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The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

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Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#331

Post by baobabKoodaa »

feurio wrote: post #330
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With respect, I haven't asked for an essay, just an update to the definition. Simply amend the following line from Merriam Webster Fine, here's how I would define woke: a political movement focusing on issues related to racial and social justice. Are you happy with this definition? How does this help in any way? > But just look at the people crying woke all of the time ... Again, two wrongs don't make a right. You…

> Fine, here's how I would define woke: a political movement focusing on issues related to racial and social justice. > Are you happy with this definition? How does this help in any way? Absolutely happy. It helps because now that I know that if someone says that they are anti-woke then by definition they are anti racial and social justice. Kind of what I suspected, but good to have it confirmed. Look, I'm a middle a…

> Absolutely happy. It helps because now that I know that if someone says that they are anti-woke then by definition they are anti racial and social justice. Kind of what I suspected, but good to have it confirmed.

If you don't support Antifa, you must be a literal nazi. If you don't support BLM, you must think black lives don't matter. If you don't support woke, you must be anti racial and social justice. We already visited this logical fallacy, I'm not gonna explain again what's wrong with it.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#332

Post by tekknik »

epgui wrote: post #323
tekknik wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you consume enough misinformation, it doesn't matter who you are or how smart you are You said it yourself, so how does it not logically follow? > I can see from your other comments that you have some beef against expertise, and all I can say is that I hope you find a way to reason. No, I have a problem with ego and narcissism.

> You said it yourself No I did not, unless you choose to interpret my words in the most uncharitable way possible.

Then we clearly speak different versions of English.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#333

Post by tekknik »

epgui wrote: post #322
tekknik wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's value in expertise, but at the end of the day it's not the experts life and decisions should be left to the individual. Once you realize this, these types of comments become meaningless.

It sounds like you're talking about something more specific (yet left unspecified) than me.

It was clearly specified, I state it again:

“it's not the experts life and decisions should be left to the individual”

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#334

Post by fortuna86 »

native_samples wrote: post #325
fortuna86 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It requires a lot of good faith, and a relatively credible and overlapping set of facts. This is what any honest exchange of ideas requires, and these conditions are almost never met online (social media, forums, etc.) Id also add that source validation is required (as you point out an 'overlapping set of facts.') If you can't agree that a major news media organization with full time fact checking (no matter their…

Again, this is just railing against the turning tide. Yes, in fact "single social media personalities" routinely beat major news media organizations in being correct (especially as the latter are perhaps most accurately described as coalitions of the former), and this happens frequently enough that lots of people have noticed. If you can't accept that this happens regularly, then there is indeed no hope for actual ex…

> "single social media personalities" routinely beat major news media organizations in being correct

Citation?

> and this happens frequently enough that lots of people have noticed

Now we are getting back into "feelings" about what is true or not, or more plainly "this is what I want to hear" vs. "this is was is factually accurate". I am confident individual social media accounts become better confirmation bias machines than even you most slanted news orgs.

> If you can't accept that this happens regularly, then there is indeed no hope for actual exchange

I admit it has happened, like you can pull 1 or 2 examples using 30 years of history, but it's extremely uncommon. And you haven't sourced anything in making your arguments. If the statistics say individual social media accounts (or any specific account) have greater accuracy than news organizations with full-time fact checking, now is the time to provide those numbers.

> The solution is to, when possible, fact check sources yourself.

I think I know where this is going.

> Patterns will soon become apparent.

Yep. You are describing how people go down internet rabbit holes and become conspiracy theorists. "Doing your own research" is incredibly hard, we rely on trusted sources to do this work. What we need to do individually is make sure the sources we trust deserve our trust. No anonymous blogs, no podcasts with a long history of getting important things wrong with no accountability.

Mike Caulfield's SIFT method is an excellent intro into media (source) literacy: https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/

> Yes, it's slow and hard work

It's literally impossible if you don't use trusted sources. If you attempt to understand vaccine science with no science background, international trade policy with no econ history, etc. You are setting yourself for failure.

> either toughen up or be quiet and leave the work to other people.

Please, you aren't a hero for trusting the wrong people (who are telling you what you want to hear, coincidentally).

> Bleating about how terrible it is not everyone automatically regurgitates CNN

And you end with a fundamental misrepresentation of what I am saying, not surprising. You should not automatically trust most sources, but some get things right far more than others. Living every moment of your life with "I need to research this" means a standard trip to the shop would take 8 hours.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#335

Post by fortuna86 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #282
native_samples wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing that in every democratic country other than the US this stuff is uncontroversial, yet has to be explained here on HN. You can't have partisan activists hanging around outside voting booths all day and "helping" people no more than you can have votes being cast by having voters step up to a loudspeaker and announcing their preference to the crowd. I live outside the US and was honestly quite surprised to…

I'm not sure what the scare quotes around "helping" mean here. The volunteers in question are literally providing snacks and water to everyone in the line outside the polling places who asks. Can you clarify your meaning? > The solution to long queues is to set up more voting booths so the queues are smaller. Yes. Laws are also being passed to intentionally decrease the number of polling places available, especially…

> America's fraught history of use of land ownership, poll taxes, and literacy tests to deprive people of their citizen-guaranteed right to vote.

I think most are aware of this history, voter ID is just the argument they can make in public. Because denying your political enemies the vote (largely along racial lines) isn't something you can advocate for without some kind of spin.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#336

Post by fortuna86 »

native_samples wrote: post #326
fortuna86 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet has become a confirmation bias machine (as platforms figured out giving people want they want to hear keep them on platform longer). The result is, people are becoming more confident in false conclusions. https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1493987804442812416 The promise of the internet is more information will help our accuracy, this doesn't take into account the nature of some to want information th…

The poll backing that tweet appears to be exactly the problem you're highlighting though. It's a bunch of academics in which they poll people on questions selected specifically to target a minority of right wing people, which they then use to "prove" that Democrats are better informed. And also that young parents are less informed than older non-parents, which they discover for reasons we'll get to in a moment. But h…

> The "Covid State Project" is an academic consortium (so we can guess that their work won't replicate anyway)

I'm not sure what you mean by that (perhaps just a simple case of discrediting the messenger in order to ignore the message), but this fact:

> The single biggest predictor, by far, of belief in vaccine misinformation? Identifying as a Republican, reflecting the widespread misinformation and conspiracy theorizing about Covid on the right.

Is supported by polling, hospital rates, death rates, etc. Denying it because it makes your 'side' look bad is not only silly, but dangerous. People are dying.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/briefing/covid-red-states...

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/29/covid-19-is...

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#337

Post by fortuna86 »

native_samples wrote: post #324
cgriswald wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty wrong. It's a common tactic of cranks to bring out lots of sources without worrying about the quality of those sources. It's literally impossible to argue with them because they can always trot out something that even an expert in the field under discussion has never heard about before or that ostensibly supports their claim, but doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Then, when this is dismissed out of hand…

You are just expressing frustration that other people who care more about winning debates than you are able to do so. Paraphrased, it's "impossible" to argue with other people because they "always" have evidence that supposed experts are somehow unaware of, despite being experts, and weirdly enough when you "dismiss [the evidence] out of hand" they "claim victory". That's usually how debate works, yes. That's the who…

> so-called "misinformation" that, when examined carefully, turns out to simply be information that the current ruling classes don't like, often because it exposes them as hypocrites

There's the conspiracy language, I had a hunch. Instead of discussing the world in vague platitudes, lets get specific. 20% of the US is avoiding getting a safe and effective vaccine, as a result thousands have died unnecessarily. This is a new problem, no one had any issues with a polio vaccine MMR, etc.

People don't trust experts at a time when that trust can literally save their lives. The information space is a minefield, expecting every person on earth to have the tool to "make up their own mind" is unrealistic, to put it simply.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#338

Post by feurio »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #331
feurio wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fine, here's how I would define woke: a political movement focusing on issues related to racial and social justice. > Are you happy with this definition? How does this help in any way? Absolutely happy. It helps because now that I know that if someone says that they are anti-woke then by definition they are anti racial and social justice. Kind of what I suspected, but good to have it confirmed. Look, I'm a middle a…

> Absolutely happy. It helps because now that I know that if someone says that they are anti-woke then by definition they are anti racial and social justice. Kind of what I suspected, but good to have it confirmed. If you don't support Antifa, you must be a literal nazi. If you don't support BLM, you must think black lives don't matter. If you don't support woke, you must be anti racial and social justice. We already…

Ahh, the capitals are important - they help you not to conflate things.

I might not support Antifa beause of (some of) their activities. But I'm anti-fascist because I'm not fascist.

I might not support BLM (although I'd struggle to see why) - I don't support them financially, if that counts. The opposite of beliving that black lives matter is believing that black lives don't mater.

There is no Woke. There is only woke.

Continue to vote for the Leopards Eating Faces party, and blame "woke" when leapords eat your face. As the LEF party encourages you to.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#339

Post by baobabKoodaa »

feurio wrote: post #338
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Absolutely happy. It helps because now that I know that if someone says that they are anti-woke then by definition they are anti racial and social justice. Kind of what I suspected, but good to have it confirmed. If you don't support Antifa, you must be a literal nazi. If you don't support BLM, you must think black lives don't matter. If you don't support woke, you must be anti racial and social justice. We already…

Ahh, the capitals are important - they help you not to conflate things. I might not support Antifa beause of (some of) their activities. But I'm anti-fascist because I'm not fascist. I might not support BLM (although I'd struggle to see why) - I don't support them financially, if that counts. The opposite of beliving that black lives matter is believing that black lives don't mater. There is no Woke. There is only wo…

> I might not support Antifa beause of (some of) their activities. But I'm anti-fascist because I'm not fascist.

So then perhaps you might see how someone else might not support the woke movement because of some of their activities, even if they think the goals of the movement are good?

> The opposite of beliving that black lives matter is believing that black lives don't mater.

Yes, and? Where are the people saying "black lives don't matter"? Are you implying that people who don't support BLM (due to their activities of literally burning down cities) are thinking that black lives don't matter? Can you see how a person might agree with the statement "black lives matter", while simultaneously opposing a political movement that's literally named "black lives matter"?

> There is no Woke. There is only woke.

I have no idea what kind of pedantic nitpickery this is, but woke is a political movement just as BLM is, regardless of how you capitalize words.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#340

Post by PathOfEclipse »

fortuna86 wrote: post #237
PathOfEclipse wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

I started to respond to this, claiming a DNS request is "infiltrating into whitehouse servers". This is a technology forum, do I really need to explain to you why that is complete and utter rubbish? Linking to opinion pieces by right wing media isn't a way of making an argument btw, it's outsourcing your thinking to partisans that can tell you want you want to hear. I don't like a lot of things about politics these d…

I stand corrected, thank you. I had not seriously dug into where the word "infiltrate" came from or what it exactly meant. This would be a case where the sources I trust are likely sharing misinformation. From this article: https://lawandcrime.com/russia-investigation/the-words-infil...

While some might blur the line between “spying” and “exploit[ing] . . . access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data,” the distinction is, based on what we know right now, critical. Durham has not alleged a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the Stored Communications Act (SCA), the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), or the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) — all of which are major sources of law as to the prosecutions of federal computer crimes.

I still believe I am still correct that the Steel Dossier and the Russian collusion story were entirely unfounded fabrications of the Clinton team, and I still believe that what they did there was worse than what Trump did on January 6, but this latest alleged Clinton scandal might be overblown.

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