Ask HN: Best books read in 2022?

I call bullshit on that. The progressive side of US politics and society badly discredited itself with its endless harping about Russian electoral manipulation. They spent years doing this without ever putting forth any credible, concrete evidence and in other cases ignoring evidence that showed connections between Russian officials and their preferred political affiliations. This latter event to the point that now, we have several major media outlets being forced to admit the importance of the Hunter Biden laptop story that they previously sneered at after the New York Post made it very public. The levels of partisan absurdity only grow more laughable.

Much of this, I suspect pushed by a near hysterical desire to find an external cause for millions of Americans who voted for him (for whatever numerous reasons of their own) not listening to the preaching by their supposed superiors in the major media outlets and social feeds.

How many people right on this site frequently talk about how difficult it is to convince people through online advertising even when the spending is in the billions by agents that know a lot about individual's preferences because of online habit tracking. And then at the same time we're supposed to believe that tens of millions of Americans were brainwashed into voting against their own preference by a Russian manipulation campaign run by a government that has repeatedly shown itself to be inept at so many things (war most recently), with a relatively modest budget, limited personnel and a general cultural divide between the mentalities of the perpetrators and all those average Trump voters in the U.S.

The entire accusation reeks of idiotic nationalistic elitism justifying a profound disdain for a huge percentage of the U.S population that "refused to listen" (to progressive arguments against Trump).

Both is propaganda, the difference stems from not only trying to frame things in a positive light as you commonly do with advertisement. The reason political propaganda is often more effective is the easy exploitation of negative caricatures combined with ingroup/outgroup effects and the errors of our brains. Be it cognitive biases or simply the inability to scale with complexity. So for example, if i get you to perceive yourself to be part of my ingroup, by having you react predictably with caricatures representing the outgroup (often with some "with us or against us" rhetorics) and manage to have you accept simplified stories, then i quite simply already won. Because i will be able to define who is and who isnt grouped in with the caricatures and how you think about anything they say.

This is very much about brainwashing. If i get you to think about stuff the way i framed it and stop you from communicating with people outside of the frame in a meaningful way, then i own you. And it works through you not wanting to challenge believes you started to identify with due to cognitive biases. Which is also how you recognize whether you are already in such a situation. By for example, believing every disagreement with sockpuppets is a "no" instead of a "yes, but...". Having an incomplete view of a situation is often just as easy to exploit as a wrong one.

Unfortunately this is just the start. This is very much an asymmetric battle with individuals on the loosing end in terms of complexity management and ease of adaptation. And even if you somehow managed to stay objective and got your hands on good information, you are still at threat of your attacker escalating to psychological warfare, for example overwhelming you with inputs to force you into either paralysis or predetermined reactions. And depending of how vicious your attacker is, white torture is also a possibility for further escalation.

>It’s not that strange actually. In fact, the difference between apophenia and science is just the scientific process and the reliance on proof. People make the connection before they know for a fact if it’s real or not. Maybe it is apophenia, maybe not. It’s a hypothesis. THEN YOU TEST IT. The facts determine the outcome and then, whether it feels good or not, you accept them. Even scientists may not want to let go of a good theory that just isn’t panning out. The feeling of correctness is over-powering. This is why people need to have peer-reviews. Colleagues need to be able to replicate results. Solutions need to be tested and the facts harnessed.

>In Q, the proof is more apophenia! Another arrow in the dirt in an endless cycle back to the central propaganda. It has to because there is no truth. The answer is whatever feels the best, makes the most sense, and helps the story. Any truth is just fuel for the propaganda and reinforces the conclusions of the apophenia and central narrative.

>It feels like it’s really happening. It especially seems so when cheered on by a curated fake “community” clapping you on the back and telling you you are a hero for every radical leap into the void you make.

Being opposed to something like this is very easy. And at the same time the ability to figure stuff out without political framing gets harder and harder as well. Its made only worse with propaganda on the political level being also very profitable. And even stuff with good intentions backfires.

Its a clusterfuck all around, stuff gets more and more complicated. We havent solved scaling problems in software development or companies and it seems political discourse cant handle either. In addition to problems becoming too complicated, you also have to stay realistic. If you just fire every politicians dealing with disinformation you have the old problem of replacing everyone with some magic competent new humans with authoritarians meanwhile racing onwards. Give people certain incentives and its hard to behave differently. People want to get reelected and peoples opinions are very easily swayed with some well made propaganda.

On the bright side, this should all be a rather easy fix as long as we can agree on meaning well and reality mattering more then wanting to feel right. Because that is how a really nice made frame looks and you might have to let go and try to be rational for a moment.

edit: tldr: Any attempt to ban missinformation would likely be a terrible idea, we will have to agree to wanting to fix it instead. And that is hopefully just a question of tooling.

If your top priority is ensuring the playing field is always even between truth and lies, and that lies are always given a fair shake, then you're just rigging the game for lies. The truth only wins and holds precedence in an environment where lies can be recognized and fought against, and prevented from manifesting their own reality bubbles.

Banning misinformation alone isn't enough, and yes it can certainly be abused, but it is necessary.

Its impossible. And its one of the most dangerous and insidious ideas out there. To put it quite bluntly, you arent competent enough to determine for other people what is true and what is fake. And neither is anyone else. Its the reason we had informed consent, because without it, idiots thinking to do "the right thing" historically time and time again inflict horrible fates upon those deemed not smart enough to make decisions for themselves.

I understand that you want it to work, or even feel it needs to work, but reality quite simply doesnt give a crap about what anyone feels "should or needs to work".

This might look like a stupid disagreement, but quite frankly, this is the line in the sand towards totalitarian dystopias. If you were competent enough to make that decision, you would be competent enough to explain why something is true or fake. Which in my view leaves either malice or delusion motivating those pushing on regardless.

Thanks to the internet i had the possibility to speak with people holding despicable views, be it nazis or thanks to /r/syriancivilwar even interviews with ISIS supporters. Please really think about the fact that i am still more worried about people with your set of believes.

This is truly dangerous, especially because people tell themselves they do it for the "right reasons". Its what makes it such a horrible trap. Its an easy narrative to fall for and once you are in you left reality in favor of the group narrative. And while other extremist groups use the same mechanisms, this one is a lot more palpable on first view. After all, who would be against no more misinformation? Overlooking the horrible and costly insight of the last 100 years and more that just as running an economy, this isnt a trivial task you can just dictate, even if you really want to. Especially since running the economy would be trivial in comparison.

For the sake of a livable future, please stop before you doom us all.

edit: sorry for the addition 30 minute in