5 ms·

> If anything, people seem to be better-informed than in the past [citation needed] more information =/ better informed, the same way drinking from a firehos

> If anything, people seem to be better-informed than in the past [citation needed] more information =/ better informed, the same way drinking from a firehose doesn't allow you to ingest more water than drinking slowly from a glass. This point missed ironically by a website called "slowboring.com"

brianfitz 5y ago
I believe he was using the source article. One example was a leap in public polling around how our government functions (33% jump in being able to identify the three branches of the US federal government).
- fortuna86 5y ago
  Congratulations to us all on the bump in basic civics knowledge. Meanwhile, on more important matters, acceptance of vaccines (which used to be nearly universally viewed as safe and effective) have plummeted. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(20)30012-0/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7... Similar numbers can be found about faith in democracy, views toward fellow citizens, etc. It's not just lack of knowledge, it's the embracing and polarizing extremes.
  - edanm 5y ago
    Have you read the article? He talks specifically about this very subject, and why this narrative is wrong. > When I asked Twitter followers to suggest the best evidence they had that misinformation has become worse than it was 30 years ago, a lot of people expressed their frustration with the people who won’t get Covid-19 vaccines. I also find this extremely frustrating. > That said, vaccination rates for kids have actually risen since the mid-1990s [...] > A lot of people know that the licensing of the polio vaccine in the 1950s was widely greeted with celebratory headlines and the ringing of church bells. [...] Eighteen months after authorization, vaccine uptake was still slow, and that was after a much longer development process.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    The COVID vaccine is not the same as other vaccines. One can have hesitancy towards the COVID and other mRNA vaccines and go get the flu shot the same day. If you want to solve the hesitancy problem you must recognize this first, otherwise you’ll be stuck in a loop like you are now, demanding they’re safe just like every other vaccine in history.
    - fortuna86 5y ago
      mRNA isn't new (it was discovered in the 90s), and has been arguably studied far more than other types of vaccines. Also, there are non-mRNA COVID19 vaccines available as well, if that is your issue. Accounting for both these facts, how is vaccine hesitancy justified ?
      - tekknik 5y ago
        > mRNA isn't new (it was discovered in the 90s) Actually the 1960s, and yet I’m still not wrong as the first mRNA vaccine approved for use was Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. So an actual large scale usage of an mRNA vaccine just happened. > and has been arguably studied far more than other types of vaccines Gonna need a source for that. > Also, there are non-mRNA COVID19 vaccines available as well, if that is your issue. > Accounting for both these facts, how is vaccine hesitancy justified ? And this is covered by a lack of fear of the virus. Many people have caught it and recovered, substantially more than have died. So therefore the vaccine is not needed.
epgui 5y ago
Hehe I really love the firehose visual, and I think it's quite apt... Except that there's also a "pollution" aspect to information. If you consume enough misinformation, it doesn't matter who you are or how smart you are, it's going to affect the way you think. Just as in terms of physical fitness, "you are what you eat", in terms of mental fitness, "you are what you read/hear/consume".
- tekknik 5y ago
  So this means we can’t even trust the “experts”, as they would fall victim to the same issue. So listening to experts would be even more detrimental.
  - epgui 5y ago
    I am sorry, your conclusion does not logically follow. I can see from your other comments that you have some beef against expertise, and all I can say is that I hope you find a way to reason.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      > If you consume enough misinformation, it doesn't matter who you are or how smart you are You said it yourself, so how does it not logically follow? > I can see from your other comments that you have some beef against expertise, and all I can say is that I hope you find a way to reason. No, I have a problem with ego and narcissism.
      - epgui 5y ago
        > You said it yourself No I did not, unless you choose to interpret my words in the most uncharitable way possible.
        tekknik 5y ago
        Then we clearly speak different versions of English.
bcrl 5y ago
I would suggest that a slightly better firehose analogy is that you're drinking from a firehose that includes multiple streams of good drinking water, urine and poison all combined together. When you drink from that firehose, what do you think the odds are that you'll just get the drinking water part of the stream?
- tekknik 5y ago
  33.3% if they’re all equal parts. But it’s best to give people a chance to decide for themselves.
native_samples 5y ago
The article itself is the citation, and provides plenty of evidence and arguments for this.
- fortuna86 5y ago
  The internet has become a confirmation bias machine (as platforms figured out giving people want they want to hear keep them on platform longer). The result is, people are becoming more confident in false conclusions. https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1493987804442812416 https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1493987804442812416 The promise of the internet is more information will help our accuracy, this doesn't take into account the nature of some to want information that confirms their beliefs, not info that is confirmed accurate.
  - native_samples 5y ago
    The poll backing that tweet appears to be exactly the problem you're highlighting though. It's a bunch of academics in which they poll people on questions selected specifically to target a minority of right wing people, which they then use to "prove" that Democrats are better informed. And also that young parents are less informed than older non-parents, which they discover for reasons we'll get to in a moment. But hey, anyone can do that. Here's a poll that shows the opposite - that right wing people are better informed about COVID than left wing people: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimates-covid-hospitalization-risk.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat... Except that's actually a professionally done poll. The "Covid State Project" is an academic consortium (so we can guess that their work won't replicate anyway), and these people REALLY want to believe that left wing academics sit at the top of the informational totem pole. This sort of polling is a waste of time because you can get any result you like, it has confirmation bias all over its design. Want to show that <outgroup> is stupid and dumb? Find the most extreme and stupid beliefs held only by a tiny minority of members of that outgroup and poll everyone on only those questions (an actual question they asked about, "do vaccines contain microchips"). In fact not all of their questions are even correct. They only asked four, and one of them was "is there any impact on fertility" which was rated false. This is itself a lie and I know this, because my fiancés best friend lost her period for nearly six months. No periods = no fertility, so I have seen with my own eyes that this can happen. Not surprisingly, this is the question in which the highest number of people said yes to, yet they rated this belief false and claimed anyone who believes it is "misinformed". This probably explains their otherwise unexplainable finding that young parents are amongst the "wrongest" people. Young parents are exactly the sort of people who are most likely to know lots of women who are caring about periods and fertility, and thus who will be the first to pick up on widespread disruption to menstrual cycles. When they answer correctly that vaccination can affect cycles and thus fertility, they get graded as misinformed. It's garbage-grade research like this which makes academics look so corrupt and terrible. 14 academics worked on this and a poll with four questions, one of which has the wrong answer, is the best they can do.

brianfitz 5y ago

I believe he was using the source article. One example was a leap in public polling around how our government functions (33% jump in being able to identify the three branches of the US federal government).

fortuna86 5y ago
Congratulations to us all on the bump in basic civics knowledge. Meanwhile, on more important matters, acceptance of vaccines (which used to be nearly universally viewed as safe and effective) have plummeted. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(20)30012-0/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7... Similar numbers can be found about faith in democracy, views toward fellow citizens, etc. It's not just lack of knowledge, it's the embracing and polarizing extremes.
- edanm 5y ago
  Have you read the article? He talks specifically about this very subject, and why this narrative is wrong. > When I asked Twitter followers to suggest the best evidence they had that misinformation has become worse than it was 30 years ago, a lot of people expressed their frustration with the people who won’t get Covid-19 vaccines. I also find this extremely frustrating. > That said, vaccination rates for kids have actually risen since the mid-1990s [...] > A lot of people know that the licensing of the polio vaccine in the 1950s was widely greeted with celebratory headlines and the ringing of church bells. [...] Eighteen months after authorization, vaccine uptake was still slow, and that was after a much longer development process.
- tekknik 5y ago
  The COVID vaccine is not the same as other vaccines. One can have hesitancy towards the COVID and other mRNA vaccines and go get the flu shot the same day. If you want to solve the hesitancy problem you must recognize this first, otherwise you’ll be stuck in a loop like you are now, demanding they’re safe just like every other vaccine in history.
  - fortuna86 5y ago
    mRNA isn't new (it was discovered in the 90s), and has been arguably studied far more than other types of vaccines. Also, there are non-mRNA COVID19 vaccines available as well, if that is your issue. Accounting for both these facts, how is vaccine hesitancy justified ?
    - tekknik 5y ago
      > mRNA isn't new (it was discovered in the 90s) Actually the 1960s, and yet I’m still not wrong as the first mRNA vaccine approved for use was Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. So an actual large scale usage of an mRNA vaccine just happened. > and has been arguably studied far more than other types of vaccines Gonna need a source for that. > Also, there are non-mRNA COVID19 vaccines available as well, if that is your issue. > Accounting for both these facts, how is vaccine hesitancy justified ? And this is covered by a lack of fear of the virus. Many people have caught it and recovered, substantially more than have died. So therefore the vaccine is not needed.

epgui 5y ago

Hehe I really love the firehose visual, and I think it's quite apt... Except that there's also a "pollution" aspect to information. If you consume enough misinformation, it doesn't matter who you are or how smart you are, it's going to affect the way you think. Just as in terms of physical fitness, "you are what you eat", in terms of mental fitness, "you are what you read/hear/consume".

tekknik 5y ago
So this means we can’t even trust the “experts”, as they would fall victim to the same issue. So listening to experts would be even more detrimental.
- epgui 5y ago
  I am sorry, your conclusion does not logically follow. I can see from your other comments that you have some beef against expertise, and all I can say is that I hope you find a way to reason.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    > If you consume enough misinformation, it doesn't matter who you are or how smart you are You said it yourself, so how does it not logically follow? > I can see from your other comments that you have some beef against expertise, and all I can say is that I hope you find a way to reason. No, I have a problem with ego and narcissism.
    - epgui 5y ago
      > You said it yourself No I did not, unless you choose to interpret my words in the most uncharitable way possible.
      - tekknik 5y ago
        Then we clearly speak different versions of English.

bcrl 5y ago

I would suggest that a slightly better firehose analogy is that you're drinking from a firehose that includes multiple streams of good drinking water, urine and poison all combined together. When you drink from that firehose, what do you think the odds are that you'll just get the drinking water part of the stream?

tekknik 5y ago
33.3% if they’re all equal parts. But it’s best to give people a chance to decide for themselves.

native_samples 5y ago

The article itself is the citation, and provides plenty of evidence and arguments for this.

fortuna86 5y ago
The internet has become a confirmation bias machine (as platforms figured out giving people want they want to hear keep them on platform longer). The result is, people are becoming more confident in false conclusions. https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1493987804442812416 https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1493987804442812416 The promise of the internet is more information will help our accuracy, this doesn't take into account the nature of some to want information that confirms their beliefs, not info that is confirmed accurate.
- native_samples 5y ago
  The poll backing that tweet appears to be exactly the problem you're highlighting though. It's a bunch of academics in which they poll people on questions selected specifically to target a minority of right wing people, which they then use to "prove" that Democrats are better informed. And also that young parents are less informed than older non-parents, which they discover for reasons we'll get to in a moment. But hey, anyone can do that. Here's a poll that shows the opposite - that right wing people are better informed about COVID than left wing people: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimates-covid-hospitalization-risk.aspx https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat... Except that's actually a professionally done poll. The "Covid State Project" is an academic consortium (so we can guess that their work won't replicate anyway), and these people REALLY want to believe that left wing academics sit at the top of the informational totem pole. This sort of polling is a waste of time because you can get any result you like, it has confirmation bias all over its design. Want to show that <outgroup> is stupid and dumb? Find the most extreme and stupid beliefs held only by a tiny minority of members of that outgroup and poll everyone on only those questions (an actual question they asked about, "do vaccines contain microchips"). In fact not all of their questions are even correct. They only asked four, and one of them was "is there any impact on fertility" which was rated false. This is itself a lie and I know this, because my fiancés best friend lost her period for nearly six months. No periods = no fertility, so I have seen with my own eyes that this can happen. Not surprisingly, this is the question in which the highest number of people said yes to, yet they rated this belief false and claimed anyone who believes it is "misinformed". This probably explains their otherwise unexplainable finding that young parents are amongst the "wrongest" people. Young parents are exactly the sort of people who are most likely to know lots of women who are caring about periods and fertility, and thus who will be the first to pick up on widespread disruption to menstrual cycles. When they answer correctly that vaccination can affect cycles and thus fertility, they get graded as misinformed. It's garbage-grade research like this which makes academics look so corrupt and terrible. 14 academics worked on this and a poll with four questions, one of which has the wrong answer, is the best they can do.