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> The problem here is that anyone in charge can decide what they believe is fact and make very real, very impactful changes that they force on everyone else. S

> The problem here is that anyone in charge can decide what they believe is fact and make very real, very impactful changes that they force on everyone else. Sure, such is the nature of power. Thus has it always been. What's novel is not that people in charge can broadcast their favored view of facts, but that anyone can broadcast their favored view of facts, which has to led to the current demoralization crisis: in the presence of conflicting authorities, no one believes any facts anymore. Of course, some of the "facts" being broadcast are not, in fact, facts. The problem is that the flood of misinformation is so large, the force of echo chambers so strong, and the cynicism of consumers so great, that it is infeasible to produce persuasive evidence sufficient to make the truth more appealing than lies.

_heimdall 2y ago
> but that anyone can broadcast their favored view of facts Some blame, if not a majority, belongs on whoever actually hears those views and facts though. Knowing someone's intent is extremely hard, it really shouldn't matter whether they intend to mislead or believe what they are saying. Just because someone shares what they may honestly believe to be a fact doesn't mean we have to take it as fact. We lack critical thinking and somehow landed in a spot where we're highly skeptical of anyone in charge but completely believe what a random person writes online. It honestly doesn't matter what facts are being shared or whether they are accurate, without critical thinking and the ability to discern for ourselves how could this ever play out well?
- hackyhacky 2y ago
  > Some blame, if not a majority, belongs on whoever actually hears those views and facts though. Knowing someone's intent is extremely hard, it really shouldn't matter whether they intend to mislead or believe what they are saying. Just because someone shares what they may honestly believe to be a fact doesn't mean we have to take it as fact. I don't think that casting blame on individuals here is productive. I agree, lack of critical thinking skills is a major factor. Who is responsible for ensuring that a plurality of the population of a democracy learn critical thinking? We've gotten by without critical thinking for so long because we mostly don't need it: when you get all your news from Walter Cronkite, what good could come of further analysis? So it's not an individual failure, but a societal one. Susceptibility to misinformation is like a plague, or a meteor strike, or some other natural catastrophe that we just haven't prepared for. Maybe we'll find a solution; maybe we won't, and the future of humanity belongs to those with the boldness to lie most effectively.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    Oh there are societal issues here as well, no argument there. They all roll down hill from individuals' choices though. Society didn't force Walter Cronkite on us. People chose to listen to him and a small number of other trusted sources, and they began choosing to take what was said by those sources at face value. I'm not even saying that was a bad thing or wrong, at the time news did seem to be reported in better faith. We choose our sources though, and we choose how deeply to consider what they say. I don't see how this could have started as a societal issue rather than individual choice first.
    - hackyhacky 2y ago
      > I don't see how this could have started as a societal issue rather than individual choice first. really? I'd say it's clearly a matter of education. Critical thinking and media analysis just isn't part of American public schooling. If anything, people are taught to believe authority figures. Regardless of how it "started", blaming the individual isn't helpful, because that suggests there's nothing to be done. "Well," you say, "folks made a bad decision, c'est la vie." Instead, we should be looking for solutions to media illiteracy, and that solution is certainly social in nature.
      - _heimdall 2y ago
        Sounds like we just have a very different view the relative merits of individual vs collective (or societal) approaches. I very much shy away from control, and that generally means trusting the individual to generally do what is best or at a minimum accept that the result of that will at least be more resilient than the result of a collectivist or top-down approach. Both have risks for sure and there are absolutely times where individualism are a bad idea in my opinion, this just doesn't meet that bar for me.
        hackyhacky 2y ago
        Since we're talking about the functioning of democracy, which necessarily requires a plurality of people, I don't see how anything other than group- or society-level action could possibly make any difference.

_heimdall 2y ago

> but that anyone can broadcast their favored view of facts Some blame, if not a majority, belongs on whoever actually hears those views and facts though. Knowing someone's intent is extremely hard, it really shouldn't matter whether they intend to mislead or believe what they are saying. Just because someone shares what they may honestly believe to be a fact doesn't mean we have to take it as fact. We lack critical thinking and somehow landed in a spot where we're highly skeptical of anyone in charge but completely believe what a random person writes online. It honestly doesn't matter what facts are being shared or whether they are accurate, without critical thinking and the ability to discern for ourselves how could this ever play out well?

hackyhacky 2y ago
> Some blame, if not a majority, belongs on whoever actually hears those views and facts though. Knowing someone's intent is extremely hard, it really shouldn't matter whether they intend to mislead or believe what they are saying. Just because someone shares what they may honestly believe to be a fact doesn't mean we have to take it as fact. I don't think that casting blame on individuals here is productive. I agree, lack of critical thinking skills is a major factor. Who is responsible for ensuring that a plurality of the population of a democracy learn critical thinking? We've gotten by without critical thinking for so long because we mostly don't need it: when you get all your news from Walter Cronkite, what good could come of further analysis? So it's not an individual failure, but a societal one. Susceptibility to misinformation is like a plague, or a meteor strike, or some other natural catastrophe that we just haven't prepared for. Maybe we'll find a solution; maybe we won't, and the future of humanity belongs to those with the boldness to lie most effectively.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  Oh there are societal issues here as well, no argument there. They all roll down hill from individuals' choices though. Society didn't force Walter Cronkite on us. People chose to listen to him and a small number of other trusted sources, and they began choosing to take what was said by those sources at face value. I'm not even saying that was a bad thing or wrong, at the time news did seem to be reported in better faith. We choose our sources though, and we choose how deeply to consider what they say. I don't see how this could have started as a societal issue rather than individual choice first.
  - hackyhacky 2y ago
    > I don't see how this could have started as a societal issue rather than individual choice first. really? I'd say it's clearly a matter of education. Critical thinking and media analysis just isn't part of American public schooling. If anything, people are taught to believe authority figures. Regardless of how it "started", blaming the individual isn't helpful, because that suggests there's nothing to be done. "Well," you say, "folks made a bad decision, c'est la vie." Instead, we should be looking for solutions to media illiteracy, and that solution is certainly social in nature.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      Sounds like we just have a very different view the relative merits of individual vs collective (or societal) approaches. I very much shy away from control, and that generally means trusting the individual to generally do what is best or at a minimum accept that the result of that will at least be more resilient than the result of a collectivist or top-down approach. Both have risks for sure and there are absolutely times where individualism are a bad idea in my opinion, this just doesn't meet that bar for me.
      - hackyhacky 2y ago
        Since we're talking about the functioning of democracy, which necessarily requires a plurality of people, I don't see how anything other than group- or society-level action could possibly make any difference.