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The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

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Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#191

Post by analog31 »

HPsquared wrote: post #29
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.

Most peoples' conclusions are based on some kind of logical deduction. Where people differ is the fundamental "beliefs" which are treated axiomatically (taken on faith) on which the logical superstructure is built. Edit: people also assign different "comparative value" to different things. Most value judgements involve comparing apples and oranges, but one person might have a preference for oranges and someone else m…

I don't think we follow rigorous logic. Rather, we follow chains of inferences that are plausible to us.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#192

Post by feurio »

inglor_cz wrote: post #126
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?)

Not the OP, but "holier than thou" is not a positive human type.

Neither is it exclusive to the woke, or anyone else.

What I would really like to see is a concrete example, which so far everyone has declined to give. It's customary to provide some actual evidence to back up claims.

"Your honor, the defendant killed the victim in cold blood"

"I see, proceed with your evidence"

"Meh, go find it for yourself."

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#193

Post by PathOfEclipse »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #187
PathOfEclipse wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, they are selecting for citizens with a valid ID. That's the point!

And, no, the law doesn't need to ensure every citizen gets a voting ID. How would one even do that? The voter rolls are out of date and don't contain every citizen. Also, how would you ensure the right IDs get to the right people?

You, as a citizen, do not have an inherent right to vote without having the ability to prove you are who you claim to be. You, as a citizen, may have to experience some inconvenience to get a valid ID if you don't have one already. As long as the inconvenience is reasonable, it should not prevent the creation of voter ID laws.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#194

Post by hotpotamus »

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.

I'm pretty convinced the Earth is round (or an oblate spheroid if you want to be pedantic about it), and I don't care if flat earthers are malicious or deluded; I'm not going to waste my time arguing with them either way.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#195

Post by lnxg33k1 »

feurio wrote: post #192
inglor_cz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but "holier than thou" is not a positive human type.

Neither is it exclusive to the woke, or anyone else. What I would really like to see is a concrete example, which so far everyone has declined to give. It's customary to provide some actual evidence to back up claims. "Your honor, the defendant killed the victim in cold blood" "I see, proceed with your evidence" "Meh, go find it for yourself."

But the judge, the prosecutor and the lawyers are all paid to give the judge stuff, we're here having a conversation, but I am not sure what kind of proof do you want and what should we do, like it's not that newspapers write article about wokes being wokes, just maybe go around on twitter or go on twitter and write something controversial like "#FuckBLM" and see what comes at you, not sure what do you want

or I mean I know what do you want, but don't know how long do you want me to reply to you, or others, like I am very patient in conversations, but I feel like don quixote and as a non native speaker I feel like you're misunderstanding what I say, genuinely or not, I guess someone here thinks not, but I think I am done, its been a few hours, you've been told things, you've been given links, and now I think it's time for you to go to explore the world by yourself... fly free

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#196

Post by standardUser »

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…

Polling consistently shows that the majority of Republican voters do not think Biden won the 2020 election. In my mind, that proves your theory false. A recent UMass poll found that 71% of Republicans think Biden's election was definitely (46%) or probably (25%) not legitimate. In an Ipsos poll last year, 53% of Republicans when asked who "the true President is right now" said Donald Trump. There are dozens of polls showing the exact same thing.

You're also ignoring the 147 elected members of Congress that voted against certifying the election results, and the countless mainstream conservatives politicians and pundits who are constantly promoting provably false conspiracy theories, and not just the Big Lie, often it's even far more nonsensical garbage. This is not a fringe movement, this is the mainstream Republican Party.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#197

Post by bavell »

jamincan wrote: post #189
PathOfEclipse wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

The poll you are citing looks like it asked if Republicans thought trump was the "true president". I could see a lot of republicans responding flippantly just to poke fun and see some feathers get ruffled.

Also, N = ~750 Republicans polled over 2 days but they extrapolate the results to the entire country? Not exactly rigorous science here.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#198

Post by standardUser »

PathOfEclipse wrote: post #151
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

Thomas Sowell has been debunking the "disparate outcome means racism" fallacy for decades. I wish more people were listening. He's the most underrated genius of his time. https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sow... In short, if voter ID laws cause some groups of people to vote less than others, that doesn't make the law discriminatory or make the law bad. Scanning over this ACLU article, I see not…

This is just a weak attempt at re-framing the issue. There is a much simpler way to approach suffrage - are governments making it more difficult or less difficult for voters to lawfully cast a ballot in elections? If you apply that simple question to the scores of voter suppression laws being proposed and passed all over the country, it becomes painfully obvious that these laws are by and large making it more difficult for citizens to lawfully cast a vote. Which makes sense since that is the goal of these laws.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#199

Post by unfocussed_mike »

brigandish wrote: post #26
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is more useful to describe the situations where: - accusing someone of lying has no restraining impact on the person or the lie, and indeed where it might have a magnifying effect or - the lie is being shared by someone who has been lied to and does not know it; they aren't a liar but they are misinformers. Calling the "Covid hasn't even been isolated" misinformation a lie, for example, requires knowing th…

> accusing someone of lying has no restraining impact on the person or the lie Should an accusation alone have that effect?

No -- but I take your point. I meant "with evidence" here.

The point is, many lies are a particular kind of bad faith. You can point out to the guy who, say, believes Antoine Béchamp is the last word in medicine, that he is misrepresenting Béchamp in the past, let alone misrepresenting science in the present, and that guy will argue that it is the very predictable pattern of your fact-based attempt to disprove him that is evidence of your perfidy.

When you know that person is making that argument knowing it to be false, there is no point in accusing them.

The only thing you can do is tackle the "alternative facts" as misinformation rather than as an attempt to deceive.

Because those who argue in bad faith claim injury in bad faith too. "Misinformation" is a more dispassionate approach.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#200

Post by throwaway894345 »

dang wrote: post #186
throwaway894345 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ).

I don't know man. I've spoken English my whole life and I've never heard of anyone being confused about referring to an idea as 'disingenuous' or similar. :) Certainly no one (except you) has corrected me that it can only apply to people. Indeed, dictionary.com offers examples of "disingenuous" referring to ideas:

> The move has no political chance in a Democratic House, but sends a clear, though disingenuous, message about punishing supposed “extremism.”

> He would rather endorse someone with genuine doubts than someone with disingenuous beliefs.

And there are many examples in which "disingenous" refers to things other than people.

> The etmyology is interesting: ingenuous originally meant noble, which is also only something that would be said about a person

I wouldn't be surprised at all if "(dis)ingenuous" originally referred only to people but came to take on a broader meaning. This happens all the time--words are fluid on even very short timespans. Consider the verb form of impact:

> Sense of "strike forcefully against something" first recorded 1916. Figurative sense of "have a forceful effect on" is from 1935.

In only 18 years the word acquired a figurative sense (and I strongly suspect linguistic velocity--the rate of change of language--has much increased in the Internet era--although not uniformly across the lexicon). Considering your Etymonline link dates "disingenuous" to the 1650s, it would be surprising if this figurative sense hadn't developed in the intervening ~370 years.

Anyway, while I do enjoy discussing and learning about language, I have to get back to work. Thanks for the conversation, and enjoy your day! :)

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