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Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

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Re: Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

#51

Post by mastazi »

ViscountPenguin wrote: post #26
mastazi wrote: post #17

IMHO - distrust in the establishment is not the cause, but a side effect of the real cause. I used to be a journalist before my career in tech. In my opinion, the real culprit is that news outlets now have the wrong incentives. When people still used to buy printed newspapers, you had to pay for your news so you better get well researched articles for your hard earned money. [1] With the rise of internet news, that i…

Seems like it'd run a bit further than the invention of the internet then, right? Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent is scathing of the move to ad supported newspapers way back in the past, leading to the rise of companies like News Corp.

To a different degree, yes I agree. But the move away from paid printed news has overcharged it IMO.

Re: Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

#52

Post by mastazi »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #42
mastazi wrote: post #17

IMHO - distrust in the establishment is not the cause, but a side effect of the real cause. I used to be a journalist before my career in tech. In my opinion, the real culprit is that news outlets now have the wrong incentives. When people still used to buy printed newspapers, you had to pay for your news so you better get well researched articles for your hard earned money. [1] With the rise of internet news, that i…

I read a good editorial recently by George Potter about how advertising is good because it allows news orgs "pay their own way" and helps keep the press free.

I can see where he's coming from but I ask: what would you consider more controlling, advertisers or readers? Readers are not an organised entity, as opposed to corporations buying ad slots. And don't get me wrong sensationalist news outlets have always existed (I mentioned tabloids in my previous comment), so relying on paying readers is not a panacea, it's just the scale that's different today I think.

Re: Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

#53

Post by mastazi »

potato3732842 wrote: post #22
mastazi wrote: post #17

IMHO - distrust in the establishment is not the cause, but a side effect of the real cause. I used to be a journalist before my career in tech. In my opinion, the real culprit is that news outlets now have the wrong incentives. When people still used to buy printed newspapers, you had to pay for your news so you better get well researched articles for your hard earned money. [1] With the rise of internet news, that i…

> is that news outlets now have the wrong incentives. You know how one sausage is made. But every factory is filthy just like yours. I work with "the establishment". It has the wrong incentives too, just different ones.

Oh yes of course I don't disagree on that. I used to cover local politics when I was still in the field, so I've seen my fair share.

Re: Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

#54

Post by mastazi »

techblueberry wrote: post #31
mastazi wrote: post #17

IMHO - distrust in the establishment is not the cause, but a side effect of the real cause. I used to be a journalist before my career in tech. In my opinion, the real culprit is that news outlets now have the wrong incentives. When people still used to buy printed newspapers, you had to pay for your news so you better get well researched articles for your hard earned money. [1] With the rise of internet news, that i…

It’s kind of interesting that this occurs that at the same time tech leaders are basically telling us, we don’t need institutions, look we have ai instead of universities, tech will solve all of your problems. I don’t actually think there’s a conspiracy here, but like, instead of journalists raising the standards of tech, tech lowered the standards of journalists, and made us all sensationalist microbloggers. And yet…

I think that around the mid-2010s that acceptance of tech you're talking about has started eroding and it's still eroding quite fast. Maybe I'm just getting older and leaning towards being cynical? I don't know but it seems my daughter and her friends don't have that idealistic view of tech as me and my buddies had in the early 2000's.

Re: Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

#55

Post by maxbond »

ryandrake wrote: post #40
maxbond wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The YouTuber Milo Rossi [1], who debunks archaeological conspiracy theories (and makes educational content about archaeology) likes to say (paraphrasing slightly) "you don't need to make up conspiracy theories to be mad at the government, you can be mad at the actual government for what they actually do." Institutions/"the establishment" deserve skepticism but that skepticism has to be grounded in the real world and…

> A key smell test is: Does receiving pushback or counter evidence strengthen your conviction that you are correct? The parallels with religion are obvious here too. I would guess that the fall or organized religion participation in America directly matches the rise in political zealotry and/or conspiracy theory belief. There’s always something people believe more strongly the more it is opposed.

To be honest, while there are definitely religious fundamentalists or literalists who suffer from this kind of thinking, I don't find it to be any less prevalent among people who identify as atheists or rationalists. It's a problem of rigid thinking, overcommitment to ideology, and being unwilling to question and overturn your premises. If you are willing to hold beliefs lightly, entertain ideas even if you do not accept them, and remain open to new evidence and to changing your mind, you're probably on the right track regardless of other factors.

A lot of religions teach that reality and God's will is mysterious and open to interpretation. That can be the cornerstone of an epistemic humility, if you cultivate it that way. (I'm agnostic for what it's worth.)

Re: Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

#56

Post by markus_zhang »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #50
markus_zhang wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah you definitely have to be a patrician to be the Emperor. But you gotta remove many other patricians too. My thought is, the US reached the peak of all Empires. It is Pax Americana, and every empire imploded whenever it stopped expanding. We had some pretty good time in the late 1800s and better time back in 1945 and 1990. There were struggles but we always managed to plow through because there were spaces to exp…

> you gotta remove many other patricians too What are you basing this on? The patrician families continued to rein under the Empire. Which side do you think backed Sulla’s dictatorship? Which side do you think felt (and feels) constrained by elections and democratic norms? > It is Pax Americana, and every empire imploded whenever it stopped expanding One, source? Because plenty of great civilisations across history r…

> One, source? Because plenty of great civilisations across history reached stable states for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Be that as it may. Expansionist empires usually shrinks dramatically once they reached their peak. Both Roman and the British are examples, as well as many Chinese dynasties. The East Roman Empire did survive for much longer so it is also possible for the US to go on for a lot longer. I think the Inca was also kinda stable before the Spanish came.

> And two, America is still expanding. The economy is growing. Post industrialisation, there are more routes to goodies than conquering territory. (I can’t think of a single war of conquest since China annexed Tibet that has gone well for the invader since WWII.)

I do hope that we can drag through this period and make some reformation happen. But I don't have high hope for the current batch of elites. Sure the number is growing.

Re: Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

#57

Post by markus_zhang »

mastazi wrote: post #17

IMHO - distrust in the establishment is not the cause, but a side effect of the real cause. I used to be a journalist before my career in tech. In my opinion, the real culprit is that news outlets now have the wrong incentives. When people still used to buy printed newspapers, you had to pay for your news so you better get well researched articles for your hard earned money. [1] With the rise of internet news, that i…

I think investigative journalism is still pretty good. It just takes a whole lot of time to produce.

Re: Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

#58

Post by l33tbro »

tdb7893 wrote: post #48
l33tbro wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It has become mainstream. As soon as Kirk died, people were spouting antisemitic BS conspiracies that 'it was all Israel', even though he was the biggest shill of Israel's policies! As you say, the medical conspiracies have really evolved since covid. I'm just glad we had covid when we did, because I feel that 5 years later people are so much more ignorant and less willing to all go through something together fo…

Are those examples at all indicative of what conspiracy theories are anymore, they seem stuck in the last century? The only one of those I've literally ever seen, even online, is aliens (and just UFO videos). On the other hand I personally know a lot of people who consistently buy into medical and political misinformation (and social media pushes it to me at least weekly, no matter how much I try to say I'm not inter…

Yes, I feel these type of conspiracies were structurally similar, but of a slighly different composition to political conspiracy. But I think what changed is that political conspiracy became activated by the atomisation of culture and the lack of social consensus. As a result, these former examples (ufo, moonlanding, etc) now almost feel quaint and cartoonish, because they are relatively inconsequential compared to the choices people make and socially harmful actions they'll undertake with political conspiracy.

For a few reasons I personally find that the best medicine is just to nod along with these people and watch them give away their ideological hand:

a) You know where they stand and who you are dealing with.

b) They can, however rarely, be forced to actually confront the irrational logic when sharing it.

c) I think it is the compassionate thing to do, as people just often want to spout these theories as a much needed release valve. After all, people believe this stuff often because of a confusion or frustration they have with their own lives.

Re: Conspiracy content drives anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok, YouTube

#60

Post by tstrimple »

l33tbro wrote: post #20
tdb7893 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't undersell the harms of general conspiracy theories. Most of them become more harmful the more people believe in them and the social media that I see has a tendency to spread the more harmful types of conspiracy theories (medical or political misinformation I see all the time on the internet now).

Yes. It has become mainstream. As soon as Kirk died, people were spouting antisemitic BS conspiracies that 'it was all Israel', even though he was the biggest shill of Israel's policies! As you say, the medical conspiracies have really evolved since covid. I'm just glad we had covid when we did, because I feel that 5 years later people are so much more ignorant and less willing to all go through something together fo…

> With that said, I think the lot of conspiracy that just doesn't really hurt anyone but the believer. Aliens, moon landings, illuminati, etc. Kind of the modern day opiate of the masses.

I'm more and more convinced that these are gateway conspiracy theories. That's where my dad started innocently enough. I remember listening to AM Coast to Coast with him. Art Bell and those "innocent" conspiracies. A couple decades later he's a completely different person with completely different beliefs all still aligned to conspiracy theories he picked up on AM radio. But now it's about Muslims taking over the country and wanting to kill or convert us all and the Clinton's and Obama's plans to enable Sharia takeover.

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