4 ms·

The problem with the idea that "the answer to bad speech/misinformation is moar speech!" is that people aren't bayesian belief nets who update their beliefs in

The problem with the idea that "the answer to bad speech/misinformation is moar speech!" is that people aren't bayesian belief nets who update their beliefs in propositions based on new information. Instead what happens is, information that confirms people's existing beliefs is not only heavily weighted, but it is reshared with others. Information that contradicts existing beliefs is filtered. This has the overall effect of reinforcing the bias of a person and their existing social network. So conspiracy theories, propaganda, racism, just flat out wrong information, once it takes root, is very hard to dislodge. We have huge chunks of the population now believing in COVID conspiracies, that hospitals are misreporting to make money, that it's a psy-op, that mask and distancing directives were either purely to disadvantage their favored candidate, or exist for some nefarious purpose, and on and on. Maybe this is the real answer to the Great Filter/Fermi Paradox -- civilization drowns in a sea of mutually reinforced misinformation.

ouid 6y ago
The great filter is overdetermined, or else it isn't the great filter. This is just one of many.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
blix 6y ago
> people aren't bayesian belief nets who update their beliefs in propositions based on new information. I disagree, I think this is mostly true. However, I think people have a strong tendency to overestimate how much their favorite pieces of information should force others to update their beliefs. The same piece of information can be valid in many worldviews with wildly varying interpretations. It is sometimes difficult to separate the core information from the interpretation, and so one can become confused when sharing facts with others doesn't change minds. This can be mitigated by spending more effort to understand others' priors.
- cromwellian 6y ago
  I disagree, there are objective facts. Someone who believes the earth is flat and is presented with objective information is not presenting something subject to much interpretation. Look, we're talking a huge number of Americans who believe there was widespread election fraud of millions of votes. Who believe COVID is a conspiracy, to hurt their favored candidate, and that hospitals are false reporting cases as COVID for money. We have people with objectively false believes about vaccines, contradicted not just by available studies, but having their premises themselves contradicted (e.g. beliefs about mercury content, believes about the way the immune system works, beliefs about the economics of the vaccine business, all demonstrably false). Do you think it is unreasonable for someone who believes smoking massively increases risks of lung cancer and other health problems, to not expect a smoker who denies the harm that smoking causes to update their beliefs in view of this? The "priors" you speak of are really addiction, and a cognitive dissonance, for the most part.
  - blix 6y ago
    Unless you are a true renaissance human who has made outstanding individual contributions in all of the spaces you list (astronomy, economics, medicine, political science, etc.), your faith in "objective fact" is probably derived in a large part from trust in authoritative instutions and experts. This trust is a prior that not everyone shares. If you believe in the medical industry and related authoritative sources, it may seem crazy to you that someone wouldn't look at their published data and determine that covid is real and dangerous. However, if you have watched esteemed medical professionals drive your community to opiod/herion addiction, or watched hospitals close during the pandemic in your already underserved minority neighborhood, you might have a lower level of trust. You may even find the people who trust doctors crazy. You are not going to convince someone who has lost faith in these institutions by linking to medrxiv. That this source is valuable at all is a subjective assumption. It's easy to dimiss alternate viewpoints as cognitive dissonance, but I'd be wary of assigning that exclusively to any specific segment of people. It is very popular. Rememember, it was once scientifically-supported objective fact that smoking was perfectly safe.
    - 6y ago

ouid 6y ago

The great filter is overdetermined, or else it isn't the great filter. This is just one of many.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

blix 6y ago

> people aren't bayesian belief nets who update their beliefs in propositions based on new information. I disagree, I think this is mostly true. However, I think people have a strong tendency to overestimate how much their favorite pieces of information should force others to update their beliefs. The same piece of information can be valid in many worldviews with wildly varying interpretations. It is sometimes difficult to separate the core information from the interpretation, and so one can become confused when sharing facts with others doesn't change minds. This can be mitigated by spending more effort to understand others' priors.

cromwellian 6y ago
I disagree, there are objective facts. Someone who believes the earth is flat and is presented with objective information is not presenting something subject to much interpretation. Look, we're talking a huge number of Americans who believe there was widespread election fraud of millions of votes. Who believe COVID is a conspiracy, to hurt their favored candidate, and that hospitals are false reporting cases as COVID for money. We have people with objectively false believes about vaccines, contradicted not just by available studies, but having their premises themselves contradicted (e.g. beliefs about mercury content, believes about the way the immune system works, beliefs about the economics of the vaccine business, all demonstrably false). Do you think it is unreasonable for someone who believes smoking massively increases risks of lung cancer and other health problems, to not expect a smoker who denies the harm that smoking causes to update their beliefs in view of this? The "priors" you speak of are really addiction, and a cognitive dissonance, for the most part.
- blix 6y ago
  Unless you are a true renaissance human who has made outstanding individual contributions in all of the spaces you list (astronomy, economics, medicine, political science, etc.), your faith in "objective fact" is probably derived in a large part from trust in authoritative instutions and experts. This trust is a prior that not everyone shares. If you believe in the medical industry and related authoritative sources, it may seem crazy to you that someone wouldn't look at their published data and determine that covid is real and dangerous. However, if you have watched esteemed medical professionals drive your community to opiod/herion addiction, or watched hospitals close during the pandemic in your already underserved minority neighborhood, you might have a lower level of trust. You may even find the people who trust doctors crazy. You are not going to convince someone who has lost faith in these institutions by linking to medrxiv. That this source is valuable at all is a subjective assumption. It's easy to dimiss alternate viewpoints as cognitive dissonance, but I'd be wary of assigning that exclusively to any specific segment of people. It is very popular. Rememember, it was once scientifically-supported objective fact that smoking was perfectly safe.
  - 6y ago