4 ms·

When your "culture and identity" is based on relying on blatant disinformation, whether it is that the earth is flat, the govt is poisoning you with chemtrails,

by toss1 6y ago

When your "culture and identity" is based on relying on blatant disinformation, whether it is that the earth is flat, the govt is poisoning you with chemtrails, or NASA is fake, that is already getting corrossive to society. When it extends to anti-vaccine disinformation, it is an active threat not only to public health but national security. Many of these types of disinformation are actively weaponized and spread by adversaries. It is right to threat those kinds of threats to the society and nation as we would treat any physical threat -- actively work to neutralize it. Just because war is moving out of the physical and into the information sphere, does not make it less serious.

pessimizer 6y ago
You're clearly an information warrior, but what if I think that you're the one spreading misleading information? It's weird that you fully expect that you, or someone else who agrees with you, will be in control of this.
- toss1 6y ago
  Whether you think that I'm spreading disinformation, or whether it is someone else is easily determined by looking to the external facts. The fact is that the earth is (nearly) round, contrails are not chemical sprays, Capricorn One was a C-grade movie while Apollo-11 went to the moon, and that anti-vax movement was started by a fraud attempting to discredit existing formulas to promote a formula in which the paper's author had a vested interest (and which paper was retracted, along with his MD and license) and that vaccines do work. That is the point. A society cannot remain cohesive if there are no shared truths. You may not want to take it seriously, but I'd suggest you consider the following quotes, and why and how disinformation can be weaponized. “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” ― Isaac Asimov "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.". ― Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
  - motohagiography 6y ago
    > A society cannot remain cohesive if there are no shared truths. On this we agree. This truth needs to be on a scale of one, some, or all truths that are shared. Let's disqualify all, and simplfy to finding an example of one. The other thing about the truth is that it probably shouldn't be falsifiable, as it's a bit of an all-in bet on whatever that is. It shouldn't be a complicated mystery because then you are back to the relative problem of who has discovered more and how do you know. The perfect example truth is the one that is not knowable either way, but something that can be believed. We should probably recognize that destabilizing that example shared truth is an attack on social cohesion as well. Can't think of an example at the moment, but I certainly agree it would be the One Important Thing you would need to believe, or you're basically left with a kind of hellscape.
motohagiography 6y ago
The principle I'm appealing to is that we have to ask whether it's appropriate or desirable to have that technology applied to us(*). It's not disinformation if it's just outgroup culture. It seems unwise to imagine oneself engaged in a war because it just licenses your opponent. The idea of war is that it the extension of policy, which in every other circumstance can be negotiated, but if instead of negotiating policy, these same people are engaged in a deception to exterminate or subordinate an opposition, that's not policy, that's just a power struggle for its own end, and it's not something to be reconciled. If you want to treat fellow citizens as an enemy force, say so, and they will come to the table as one. But if you want to just decieve them, I'd wonder whether we were the baddies. We probably don't want to make civilian technologists legit targets in this war either. Surely the people developing or advocating these techs are capable of enough self awareness to recognize how every example of "blatant disinformation," has an equivalent worthy of targeting, so introducing them as anything other than abstractions doesn't really yield perspective.
- freeflight 6y ago
  > It's not disinformation if it's just outgroup culture. Just because wrong information can become outgroup culture does not suddenly make the wrong information true. Particularly when it stipulates world views that vilify whole other groups as allegedly being responsible for everything wrong. The end result is not just a culture that might endorse violence against others, but something that could probably be described as a cargo cult where wrong information becomes dogmatic tradition. Antisemitism has already taken such a shape, most if not all of the theories voiced by some modern outgroups are just reboots of allegations that are centuries old and have justified violence for just as long. Case in point: The whole "elites abducting children to sacrifice them" theory, which regained popularity trough QAnon, is just a more modern take on the William of Norwich blood libel [0]. That has been around for close to a millennium because it's an idea that survives in certain religious outgroup cultures. Do we really have to tolerate the intolerance to be considered tolerant? Is there really no rough line that can be drawn? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Norwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Norwich
  - 6y ago
keiferski 6y ago
This line of thought will both be extremely ineffective (and further incentivize misinformation) and highly unjust. At some point you need to stop and realize everything isn’t a conflict that necessarily has losers to be “neutralized.”
- toss1 6y ago
  Agree, it only becomes a conflict when some parties are deliberately weaponizing disinformation. Mere ignorance is something we must unfortunately tolerate. Active work to spread disinformation that will literally kill people - see [1] or just search for it, where a mere dozen people are responsible for 65% of the spread of disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines, and are working to deliberately undermine vaccination efforts. This isn't mere ignorance, it will get people killed. And before you say something like "well the fools that believe that idiocy deserve what they get", consider that while they may (sort of their choice), the family, friends, neighbors, first responders, and healthcare workers do not deserve to be exposed unnecessarily to those biohazards. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/06/facebook-instagram-urged-fight-deluge-anti-covid-vaccine-falsehoods https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/06/facebook-insta...
  - keiferski 6y ago
    Every single revoking of civil liberties (e.g. censorship) has been done in the name of safety. That doesn’t make it acceptable. If you want to combat misinformation, pick a better solution. And as I said above, censorship is pretty much impossible, both legally and technologically. It simply cannot be done.
    - toss1 6y ago
      Did you even read the article? The ENTIRE POINT of the idea is to NOT censor anything, but to add context -- adding information, not censoring it. Letting people make their own decisions. The problem here is that there is a massive asymmetry. This has been noticed for centuries with the maxim "A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes" (some interesting history on that at [1]). This is because our brains are tuned to seek out novelty, and to seek out information on threats. This enables those who want to manipulate us and especially the masses -- creating fake news and fear porn will get the attention of pretty much everyone, and anyone who is not both actively better informed at the time, and actively thinking, will be inflamed and motivated. Voltaire pointed out that “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” The people spreading disinformation treat that as an instruction instead of a warning. Adding this kind of contextual information seems a far better solution than censoring. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/
BitwiseFool 6y ago
Everyone needs to pick and choose which information/disinformation battles they want to take part in. Flat-Earthers, Chemtrail People, Moonlanding Hoaxers, these people aren't really worth anyone's time. How does someone else believing the world is flat impinge on your ability to live your life? Now, I can understand wanting to combat vaccine hesitancy because that does tangibly affect society at-large (recent measles outbreaks). But most of the disinformation boogeymen you listed are just people with kooky ideas who aren't persuading society. Lastly, it's okay to be wrong about things. The body of human knowledge is so vast that everyone is bound to be more wrong than right.
- toss1 6y ago
  There is a difference between 1) simply being wrong by mistake vs 2) deliberate and maintained ignorance vs. 3) deliberately deceiving people and poisoning the agora. Mere ordinary wrongness is a big enough problem. And to the degree that it is mere cultural ignorance, it can be merely annoying. But intentionally spreading disinformation, fear porn, and cultivating false outrage to inflame divisions in society is much more serious, and should not be conflated with mere buffoonery.
gedy 6y ago
This sounds "right" but then how would you feel applying this things like native American tribal beliefs, e.g. regarding genetics and migration. Those may be scientific facts but many reject them due to fearing further dispossession of their land, etc.

by toss1 6y ago

pessimizer 6y ago

You're clearly an information warrior, but what if I think that you're the one spreading misleading information? It's weird that you fully expect that you, or someone else who agrees with you, will be in control of this.

toss1 6y ago
Whether you think that I'm spreading disinformation, or whether it is someone else is easily determined by looking to the external facts. The fact is that the earth is (nearly) round, contrails are not chemical sprays, Capricorn One was a C-grade movie while Apollo-11 went to the moon, and that anti-vax movement was started by a fraud attempting to discredit existing formulas to promote a formula in which the paper's author had a vested interest (and which paper was retracted, along with his MD and license) and that vaccines do work. That is the point. A society cannot remain cohesive if there are no shared truths. You may not want to take it seriously, but I'd suggest you consider the following quotes, and why and how disinformation can be weaponized. “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” ― Isaac Asimov "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.". ― Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
- motohagiography 6y ago
  > A society cannot remain cohesive if there are no shared truths. On this we agree. This truth needs to be on a scale of one, some, or all truths that are shared. Let's disqualify all, and simplfy to finding an example of one. The other thing about the truth is that it probably shouldn't be falsifiable, as it's a bit of an all-in bet on whatever that is. It shouldn't be a complicated mystery because then you are back to the relative problem of who has discovered more and how do you know. The perfect example truth is the one that is not knowable either way, but something that can be believed. We should probably recognize that destabilizing that example shared truth is an attack on social cohesion as well. Can't think of an example at the moment, but I certainly agree it would be the One Important Thing you would need to believe, or you're basically left with a kind of hellscape.

motohagiography 6y ago

The principle I'm appealing to is that we have to ask whether it's appropriate or desirable to have that technology applied to us(*). It's not disinformation if it's just outgroup culture. It seems unwise to imagine oneself engaged in a war because it just licenses your opponent. The idea of war is that it the extension of policy, which in every other circumstance can be negotiated, but if instead of negotiating policy, these same people are engaged in a deception to exterminate or subordinate an opposition, that's not policy, that's just a power struggle for its own end, and it's not something to be reconciled. If you want to treat fellow citizens as an enemy force, say so, and they will come to the table as one. But if you want to just decieve them, I'd wonder whether we were the baddies. We probably don't want to make civilian technologists legit targets in this war either. Surely the people developing or advocating these techs are capable of enough self awareness to recognize how every example of "blatant disinformation," has an equivalent worthy of targeting, so introducing them as anything other than abstractions doesn't really yield perspective.

freeflight 6y ago
> It's not disinformation if it's just outgroup culture. Just because wrong information can become outgroup culture does not suddenly make the wrong information true. Particularly when it stipulates world views that vilify whole other groups as allegedly being responsible for everything wrong. The end result is not just a culture that might endorse violence against others, but something that could probably be described as a cargo cult where wrong information becomes dogmatic tradition. Antisemitism has already taken such a shape, most if not all of the theories voiced by some modern outgroups are just reboots of allegations that are centuries old and have justified violence for just as long. Case in point: The whole "elites abducting children to sacrifice them" theory, which regained popularity trough QAnon, is just a more modern take on the William of Norwich blood libel [0]. That has been around for close to a millennium because it's an idea that survives in certain religious outgroup cultures. Do we really have to tolerate the intolerance to be considered tolerant? Is there really no rough line that can be drawn? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Norwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Norwich
- 6y ago

keiferski 6y ago

This line of thought will both be extremely ineffective (and further incentivize misinformation) and highly unjust. At some point you need to stop and realize everything isn’t a conflict that necessarily has losers to be “neutralized.”

toss1 6y ago
Agree, it only becomes a conflict when some parties are deliberately weaponizing disinformation. Mere ignorance is something we must unfortunately tolerate. Active work to spread disinformation that will literally kill people - see [1] or just search for it, where a mere dozen people are responsible for 65% of the spread of disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines, and are working to deliberately undermine vaccination efforts. This isn't mere ignorance, it will get people killed. And before you say something like "well the fools that believe that idiocy deserve what they get", consider that while they may (sort of their choice), the family, friends, neighbors, first responders, and healthcare workers do not deserve to be exposed unnecessarily to those biohazards. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/06/facebook-instagram-urged-fight-deluge-anti-covid-vaccine-falsehoods https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/06/facebook-insta...
- keiferski 6y ago
  Every single revoking of civil liberties (e.g. censorship) has been done in the name of safety. That doesn’t make it acceptable. If you want to combat misinformation, pick a better solution. And as I said above, censorship is pretty much impossible, both legally and technologically. It simply cannot be done.
  - toss1 6y ago
    Did you even read the article? The ENTIRE POINT of the idea is to NOT censor anything, but to add context -- adding information, not censoring it. Letting people make their own decisions. The problem here is that there is a massive asymmetry. This has been noticed for centuries with the maxim "A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes" (some interesting history on that at [1]). This is because our brains are tuned to seek out novelty, and to seek out information on threats. This enables those who want to manipulate us and especially the masses -- creating fake news and fear porn will get the attention of pretty much everyone, and anyone who is not both actively better informed at the time, and actively thinking, will be inflamed and motivated. Voltaire pointed out that “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” The people spreading disinformation treat that as an instruction instead of a warning. Adding this kind of contextual information seems a far better solution than censoring. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/

BitwiseFool 6y ago

Everyone needs to pick and choose which information/disinformation battles they want to take part in. Flat-Earthers, Chemtrail People, Moonlanding Hoaxers, these people aren't really worth anyone's time. How does someone else believing the world is flat impinge on your ability to live your life? Now, I can understand wanting to combat vaccine hesitancy because that does tangibly affect society at-large (recent measles outbreaks). But most of the disinformation boogeymen you listed are just people with kooky ideas who aren't persuading society. Lastly, it's okay to be wrong about things. The body of human knowledge is so vast that everyone is bound to be more wrong than right.

toss1 6y ago
There is a difference between 1) simply being wrong by mistake vs 2) deliberate and maintained ignorance vs. 3) deliberately deceiving people and poisoning the agora. Mere ordinary wrongness is a big enough problem. And to the degree that it is mere cultural ignorance, it can be merely annoying. But intentionally spreading disinformation, fear porn, and cultivating false outrage to inflame divisions in society is much more serious, and should not be conflated with mere buffoonery.

gedy 6y ago

This sounds "right" but then how would you feel applying this things like native American tribal beliefs, e.g. regarding genetics and migration. Those may be scientific facts but many reject them due to fearing further dispossession of their land, etc.