3 ms·

All of the things you consider truth were once labeled misinformation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_

All of the things you consider truth were once labeled misinformation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

krapp 3y ago
And yet, despite that, Jewish space lasers don't actually cause forest fires.
- hotdogscout 3y ago
  Probably because you're cherry picking the most absurd example.
  - krapp 3y ago
    No, I'm picking an obvious example. I could pick many more less obvious examples, particularly around COVID or politics, but most other conspiracies or systems of disinformation have enough adherents here that it would only cause unnecessary rancor. Simply opposing the common narrative that all censorship is evil, truth doesn't exist and facts are newspeak is controversial enough. The implication of the above comment is that we cannot trust that any claim is misinformation, much less attempt to censor it, because cases of supposed misinformation in the past have turned out to be true. This is the same category of argument made in defense of conspiracy theories - MKUltra was real so how can you deny the possibility that ${CONSPIRACY} is also true? Obviously this line of reasoning (although it's really a politically motivated argument,) is faulty. Actual disinformation and lies do exist, and it is possible to differentiate between them in most cases - even most controversial cases. That there is so much effort, in the name of "free speech," to muddy the waters and normalize fear of "truth itself" as the only real cognitive hazard is itself telling.
    - hotdogscout 3y ago
      >it is possible to differentiate between them in most cases How? What do you say of the lab-leak hypothesis for COVID?
      - krapp 3y ago
        There is no "lab leak hypothesis" for COVID. There are a number of different theories, ranging from "Biden and Fauci cooked it up in a lab" to "it was accidentally released," from it being entirely natural to a bioweapon, that all get lumped together under that banner, all treated as equally credible, only having an aggressive opposition to the mainstream narrative in common. I won't say more because I'm aware of the motivated reasoning behind bringing it up. Also, while "lab leak theory" is often brought up as an example of "the truth" being censored (despite, AFAIK, there being no concrete evidence yet supporting it) it's worth noting that alternative COVID theories were never censored in any meaningful sense, even on mainstream social media. People discussed it, kept discussing it, and discuss it still. I will say I'm confident that when the facts come out one way or another, they will come from the scientific community, not randoms on the internet. Even if this turns out to be a case of overcorrection by social media platforms (arguably an understandable case, given how much batshit insane stuff was going around back then) it's also a counter-argument to the premise that social media platforms or "Big Tech" control "the narrative" to any significant degree, or really act as the de facto "public square."
karmakurtisaani 3y ago
If you have to go back hundreds of years to find an example, something tells me it's not really all that relevant. But to ignore that, of course authorities are going to label criticism as misinformation. Of course that's what happens. I was hoping we could tacitly assume that misinformation as denying clear vote outcomes, deliberately going against science and so on.
- hotdogscout 3y ago
  Considering the "COVID lab-leak hypothesis is a conspiracy theory" discourse was literally a conspiracy by Nature and China to prevent criticism and on a month-by-month basis more evidence of it is coming out I'm very skeptical of blindly trusting scientific institutions to accurately label misinformation from the politically-inconvenient truths. https://theintercept.com/2023/07/12/covid-documents-house-republicans/ https://theintercept.com/2023/07/12/covid-documents-house-re...
  - karmakurtisaani 3y ago
    This is not going against science. Where are the peer-reviewed papers? What experiments were made? This is criticising authorities, which is the flipside of the trade off I wrote about before. Free speech working as intended. Note that no-one benefited from spreading the lab-theory, so odds are higher it should be at least allowed to enter the public discourse.
    - hotdogscout 3y ago
      How can you have peer-reviewed papers about classified information? China allowed a small team to analyze a glimpse of data while leaks show that team constantly referencing the Nature editorial and "China" not allowing dissent from a natural origin conclusion. Even after the paper was published the team was scared for their careers because at any moment a whistleblower could come out. The people who were asking for transparecy were to be dismissed by the team under the "conspiracy theorist" label. https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-must-be-retracted https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-mu...

All of the things you consider truth were once labeled misinformation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

krapp 3y ago

And yet, despite that, Jewish space lasers don't actually cause forest fires.

hotdogscout 3y ago
Probably because you're cherry picking the most absurd example.
- krapp 3y ago
  No, I'm picking an obvious example. I could pick many more less obvious examples, particularly around COVID or politics, but most other conspiracies or systems of disinformation have enough adherents here that it would only cause unnecessary rancor. Simply opposing the common narrative that all censorship is evil, truth doesn't exist and facts are newspeak is controversial enough. The implication of the above comment is that we cannot trust that any claim is misinformation, much less attempt to censor it, because cases of supposed misinformation in the past have turned out to be true. This is the same category of argument made in defense of conspiracy theories - MKUltra was real so how can you deny the possibility that ${CONSPIRACY} is also true? Obviously this line of reasoning (although it's really a politically motivated argument,) is faulty. Actual disinformation and lies do exist, and it is possible to differentiate between them in most cases - even most controversial cases. That there is so much effort, in the name of "free speech," to muddy the waters and normalize fear of "truth itself" as the only real cognitive hazard is itself telling.
  - hotdogscout 3y ago
    >it is possible to differentiate between them in most cases How? What do you say of the lab-leak hypothesis for COVID?
    - krapp 3y ago
      There is no "lab leak hypothesis" for COVID. There are a number of different theories, ranging from "Biden and Fauci cooked it up in a lab" to "it was accidentally released," from it being entirely natural to a bioweapon, that all get lumped together under that banner, all treated as equally credible, only having an aggressive opposition to the mainstream narrative in common. I won't say more because I'm aware of the motivated reasoning behind bringing it up. Also, while "lab leak theory" is often brought up as an example of "the truth" being censored (despite, AFAIK, there being no concrete evidence yet supporting it) it's worth noting that alternative COVID theories were never censored in any meaningful sense, even on mainstream social media. People discussed it, kept discussing it, and discuss it still. I will say I'm confident that when the facts come out one way or another, they will come from the scientific community, not randoms on the internet. Even if this turns out to be a case of overcorrection by social media platforms (arguably an understandable case, given how much batshit insane stuff was going around back then) it's also a counter-argument to the premise that social media platforms or "Big Tech" control "the narrative" to any significant degree, or really act as the de facto "public square."

karmakurtisaani 3y ago

If you have to go back hundreds of years to find an example, something tells me it's not really all that relevant. But to ignore that, of course authorities are going to label criticism as misinformation. Of course that's what happens. I was hoping we could tacitly assume that misinformation as denying clear vote outcomes, deliberately going against science and so on.

hotdogscout 3y ago
Considering the "COVID lab-leak hypothesis is a conspiracy theory" discourse was literally a conspiracy by Nature and China to prevent criticism and on a month-by-month basis more evidence of it is coming out I'm very skeptical of blindly trusting scientific institutions to accurately label misinformation from the politically-inconvenient truths. https://theintercept.com/2023/07/12/covid-documents-house-republicans/ https://theintercept.com/2023/07/12/covid-documents-house-re...
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  This is not going against science. Where are the peer-reviewed papers? What experiments were made? This is criticising authorities, which is the flipside of the trade off I wrote about before. Free speech working as intended. Note that no-one benefited from spreading the lab-theory, so odds are higher it should be at least allowed to enter the public discourse.
  - hotdogscout 3y ago
    How can you have peer-reviewed papers about classified information? China allowed a small team to analyze a glimpse of data while leaks show that team constantly referencing the Nature editorial and "China" not allowing dissent from a natural origin conclusion. Even after the paper was published the team was scared for their careers because at any moment a whistleblower could come out. The people who were asking for transparecy were to be dismissed by the team under the "conspiracy theorist" label. https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-must-be-retracted https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/why-proximal-origins-mu...