3 ms·

Gell Mann Amnesia

11 points by baxtr 4y ago

machina_ex_deus 4y ago
The media even addressing a subject at all is already something. Critical people can become aware and look for other sources. The real power of the media isn't in how they tell a story, but which story they tell at all. Even as trust in the media tends to zero, their power of setting the agenda is unharmed. Which is why they don't care about lying. Yes, you can tell the opposite story and try to counter their narrative, but there's absolutely nothing at all you can do to fight their control of people's attention. So many important things just aren't reported. You can debate the ineffectiveness of recycling. You can try to get attention to actual real pollution that's harming people in the present, causing cancer. And you can try to fight the destructive narrative of climate change. There's no way to get people to grok that the least harmful pollution is CO2. Or that the entire environment movement has been successfully derailed completely from the real priorities in actual reality. There's absolutely no way to fix up people's attention and priorities after they are tainted by the media. You can somewhat fight them about what's true, but it's an absolutely lost cause fighting them about what's important. Which is why they don't care about lying at all. Just like advertisements dont care about lying. Everyone's laughing at how ChatGPT would rather let people die than utter racial slurs, but that's because most of his training gave attention to racial slurs than to human lives. But humans aren't different, and the media produces all the input.
netbioserror 4y ago
Treating news like Internet forums, and viewing almost all published media as bloviating bullshittery, has done wonders for my mental well-being. It's all water under the bridge, and I only open my cistern gate when power motivations and money trails are clear. A good understanding of Bayesian priors and constants of human behavior also helps. Never take idealistic assumptions about individual behavior for granted, and never listen to anything anyone says, only what they do.

11 points by baxtr 4y ago

The media even addressing a subject at all is already something. Critical people can become aware and look for other sources. The real power of the media isn't in how they tell a story, but which story they tell at all. Even as trust in the media tends to zero, their power of setting the agenda is unharmed. Which is why they don't care about lying. Yes, you can tell the opposite story and try to counter their narrative, but there's absolutely nothing at all you can do to fight their control of people's attention. So many important things just aren't reported. You can debate the ineffectiveness of recycling. You can try to get attention to actual real pollution that's harming people in the present, causing cancer. And you can try to fight the destructive narrative of climate change. There's no way to get people to grok that the least harmful pollution is CO2. Or that the entire environment movement has been successfully derailed completely from the real priorities in actual reality. There's absolutely no way to fix up people's attention and priorities after they are tainted by the media. You can somewhat fight them about what's true, but it's an absolutely lost cause fighting them about what's important. Which is why they don't care about lying at all. Just like advertisements dont care about lying. Everyone's laughing at how ChatGPT would rather let people die than utter racial slurs, but that's because most of his training gave attention to racial slurs than to human lives. But humans aren't different, and the media produces all the input.

netbioserror 4y ago

Treating news like Internet forums, and viewing almost all published media as bloviating bullshittery, has done wonders for my mental well-being. It's all water under the bridge, and I only open my cistern gate when power motivations and money trails are clear. A good understanding of Bayesian priors and constants of human behavior also helps. Never take idealistic assumptions about individual behavior for granted, and never listen to anything anyone says, only what they do.