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If you don't act against disinformation, you get a world that is spammed with so many statements that it's impossible for the average consumer to assess the tru
by perlgeek 2y ago
If you don't act against disinformation, you get a world that is spammed with so many statements that it's impossible for the average consumer to assess the truth of any of them.
Is that what you want?
If yes, why? If not, what's your approach?
- baggy_trough 2y agoI already stated my approach. Let speech be met by more speech in return. Consumers can assess the credibility of each.
- triceratops 2y ago> Consumers can assess the credibility of each. I ain't doing all that work. I'm picking whatever I already believe in. /s but only kind of. That's how most people think. They aren't enlightened like you.
- jandrese 2y agoBut your approach results in someone who can't even conceive of the truth being identifiable. It doesn't seem like a great way to run a society.
- baggy_trough 2y agoI am unable to connect your sentence to what I said.
- jandrese 2y ago> I have no faith that there is some authoritative entity that could objectively determine what is a lie and what is the truth. I read this as "it is impossible to determine truth". If there exists a well resourced entity who's entire purpose in life is to determine objective truth and they are unable to do so what chance do I have?
- baggy_trough 2y agoYou just have to use your best judgement like everybody else.
- jandrese 2y agoThat's the problem though. Your judgement gets warped by the constant stream of lies. That's the fundamental concept behind propaganda. If you repeat a lie enough times it will be believed. Everybody thinks they're too smart to be taken in by propaganda, that's one of the reasons it works so well.
- baggy_trough 2y agoThat's true, and it works both ways.
- potato3732842 2y agoHaving the power to determine truth does not seem like a great way to run a society even if it gets you some easy wins on other fronts. It might work at first and be effective for some time in the same way that a dictator can "get things done" but there is no free lunch. Eventually you will get evil dictators, power hungry arbitrators of truth. It will bite you. It is only a question of when. It might be years or generations. The only winning move is not to play. Don't concentrate the power in the first place.
- acuozzo 2y ago> Consumers can assess the credibility of each. Assuming intelligence is normally distributed, then what's the plan for the bottom 50% here?
- baggy_trough 2y agoAs stated.
- acuozzo 2y agoUnderstood. It's an interesting long-term strategy to revive Feudalism.
- baggy_trough 2y agoMore a strategy to avoid totalitarianism.
- acuozzo 2y agoBy leaving the bottom 50% to be propagandized by populists? If we were still living in the time of thirteen channels and Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News, I'd be inclined to agree with you.
- baggy_trough 2y agoAn elite thinking that they know the truth and should suppress falsehoods is much more dangerous, so yes.
- dec0dedab0de 2y agoLet people be wrong
- kstrauser 2y agoThat's great until it convinces them to make real-world decisions that affect the rest of us. For instance, vaccine misinformation talked a lot of people against getting safe (or at least safer than the illness), effective (not perfect, but effective) immunity shots for COVID. Those people are dead from being wrong. I think someone's an idiot for denying the moon landings, but their ignorance doesn't directly affect my ability to stay alive and health. Some misinformation is worse than others.
- kiitos 2y agoJudges are fallible, therefore a judicial system is impossible!
- baggy_trough 2y agoThe corrosive effect of suppressing potential misinformation is far worse than allowing it to spread.