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Social media is just another media, and media hacve always been manipulated, somewhere more, somewhere less. This might be a news to Americans, as US propaganda

Social media is just another media, and media hacve always been manipulated, somewhere more, somewhere less. This might be a news to Americans, as US propaganda efforts used to be more directed outwards, but us who grew up in (failed) socialism grew up knowing that most of political news are filtered lies and that you can't ever trust just one source. And I think that's the only viable solution, educating people to be skeptical of anything, on first ball at least. Check the multiple sources, wait a little for stories to be officially confirmed before reacting. It's not that hard, and Internet actually makes it a lot more viable, just that we still haven't really adapted emotionally to how the world works now. We still jump to conclusions, we still click the clickbait titles and the biggest problem, we're all deeply biased on our own views of the world - and these biases are the glasses that we view the world through, they affect every single aspect of our perception, often on a subconscious level. People often believe in fake news simply because deep inside they already think that's the case, they want it to be true.

mistermann 6y ago
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” How much of the accepted-without-question, 100% undisputed mainstream narrative is disinformation as well? Just two recent examples: 1. Voter fraud in the election. After the election was done and rumours of fraud arose in the social media memeplex, nearly immediately the "There is no evidence of election fraud - claims of election fraud are disinformation" counter-meme was released into official media channels (and from there spread into social media). That this too is disinformation should be obvious. - Election fraud (to whatever degree) occurred, or it did not. - Evidence of election fraud (that is discoverable by humans) then existed, or it did not (regardless of that discovery). - The necessary investigations to discover any such evidence had been launched and completed, or they had not. disinformation: false information which is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media. As of the date of the election completion + 1 day, the necessary investigations to uncover the existence of election fraud had not been completed - therefore, the assertions of fact broadcast from multiple independent media organizations that there is(!) no evidence of election fraud is disinformation. 2. The riot at the Capitol Immediately after the Capitol incident, a coincidentally similar narrative was asserted by multiple independent media organizations: this was literally a coup attempt, an attack on "our most sacred(!) institution". And, the intent of the people on the ground was(!) to execute a coup against the US government. This was asserted as if it was a fact. However, what was actually going on (which is contained within the minds of the human beings who were there that day) is not actually known. (Meanwhile, speaking of "attacks on sacred institutions": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... - curiously, this seemed to not come up in the conversation, despite its obvious relevance). Getting back to the "Morning, boys. How’s the water?" story...somewhere along the way (my sense is that this has occurred mostly in the last 5 years), the notion of what is actually(!) true seems to have become somehow radioactive in a way - the very idea is considered repulsive, not to be mentioned in polite company. And it's not just braindead political partisans who exhibit this behavior - as far as I can tell, this default intuition has been adopted by extremely high percentages of people across all categorizations. If anything, it seems to me that highly intelligent people are often even more repulsed by it than normal folks (who perhaps don't grasp the philosophical depth of the idea). The election fraud disagreement and the Capitol riot, these things concern me somewhat, but what concerns me even more is the degradation of the very fabric of reality, the "This is Water" in the story. And not only the degradation itself, but that the degradation is being promoted (at least unconsciously and passively) by some of the brightest minds in our population. A society that is arguably involved in some form of a new cold war with a rapidly rising new global superpower adopting a culture of disregard for what is actually true seems like not a great idea to me. If we actually care as much about the Capitol riots as we proclaim to, I think we should be willing to face up to what the actual underlying causes of it are, as opposed to the simplistic narratives (disinformation) that are asserted as fact to be the cause.
sitkack 6y ago
> People often believe in fake news simply because deep inside they already think that's the case, they want it to be true. This is also how you lie and con people, you construct a plausible lie they want to tell themselves, but if _you_ do it, they have deniability.

mistermann 6y ago

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” How much of the accepted-without-question, 100% undisputed mainstream narrative is disinformation as well? Just two recent examples: 1. Voter fraud in the election. After the election was done and rumours of fraud arose in the social media memeplex, nearly immediately the "There is no evidence of election fraud - claims of election fraud are disinformation" counter-meme was released into official media channels (and from there spread into social media). That this too is disinformation should be obvious. - Election fraud (to whatever degree) occurred, or it did not. - Evidence of election fraud (that is discoverable by humans) then existed, or it did not (regardless of that discovery). - The necessary investigations to discover any such evidence had been launched and completed, or they had not. disinformation: false information which is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media. As of the date of the election completion + 1 day, the necessary investigations to uncover the existence of election fraud had not been completed - therefore, the assertions of fact broadcast from multiple independent media organizations that there is(!) no evidence of election fraud is disinformation. 2. The riot at the Capitol Immediately after the Capitol incident, a coincidentally similar narrative was asserted by multiple independent media organizations: this was literally a coup attempt, an attack on "our most sacred(!) institution". And, the intent of the people on the ground was(!) to execute a coup against the US government. This was asserted as if it was a fact. However, what was actually going on (which is contained within the minds of the human beings who were there that day) is not actually known. (Meanwhile, speaking of "attacks on sacred institutions": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... - curiously, this seemed to not come up in the conversation, despite its obvious relevance). Getting back to the "Morning, boys. How’s the water?" story...somewhere along the way (my sense is that this has occurred mostly in the last 5 years), the notion of what is actually(!) true seems to have become somehow radioactive in a way - the very idea is considered repulsive, not to be mentioned in polite company. And it's not just braindead political partisans who exhibit this behavior - as far as I can tell, this default intuition has been adopted by extremely high percentages of people across all categorizations. If anything, it seems to me that highly intelligent people are often even more repulsed by it than normal folks (who perhaps don't grasp the philosophical depth of the idea). The election fraud disagreement and the Capitol riot, these things concern me somewhat, but what concerns me even more is the degradation of the very fabric of reality, the "This is Water" in the story. And not only the degradation itself, but that the degradation is being promoted (at least unconsciously and passively) by some of the brightest minds in our population. A society that is arguably involved in some form of a new cold war with a rapidly rising new global superpower adopting a culture of disregard for what is actually true seems like not a great idea to me. If we actually care as much about the Capitol riots as we proclaim to, I think we should be willing to face up to what the actual underlying causes of it are, as opposed to the simplistic narratives (disinformation) that are asserted as fact to be the cause.

sitkack 6y ago

> People often believe in fake news simply because deep inside they already think that's the case, they want it to be true. This is also how you lie and con people, you construct a plausible lie they want to tell themselves, but if _you_ do it, they have deniability.