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The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

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Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#71

Post by feurio »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #60
feurio wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'm still a little unclear - can you give me a concrete example of a such a news story? And, perhaps to clarify further, do you consider yourself woke, or anti-woke?

I am an anti-woke, but also gave you a starting point which explains what woke is (or was?), but I'm afraid what I wrote is not something I can link, as I wrote it was middle pandemic and going back to find posts from back then is a bit time consuming for me, then you can believe it or not, that's your choice, but I am not sure what should I do here, I guess for in depth research you can also go around the web yourse…

No post body was provided.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#72

Post by [deleted] »

dboreham wrote: post #69

I find it odd that nobody seems to mention the similarities between all this and religion. Widespread belief in things that can't possibly be true. Adherents can't be persuaded otherwise despite incontrovertible evidence. Sounds familiar? Perhaps it's baked into the firmware.

[deleted]

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#73

Post by UncleOxidant »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #42
BeefWellington wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno about that. Thought experiment: The Earth is a flat disc. Is this misinformation, wrongthink, or both? To be sure it's a vague term applied quite continuously online but simply deflecting it as actually meaning "wrongthink" is disingenuous. There's a lot of misinformation being spread specifically about objective measurable facts. It is simultaneously true that a lot of opinions are being mislabeled as misinf…

The firehose of falsehoods relies on this. The liar can produce 10 lies and demands you disprove them or they are somehow true. The burden of the liar proving their reasoning is missing. The goal is that their opinion and your fact be treated with equal weight or the opinion has greater weight simply because they can produce more "opinions" more often than you can facts.

Yes, this. John Green mentioned in his vlog several months ago that he was not going to be answering antivax objections anymore because doing so was becoming a fulltime job and he has other work to do. This is the burden that deliberate misinformation is trying to impose: flood the zone with factual-seeming counter information, provide "data" (generally cherry-picked or out of context) to back it up and demand that it must be addressed. This is the antivax playbook. At it's worst flooding the zone with misinformation is designed to cause the populace to tire of the debate and give up trying to determine what the actual truth is.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#74

Post by wccrawford »

feurio wrote: post #47
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure, english is not my mother tongue so I might have written something in a non-understandable way, if there's something that I might have written better let me know if you want. As for wokes -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

OK, thank you for clarifying. So "wokes" are people who are 'alert to racial prejudice and discrimination'. > newspaper should not report things that are happening but are wrong for wokes, they should only report things that they like, even if what they don't like happened and makes news So what have "wokes" got to do with anything? They are just people who aren't racist, right? Again, maybe I have misunderstood.

It isn't just that they're alert to it, they're hyper alert to it. They even see it where it doesn't exist, and they "white knight" for it, trying to prevent people from giving offense even if nobody is actually offended.

They take "being a good person" so far that they make life hard for others instead.

The root of their beliefs is good: All people are worthy of respect and shouldn't be judged based on things out of their control.

But the lengths they go for that is just too much. They often refuse to even consider that there may be other factors that need to be taken into account as well and shout down everything that doesn't align with their view.

That makes it hard to fight against them. They've set themselves up to be seen as always being in the right, but because they refuse to have nuance, they often aren't.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#75

Post by cryptoboy2283 »

lariati wrote: post #50
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to consider, but the article references multiple political scientists who've studied conspiracy theories and concluded that they don't spread faster today. Is there a reason to believe they're wrong?

I think this partially a myopic view from young people. I remember being a little kid and watching a week long show about the JFK conspiracy on either one of the big 3 networks or PBS. Area 51 alien conspiracy is so ubiquitous I don't even know how you would track it 30 years ago. Alex Jones that is banned from youtube for all these crazy conspiracy theories he puts out use to be on practically nationally on AM radio…

Jones was not a problem for all these platforms for many years, until recent events.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#76

Post by gorwell »

sleepingadmin wrote: post #48
gorwell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but it certainly would explain his actions. You don't compromise with nazis. If you're convinced that's what they are. This would explain a lot about Trump too. He was in a misinformation bubble as well. Which means even world leaders aren't immune to this tribal trap.

>I hadn't thought about it that way, but it certainly would explain his actions. You don't compromise with nazis after all. The question though, are these protests really what he has called them? Are they really a military occupation? >This would explain a lot about Trump too. He was in a misinformation bubble as well. 100% true. You will find even republican ideologues have called him out on many of his bullshit thi…

> The question though, are these protests really what he has called them? Are they really a military occupation?

Definitely not. Every large scale protest has its provocateurs and outliers. Using the outliers to frame the 99% is dishonest to say the least.

To any neutral observer they are overwhelmingly peaceful and represent the working class.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#77

Post by helen___keller »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #58
helen___keller wrote: post #36

The author is correct that in any debate, the prominent skeptics are often extremely well informed (joe Rogan on vaccines, in his example). I think what the author is missing is that Joe Rogan and the likes are not spreading misinformation, but spreading tools for misinformation. My mother in law is very deep in misinformation. I’m not talking simple anti vax, I’m talking “trump will raid the Vatican for stolen gold…

It's new, but it's not obvious that it actually changes what people believe, because those trying to argue against misinformation also have a much better toolkit. If someone came to you 20 years ago claiming that the chickenpox vaccine doesn't work because cases were up 60% after the rollout in Israel, how would you even begin to find contrary evidence? (How would you prove that jet fuel can compromise the integrity…

> those trying to argue against misinformation also have a much better toolkit.

The point of the OP is that skeptics have powerful and robust toolkits and my point is that conspiracists use these toolkits

Example: the question is whether Dr Fauci knowingly conspired to let hundreds of thousands die because he is colluding with the Chinese on enacting the great reset

The conclusion seems obviously bogus, yet you can pick a ton of arguments in favor from any skeptic of US Covid response. These tend to be very robust.

I’ve seen tons of convincing arguments on this very site about issues with US Covid response, eg that we had strong information about the risks of Covid and should have had lockdowns much earlier, that we should have advised to wear masks from the beginning, etc.

In the context of the conspiracy, each argument that US response was bungled also becomes a weapon to argue that Fauci intentionally bungled US Covid response to enact an evil agenda of widespread death.

At that point you can either argue with very well reasoned skeptic talking points, or you can dive down the ideological rabbit hole of “ok he bungled it but it wasn’t intentional / malicious”.

This is what I mean by weaponizing skeptic talking points

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#78

Post by feurio »

wccrawford wrote: post #74
feurio wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, thank you for clarifying. So "wokes" are people who are 'alert to racial prejudice and discrimination'. > newspaper should not report things that are happening but are wrong for wokes, they should only report things that they like, even if what they don't like happened and makes news So what have "wokes" got to do with anything? They are just people who aren't racist, right? Again, maybe I have misunderstood.

It isn't just that they're alert to it, they're hyper alert to it. They even see it where it doesn't exist, and they "white knight" for it, trying to prevent people from giving offense even if nobody is actually offended. They take "being a good person" so far that they make life hard for others instead. The root of their beliefs is good: All people are worthy of respect and shouldn't be judged based on things out of…

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?)

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#79

Post by wizzwizz4 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #58
helen___keller wrote: post #36

The author is correct that in any debate, the prominent skeptics are often extremely well informed (joe Rogan on vaccines, in his example). I think what the author is missing is that Joe Rogan and the likes are not spreading misinformation, but spreading tools for misinformation. My mother in law is very deep in misinformation. I’m not talking simple anti vax, I’m talking “trump will raid the Vatican for stolen gold…

It's new, but it's not obvious that it actually changes what people believe, because those trying to argue against misinformation also have a much better toolkit. If someone came to you 20 years ago claiming that the chickenpox vaccine doesn't work because cases were up 60% after the rollout in Israel, how would you even begin to find contrary evidence? (How would you prove that jet fuel can compromise the integrity…

> How would you prove that jet fuel can compromise the integrity of steel beams?

1. Acquire some jet fuel, burn it, and measure its burning temperature.

2. Acquire a steel beam, hit it with a hammer, heat it up to the burning temperature of jet fuel, then hit it with a hammer again.

3. Wonder why I just wasted $1000 and a hammer on something that the conspiracy theorists will label “doctored footage”.

Re: The “misinformation problem” seems like misinformation

#80

Post by dang »

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.

Also "disingenuous", which is a fancy way of saying lying.

Edit: that's not quite right, as throwaway894345 and xyzzyz and Sohcahtoa82 have pointed out below. It's also not quite what I meant (I was being hasty). The point is that 'disingenuous', like 'lie', implies intent to deceive.

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