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The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

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Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#181

Post by fortuna86 »

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.

> 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.

I think they are less confident in their own ideas (politicians aren't even required to state what policies they stand for anymore!) than they are confident that the other side (or at least the cartoonish version of it presented to them via allied media) is wrong/evil.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#182

Post by PathOfEclipse »

fortuna86 wrote: post #180
PathOfEclipse wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I don't see how "a well documented history of voter suppression" applies to increasing election security. I don't see that phrase in your first link, but I found it here: https://www.studioatao.org/post/understanding-the-u-s-govern... . From there I found a link to the evil Brian Kemp who dared to purge voter rolls! https://newrepublic.com/article/151858/americas-relentless-s... Many believe that one of th…

> Similarly, I don't see how "a well documented history of voter suppression" applies to increasing election security Because "election security" - applied strategically and unequally (such as removing ballot boxes and voting stations in areas that are strongholds for your political opponents) is nothing but suppression tactics. Even voter ID laws, when applied only in places where gov ID is not common, can be weapon…

Please point out one person in power who suggests selectively applying voter ID laws in a state. If this discussion weren't partisan, your concern would simply translate to: "voter ID laws make sense; let's make sure the laws are written and enforced fairly", and not, "we can't do voter ID laws because it's possible to be unfair with them!"

It's possible to be unfair with every law, and every law will have disparate impact. What a silly argument to make!

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#183

Post by feurio »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #163
feurio wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this thing about freedom of speech and governments is like one of your(theirs?) preferred point, but who cares? Anyone who cares about reality? Because that's all freedom of speech is. If you break ToS, tough. I don't follow the coffee machine bit, sorry. > also yeah Twitter can do whatever it wants, I needed a mainstream platform which helped alienating people towards their circle Glad you agree that Twitter can d…

I was not on Twitter before the explosion of woke culture, but every now and then I go to read without an account and there's a lot of verbal violence The coffee machine bit: Governments have regulations that protect freedom of speech, and government are made of people and elected by people, if we let woke culture go ahead in their ideas that freedom of speech is ok to be limited when some ideas are expressed, how lo…

> I was not on Twitter before the explosion of woke culture, but every now and then I go to read without an account and there's a lot of verbal violence

Wait, what?! "verbal violence" - I thought you were the defender of freedom of speech? Have we switched and you're now the woke-ist snowflake who is scared of words?

I'm sure you're aware that the next bit is practically the defintion of the slippery-slope fallacy. Given that we have:

* Brazil - Bolsonaro (not woke) * USA - Trump (not woke) until recently and the house likely to turn to the GoP (not woke) soon * UK - Boris Johnson (about as woke as Rip Van Winkle) * Russia - Putin (about as woke as Trump)

I dont think that we're in dange of falling into some Woke World Order anytime soon!

Can you give one soitary example (preferably your best) of a "woke" law being passed, please?

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#184

Post by PathOfEclipse »

fortuna86 wrote: post #176
PathOfEclipse wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> disgracefully Amazing all the words that some come up with to discount what was a violent attempt at staying in power after losing an election.

It was just one word, actually. And, as we are learning now, Hillary Clinton's team paid to infiltrate into whitehouse servers as part of efforts to delegitimize Trump's election: https://www.dailywire.com/news/bombshell-clinton-campaign-pa...

We also know now that the russian collusion hoax was entirely fabricated by Hillary's team: https://nypost.com/2021/11/04/the-real-collusion-was-the-cre...

I don't agree with what Trump did, but what he did was rile up a crowd of people that had zero capability of actually usurping the government, and then waited too long to ask them to leave after they went too far. Politicians on both sides do worse things than that all the time, including our friend Hillary. What she did was worse and far more diabolical, and helped undermine our democracy for four years. What Trump did was to just provide fodder for the democrat party to milk for 2 years in hopes of it saving them from a coming midterm election sweep.

Our government was under zero actual threat on that day. Even the left's own polling shows that moderates aren't buying their narrative: https://www.dailywire.com/news/cbs-buries-poll-results-showi...

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#185

Post by thenerdhead »

RangerScience wrote: post #116
thenerdhead wrote: post #6

Ever since a high school current events class, I have questioned the motives of the media. This was circa 2008 after the stock market crash. The common question of "why is significantly more negative news highlighted than happy news?" What matters to me is the truth. In times of FUD(fear, uncertainty, doubt), the information dials are all set to 11. It's an absolute firehose of all the above. It's less misinformation…

> The internet does not make me feel better informed. I feel more informed when I read books or.. 100% this, excellent observation. > FUD makes the truth hard to decipher One thing I try to do now is "filter out the FUD". I think I'm succeeding, but I don't know how to teach others to do it, so maybe I'm not, haha. Anyway! I filter out the FUD and then look at what's left. To, perhaps, step in it: my current case stu…

Would love to learn how you filter out the FUD!

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#186

Post by dang »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #171
dang wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideas can't be disingenuous because they don't have intent to begin with. Therefore, if an internet comment calls an idea or an argument disingenuous, it's calling the idea-holder or argument-maker disingenuous. It may be a little more indirect, but it's still an attack. In my observation, that word has the opposite effect of 'finding common ground', so I'm surprised to hear you say that. If finding common ground is…

> Ideas can't be disingenuous because they don't have intent to begin with. I don't think that's required. If I call an idea "disingenuous" (or "misleading" for that matter), it doesn't imply that the arguer intended to mislead, but only that the idea lends itself to misinterpretation ("it seems disingenuous to suggest that the protest was violent on the basis of the actions of one or two out of tens of thousands" Th…

Dictionaries define the word in terms of human qualities (dishonesty, insincerity, etc.), so I don't think this argument is on solid ground lexicographically :)

The etmyology is interesting: ingenuous originally meant noble, which is also only something that would be said about a person (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=ingenuous).

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#187

Post by ZeroGravitas »

PathOfEclipse wrote: post #182
fortuna86 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, I don't see how "a well documented history of voter suppression" applies to increasing election security Because "election security" - applied strategically and unequally (such as removing ballot boxes and voting stations in areas that are strongholds for your political opponents) is nothing but suppression tactics. Even voter ID laws, when applied only in places where gov ID is not common, can be weapon…

Please point out one person in power who suggests selectively applying voter ID laws in a state. If this discussion weren't partisan, your concern would simply translate to: "voter ID laws make sense; let's make sure the laws are written and enforced fairly", and not, "we can't do voter ID laws because it's possible to be unfair with them!" It's possible to be unfair with every law, and every law will have disparate…

Anyone proposing it that doesn't also legislate for every voter to be issued with one is being selective.

> The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#188

Post by aftbit »

>I think the only sensible thing to say about all this is that discerning the truth is hard, and it requires debate and dissent. Functional expert communities and well-run journalism institutions are open to new information, to changing their minds, and to correcting the record. But that process doesn’t work if the fact-check squad slaps a “misinformation” label on you for saying the CDC is wrong about masks.

I just wanted to highlight this part really quickly. IMO this is one of the most concerning things to come out of this epidemic of misinformation. We have allowed a handful of for-profit companies to build a system for determining what is true or false. I suppose this isn't meaningfully different than the world before the internet, but that's a huge wasted potential.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#189

Post by jamincan »

PathOfEclipse wrote: post #153
standardUser wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not asserting every single conservative fits this mold, or that you can't cherry-pick pundits who still play fair. But most of what the right wing is oriented around today is attacking the free press, stifling public education, making voting more difficult for urban citizens and pretending, loudly and constantly, that the last election was stolen. Where are the policy proposals? What major legislation did conserv…

Yes, and I'm asserting that 90+% of conservatives don't fit the mold you are casting. That was the point of my response. You can find crazies on both sides of the political aisle. One of trump's failures is that he isn't a good statesman and so failed to unite his own party, which caused a lot of failures in the legislative process as people like John McCain voted against him just because they hated him. I sincerely…

Doesn't a majority of Republican voters believe the 2021 election was stolen?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/24/republicans-...

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#190

Post by mint2 »

civilized wrote: post #121
mint2 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most americans live insular suburban lives in their bubble and when they get doses of current events they are algorithmically fed confirmation bias and especially confirmation bid that arouses them to click/engage. I.e tabloidizing the cherry picked facts that then framed with the biases that poke the viewers buttons.

None of that changes the fact that it's easier than ever to seek out contradicting points of view. People just don't want to. The algorithms feed people stuff that confirms their beliefs because that's what they like. It's all about preferences and choices, not ability.

We shouldn’t try to fix obesity, smoking, enforce seatbelts, gangs, local pollution, etc because all those are personal choices to live near or partake in?
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