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Fact-checking is absurd. It's a phenomenon that hints at greater problems, solving none. It's offloading critical judgment skills and knowledge (as informed as

by 0x_rs 5y ago

Fact-checking is absurd. It's a phenomenon that hints at greater problems, solving none. It's offloading critical judgment skills and knowledge (as informed as ony may be, and as broad and shallow one needs to distinguish most misleading or false argumentations, it's been a long time since the "last person to know everything"!), and offloading it to people that don't know better, and may be subject to mass-producing them to satify the massive amounts of misinformation online, or they may be voluntarily or not following certain agendas or philosophies that may not reflect reality, and I believe this ends up with a tendency to extremism and marginalization. Snopes got made fun of a lot in the past, some of their conclusions are abstract and get down to semantics instead of actual facts. At some point the average person should know better. It'd be more useful to divert all fundings and investments they get into teaching rational thinking and information validation to people of all ages. I regret not finding some of the compilation images, but I found one such example of.. questionable lines of thought. https://archive.is/KrSEn https://archive.is/KrSEn

mrtranscendence 5y ago
> It'd be more useful to divert all fundings and investments they get into teaching rational thinking and information validation to people of all ages. So everyone has to thoroughly investigate everything, become experts in all fields, and never rely on those with more education and experience. Thanks, I hate it.
- 0x_rs 5y ago
  That's a scary prospect, but not what I meant. If they went away, or weren't plastered on any controversial news piece, it's not as if one's judgment and trust of sources would be worthless. What are the qualifications for the average fact-check reporter? I know it's hard to say these things when one of the most profitable and fundamental abilities since the beginning of propaganda has been manipulating the populace and its judgment, but we ought to do better!
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  All because this new generation of journalists are utterly incapable of doing their jobs.
chrononaut 5y ago
> .. solving none. It's offloading critical judgment skills and knowledge .. and offloading it to people that don't know better Are fact checkers any different than people who contribute to Wikipedia? It serves a purpose, but does come with a lot of disadvantages. > .. and may be subject to mass-producing them to satify the massive amounts of misinformation online, or they may be voluntarily or not following certain agendas or philosophies that may not reflect reality, and I believe this ends up with a tendency to extremism and marginalization. Isn't this the case already? Without "fact checkers" you still have the current population of people spinning stories and framing them in their own desired ways. I don't see how fact checkers are necessarily making the situation worse in that manner. > It'd be more useful to divert all fundings and investments they get into teaching rational thinking and information validation to people of all ages. You still have the problem of scale that you need to solve. There are a lot of controversies now-a-days. I imagine this proposed individual (or even a current, motivated individual) does not have time to investigate some of the more nuanced disputes.
chmod600 5y ago
Fact checking, like education, is absurd in an adversarial context. In a neutral context, both are very useful.

by 0x_rs 5y ago

mrtranscendence 5y ago

> It'd be more useful to divert all fundings and investments they get into teaching rational thinking and information validation to people of all ages. So everyone has to thoroughly investigate everything, become experts in all fields, and never rely on those with more education and experience. Thanks, I hate it.

0x_rs 5y ago
That's a scary prospect, but not what I meant. If they went away, or weren't plastered on any controversial news piece, it's not as if one's judgment and trust of sources would be worthless. What are the qualifications for the average fact-check reporter? I know it's hard to say these things when one of the most profitable and fundamental abilities since the beginning of propaganda has been manipulating the populace and its judgment, but we ought to do better!
JohnWhigham 5y ago
All because this new generation of journalists are utterly incapable of doing their jobs.

chrononaut 5y ago

> .. solving none. It's offloading critical judgment skills and knowledge .. and offloading it to people that don't know better Are fact checkers any different than people who contribute to Wikipedia? It serves a purpose, but does come with a lot of disadvantages. > .. and may be subject to mass-producing them to satify the massive amounts of misinformation online, or they may be voluntarily or not following certain agendas or philosophies that may not reflect reality, and I believe this ends up with a tendency to extremism and marginalization. Isn't this the case already? Without "fact checkers" you still have the current population of people spinning stories and framing them in their own desired ways. I don't see how fact checkers are necessarily making the situation worse in that manner. > It'd be more useful to divert all fundings and investments they get into teaching rational thinking and information validation to people of all ages. You still have the problem of scale that you need to solve. There are a lot of controversies now-a-days. I imagine this proposed individual (or even a current, motivated individual) does not have time to investigate some of the more nuanced disputes.

chmod600 5y ago

Fact checking, like education, is absurd in an adversarial context. In a neutral context, both are very useful.