7 ms·
Worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law "The amount of energy needed to refute bul
by cyberlab 6y ago
Worth a read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it"
- matsemann 6y agoSometimes when reading comments below articles (about vaccination for instance) I wonder if it would be more effective to stoop down to the anti-vaxxers level instead of trying to refute their claims. Just pump out loads of exaggerated pro-vaxx stuff.
- toto444 6y agoThat's clever but there is one reason I think this would not work. Most pro-vaxx don't (and don't want to) spend their entire days thinking about why they are pro-vaxx. Being anti-vaxxer is a lifestyle.
- lou1306 6y agoSadly, antivaxxers already believe that scientific findings are "exaggerated pro-vaxx stuff".
- darkerside 6y agoWhich is exactly why this would probably work. It's all bullshit on both sides (in their view), so it might as well be balanced bullshit. Right now, the bullshit evidence points to potential for horrific outcomes, not worth it! I think a similar dynamic is behind Trump's rise to power. First you confuse the people, them you can tell them what to think.
- AzzieElbab 6y agoEvery anti-vaxxer I came across had a history involving their kids reaction to vaccines. You may call them bullshitters all you want, but they are incredibly more motivated than you given above mentioned history.
- eloisius 6y agoEvery one of them had a history of their kids having an adverse reaction to vaccines, you mean? That's quite a different circle than I've swam in. The anti-vaxxers I've known all adopt their beliefs based on some quasi-religious, libertarian, self-sufficiency ideology and indeed have withheld vaccines from their children. Whenever I argued with them they would invariably claim to be familiar with hundred of peer-reviewed papers demonstrating the dangers. When pressed on the issue, one of them finally did dig up this trove of papers for me. Because I'm an idiot, I actually did carefully review and refute them, so I can say from personal experience that the "orders of magnitude" adage is pretty true. Of course, after admitting that maybe these papers weren't the best materials to prove his point, he decided to pivot to another website that would surely contain all the "proof" I need. There is no arguing. They have a heap of bullshit and don't intend to make their beliefs based on critical analysis. If you're curious about how I wasted several evenings reading anti-vax papers you can read my analysis here [1]. It's almost invariably about a disproven link between thimerosal and autism spectrum disorder or random non-scientists hucksters trying to sell crystal healing powers or some horse shit. [1]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19IFB_2dzq6Gb5z6igjsIEFMhYqYpNylbZ756QMmDSuw/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/19IFB_2dzq6Gb5z6igjsIEFMh...
- AzzieElbab 6y agoI did not say everyone of them, I said everyone that I personally came across. I do not swim in antivaxxers. Are we testing our bs powers?
- eloisius 6y agoWhen I said "every one of _them_" I was referring to every one of them that you have met. Not implying that you meant all of them in existence. I'm surprised by your experience, because growing up in an Evangelical community in the south anti-vaxxers were a dime a dozen, but I've never met anyone whose children were harmed by vaccines.
- jacobr1 6y ago
- EverydayBalloon 6y agoLabelling people "anti-vaxxers" because they don't want to become beta testers for a new vaccine technology that's only been tested for a fraction of the time as normal vaccines is some first class bullshitting. Bravo!
- User23 6y agoI imagine that in order to be an anti-vaxxer and not crumble under the crushing weight of cognitive dissonance one would have to believe that claims about the benefits of vaccines already are loads of exaggerated pro-vaxx stuff that has been pumped out by (Big Pharma|The Government|Russians|Illuminati|Lizard People|Whatever other crazy thing).
- cosmodisk 6y agoAs in 'let's spread a rumour that he shagged a pig! But who will believe this nonsense? It doesn't matter,but it will fun to see how they'll refute it!'.
- jjgreen 6y agoBadly, it seems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate
- gweinberg 6y agoThat's a relatively recent incarnation of a much older story. As I recall in one of Hunter S Thompson's books he accuses LBJ (or possibly Nixon, it's a long time since I read it) of spreading rumors one of his political enemies fucked pigs. Whichever dead president it was was quoted as saying, "I know it's not true, I just want to make th son of a bitch deny it".
- cosmodisk 6y agoWhat's interesting with this approach that it doesn't even take that much effort once the seed of doubt is planted. I remember back in the day,I was attending this party and after having a few beers,I started looking for some entertainment. My eyes stumbled upon a CD case 'Eros Ramazzotti'. I exclaimed, and told to one of the the friends who was standing close enough that it's a cheap knock-off. 'How would you know', he asks? Well, for starters, the name is written incorrectly. It's correct, I'm a fan of his music and have multiple CDs, it's definitely like this. Nope it's not, it's 'Razamotti'. He gets puzzled.. then a few others join, including the owner of the place. Fast forward 10 min or so and I've already convinced some of them. Others start 'remembering' and even supporting my claim. Eventually I tell everyone I'm just winding them up,but people were very surprised how quickly they started to doubt their knowledge.
- ranit 6y agoYes, it is like cleaning an oil spill.
- koolba 6y agoIt’s a natural extension of entropy only being created, and never destroyed.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoI never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, 'I refute it thus.' — James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
- chris_wot 6y agoAs an aside, Boswell also noted that James Grainger removed the line “Come muse, let us sing if rats” in his poem The Sugar Cane because he discovered that when he uttered these words his audience dissolved into laughter.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoMaybe an internet led edit of Ratatouille can add it to the beginning of the movie.
- current123123 6y agoWhat kind of social engineering did this guy do to get a wikipedia page and a whole "law" after his name so people can quote it forever. We've had proverbs for millennia about this. But no, let's use a silly Italian name to make it sound academic or something.
- cyberlab 6y agoNo social engineering was needed I suppose. This image: https://truth-sandwich.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ziobrando.jpg https://truth-sandwich.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ziobra... done the rounds on social media for a while and someone mustered up the courage to create a Wikipedia article about it. It's basically an Internet meme, not really a law. I use the image sometimes in heated debates where two people throw peer reviewed academic 'links' at each other for hours to prove their point(s).
- albertgoeswoof 6y agoYou’ll need to spend order of magnitude more energy refuting this page to make a difference here I’m afraid
- ithkuil 6y agoPlease share a few of those proverbs, possibly some with nice anglo-saxon words in them, least we get overwhelmed by too much latinate pomposity
- cyberlab 6y agohttps://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/bullshit https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/bullshit
- cyberlab 6y agoMy favorite: > “Apparently people don't like the truth, but I do like it; I like it because it upsets a lot of people. If you show them enough times that their arguments are bullshit, then maybe just once, one of them will say, 'Oh! Wait a minute - I was wrong.' I live for that happening. Rare, I assure you” ― Lemmy Kilmister
- austincheney 6y agoIt should be noted the high refute energy isn’t due to the error or poor logic of the argument in place. It is due to the trust and faith placed in that argument no matter how faulty or flawed that argument may be to third parties. It’s also why most people won’t bother to entertain the stupid unless convinced or positively influenced by it. For example many people find the flat earth argument clearly absurd, but they won’t challenge a flat earther on this even with simple obvious data points.
- nkrisc 6y agoPrecisely. Taking the flat earther example, if their able to miss so many obvious data points (some they can observe themselves with their own eyes!) then why would anything you say convince them? Someone who is capable of being talked out of believing bullshit is less likely to have falllen for it in the first place.
- jacobr1 6y agoHow many people could actually refute a flat earther? Or does the average person believe in a globular earth because “science” without detail or just because “everybody” knows it to be true?
- Swenrekcah 6y agoAt this point there are plenty of pictures of the earth, other celestial bodies, airplanes going round the earth and what not, so that anybody can see it and it doesn’t require any trigonometry or scientific knowledge. Of course one might not have personally flown around the earth or been part of an operation to take a picture from space, but the same can be said about anything. For instance how would you prove that your heart pumps blood? Have you seen it personally?
- nitrogen 6y agoAll you have to do is gain a few hundred feet of elevation on a hike and watch the horizon.
- srean 6y agoExactly. This makes fake news, propaganda etc a denial of service attack enabled by freedom of speech. The freedom comes at a cost.
- covidthrow 6y agoThis is one of the most scary insinuations I've read in a while. Careful, friend. This road does not lead where you think it leads...
- srean 6y agoNot entirely sure what you mean. Just in case you think so, I am not arguing for curbs on free speech. Its just another unhappy fact of life that freedom of speech by its very nature opens itself up to DDOS. The protectors of free speech have a much harder task on their hands than those who want to exploit it.
- meowface 6y agoPointing out that freedom comes at a cost doesn't necessarily mean they want freedom to be reduced. The principle is that the benefits almost always outweigh the costs.
- Slartie 6y agoI would not say that it's freedom of speech that makes it a DoS attack possibility. We've had freedom of speech for a while without having disinformation going rampant, because the distribution costs of bullshit were still about as large as those of valid facts, so even if creating the bullshit was cheaper than creating a rebuttal based on facts, the total cost of creation plus distribution was roughly equal. It's the modern (social) media environment and its inherent ways of allocating attention that creates the extreme asymmetry in distribution costs, where it's now cheaper than ever to distribute attention-grabbing bullshit, but still pretty expensive to distribute comparatively-boring facts.
- User23 6y ago> We've had freedom of speech for a while without having disinformation going rampant I'm confident that if you look at archived US publications going back to before the revolution you'll find rampant "misinformation" the whole time.