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Why Fiction Beats Truth

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#61

Post by honzzz »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #30
TeMPOraL wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scenario I had in mind was not debate, just information exchange. Imagine a person meeting friends in a bar, or at a dinner party. They're likely to exchange stories they read about in the news. "So this politician said $outrageous-thing!" (taken outside of context, but who cares), says the person. "Oh yeah, all X are bad, have you heard of $event-that-never-actually-happened?", replies the person B. The conversa…

>Imagine a person meeting friends in a bar, or at a dinner party. They're likely to exchange stories they read about in the news. "So this politician said $outrageous-thing!" (taken outside of context, but who cares), says the person. "Oh yeah, all X are bad, have you heard of $event-that-never-actually-happened?", replies the person B. The conversation goes on. Ultimately, little to no truth was exchanged, but peopl…

Interesting - I've heard this, but always as a joke. It never occurred to me that anyone could actually believe it. I am not saying that you did that but I can imagine how someone explaining to the laughing audience that this event did not really happen would be kind of anti-social.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#62

Post by dalbasal »

I'm a big fan of Harari's Sapiens, like a lot of people.

But... I think the.. narrative gets into inevitably sticky territory. It is, after all, a narrative explaining the role of narratives...

Pure truths and falsehoods are generally small. e=mc^2 or F=ma. Cesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. Facts, baiscally.

Einstein heralded the atomic age, when man began to master matter & energy. Newton's mechanics became both a model for scientific exploration and a symbol for the coming rational age. The Roman Republic ended that day, and the Empire began.

These no neither truths or falsehoods. They're narratives, or fictions as YNH sometimes calls them.

The truth of a narrative is much squishier than the truth of a fact. A case in point is right here: he gives 3 reasons for why fictions succeed politically. These reasons are narratives themselves. For example: "How many Israelis Italians or Indians can stomach the unblemished truth about their nations" I don't think there is an "unblemished truth" about a nation. History is ultimately the biggest harriest example of narrative making. Without narratives, there is no meaningful "Italian people," just people and places and stuff. To make it meaningful, you need a narrative. A story that tels you what "The Italian People" are.

I think a better understanding of how political narratives work is important (and interesting). I'm just skeptical that a true-v-not_true classification is meaningful or useful.

Political pychology should be a field in itsewlf.

It's very hard to project much meaning from facts. Facts don't tell you what Cesar means for our Republic.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#63

Post by lostjohnny »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #21
Buttons840 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. So, someone spouts a well researched conspiracy and others engage in a conversation and the person gets to recite their well prepared talking points. That feels good to the person, that's positive reinforcement. That's a story they can take to their online echo chamber for even more positive feedback. They hold on to the conspiracy as something to talk about, and as something they can feel superior about.…

The scenario I had in mind was not debate, just information exchange. Imagine a person meeting friends in a bar, or at a dinner party. They're likely to exchange stories they read about in the news. "So this politician said $outrageous-thing!" (taken outside of context, but who cares), says the person. "Oh yeah, all X are bad, have you heard of $event-that-never-actually-happened?", replies the person B. The conversa…

and that's why I hate people and think bonding is for animals, not for Sapiens.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#64

Post by lostjohnny »

dalbasal wrote: post #62

I'm a big fan of Harari's Sapiens, like a lot of people. But... I think the.. narrative gets into inevitably sticky territory. It is, after all, a narrative explaining the role of narratives... Pure truths and falsehoods are generally small. e=mc^2 or F=ma. Cesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. Facts, baiscally. Einstein heralded the atomic age, when man began to master matter & energy. Newton's mechanics became both a…

> I don't think there is an "unblemished truth" about a nation

As an Italian, born in Italy and still living in Italy in 2019, I think there is and it is true that if you talk about our recent past very few (20-25% maybe) can stomach it.

Italian people IS "just people and places and stuff", but you forgot food.

> Facts don't tell you what Cesar means for our Republic.

It means he ended it.

He was a military leader who seized control of and put an end to the Roman Republic.

This is not narrative, this is a fact.

Narrative is letting Brutus become a traitor, while he conspired to kill a tyrant, narrative is Shakespeare that named him "the noblest Roman of them all".

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#65

Post by lostjohnny »

wellpast wrote: post #26

This truth v. fiction binary is common thinking but far too simplistic. The idea that there is just a set of facts on one side of the fence and on the other is all the lies -- and the dumb hoi polloi just tends to always go for the "bad side"... This is just simplistic, unimaginative, unrealistic thinking. Even a cluster of the most brutally "true" of facts can be so readily misconstrued and misapplied and result and…

It is also simplistic to think that since people can't handle the truth, lies are better.

narrative per se is not bad, but lies are.

Of course we can resort to Gödel and his incompleteness theorem to reject axioms validity, but try that argument at the bar, with the first stranger you meet.

The bigger picture requires profound knowledge of the current laws to imagine how they could break under a new, different paradigm.

Think about Asimov's work, he was writing fiction, but was writing something that could happen, not something just because it could bond people together.

TL;DR: saying "we need to switch to renewable sources of energy or we'll all die" is fiction, we don't know for sure if we'll all die, but it's good to switch to renewables.

"If you do this or that God will punish you" is a lie that nobody should tell and nobody should believe in, even when it sounds good (thou shalt not kill), you shouldn't do it because it's bad, not because God told you.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#66

Post by BlueTemplar »

lostjohnny wrote: post #63
TeMPOraL wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scenario I had in mind was not debate, just information exchange. Imagine a person meeting friends in a bar, or at a dinner party. They're likely to exchange stories they read about in the news. "So this politician said $outrageous-thing!" (taken outside of context, but who cares), says the person. "Oh yeah, all X are bad, have you heard of $event-that-never-actually-happened?", replies the person B. The conversa…

and that's why I hate people and think bonding is for animals, not for Sapiens.

Except that we are animals. Something tells me that not acknowledging this might be related to your hatred of people ?

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#67

Post by dalbasal »

lostjohnny wrote: post #64
dalbasal wrote: post #62

I'm a big fan of Harari's Sapiens, like a lot of people. But... I think the.. narrative gets into inevitably sticky territory. It is, after all, a narrative explaining the role of narratives... Pure truths and falsehoods are generally small. e=mc^2 or F=ma. Cesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. Facts, baiscally. Einstein heralded the atomic age, when man began to master matter & energy. Newton's mechanics became both a…

> I don't think there is an "unblemished truth" about a nation As an Italian, born in Italy and still living in Italy in 2019, I think there is and it is true that if you talk about our recent past very few (20-25% maybe) can stomach it. Italian people IS "just people and places and stuff", but you forgot food. > Facts don't tell you what Cesar means for our Republic. It means he ended it. He was a military leader wh…

I'm not disagreeing with the main points. There are things about our countries that we can't stomach.

My point is that to be meaningful politically, that stuff is likely to be narrative.. which is not the same as fact. "Cesar ended the republic" is a narrative sort of a statement not a factual one. Cesar crossed the Rubicon, named himself distator for life, marched on Rome... those are facts.

By narrative, I don't mean that it's false.

The Republic itself is/was a story, and the story changed and evolved constantly. Just like democracy, capitalism or whanot it's not a legible concept. It's more like "X is the better man for the job" than "X weighs more than Y." Whether the Republic ended or not only has meaning within the context of the story. There's no external test that declares a republic dead, outside of the narrative.

I recently read a Chinese history timeline. The jist was "China was an empire for thousands of years, until mao." Whether or not something is or isn't "The Chinese empire" is a narrative claim, not a factual one.

The first step towards a truthier world is recognizing the difference between facts and stories. Truth means something totally different depending on what you're dealing with. Apart from climate change, I can't think of major political questions where factual truths and falsehoods play a roles anything like role naratives play.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#68

Post by lostjohnny »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #66
lostjohnny wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and that's why I hate people and think bonding is for animals, not for Sapiens.

Except that we are animals. Something tells me that not acknowledging this might be related to your hatred of people ?

how about this form?

    if animal and (not Sapiens)
      bond
    else 
      you don't really need it dude
> Something tells me that not acknowledging this might be related to your hatred of people ?

You're just assuming, instinctively.

That's what lesser animals do.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#69

Post by BlueTemplar »

cfmcdonald wrote: post #17
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why not attribute it to Churchill anyhow? Because it isn't true. Was the irony intentional? Apparently [0] it's from Roosevelt’s secretary of state, Cordell Hull. [0] https://richardlangworth.com/galloping-lie , also https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/oct/09...

The original original is from Jonathan Swift: "Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead."

Indeed, that's why, as Swift insists, we have to "Speak Now" !

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#70

Post by TeMPOraL »

honzzz wrote: post #61
inflatableDodo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Imagine a person meeting friends in a bar, or at a dinner party. They're likely to exchange stories they read about in the news. "So this politician said $outrageous-thing!" (taken outside of context, but who cares), says the person. "Oh yeah, all X are bad, have you heard of $event-that-never-actually-happened?", replies the person B. The conversation goes on. Ultimately, little to no truth was exchanged, but peopl…

Interesting - I've heard this, but always as a joke. It never occurred to me that anyone could actually believe it. I am not saying that you did that but I can imagine how someone explaining to the laughing audience that this event did not really happen would be kind of anti-social.

There is no good way to explain it to them. You do it at the moment the story is told, you're seen as a killjoy and a smartass. You wait until after the meeting to correct the person who told it, and (unless you're really good friends with them) you'll likely offend them ("why would you correct me on something so trivial?!"). You could try and wait a couple of days, and then stage a sudden discovery ("oh, I'll be damned, I just read that $story is not actually true!"), but the objection of would-be offended person is still technically valid - why are you expending so much effort on something so trivial?

So in the end, this stuff gets largely uncorrected.

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