4 ms·

Post truth society is already here. Disinformation has been on the rise the past couple of decades, and the results are clearly visible: conspiracy theories, el

by RIMR 3y ago

Post truth society is already here. Disinformation has been on the rise the past couple of decades, and the results are clearly visible: conspiracy theories, election misinformation, and divisive politics where people's worldviews vary across their perception of reality. Photoshopping and lying your way to a narrative is now the norm in the age of social media. No doubt that AI will accelerate this, but to act like AI is the beginning is just evidence that you aren't paying attention.

13years 3y ago
Yes, the problem already exists, but we are approaching something uniquely different in magnitude that is significantly different than prior. I would add the caveat Post-truth is not the moment disinformation exists, but rather the point where the threshold is crossed where truth is no longer discoverable for the majority of content.
- noirbot 3y ago
  But that assumes that we've always lived in a "Truth" society where Truth was discoverable for a majority of content, and I'm not sure that was ever the case for more than like... 10% of the global population for more than a few decades. And it's not even clear to me that that was a net good for everyone involved in a practical sense. A hundred years ago, even people in rich countries often had no simple way to verify the truth of anything. Even information local to them. Cut to 2000 and the scope of things you're expected to validate the truth of has expanded to wartime conditions in countries thousands of miles away, something that is often hard to discover the truth of in real time even if you're actively involved in the war there, and is often not fully discovered for decades or centuries after. In my mind, optimistically, things are moving towards some people being more ok with just not having a hot take about something that they can't verify. Not to say people won't have unjustified opinions on things, but that folks will maybe revert to the sort of "that's happening over there, and maybe I don't need to know about it on a minute by minute basis" zone.
  - 13years 3y ago
    I agree with that. Truth has always been problematic and never had absolute certainty. Nonetheless, we had reasonable methods to increase the probabilities of what we know under certain conditions. There was and always will be limits. However, we understood to some degree at least how to rationalize some manner of probabilities for truth. Locality of information, reputation, the amount of congruent data etc. So I think we are passing from an era of difficult to truth to potentially and era of impossible truth. And yes, some things were already impossible to verify. However, it just simply becomes substantially more and at extremely low cost to manufacture confusion at enormous scale.
busterarm 3y ago
Disinformation is a complete red-herring. It's about presenting people with content that they want to believe. All sides are engaged in it. The facts have never been either-or/black-or-white anyway. It has always been more important to teach people to think for themselves, how to empathize with people who are different from you and have a grounded moral-center. I think if you find yourself completely agreeing with a major narrative in the media, you're probably missing one of the above three. Tribalism is cancer. "Disinformation" is just a reframing of the narrative to pretend that only one side has all of the facts. The people shouting at you about how dangerous it is are the ones playing you.
- RIMR 3y ago
  You seem to have interpreted this in a strongly partisan way for some reason. Nobody accused any specific party or groups of spreading disinformation. This was not a tribalistic argument. and by your own account you seem to understand that disinformation is something that should be combated with critical thinking, so you seem to acknowledge that it is a problem when people decide to believe in falsehoods. "All sides are doing it" doesn't diminish the problem, if anything is shows how severe the problem is. Critical thinking is a good skill, but it's a hard skill for a person to develop if they are overexposed to disinformation. People cannot be expected to figure out what the truth is if they don't have trusted sources of information. You either have to guess who is telling the truth and hope they are right, or you have to assume nobody is telling you the truth and stop caring.
O194673789 3y ago
[flagged]
- diogenes4 3y ago
  [flagged]

by RIMR 3y ago

13years 3y ago

Yes, the problem already exists, but we are approaching something uniquely different in magnitude that is significantly different than prior. I would add the caveat Post-truth is not the moment disinformation exists, but rather the point where the threshold is crossed where truth is no longer discoverable for the majority of content.

noirbot 3y ago
But that assumes that we've always lived in a "Truth" society where Truth was discoverable for a majority of content, and I'm not sure that was ever the case for more than like... 10% of the global population for more than a few decades. And it's not even clear to me that that was a net good for everyone involved in a practical sense. A hundred years ago, even people in rich countries often had no simple way to verify the truth of anything. Even information local to them. Cut to 2000 and the scope of things you're expected to validate the truth of has expanded to wartime conditions in countries thousands of miles away, something that is often hard to discover the truth of in real time even if you're actively involved in the war there, and is often not fully discovered for decades or centuries after. In my mind, optimistically, things are moving towards some people being more ok with just not having a hot take about something that they can't verify. Not to say people won't have unjustified opinions on things, but that folks will maybe revert to the sort of "that's happening over there, and maybe I don't need to know about it on a minute by minute basis" zone.
- 13years 3y ago
  I agree with that. Truth has always been problematic and never had absolute certainty. Nonetheless, we had reasonable methods to increase the probabilities of what we know under certain conditions. There was and always will be limits. However, we understood to some degree at least how to rationalize some manner of probabilities for truth. Locality of information, reputation, the amount of congruent data etc. So I think we are passing from an era of difficult to truth to potentially and era of impossible truth. And yes, some things were already impossible to verify. However, it just simply becomes substantially more and at extremely low cost to manufacture confusion at enormous scale.

busterarm 3y ago

Disinformation is a complete red-herring. It's about presenting people with content that they want to believe. All sides are engaged in it. The facts have never been either-or/black-or-white anyway. It has always been more important to teach people to think for themselves, how to empathize with people who are different from you and have a grounded moral-center. I think if you find yourself completely agreeing with a major narrative in the media, you're probably missing one of the above three. Tribalism is cancer. "Disinformation" is just a reframing of the narrative to pretend that only one side has all of the facts. The people shouting at you about how dangerous it is are the ones playing you.

RIMR 3y ago
You seem to have interpreted this in a strongly partisan way for some reason. Nobody accused any specific party or groups of spreading disinformation. This was not a tribalistic argument. and by your own account you seem to understand that disinformation is something that should be combated with critical thinking, so you seem to acknowledge that it is a problem when people decide to believe in falsehoods. "All sides are doing it" doesn't diminish the problem, if anything is shows how severe the problem is. Critical thinking is a good skill, but it's a hard skill for a person to develop if they are overexposed to disinformation. People cannot be expected to figure out what the truth is if they don't have trusted sources of information. You either have to guess who is telling the truth and hope they are right, or you have to assume nobody is telling you the truth and stop caring.

O194673789 3y ago

[flagged]

diogenes4 3y ago
[flagged]