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Those correction notices, in full

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Re: Those correction notices, in full

#12

Post by aprilthird2021 »

aorloff wrote: post #3

[flagged]

This was a prominent mark of the Bush era too (and I'm sure many other Democratic/Republican administrations, it's just my example). I was rewatching Fahrenheit 9/11 because of our government's current foreign engagements, and it's striking how even then people were duped, but back then it was by lack of information, now it is by overinformation

Re: Those correction notices, in full

#13

Post by wrs »

airstrike wrote: post #9
aorloff wrote: post #3

[flagged]

FWIW, I don't think this is really a Trump era exclusive. People have always believed whatever they wanted to believe, facts and accuracy be damned. IMHO understanding this as an inexorable human condition makes it much easier to understand the world. What actually matters is people can be persuaded to _want_ to believe different things, so the only real leverage is in shaping those wants—not in being right.

Also, if you can get people to connect intensely with just one or two of your statements, you can then make other false statements and they won’t care, because that might invalidate the one they really want to believe. The threshold is so low that the shotgun approach of just telling lies continually actually works quite well. Your statements don’t even have to be consistent, so you can A/B test the lies.

The normal backpressure to this is that you lose face with your peers because you become known as a liar. But if your peers don’t influence your success, or you just have no peers, it works.

Re: Those correction notices, in full

#14

Post by toomuchtodo »

wrs wrote: post #13
airstrike wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I don't think this is really a Trump era exclusive. People have always believed whatever they wanted to believe, facts and accuracy be damned. IMHO understanding this as an inexorable human condition makes it much easier to understand the world. What actually matters is people can be persuaded to _want_ to believe different things, so the only real leverage is in shaping those wants—not in being right.

Also, if you can get people to connect intensely with just one or two of your statements, you can then make other false statements and they won’t care, because that might invalidate the one they really want to believe. The threshold is so low that the shotgun approach of just telling lies continually actually works quite well. Your statements don’t even have to be consistent, so you can A/B test the lies. The normal…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42075533 ("HN: Misinformation Does Spread Like a Virus, Epidemiology Shows")

https://theconversation.com/misinformation-really-does-sprea... ("The Conversation: Misinformation really does spread like a virus, suggest mathematical models drawn from epidemiology")

Re: Those correction notices, in full

#15

Post by vasco »

I like that they are very blunt and to the point.

It'd be really cool if we can add more social dynamic features to papers / research, and have people correct papers in the open, like twitter community notes, to the point that if you can really disprove it, the paper is now marked "wrong" or something like that on arxiv. Sort of inbetween collaborative science or hunting for patent prior art or bug bounty hunting. Getting paid for it would be even better, making money by sniping issues in research. One can dream.

I wonder how much money in bounties it'd take to proof-invalidate whole branches of psychology (insert your own pet peeve here) research in a methodical way, probably not that much.

Re: Those correction notices, in full

#16

Post by cogman10 »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #12
aorloff wrote: post #3

[flagged]

This was a prominent mark of the Bush era too (and I'm sure many other Democratic/Republican administrations, it's just my example). I was rewatching Fahrenheit 9/11 because of our government's current foreign engagements, and it's striking how even then people were duped, but back then it was by lack of information, now it is by overinformation

What was nuts in the bush era was the bloodthirstiness both generally and in the media.

There's were so few voices that were against invading Iraq. It was just this vagueness that terrorists were everywhere and somehow Iraq was involved in 9/11. (And getting ready to nuke everything).

I mean, ffs, there was a popular TV show that spent each season detailing how the brave heros would stop the Muslim terrorists using torture (24).

Where I lived, it wasn't uncommon to hear people advocate leveling the middle east with nuclear weapons.

Re: Those correction notices, in full

#17

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

cogman10 wrote: post #16
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a prominent mark of the Bush era too (and I'm sure many other Democratic/Republican administrations, it's just my example). I was rewatching Fahrenheit 9/11 because of our government's current foreign engagements, and it's striking how even then people were duped, but back then it was by lack of information, now it is by overinformation

What was nuts in the bush era was the bloodthirstiness both generally and in the media. There's were so few voices that were against invading Iraq. It was just this vagueness that terrorists were everywhere and somehow Iraq was involved in 9/11. (And getting ready to nuke everything). I mean, ffs, there was a popular TV show that spent each season detailing how the brave heros would stop the Muslim terrorists using t…

"Everyone else is an extremist, but I'm totally sane and justified."

When you look at "Muslim Extremists" around the world, they are inspired by the same kind of events and influences that "Christian Americans" are. Zealot leaders lying to the people to further their own aims, and the people lapping it up because they see "evidence" of oppression from "the outsiders", are indoctrinated to hate "the outsiders", and have their own problems which they're easily led to blame "the outsiders" for. A minority of people fall for it, but enough to make a lot of noise, and it's just enough that the state can seize it as a "mandate from the people" to justify its actions, and everyone else just shrugs and lets it happen.

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