has to stop somewhere around the point that someone reading a post is informed - that it is clear and obvious there is debate around what is being said. After that it is about human biases and cognitive failures - ie politics. We should work to ensure everyone has the same set of facts. Yes. But the same set of facts when run through different mental models come up with different actions. And I don't think it is right to have FAANG ensure everyone has the same mental model. That's what politics is about - and the fact that two people can have the same facts but use different mental models is basically the difference between every political party ever - and is why everyone thinks they are being censored - because if they weren't censored then obviously everyone would vote their way. On a side note this is something software gives us hope for - I can conceive of building a politics observatory - a sort of version of that UK economy coloured water experiment - where you can view the economy globally - the shows made in China shipped to Fermany and sold - and see how immigration or welfare changes the model. I think it's possible to have people build up a real software model - to try and reflect in software what their own biases are. I think if this was an app everyone had it would have interesting repercussions- would everyone tend towards a common model? Could you ask for explanations why your model on (prejudice dunjoir) was wrong? Hang on - I just described a university education.

confidantlake 6y ago
Saying that the president was born in Kenya is not running facts through different mental models, it is disinformation. Saying there was widespread fraud in the election with zero evidence is disinformation. Saying jews were behind 9/11 is disinformation. If we can't recognize that these are weaponized attacks, not differences in opinion, then we can't defend against them.
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  Yes ... But these are the easy edge cases. It should be trivial (it was trivial) to rebut. The problem is not that there was no evidence Obama was Kenyan, it's that there were plenty of people who wanted to believe it. Because they did not want a Black president, or because their mental model is so far away from reality that they think it's possible for someone to cheat that huge. Then the issue is not everyone having same facts in front of them - it's everyone being willing to accept facts, and so change their own mental models. And then we are back to politics. Look, I fully support some system of global rebuttal. It will mean no politician can open their mouths without opposition rebuttal - but that's pretty much where we are now in mainstream media. (it's an argument that this is an attraction of online social media - there was no rebuttal (at least no rebuttal that appeared in the same timeline) I am less happy about the idea of FAANG deleting posts - deleting criminal posts is a tough call (which crinalmlaw to use etc), deleting minsinformation - that's a huge open wound But the issue is not misinformation - the issue is fertile ground these posts find. And that is about mental models and that is about changing peoples internal mental models of the world - that is getting others to agree with you and that is human politics - and there is no tech fix for that. That is schools and education and society and diversity and a feeling of belonging and investment in society and shared protection. Surprised the countries with the poor welfare systems have this problem worst? Don't be. Worried about politicians who are always facing rebuttal - just imagine a world where politicians have to treat their statements like scientific publications - we might start getting somewhere !
  - confidantlake 6y ago
    Education was part of it but isn't a silver bullet. I had coworkers that espoused both the 9/11 and the Kenya thing, despite it being easy to rebut. Both were highly educated individuals. https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisitsownworstenemy.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisit... makes the case that there is no hard distinction between social problems and tech problems in online communication, the two are intertwined. This medium itself has moderation, if you tried posting either of the above two conspiracies as facts, you would be flagged and downvoted. That is what makes this forum readable instead of a dumpster fire. If Facebook or twitter did the same, I don't see how that would be an open wound. I don't think facebook and twitter owe people the ability to run misinformation campaigns against jewish people, black people, or anyone else. If you want to do that, go post it on your own blog, email someone, or call them. Countries with poor welfare systems are that way in large part because there is propaganda against them. Welfare in the US is painted as communist. Same thing with education.