4 ms·

> I make no claims to be one of the group of enlightened ubermensch who should be able to decide for the rest I would say you did: > And before anyone asks wh

by slibhb 5y ago

> I make no claims to be one of the group of enlightened ubermensch who should be able to decide for the rest I would say you did: > And before anyone asks who I am to judge the best ideas, I'll answer - nobody, but I can see that factually incorrect, scientifically illiterate, conspiratorial, harmful crank ideas gain legs in the online world we've created. Often at the root of these is a profit motive. You asked the right question (who are you to determine the truth?) but then you didn't answer it. You continued on to imply that, in fact, you are in a position to sort out what's true unlike those other, inferior people who fall for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. > Or we can ditch bland cliches and false dichotomies and look at pragmatic steps that can be taken to, for instance, improve access to good information, improve education around critical thinking, and perhaps (as mentioned in other comments) re-examine things like automated algorithms that feed people ever more extreme content because it increases engagement levels, clicks and ad revenue. "Improving access to good information" is usually a euphemism for some kind of censorship. As far as I'm concerned, all of these "problems" are not problems, they're justifications for controlling other people and expressions of impotent rage at the failure to control those people. I'm vaccinated and I voted for Biden but I do not understand why peope care that others decide not to get vaccinated or voted for the other guy. Part of freedom is the freedom to be wrong. I think these are not new problems. Democracy, pluralism, free speech, trial by jury, etc are our solutions to these problems. They aren't particularly satisfying solutions because, as you said in your first post, the truth doesn't always win. Rather they're tragic compromises. But I don't see any serious suggestions about how we should improve them.

Nursie 5y ago
> You continued on to imply that, in fact, you are in a position to sort out what's true unlike those other, inferior people who fall for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. You missed that I was drawing a distinction between what is commonly thought of as the market place of ideas - in which rational discourse and honest debate enables people to learn, compare, agree and disagree, find greater truths, learn, etc etc - and the spread of misinformation based on falsehood, often perpetuated for profit. We absolutely can, as a society, say that (for example) misinformation about vaccines, where we are dealing with matters of fact, is not on a level with actual vaccine science. This is not really up for honest debate. We can debate until the cows come home about what it means, whether any opinions should be drawn or any action taken, but motivated lies are just not on the same footing as factual information. > "Improving access to good information" is usually a euphemism for some kind of censorship. You assume bad faith here, again. I think there’s a lot can be done by way of giving access to scientific information in accessible ways. > I'm vaccinated and I voted for Biden but I do not understand why peope care that others decide not to get vaccinated Well firstly Because that decision affects more than just those individuals, and puts others (including the already vaccinated and those who cannot be vaccinated) at risk. And secondly because some of those making the decision not to vaccinate, and putting themselves at risk, have done so armed with bad information. The nature of the problems may not be new, but the scale and severity seem to be.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  > with actual vaccine science Who decides what that is? Plenty of actual scientists publish papers in actual science journals that conflict with each other and with official public health advice. The whole vaccines cause autism idea came from what looked like actual vaccine science. Knowledge isn't actually that sure. Sometimes the authorities are wrong. Remember when bread was at the bottom of the food pyramid? > but the scale and severity seem to be. Seem to be or actually are? Are you using "facts" or media sensationalization to form your opinion?
  - Nursie 5y ago
    So there’s no way at all, to your mind, to distinguish millions of shitposts about “The covid vaccine causes infertility, and contains 5G chips” from, for instance, genuine risk information? We truly are swimming in a world in which nothing is true. Or you are anyway.
    - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
      You take an extreme example (5G chips in vaccines) to support the idea that we can draw a line in the sand and say what's true & what's false. But if you take an example closer to the line, things start to become less clear. Are masks useful to the general public? If you said "yes" a year ago, you would've been censored for spreading misinformation. If you said "no" yesterday, you would've been censored for spreading misinformation. Anyway, if you think it's so easy to do a good job censoring information, why don't you point to a single example where that worked out? Just one is sufficient. It's okay, I'll wait.
      - jhanschoo 5y ago
        You take a moderate example to support the idea that we cannot nevertheless have a threshold where we can be sure that something is false. But while we cannot clearly say where the land ends and the ocean begins, there are large swaths of places that we can positively identify as ocean. The OP never claimed to have an appropriate solution so I don't know what you are talking about regarding them thinking censorship is easy.

by slibhb 5y ago

Nursie 5y ago

> You continued on to imply that, in fact, you are in a position to sort out what's true unlike those other, inferior people who fall for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. You missed that I was drawing a distinction between what is commonly thought of as the market place of ideas - in which rational discourse and honest debate enables people to learn, compare, agree and disagree, find greater truths, learn, etc etc - and the spread of misinformation based on falsehood, often perpetuated for profit. We absolutely can, as a society, say that (for example) misinformation about vaccines, where we are dealing with matters of fact, is not on a level with actual vaccine science. This is not really up for honest debate. We can debate until the cows come home about what it means, whether any opinions should be drawn or any action taken, but motivated lies are just not on the same footing as factual information. > "Improving access to good information" is usually a euphemism for some kind of censorship. You assume bad faith here, again. I think there’s a lot can be done by way of giving access to scientific information in accessible ways. > I'm vaccinated and I voted for Biden but I do not understand why peope care that others decide not to get vaccinated Well firstly Because that decision affects more than just those individuals, and puts others (including the already vaccinated and those who cannot be vaccinated) at risk. And secondly because some of those making the decision not to vaccinate, and putting themselves at risk, have done so armed with bad information. The nature of the problems may not be new, but the scale and severity seem to be.

exporectomy 5y ago
> with actual vaccine science Who decides what that is? Plenty of actual scientists publish papers in actual science journals that conflict with each other and with official public health advice. The whole vaccines cause autism idea came from what looked like actual vaccine science. Knowledge isn't actually that sure. Sometimes the authorities are wrong. Remember when bread was at the bottom of the food pyramid? > but the scale and severity seem to be. Seem to be or actually are? Are you using "facts" or media sensationalization to form your opinion?
- Nursie 5y ago
  So there’s no way at all, to your mind, to distinguish millions of shitposts about “The covid vaccine causes infertility, and contains 5G chips” from, for instance, genuine risk information? We truly are swimming in a world in which nothing is true. Or you are anyway.
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    You take an extreme example (5G chips in vaccines) to support the idea that we can draw a line in the sand and say what's true & what's false. But if you take an example closer to the line, things start to become less clear. Are masks useful to the general public? If you said "yes" a year ago, you would've been censored for spreading misinformation. If you said "no" yesterday, you would've been censored for spreading misinformation. Anyway, if you think it's so easy to do a good job censoring information, why don't you point to a single example where that worked out? Just one is sufficient. It's okay, I'll wait.
    - jhanschoo 5y ago
      You take a moderate example to support the idea that we cannot nevertheless have a threshold where we can be sure that something is false. But while we cannot clearly say where the land ends and the ocean begins, there are large swaths of places that we can positively identify as ocean. The OP never claimed to have an appropriate solution so I don't know what you are talking about regarding them thinking censorship is easy.