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The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

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Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#141

Post by pvg »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #102
dang wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also "disingenuous", which is a fancy way of saying lying. Edit: that's not quite right, as throwaway894345 and xyzzyz and Sohcahtoa82 have pointed out below. It's also not quite what I meant (I was being hasty). The point is that 'disingenuous', like 'lie', implies intent to deceive.

I think “lying” as more of a “your claim is outright false” while “disingenuous” lends itself to more subjective forms of misleading. For example, if I refer to a given protest as “violent” on the basis that a literal handful (out of tens or hundreds of thousands) were violent, I’m not really lying but I’m certainly misleading people by way of my characterization.

Both imply intent and the common messageboard usage is a kind of pretend-polite way to claim someone is intentionally misleading when they might simply be disagreeing or just unintentionally wrong, misinformed, etc. A strongly held inaccurate belief is not 'disingenuous'. It's a tropey comment-cliche word that is probably best avoided when addressing people you disagree with online.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#142

Post by BoxOfRain »

dang wrote: post #80
BitwiseFool wrote: post #23

I've also noticed that the term "willful ignorance" gets thrown around a lot more nowadays. There is a sizeable contingent of people who are so convinced that what they believe is the absolute truth that any disagreement or critique must therefore be out of malice rather than genuine disagreement.

Also "disingenuous", which is a fancy way of saying lying. Edit: that's not quite right, as throwaway894345 and xyzzyz and Sohcahtoa82 have pointed out below. It's also not quite what I meant (I was being hasty). The point is that 'disingenuous', like 'lie', implies intent to deceive.

It reminds me of the House of Commons where it's permissible to lie but under no circumstances can your opponent respond by calling that lie out as a lie because that would be un-Parliamentary language. As a result, people twist themselves into all kinds of rhetorical contortions to imply someone is a liar without actually making the accusation.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#143

Post by jandrese »

nickff wrote: post #118
UncleOxidant wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, I was 7. Nobody was saying "did you see that fake moon landing?". It was only years later that I became aware that there were people on the fringe who thought it was faked, but I never personally met anyone with that opinion.

> "It was only years later that I became aware that there were people on the fringe who thought it was faked..." Certain groups (namely the Soviets) ran a number of conspiratorial propaganda campaigns, which were much more effective outside 'the West' (NATO-affiliated countries).

"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

Conspiracy theories have an incredible ability to self sustain, it is entirely possible the "moon landings were faked" theory is an old bit of Soviet propaganda that refused to die.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#144

Post by civilized »

A lot of commenters here seem to want to define "misinformation" to mean something like "selectively presented information to promote a perspective at odds with what I think is a balanced and informed perspective".

With this inherently subjective definition, I'm not sure we'll be able to agree on much about the existence or nature of a misinformation epidemic.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#145

Post by User23 »

The only rational position that fits the observables is defaulting to the assumption that everything one sees in the “news” that one can’t personally verify is misinformation to some greater or lesser extent. This means that, for instance, I generally believe that local weather and traffic reports are accurate.

Sadly, the Gell-Man amnesia effect means that most people will continue to believe whatever nonsense it is that they’re currently being told.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#146

Post by feurio »

kbelder wrote: post #132
feurio wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example, please? ("They take "being a good person" so far that they make life hard for others instead.", for example is a bit vague - that could apply to pious Christians, you're not against Christians, are you?)

It feels like you're being disingenuous. If you've spent time on HN and other forums, I have a hard time believing you don't understand the terminology he's using. It's especially pernicious, because the OP is not a native English speaker, and so he may believe he's actually being difficult to understand, when he's really not.

I don't think so. I'm just stuggling to see why being alert to racial prejudice and discrimination is bad thing. If you would like to explain why it is, please do.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#147

Post by ZeroGravitas »

PathOfEclipse wrote: post #99
standardUser wrote: post #96

"...but you can find super-informed people on both sides of the question. That’s why it’s a live debate." It's just rhetoric. Anything can become a debate, such as who won the 2020 presidential election, if one side is willing to make up facts and repeat them over and over. Proponents of the Big Lie are super-informed, insofar as they have a lot of lies they can say with a straight face that act as stand-ins for actu…

I don't think that's what the right wing is about at all. All the conservative pundits I listen to think Trump behaved disgracefully after the election and that there is still no evidence of sufficient voter irregularities to turn the election. Many still believe it's a major problem that states like Pennsylvania violated their own laws during the election, which should be illegal, but handling that is a separate iss…

Does "more election security" mean less black people voting?

I mean the Republican party has argued in court that it should be legal for them to prevent black democrats from voting as long as it targets them as Democrat voters, rather than by race, so it's not like this is a big secret conspiracy or anything.

https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#148

Post by epgui »

> I do not think there is much evidence that misinformation has become more widespread, that this increase in misinformation is due to technological change, or that it is at the root of the political trends liberals are most angry about. If anything, people seem to be better-informed than in the past — which is what you would expect because our information technology has gotten better [...]

This kind of framing makes me feel very weary. There is plenty of evidence, but I'm not interested in going on a hunt.

Rather, let's think for just one second about how to model this:

- The number of "bad actors" probably has not changed significantly over time

- The cost of producing documents has gone down significantly

- The cost of diffusing documents, or information, per audience headcount, has gone down significantly

- Overall, the total volume of sketchy information produced yearly has been dramatically increasing as a result of these lowering barriers.

- Conversely, the total volume of quality information has clearly increased as well.

- The technological tools at our disposal, as consumers of content, have become more and more sophisticated, such that we now have access to more quality information than ever before in History.

- However, consuming quality content requires constant deliberate effort and prudence, and it is much easier to stumble upon crappy information, than it is to find quality information.

- The less expert you are at a subject, the more energy is required to sift through the crap.

- Most people are either not expert at anything, or are expert in a narrow field of interest.

- Information no longer flows in the same way it once did: it now diffuses through a social graph which is prone to significant network effects. Non-experts can have a bigger influence than experts, even when the information they share is entirely meritless. Echo-chambers form naturally and require a lot of deliberate and conscious effort to get out from. It is very difficult to reach certain pockets of the graph.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#149

Post by feurio »

Chris2048 wrote: post #136
feurio wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Going by the accepted definition what you pointed me to The article you were pointed to contained far more information than that. Choosing to treat that one sentence as a strict definition doesn't really hold up. Your last sentence sound like a personal attack, which makes me think you aren't arguing in good faith.

OK, the actual definition on that page is:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/ WOHK) is an English adjective meaning 'alert to racial prejudice and discrimination' that originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).

Google says: adjective: woke; comparative adjective: woker; superlative adjective: wokest

    alert to injustice in society, especially racism.
    "we need to stay angry, and stay woke"
Merriam Webster: chiefly US slang : aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

So, that seems to be the accepted defintion. I can't really copypasta the whole Wikipedia page now, can I.

The last sentence was not a personal attack, it was merely the logical conclusion his own appraisal of himself; "I am an anti-woke"

If you have an alterative defintion that would refute the conclusion then I'm all ears.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#150

Post by gorwell »

krapp wrote: post #138
gorwell wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question though, are these protests really what he has called them? Are they really a military occupation? Definitely not. Every large scale protest has its provocateurs and outliers. Using the outliers to frame the 99% is dishonest to say the least. To any neutral observer they are overwhelmingly peaceful and represent the working class.

>To any neutral observer they are overwhelmingly peaceful and represent normal working class people. This isn't a neutral observation. "overwhelmingly peaceful and represent normal working class people" exposes a politically-motivated bias.

Does it?

To a neutral observer the BLM protests were overwhelmingly peaceful and represent the administrative class.

To a neutral observer the trucker protests were overwhelmingly peaceful and represent the working class.

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