41–50 of 118 posts
I can't help but read this like: Let me show you how dangerous sidewalks are by telling you the story about the time I went for a walk while swinging a spiked bat at every passer by. It was great fun, but it demonstrates why sidewalks are dangerous.
How many articles have had the premise "You can't trust wikipedia, because it's full of lies! Why, just look at this handful of lies I've put on there!"
I honestly don't understand the animosity towards the author. I consider this sort of mischief to be a healthy thing. If you are exposed to true facts constantly, all facts are true, in the same way that a TSA X-ray tech who sees ten thousand not-bombs might miss the one actual bomb. I think of lies and disinformation as good for a mental agility, and an adjunct of storytelling. Is there no space for the trickster in…
A lot of mystics use the argument, "because you can be fool here, truth itself does not exist" and sometimes that can be fairly harmful.
I honestly don't understand the animosity towards the author. I consider this sort of mischief to be a healthy thing. If you are exposed to true facts constantly, all facts are true, in the same way that a TSA X-ray tech who sees ten thousand not-bombs might miss the one actual bomb. I think of lies and disinformation as good for a mental agility, and an adjunct of storytelling. Is there no space for the trickster in…
None of this is the author's fault. The initial lie was meant as harmless fun, the fact that so many (largely highly regarded) media properties went and spewed it out as fact later on is the real problem. I mean how many times a week do we hear about Old Big Media retweeting nonsense or publishing Onion articles? News sources these days are so programmed to chase every story that there's no room for fact checking and…
What news sources do you use? What is New Media?
On-line news publishers don't care about accuracy or truth. Period.
the fact that you do not understand that people simply do not care about street sharks does not make his premise intelligent or thought provoking.
I can't help but read this like: Let me show you how dangerous sidewalks are by telling you the story about the time I went for a walk while swinging a spiked bat at every passer by. It was great fun, but it demonstrates why sidewalks are dangerous.
How many articles have had the premise "You can't trust wikipedia, because it's full of lies! Why, just look at this handful of lies I've put on there!"
This is about someone editing some minor little website, and then a bunch of companies and other websites copying that information, and then other people saying that information is true and accurate, and even expanding on it with their own memories about the misinformation.
That's the scary thing - that people build on the lie.
I might not trust that little website, but I should be able to trust Netflix.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. It's more like he was swinging a foam bat and is warning us how easy it would be for someone more malicious to swing a spiked bat. Seriously, I don't really care if some teenager creates a non-sense fanfic world on poorly monitored sites. However, it is noteworthy how the utter lack of quality control on so many Internet properties can propagate falsehoods. This undermines the claim that the Internet was supposed…
> However, it is noteworthy how the utter lack of quality control on so many Internet properties can propagate falsehoods. It's not a "lack of quality control". It's that the internet is data-starved. I'm familiar with how much data is recorded each year, and it seems paradoxical that we could still be data-starved, but it is so. Starving people/organizations ignore all the warning signs. They're desperate for what i…
Truth is such a slippery concept. How easy it was to create by a school kid, and how organically it grew over time despite being entirely made up. Imagine how much better people with professional tools and desire can generate much more harmful information than fake Henry Winkler appearances.
"We form rough consensuses based on vast amounts of conflicting data, but who really has the power to verify any of it? This is especially true when the stakes are low. A lot of people will put effort into dispelling rumors that the Moon landing was fake or that Hitler is still alive, sure, but who cares enough about something as meaningless and easy to ignore as Street Sharks to make sure all the information about it online is totally accurate?"
So, you lied, but it's someone else's fault? After all, what kind of person would intentionally sow lies about Street Sharks across the internet? Well, not a good one.
Meh. I see this more as god-tier trolling. We have no way to easily tell if this piece is a total lie or a long delayed admission of truth. I'm certainly not ever going to research this to determine if it is valid. And that is what makes the troll god-tier. The nugget of truth he alludes to is then instantly suspect for everything now. Though I may forget that the internet of made up of dogs impersonating people from…