3 ms·

You'll be surprised how far misinformation goes. Even among the non-stupid (smart?) people. Some form of Internet literacy needs to be done. We'll be fighting s

You'll be surprised how far misinformation goes. Even among the non-stupid (smart?) people. Some form of Internet literacy needs to be done. We'll be fighting some of it very soon with deepfakes made by AI, and we are still not prepared for that.

kleer001 6y ago
> You'll be surprised how far misinformation goes. Not a whit. It's been a hobby horse of mine for the last two decades. From Mk Ultra to Potempkin Villages to Contemporary Psyops, propaganda has provided nearly limitless dark entertainment for me. In fact I've sculpted my own aphorism: "Intelligence has the ability to construct reasonable sounding reasons for anything." It might have been pithier in an earlier iteration, but that's the gist. In the end education is expensive and there's no end run around that. In the end there's no algorithm for the truth and there's no end run around that either.
- seneca 6y ago
  I again find myself in agreement with you. As someone who has thought about this for some time, what's your take on what we actually ought to do about it? Is it simply intractable? Is it that from Odysseus to Bernays, the cunning will always fool the fool?
  - kleer001 6y ago
    What I think should be done: Less free stuff. Free online stuff does not feed quality. Money is the tie that binds. And free stuff binds us to advertisers. Youtube, twitter, facebook, etc, all go to paid tiers and registered accounts. Eradicate the widespread use of comments. I hate to sound like an old, but go back to established gatekeepers for commentary like well educated editors at newspapers and magazines. Everyone doesn't need a publishing platform. If that sounds class-ist I guess it kinda is, in a way. Everyone will still have access, but not everyone needs a voice because the structure to support that is corrosive as we've seen. What I think is possible: Like everything we learn mostly by making mistakes. Eventually we'll bang our heads against enough walls to find our way out. In a generation or two people will discount online speech. Already the youngs are discounting facebook. There will always be bullying, in person or online. There will always be fraud, in person or online. "Education" isn't a magic wand to sprinkle smart dust over the population. Again, even smart people make fundamental and sometimes existential mistakes. The best we can do is make it harder for those shitty things to happen by performing tourniquets to the flow of free channels that feed online malignant cancer.
  - kleer001 6y ago
    What's your take on what we should do to thwart what can be thwarted?

kleer001 6y ago

> You'll be surprised how far misinformation goes. Not a whit. It's been a hobby horse of mine for the last two decades. From Mk Ultra to Potempkin Villages to Contemporary Psyops, propaganda has provided nearly limitless dark entertainment for me. In fact I've sculpted my own aphorism: "Intelligence has the ability to construct reasonable sounding reasons for anything." It might have been pithier in an earlier iteration, but that's the gist. In the end education is expensive and there's no end run around that. In the end there's no algorithm for the truth and there's no end run around that either.

seneca 6y ago
I again find myself in agreement with you. As someone who has thought about this for some time, what's your take on what we actually ought to do about it? Is it simply intractable? Is it that from Odysseus to Bernays, the cunning will always fool the fool?
- kleer001 6y ago
  What I think should be done: Less free stuff. Free online stuff does not feed quality. Money is the tie that binds. And free stuff binds us to advertisers. Youtube, twitter, facebook, etc, all go to paid tiers and registered accounts. Eradicate the widespread use of comments. I hate to sound like an old, but go back to established gatekeepers for commentary like well educated editors at newspapers and magazines. Everyone doesn't need a publishing platform. If that sounds class-ist I guess it kinda is, in a way. Everyone will still have access, but not everyone needs a voice because the structure to support that is corrosive as we've seen. What I think is possible: Like everything we learn mostly by making mistakes. Eventually we'll bang our heads against enough walls to find our way out. In a generation or two people will discount online speech. Already the youngs are discounting facebook. There will always be bullying, in person or online. There will always be fraud, in person or online. "Education" isn't a magic wand to sprinkle smart dust over the population. Again, even smart people make fundamental and sometimes existential mistakes. The best we can do is make it harder for those shitty things to happen by performing tourniquets to the flow of free channels that feed online malignant cancer.
- kleer001 6y ago
  What's your take on what we should do to thwart what can be thwarted?