5 ms·

Orthogonally related to the article, I think it gets to the deeper issue at hand with regulating technology: The internet connects everyone and allows for free

Orthogonally related to the article, I think it gets to the deeper issue at hand with regulating technology: The internet connects everyone and allows for free-flow of information, free-flow information is eroding people's trust. We want free speech, but people use words to deceive and coerce. You can't make rules to stop this - people will always find ways around them. Ken Thompson wrote "Reflections on Trusting Trust" in 1984 (fitting as it may be). The conclusion being that we can't rely on computers to build trust. But we need trust to live in a society. It's human instinct trust one another. But falsehoods spread fast online, and after being fooled so many times, people are losing their natural trust in others. What's the way forward? I'm curious what this crowd thinks.

smaug7 2y ago
I don't have a specific answer to this as I'm not a trained historian. However, didn't we see this with the invention of the printing press back 500+ years ago? That also dramatically increased knowledge distribution and probably lies and mistruths. How did society handle that?
- jfengel 2y ago
  A key difference was the lack of democracy. There was plenty of misinformation, but it didn't channel quite so directly to the levers of power. That wasn't necessarily better. We put democracy in place for a reason. But there has been a shift in the societal basis that underlies democracy, and we'll be forced to come up with another set of solutions.
  - mistermann 2y ago
    It's weird how people can recognize early versions of manmade things are usually primitive and need numerous iterations to get working at acceptable levels of optimality but when it comes to democracy there's some sort of a magical force hiding it from sight in this regard.
- Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
  Exacerbated witch hunting, for one[1]. Enabled the Protestant reformation which led to the 30 years war, among others[2]. [1] https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept09/2009/10/31/unintended-consequences/ https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept09/2009/10/31/unintended-con... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
- AdieuToLogic 2y ago
  The scarcity of printing presses and costs associated in running them by definition made distribution a calculated financial endeavor. Cultivating a positive reputation would therefore be a valuable asset in order to reliably recoup costs via sales and/or retain patrons. This form of gatekeeping has been eliminated with the zero cost of any person being able to publish their thoughts digitally and without review. Furthermore, misinformation and disinformation now has a financial incentive by way of "driving the clicks." In short, not everyone's voice needs to be heard by all, especially when extremism is required in order to "stand out."
- caust1c 2y ago
  I've thought about this a lot too and I think about a few things: - The barrier to creating and distributing content was higher (it still had to capture people's attention). - We didn't have all the tools to artificially create content, just our imaginations. I'm no doomer by any means, and I think it's useful to look back at history for clues as to how to manage it but it's hard to find clues when the situation is so different. I still believe education and critical thinking are the best antidote for disinformation, but higher education in the US has continued to come under attack (and perhaps rightfully so with the costs rising extremely out of proportion to inflation).
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    > The barrier to creating and distributing content was higher. The printing press lowered the barrier to distributing ideas. The internet lowered the barrier further. In each case, there is a period of social turmoil as society "catches up". The Peasants' War, Müntzer, the Münster Rebellion, Matthys, Hoffman, and on and on are all events and products of the change in availability of printed word. We developed social technologies to counter the faults exploited by increased information availability. "Don't believe everything you read," is a meme which acts against the bias exploited by highly available text. The invention of journals, newspapers, and citations all act in the same way. We haven't developed enough new social technologies to counter the change in information availability. Our existing techniques aren't enough to hold tide and frankly, like all change, going back is never an option, but finding new ways to exist are.
  - mistermann 2y ago
    Maybe Elon Musk should enter the education game too.
arnaudsm 2y ago
Reputation is the usual solution. You build a community and you know who to trust, like humans have always done. The early internet was mostly that (BBS, Usenet, forums). But on the modern internet we mostly consume random google sites & TikTok accounts that are probably bots. FAANG has actively replaced following with algorithmic feeds because they're more profitable.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  Reputation requires identity. I'd need to know people are who they say they are. This is still hard to do. You ain't getting reputation and privacy.
  - arnaudsm 2y ago
    Pseudonyms are anonymous yet can still build trust. I appreciate anonymity when I want to talk about sensitive topics.
    - mc32 2y ago
      Anonymous reputation can turn on those who trust the reputable entity. Easy, though facile, examples are the romantic schemes used to defraud, more intricate are spies and so on.
      - arnaudsm 2y ago
        In a small communities, newcomers are more scrutinized to prevent that. And the scammer can only have a single victim before being expelled. HN, while being large, incentivizes that brilliantly, by highlighting new accounts in green.
        2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
        You can't expel people without proper identity. If you kick out a scammer they can keep coming back with different names/identities.
dllthomas 2y ago
Doesn't really undermine your point, but as a fun aside: Trusting Trust style attacks on compilers were (theoretically) solved by David Wheeler with "diverse double compiling".
- caust1c 2y ago
  Yes, good point. That's pretty similar to scientific falsifiability at least! I think for topics that are not as easily provable as reproducible builds though, trust gets murky. There was something else I read (can't find it now) that made a similar analogy for a web of trust. A web of trust (e.g. PGP) will have de-facto authorities since there will be a tendency for more people to sign individuals presumed to be trustworthy based on their history. It follows that the system runs into issues if their key gets compromised or if a false individual is subject to a sybil attack, producing the illusion of trust. See also: github stars, cryptocurrency, social media follower counts.
JackYoustra 2y ago
...you can make rules to stop this? The Dominion election fraud was more or less cast out of mainstream discourse with commercial damages law. If you expand this a bit (ONLY A BIT) farther, you'd expect a roughly linear scale of results.
- ijustlovemath 2y ago
  There was no fraud. That was debunked.
  - JackYoustra 2y ago
    Yes, that's my whole point? Dominion election fraud was cast out because of court cases.
john-radio 2y ago
I don't really see how that's related to the article (not trying to be a dick about it or anything; probably I'm just dense).
bill_joy_fanboy 2y ago
I think of how I lost trust and it's more along the lines of: "Wow, with all of this new information, I can see how institutions/experts/officials have been lying to me all along." In other words, I "lost trust" in institutions, experts, officials etc., when I found the information on the web that I consider to be "the truth" which overrides what established organizations previously proffered to the me. The Web did cause me to lose trust, but only because it made the actual truth available to me and made me realize how dishonest most people are. There may be examples of this... A mechanic who overcharges you can be "found out" now by a customer who does some online research. Previously, this work would be accepted as is, but it is now (rightfully) questioned. The dishonesty was always there, but it's more readily discovered now. Hope I'm making sense...
- d0gsg0w00f 2y ago
  Unpopular opinion: It's exhausting to be under the illusion I can fact check the world. There's so much freedom in having the faith to say "I trust you that I need those brake pads". If I get screwed for $200 it just means I have $200 less to spend on some other junk I don't need. The scammer won't survive in the long run.
  - bill_joy_fanboy 2y ago
    > It's exhausting to be under the illusion I can fact check the world. Oh, I agree. It is tiring. > If I get screwed for $200... Some scams do far more damage than $200.00. > The scammer won't survive in the long run. Not really true. Some entire industries are built on scams and last decades or indefinitely.
chiefalchemist 2y ago
True trust is earned. "Default trust" is not the same thing. But the two are often confused. When trust is lost, it takes 10x, sometimes 100x more effort to regain it. Sometimes, even with 100x the effort trust does not return. These are Life 101 basics. Pretending these laws don't exist doesn't make them disappear. From my perspective, the root problem is that institutions that want to be trusted - and traditionally were - don't want to make the effort to regain the trust they lost. The media and the government come to mind. Instead they waste energy shamelessly demanding to be trusted, which only widens the gap. They blame the violated, which only widens the gap. And into that void, the nefarious has rushed in. Until the institutions embrace "true trust is earned" the nefarious will thrive in the gap.
- ckemere 2y ago
  I think earning trust often requires significant personal sacrifice. Institutions are made up of people, and I think that one of the outcomes of the web era is that it seems that fewer high talented folks find the motivation to do unglamorous, lower-remuneration jobs.
  - chiefalchemist 2y ago
    No pain. No gain. That too applies in the earned / sacrifice sense. Trust is one of now corrupted words. It's current meaning is a Frankenstein knock off of the true meaning of the word. Other examples include journalism, and leadership (which have also fallen due to lack of sacrafic). Yes, it's Orwellian. Normalized. But still Orwellian.
numbsafari 2y ago
Maybe the Amish are on to something.
mistermann 2y ago
> We want free speech, but people use words to deceive and coerce. They do. > You can't make rules to stop this - people will always find ways around them. Would you be pissed if you got penalized for this comment?

smaug7 2y ago

I don't have a specific answer to this as I'm not a trained historian. However, didn't we see this with the invention of the printing press back 500+ years ago? That also dramatically increased knowledge distribution and probably lies and mistruths. How did society handle that?

jfengel 2y ago
A key difference was the lack of democracy. There was plenty of misinformation, but it didn't channel quite so directly to the levers of power. That wasn't necessarily better. We put democracy in place for a reason. But there has been a shift in the societal basis that underlies democracy, and we'll be forced to come up with another set of solutions.
- mistermann 2y ago
  It's weird how people can recognize early versions of manmade things are usually primitive and need numerous iterations to get working at acceptable levels of optimality but when it comes to democracy there's some sort of a magical force hiding it from sight in this regard.
Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
Exacerbated witch hunting, for one[1]. Enabled the Protestant reformation which led to the 30 years war, among others[2]. [1] https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept09/2009/10/31/unintended-consequences/ https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept09/2009/10/31/unintended-con... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
AdieuToLogic 2y ago
The scarcity of printing presses and costs associated in running them by definition made distribution a calculated financial endeavor. Cultivating a positive reputation would therefore be a valuable asset in order to reliably recoup costs via sales and/or retain patrons. This form of gatekeeping has been eliminated with the zero cost of any person being able to publish their thoughts digitally and without review. Furthermore, misinformation and disinformation now has a financial incentive by way of "driving the clicks." In short, not everyone's voice needs to be heard by all, especially when extremism is required in order to "stand out."
caust1c 2y ago
I've thought about this a lot too and I think about a few things: - The barrier to creating and distributing content was higher (it still had to capture people's attention). - We didn't have all the tools to artificially create content, just our imaginations. I'm no doomer by any means, and I think it's useful to look back at history for clues as to how to manage it but it's hard to find clues when the situation is so different. I still believe education and critical thinking are the best antidote for disinformation, but higher education in the US has continued to come under attack (and perhaps rightfully so with the costs rising extremely out of proportion to inflation).
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  > The barrier to creating and distributing content was higher. The printing press lowered the barrier to distributing ideas. The internet lowered the barrier further. In each case, there is a period of social turmoil as society "catches up". The Peasants' War, Müntzer, the Münster Rebellion, Matthys, Hoffman, and on and on are all events and products of the change in availability of printed word. We developed social technologies to counter the faults exploited by increased information availability. "Don't believe everything you read," is a meme which acts against the bias exploited by highly available text. The invention of journals, newspapers, and citations all act in the same way. We haven't developed enough new social technologies to counter the change in information availability. Our existing techniques aren't enough to hold tide and frankly, like all change, going back is never an option, but finding new ways to exist are.
- mistermann 2y ago
  Maybe Elon Musk should enter the education game too.

arnaudsm 2y ago

Reputation is the usual solution. You build a community and you know who to trust, like humans have always done. The early internet was mostly that (BBS, Usenet, forums). But on the modern internet we mostly consume random google sites & TikTok accounts that are probably bots. FAANG has actively replaced following with algorithmic feeds because they're more profitable.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Reputation requires identity. I'd need to know people are who they say they are. This is still hard to do. You ain't getting reputation and privacy.
- arnaudsm 2y ago
  Pseudonyms are anonymous yet can still build trust. I appreciate anonymity when I want to talk about sensitive topics.
  - mc32 2y ago
    Anonymous reputation can turn on those who trust the reputable entity. Easy, though facile, examples are the romantic schemes used to defraud, more intricate are spies and so on.
    - arnaudsm 2y ago
      In a small communities, newcomers are more scrutinized to prevent that. And the scammer can only have a single victim before being expelled. HN, while being large, incentivizes that brilliantly, by highlighting new accounts in green.
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
        You can't expel people without proper identity. If you kick out a scammer they can keep coming back with different names/identities.

dllthomas 2y ago

Doesn't really undermine your point, but as a fun aside: Trusting Trust style attacks on compilers were (theoretically) solved by David Wheeler with "diverse double compiling".

caust1c 2y ago
Yes, good point. That's pretty similar to scientific falsifiability at least! I think for topics that are not as easily provable as reproducible builds though, trust gets murky. There was something else I read (can't find it now) that made a similar analogy for a web of trust. A web of trust (e.g. PGP) will have de-facto authorities since there will be a tendency for more people to sign individuals presumed to be trustworthy based on their history. It follows that the system runs into issues if their key gets compromised or if a false individual is subject to a sybil attack, producing the illusion of trust. See also: github stars, cryptocurrency, social media follower counts.

JackYoustra 2y ago

...you can make rules to stop this? The Dominion election fraud was more or less cast out of mainstream discourse with commercial damages law. If you expand this a bit (ONLY A BIT) farther, you'd expect a roughly linear scale of results.

ijustlovemath 2y ago
There was no fraud. That was debunked.
- JackYoustra 2y ago
  Yes, that's my whole point? Dominion election fraud was cast out because of court cases.

john-radio 2y ago

I don't really see how that's related to the article (not trying to be a dick about it or anything; probably I'm just dense).

bill_joy_fanboy 2y ago

I think of how I lost trust and it's more along the lines of: "Wow, with all of this new information, I can see how institutions/experts/officials have been lying to me all along." In other words, I "lost trust" in institutions, experts, officials etc., when I found the information on the web that I consider to be "the truth" which overrides what established organizations previously proffered to the me. The Web did cause me to lose trust, but only because it made the actual truth available to me and made me realize how dishonest most people are. There may be examples of this... A mechanic who overcharges you can be "found out" now by a customer who does some online research. Previously, this work would be accepted as is, but it is now (rightfully) questioned. The dishonesty was always there, but it's more readily discovered now. Hope I'm making sense...

d0gsg0w00f 2y ago
Unpopular opinion: It's exhausting to be under the illusion I can fact check the world. There's so much freedom in having the faith to say "I trust you that I need those brake pads". If I get screwed for $200 it just means I have $200 less to spend on some other junk I don't need. The scammer won't survive in the long run.
- bill_joy_fanboy 2y ago
  > It's exhausting to be under the illusion I can fact check the world. Oh, I agree. It is tiring. > If I get screwed for $200... Some scams do far more damage than $200.00. > The scammer won't survive in the long run. Not really true. Some entire industries are built on scams and last decades or indefinitely.

chiefalchemist 2y ago

True trust is earned. "Default trust" is not the same thing. But the two are often confused. When trust is lost, it takes 10x, sometimes 100x more effort to regain it. Sometimes, even with 100x the effort trust does not return. These are Life 101 basics. Pretending these laws don't exist doesn't make them disappear. From my perspective, the root problem is that institutions that want to be trusted - and traditionally were - don't want to make the effort to regain the trust they lost. The media and the government come to mind. Instead they waste energy shamelessly demanding to be trusted, which only widens the gap. They blame the violated, which only widens the gap. And into that void, the nefarious has rushed in. Until the institutions embrace "true trust is earned" the nefarious will thrive in the gap.

ckemere 2y ago
I think earning trust often requires significant personal sacrifice. Institutions are made up of people, and I think that one of the outcomes of the web era is that it seems that fewer high talented folks find the motivation to do unglamorous, lower-remuneration jobs.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  No pain. No gain. That too applies in the earned / sacrifice sense. Trust is one of now corrupted words. It's current meaning is a Frankenstein knock off of the true meaning of the word. Other examples include journalism, and leadership (which have also fallen due to lack of sacrafic). Yes, it's Orwellian. Normalized. But still Orwellian.

numbsafari 2y ago

Maybe the Amish are on to something.

mistermann 2y ago

> We want free speech, but people use words to deceive and coerce. They do. > You can't make rules to stop this - people will always find ways around them. Would you be pissed if you got penalized for this comment?