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Articles like this greatly underestimate the amount of misinformation out there throughout all of human history. Convincing people that make-believe is objecti

Articles like this greatly underestimate the amount of misinformation out there throughout all of human history. Convincing people that make-believe is objective reality has been a cornerstone of human civilization. The pyramids would never be made without it, America would not have been founded: "We hold these truths to be self-evident". A superpower of humans is the ability to believe-in and spread these myths. Knowledge pollution existed much before AI. Did Indians actually scalp the Boston settlers? Nope, Benjamin Franklin made it up to strengthen anti-Indian sentiment.

rootusrootus 4y ago
Don't forget the largest of them all -- religion. Shared mythology seems to be hugely important to human society. If the mythology breaks down, it sure appears to take society right along with it. > America would not have been founded This is a great example, for sure. It's hard not to shed a little tear when you sit through the presentation they give on a US Capitol tour about the founding of the nation and the principles that govern it. Makes you want to stand right up and start reciting the pledge of allegiance, and wrap yourself in a glorious American flag. I'm only a little bit kidding. It really is a great story. I want it to be true, it makes me feel really good. It's a nice counterpoint to the Internet, which generally portrays America about as accurately but in the other direction. And I think that the breakdown of this shared mythology may be the most dangerous thing happening in America right now. Which isn't to say that the right-wing nationalist flag-waving rhetoric is the right answer, but we probably would be better off collectively if we all believed in the fairy tale of the founding.
- pixl97 4y ago
  Society and culture are a shared mythology, without it you have a bunch of people doing their own thing but no real direction. Regions typically generated their own mythologies because of shared hardships. Religions typically co-oped those existing mythologies (though not always, genocide was used too) into their beliefs in order to more easily convert masses of fresh bodies. Successful religions typically have a few meta-memes built in. "Have kids or get punished". "Teach those kids your religion or get punished". "Tell other people to join your religion" "If those other people don't want to join your religion turn them into fertilizer". It's a very good way to spread a shared myth.
pixl97 4y ago
Eh, I think that's a slightly different problem though. First each of those problems was geographically limited and slow spreading. And yea, the king says dumb crap, but disagreeing with him will get your head chopped off. But at the same time people would do the things in the same way that ensured their continued survival in general. We are a long damned way from that world now. If you told me tomorrow that farmers decided to stop grown corn and decided to grow 'bio-bitcoin' this year I would not immediately discount that statement. Between consolidation in the industry and Americas short term obsession with profits over long term consequences, yea, it has some plausibility. This extreme consolidation in almost every market presents risk to societies at a global scale. The world back then was far more 'anti-fragile' than what exists today. And then you're not adding the constant firehose of bullshit and its effects. The bitrate of bullshit was far lower back then. Far back you didn't have books. To hear new and interesting bullshit you had to wait for travelers. Now there is a constant stream of bullshit from an unbound number of sources. It's not even like the older days where we stuck with a common bullshit narrative. We can each have our own custom made bullshit universe.
VLM 4y ago
"We never claimed the vaccine would prevent or slow the spread" We live in a civilization where there is propaganda, and only propaganda. Given that, ChatGPT will do just fine.

rootusrootus 4y ago

Don't forget the largest of them all -- religion. Shared mythology seems to be hugely important to human society. If the mythology breaks down, it sure appears to take society right along with it. > America would not have been founded This is a great example, for sure. It's hard not to shed a little tear when you sit through the presentation they give on a US Capitol tour about the founding of the nation and the principles that govern it. Makes you want to stand right up and start reciting the pledge of allegiance, and wrap yourself in a glorious American flag. I'm only a little bit kidding. It really is a great story. I want it to be true, it makes me feel really good. It's a nice counterpoint to the Internet, which generally portrays America about as accurately but in the other direction. And I think that the breakdown of this shared mythology may be the most dangerous thing happening in America right now. Which isn't to say that the right-wing nationalist flag-waving rhetoric is the right answer, but we probably would be better off collectively if we all believed in the fairy tale of the founding.

pixl97 4y ago
Society and culture are a shared mythology, without it you have a bunch of people doing their own thing but no real direction. Regions typically generated their own mythologies because of shared hardships. Religions typically co-oped those existing mythologies (though not always, genocide was used too) into their beliefs in order to more easily convert masses of fresh bodies. Successful religions typically have a few meta-memes built in. "Have kids or get punished". "Teach those kids your religion or get punished". "Tell other people to join your religion" "If those other people don't want to join your religion turn them into fertilizer". It's a very good way to spread a shared myth.

pixl97 4y ago

Eh, I think that's a slightly different problem though. First each of those problems was geographically limited and slow spreading. And yea, the king says dumb crap, but disagreeing with him will get your head chopped off. But at the same time people would do the things in the same way that ensured their continued survival in general. We are a long damned way from that world now. If you told me tomorrow that farmers decided to stop grown corn and decided to grow 'bio-bitcoin' this year I would not immediately discount that statement. Between consolidation in the industry and Americas short term obsession with profits over long term consequences, yea, it has some plausibility. This extreme consolidation in almost every market presents risk to societies at a global scale. The world back then was far more 'anti-fragile' than what exists today. And then you're not adding the constant firehose of bullshit and its effects. The bitrate of bullshit was far lower back then. Far back you didn't have books. To hear new and interesting bullshit you had to wait for travelers. Now there is a constant stream of bullshit from an unbound number of sources. It's not even like the older days where we stuck with a common bullshit narrative. We can each have our own custom made bullshit universe.

VLM 4y ago

"We never claimed the vaccine would prevent or slow the spread" We live in a civilization where there is propaganda, and only propaganda. Given that, ChatGPT will do just fine.