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The headline is making ominous a phenomenon that English already has a word for. Mistrust. It’s not about the evidence, it’s about loss of trust. Many people h

The headline is making ominous a phenomenon that English already has a word for. Mistrust. It’s not about the evidence, it’s about loss of trust. Many people have lost trust in institutions, not evidence.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago
Not to mention verifying evidence is very hard, manufacturing evidence can be cheap, and instutitions have a bad track record about evidences. After 20 years of internet saving the lies of people forever, showing thousands of submarine articles, photoshopped pics and now deep faked materials, can we blame people?
- jesuscript 4y ago
  Of course not, plus the last two decades included two bullshit wars (straight lies), an economic collapse where institutions lied, and hysteria over the severity of Covid on key demographics (masks, politicization, and lockdowns on non-critical demographics, e.g non-seniors). And that’s just America (or the West). How anyone trusts foreign governments of the totalitarian type is something else entirely.
  - colpabar 4y ago
    This is what drives me absolutely nuts whenever I read about current events. Pfizer had to pay the largest fine in US history for a fraud case, yet questioning their data (which we weren't allowed to see until they were sued) is forbidden. We spent decades destroying the middle east with the justification being based on lies, yet to question the motives of the US in the current war is to be a traitor. Fauci was the one in charge of the response to AIDS, which everyone seems to agree was horrendous, yet he's now a national hero. I really struggle to understand how everyone can just go along with it all and forget about everything when the next thing starts.
    - bb88 4y ago
      > Fauci was the one in charge of the response to AIDS, which everyone seems to agree was horrendous, yet he's now a national hero. That's a very self-serving argument cherry picking from history. Fauci was initially hated by the AIDS activists in the 80s but worked to gain their trust. You also don't factor in the societal hate americans had towards the gay population preventing research towards a cure. Here's an article that gives a detailed account of what it was like back in the 80's. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/the-heroic-story-of-how-congress-first-confronted-aids/240131/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/the-her...
    - BitwiseFool 4y ago
      >"I really struggle to understand how everyone can just go along with it all and forget about everything when the next thing starts." My worldview is that all of us are far more "in-the-present" than we realize. I sense most people want to help, want to conform with what is seen as serving the greater good, and are willing to follow the lead of what the group seems to be doing. Not only are we overloaded with information, if we aren't being reminded of what "the good guys" did in the past that was either wrong or hypocritical, we won't know to make a fuss of it. Same story with "the bad guys" having done good things in the past. The most eye opening thing for me was seeing the American political left embrace Liz Cheney while the American political right disavowed her. That flip was unexpected, but it makes perfect sense when it comes to what is immediately expedient.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      > Pfizer had to pay the largest fine in US history for a fraud case, yet questioning their data (which we weren't allowed to see until they were sued) is forbidden. Questioning it is fine, and the data should be public. But also note that Pfizer also has credibility because they have made a decently high ratio of non fraudulent claims since they have a history of making and selling medicines that work.
- lijogdfljk 4y ago
  Yes, imo - because they don't just mistrust - they randomly trust alternatives. Mistrust is warranted, definitely. Trusting random sources that fit their heavy bias is something we should all be hyper aware of and fight. Yet we don't.
  - akozak 4y ago
    The view that we don't fight confirmation bias very much comports with my priors.
  - Manu40 4y ago
    But that just fuels the fire. See, when a person already has evidence that 'other' opinions cannot be trusted, due to the many things being talked about in this thread by GP; It gives credibility to the alternatives because they at least make sense to those people's confirmation bias. Meanwhile, your own confirmation bias is being given credibility due to the things you believe to be true. This is the truth of all information until proven as objective fact. Until proven as objective fact, anyone can claim your 'truth' is just subjective; and thus potentially and highly likely wrong. And so it fuels the fire. The only solution (AFAIK) to this is that everyone leave each other alone for a while and let them figure these things out for themselves by letting good ol father time teach us what is right and wrong. Time. It's one thing in the universe that might not be lying to us, at least all the time; unlike humans who can't stop lying in attempts to ego stroke over being right.
    - lijogdfljk 4y ago
      > The only solution to this is that everyone leave each other alone for a while and let them figure these things out for themselves by letting good ol father time teach us what is right and wrong. Time. It's one thing in the universe that might not be lying to us, at least all the time; unlike humans who can't stop lying in attempts to ego stroke over being right. Man, i couldn't disagree more - about this actually working, that is. This seems to assume that with time we will progress. I have seen the opposite enough to believe that we can, but also can just as likely regress. There are many out there that want to go back to removing rights from people based on skin tone, orientation, religion, gender, etc. Too frequently we reach a regression milestone that originally was projected to be the end of the regression, only to have us ramp up for the next regression milestone and fight over whether the next milestone is the end. I have zero faith in humans ability to cope here. I'm not sure on the solution, but to me it feels like we have a series of radio broadcasts which purposefully brainwash us and our only inclination is to turn the volume up, and make sure the neighbor can hear it through our windows. I am very, very pessimistic on our ability to dig out of this when we still willfully dug ourselves in to begin with.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
However, the article itself is talking about an entirely different phenomenon
omginternets 4y ago
Quite. And if we're going to be Bayesian about it, "too good to be true" is a strong predictor of untrustworthiness.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

Not to mention verifying evidence is very hard, manufacturing evidence can be cheap, and instutitions have a bad track record about evidences. After 20 years of internet saving the lies of people forever, showing thousands of submarine articles, photoshopped pics and now deep faked materials, can we blame people?

jesuscript 4y ago
Of course not, plus the last two decades included two bullshit wars (straight lies), an economic collapse where institutions lied, and hysteria over the severity of Covid on key demographics (masks, politicization, and lockdowns on non-critical demographics, e.g non-seniors). And that’s just America (or the West). How anyone trusts foreign governments of the totalitarian type is something else entirely.
- colpabar 4y ago
  This is what drives me absolutely nuts whenever I read about current events. Pfizer had to pay the largest fine in US history for a fraud case, yet questioning their data (which we weren't allowed to see until they were sued) is forbidden. We spent decades destroying the middle east with the justification being based on lies, yet to question the motives of the US in the current war is to be a traitor. Fauci was the one in charge of the response to AIDS, which everyone seems to agree was horrendous, yet he's now a national hero. I really struggle to understand how everyone can just go along with it all and forget about everything when the next thing starts.
  - bb88 4y ago
    > Fauci was the one in charge of the response to AIDS, which everyone seems to agree was horrendous, yet he's now a national hero. That's a very self-serving argument cherry picking from history. Fauci was initially hated by the AIDS activists in the 80s but worked to gain their trust. You also don't factor in the societal hate americans had towards the gay population preventing research towards a cure. Here's an article that gives a detailed account of what it was like back in the 80's. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/the-heroic-story-of-how-congress-first-confronted-aids/240131/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/the-her...
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    >"I really struggle to understand how everyone can just go along with it all and forget about everything when the next thing starts." My worldview is that all of us are far more "in-the-present" than we realize. I sense most people want to help, want to conform with what is seen as serving the greater good, and are willing to follow the lead of what the group seems to be doing. Not only are we overloaded with information, if we aren't being reminded of what "the good guys" did in the past that was either wrong or hypocritical, we won't know to make a fuss of it. Same story with "the bad guys" having done good things in the past. The most eye opening thing for me was seeing the American political left embrace Liz Cheney while the American political right disavowed her. That flip was unexpected, but it makes perfect sense when it comes to what is immediately expedient.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > Pfizer had to pay the largest fine in US history for a fraud case, yet questioning their data (which we weren't allowed to see until they were sued) is forbidden. Questioning it is fine, and the data should be public. But also note that Pfizer also has credibility because they have made a decently high ratio of non fraudulent claims since they have a history of making and selling medicines that work.
lijogdfljk 4y ago
Yes, imo - because they don't just mistrust - they randomly trust alternatives. Mistrust is warranted, definitely. Trusting random sources that fit their heavy bias is something we should all be hyper aware of and fight. Yet we don't.
- akozak 4y ago
  The view that we don't fight confirmation bias very much comports with my priors.
- Manu40 4y ago
  But that just fuels the fire. See, when a person already has evidence that 'other' opinions cannot be trusted, due to the many things being talked about in this thread by GP; It gives credibility to the alternatives because they at least make sense to those people's confirmation bias. Meanwhile, your own confirmation bias is being given credibility due to the things you believe to be true. This is the truth of all information until proven as objective fact. Until proven as objective fact, anyone can claim your 'truth' is just subjective; and thus potentially and highly likely wrong. And so it fuels the fire. The only solution (AFAIK) to this is that everyone leave each other alone for a while and let them figure these things out for themselves by letting good ol father time teach us what is right and wrong. Time. It's one thing in the universe that might not be lying to us, at least all the time; unlike humans who can't stop lying in attempts to ego stroke over being right.
  - lijogdfljk 4y ago
    > The only solution to this is that everyone leave each other alone for a while and let them figure these things out for themselves by letting good ol father time teach us what is right and wrong. Time. It's one thing in the universe that might not be lying to us, at least all the time; unlike humans who can't stop lying in attempts to ego stroke over being right. Man, i couldn't disagree more - about this actually working, that is. This seems to assume that with time we will progress. I have seen the opposite enough to believe that we can, but also can just as likely regress. There are many out there that want to go back to removing rights from people based on skin tone, orientation, religion, gender, etc. Too frequently we reach a regression milestone that originally was projected to be the end of the regression, only to have us ramp up for the next regression milestone and fight over whether the next milestone is the end. I have zero faith in humans ability to cope here. I'm not sure on the solution, but to me it feels like we have a series of radio broadcasts which purposefully brainwash us and our only inclination is to turn the volume up, and make sure the neighbor can hear it through our windows. I am very, very pessimistic on our ability to dig out of this when we still willfully dug ourselves in to begin with.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

However, the article itself is talking about an entirely different phenomenon

omginternets 4y ago

Quite. And if we're going to be Bayesian about it, "too good to be true" is a strong predictor of untrustworthiness.