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// grey beard // nice to talk to somebody who gets it on a visceral level. // birth of Fox news // Well, what you've got to explain is not just why Fox news,

by rhelz 3y ago

// grey beard // nice to talk to somebody who gets it on a visceral level. // birth of Fox news // Well, what you've got to explain is not just why Fox news, etc, emerged--but why they didn't emerge earlier? If it's somehow axiomatically true that selling falsehood is more profitable than selling truth, Fox news, etc should have appeared a long time ago. In fact, truth-selling journalism shouldn't even have gotten started in the first place. Something changed. It was profitable to compete on credibility before c. 1995, and it was not profitable after c. 1995. // people who care about truth pay for it // This is a good point--and also, it's important to observe that viewers of Fox news, or MSNBC, or Rachael Maddow, don't think they are consuming bullshit. They care as much about getting the truth as anybody else, they just think that the only place they will get it is from their favorite feed. This point needs to be emphasized....if you talk with people who are, e.g. vaccine deniers, they not anti-science. They will be happy to point you to any number of studies (mostly meta-studies), which prove their point. They want the truth, they want their kids to be healthy. Its just that you can give $20,000 to any assistant professor (who wants tenure and publications badly) who will run a "meta-study" of the results of previous studies, which will, surprise, surprise prove what the generous donor wanted to be proved. It's not that people don't value truth over opinion, but they really can't tell which is which. And it's not just because they are dumb--we all are going be in this situation very soon, if we aren't already. I can't just trust any paper written by psychologists, because of the rampant scientific fraud. Its gotten so bad that you can get a Ph.D. in the field (e.g. Jordan Peterson) and think you are doing valid science, but in fact the field is so screwed up that they don't even realize they are not doing science. We are all rank amateurs in almost every field of human endeavor--we have to rely on experts to give us the straight scoop. For almost any claim which is made, virtually none of us are qualified to tell whether it's true or false--what's more, we are not even qualified to tell whether the guy making the claim is qualified either. Nevertheless, it use to work, because the experts and the media were incentivized to give us the truth. Now they are not, which makes all of us vulnerable, because it really won't be obvious where the truth is, if anywhere. And its not at all obvious what to do about it :-(

intended 3y ago
yes, its fundamentally down to incentives. I suspect that some of our intuitions on how a market place of idea works, are ill suited to the environment we have been building up. This links back to our discussion, because American laws on free speech (and most laws on Free speech), do not build out for complex eventualities. Eventualities such as a media conglomerate being created, or the proliferation of emotional journalism to grab eyeballs and thus winning advertising revenue. The current situation isnt ideal for a market place of ideas - or for the kind of high minded ideas we want to see prevail (I admit a bias). The current situation is completely legal though. I think the lesson is that after some point, either economic growth or information growth, market forces that sell junk food, dominate the market place. Here’s my conundrum. it may be, that at some point, you cannot avoid a big brother scenario. You just need someone to ensure that you can’t sell cigarettes to kids. But this is the path that leads to every thought police debacle ever seen. Ideally there would be some way to ensure that there is a free and frank exchange of ideas, without the network being overwhelmed by spam, fraud, or emotional manipulation. Hmm, You know what - I think there is something that can be done. Break up major networks. Fund regional newspapers through private and public support. Essentially, we are trying to reduce the power of a single network gaining leverage over other players, and ensuring that smaller players have a way of existing in this market place. … I feel like I have reinvented the wheel. This is anti-monopoly or cartel 101.
- rhelz 3y ago
  > its fundamentally down to incentives. Aye. As one of my managers once said, you get what you measure and incent. > reduce the power of a single network Recall, there were only 3 networks, so I don't think that multiplication of voices is necessary to incent truth-telling. Indeed, it incents each voice to offer the most florid headlines, as they are each trying to outshout the others, > free speech laws, Big Brother, etc What happened wasn't any kind of complex change in human rights---what happened was that new technology nuked the supporting business model. Just like the automobile nuked the business model for draft horses. Happens all the time. If doing something doesn't make any money, you eventually have to stop doing it and start doing something else which does. That's why everybody stopped selling news and started selling eyeballs. Creating the conditions for which a marketplace in the truth can exist, is a job for business and legislative geniuses, something I am not.

by rhelz 3y ago

intended 3y ago

yes, its fundamentally down to incentives. I suspect that some of our intuitions on how a market place of idea works, are ill suited to the environment we have been building up. This links back to our discussion, because American laws on free speech (and most laws on Free speech), do not build out for complex eventualities. Eventualities such as a media conglomerate being created, or the proliferation of emotional journalism to grab eyeballs and thus winning advertising revenue. The current situation isnt ideal for a market place of ideas - or for the kind of high minded ideas we want to see prevail (I admit a bias). The current situation is completely legal though. I think the lesson is that after some point, either economic growth or information growth, market forces that sell junk food, dominate the market place. Here’s my conundrum. it may be, that at some point, you cannot avoid a big brother scenario. You just need someone to ensure that you can’t sell cigarettes to kids. But this is the path that leads to every thought police debacle ever seen. Ideally there would be some way to ensure that there is a free and frank exchange of ideas, without the network being overwhelmed by spam, fraud, or emotional manipulation. Hmm, You know what - I think there is something that can be done. Break up major networks. Fund regional newspapers through private and public support. Essentially, we are trying to reduce the power of a single network gaining leverage over other players, and ensuring that smaller players have a way of existing in this market place. … I feel like I have reinvented the wheel. This is anti-monopoly or cartel 101.

rhelz 3y ago
> its fundamentally down to incentives. Aye. As one of my managers once said, you get what you measure and incent. > reduce the power of a single network Recall, there were only 3 networks, so I don't think that multiplication of voices is necessary to incent truth-telling. Indeed, it incents each voice to offer the most florid headlines, as they are each trying to outshout the others, > free speech laws, Big Brother, etc What happened wasn't any kind of complex change in human rights---what happened was that new technology nuked the supporting business model. Just like the automobile nuked the business model for draft horses. Happens all the time. If doing something doesn't make any money, you eventually have to stop doing it and start doing something else which does. That's why everybody stopped selling news and started selling eyeballs. Creating the conditions for which a marketplace in the truth can exist, is a job for business and legislative geniuses, something I am not.