4 ms·

There's this interesting dynamic, which links those who insist on "quality news media" and those canceling their subscription for the media not being partisan e

There's this interesting dynamic, which links those who insist on "quality news media" and those canceling their subscription for the media not being partisan enough and allowing opinions or stories which do not necessarily fit the editorial policy of the media. (Where this policy defines a safe space for what may show up as a confrontation with reality). Which may feed the thought that it was never that much about "quality journalism", but about "quality debate arguments". So another view on this may be rather about the decline of the quality of prefabricated debate arguments, which are arguably hard to find on social media. As it seems, the apparent answer for subscription based media was to double down on partisanship, but also to embrace the easy-to-digest quality of electronic media formats.

dredmorbius 4y ago
There's a more general principle I've been arriving at regarding epistemic systems, which is that quality should be exogenously determined. One basic principle is the "I cut, you choose" heuristic for fairly allocating some resource (e.g., cake). The agent who determines the portioning is not the agent determining the allocation. This appears in the context of central bank management policies in the case of the US Federal Reserve whose dual mandate is to address concerns over inflation and unemployment. The Fed regulates these, but does not measure them --- both are instead calculated by the US Department of Labour, through the Bureau of Labour Statistics. The Fed acts, Labour judges. In biological contexts, we can refer to external or internal selective pressures. The latter are often called "mating preferences", and are the explanation often given for (biologically) expensive, but generally non-functional adaptiations such as antlers on deer, elk, and moose, or the peacock's tail. These are generally seen as signalling mechanisms demonstrating indirectly fitness criteria. Market-based feedback mechanisms for epistemic systems seem to me to be dangerously endogenous, in the sense that the recipient of the information is also engaged in judging that information. We have the term "shooting the messenger" as a description of this. Robert Anton Wilson expressed what's come to be called Celine's Second Law: "Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine%27s_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine%27s_laws That is a necessary but insufficient criterion. My extension would be that accurate communication is possible only when the ONLY reward criterion is accuracy of the information. That is, popularity, entertainment, commercial viability, ideologcial conformance, convenience, conformity with tradition or institutions, are all bias-inducing reward mechanisms. Most of these can be found expressed in various informational biases or discredited bases for truth. Virtually all of them have the characteristic of being positive feedback loops, that is, information satisfying the biased reward system strengthens that reward system. Generally until it doesn't. News that comforts or feeds narratives should be immediately suspect. Truth is generally inconvenient. How to apply these principles to human epistemic systems remains something of a challenge. Though I'd argue strongly that the market is a distortionary mechanism.

dredmorbius 4y ago

There's a more general principle I've been arriving at regarding epistemic systems, which is that quality should be exogenously determined. One basic principle is the "I cut, you choose" heuristic for fairly allocating some resource (e.g., cake). The agent who determines the portioning is not the agent determining the allocation. This appears in the context of central bank management policies in the case of the US Federal Reserve whose dual mandate is to address concerns over inflation and unemployment. The Fed regulates these, but does not measure them --- both are instead calculated by the US Department of Labour, through the Bureau of Labour Statistics. The Fed acts, Labour judges. In biological contexts, we can refer to external or internal selective pressures. The latter are often called "mating preferences", and are the explanation often given for (biologically) expensive, but generally non-functional adaptiations such as antlers on deer, elk, and moose, or the peacock's tail. These are generally seen as signalling mechanisms demonstrating indirectly fitness criteria. Market-based feedback mechanisms for epistemic systems seem to me to be dangerously endogenous, in the sense that the recipient of the information is also engaged in judging that information. We have the term "shooting the messenger" as a description of this. Robert Anton Wilson expressed what's come to be called Celine's Second Law: "Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine%27s_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine%27s_laws That is a necessary but insufficient criterion. My extension would be that accurate communication is possible only when the ONLY reward criterion is accuracy of the information. That is, popularity, entertainment, commercial viability, ideologcial conformance, convenience, conformity with tradition or institutions, are all bias-inducing reward mechanisms. Most of these can be found expressed in various informational biases or discredited bases for truth. Virtually all of them have the characteristic of being positive feedback loops, that is, information satisfying the biased reward system strengthens that reward system. Generally until it doesn't. News that comforts or feeds narratives should be immediately suspect. Truth is generally inconvenient. How to apply these principles to human epistemic systems remains something of a challenge. Though I'd argue strongly that the market is a distortionary mechanism.