This person believes that 'the problem is that the spread is to fast, the ideas weren't properly vetted.'
Counter perspective: We are way past the era in which an authority broadcasts "The Righteous Truth." This model has been dying a slow death since the second spoken word.
The rapid spread of ideas is fine and well. 'Experts' doing the vetting are often wrong or misguided, even in time. Credentialing and trust will evolve to accommodate a fast-paced spread of ideas. The high priests of today's opinion-based hyperventilating "authorities" will pass as time reveals them to be untrustworthy frauds.
His point is that if it was tested out locally amongst a smaller group of people, it could be better refined before it got to a wider audience... not that it would be "authoritative".
This comment belies a misunderstanding of institutions and human nature.
The notion that the loudest and most populist voices that make ridiculous arguments and appeal to sentimentality - have anything to do with the 'truth' or anything positive, is obviously wrong, and for some reason seems to be deeply rooted in some circles.
Ironically, it's a glibly populist view of glib populism.
Next time you visit your 'Corrupt High Priest Doctor' who represents the institution of Medicine, who recommends a therapy, why don't you ignore him and make your own concoction, at home, using the 'alt method' you discovered on some podcast? Good luck.
Doctors and Medical researches have a fundamentally better understanding of the human body that idiots on Twitter.
Which is why some medicine is 'behind the counter' and we don't argue about that very much.
Ideas and memes can define reality, and those who have the power to define reality will possibly abuse it which is why it's not in anyone's interest to have insane people influence how we think.
'Freedom of Expression' is a fundamental and inalienable right, so if Alex Jones wants to believe that Sandy Hook victims are 'actors' it's his right, it may even be his right to stand on the corner and yell it at the top of his lungs, email individuals, or put it on his own web page. But there's also no reason for us to facilitate spread of garbage through the public commons or other sites.
People have been following Sandy Hook families, harassing them and the adversarial courts system is no place to have that worked out.
Similarly with people trying to overthrow the government on lies about election results.
The truth is difficult, it's always subject to perspective and context, most mediums are biased, all institutions have their flaws, and freedom of expression is a fundamental right, at the same time, truth does really matter and it's in everyone's interest to have quality information in the commons, and not noise, or worse, idiots usurping the channels for their own diabolical stupidity.
> The notion that the loudest and most populist voices that make ridiculous arguments and appeal to sentimentality - have anything to do with the 'truth' or anything positive
... is an obvious strawman.
> Next time you visit your 'Corrupt High Priest Doctor' who represents the institution of Medicine, who recommends a therapy, why don't you ignore him and make your own concoction, at home, using the 'alt method' you discovered on some podcast?
Again an obvious strawman. Your doctor vs "some podcast". According to a survey done in april 2022, 5.2% of U.S. primary care doctors weren't vaxxed against covid[1]. If you had such a doctor, would you override his judgement based on stuff you've read on the internet? I would.
> Ideas and memes can define reality, and those who have the power to define reality will possibly abuse it which is why it's not in anyone's interest to have insane people influence how we think.
Woah, sounds dangerous. Should anyone have the power to "define reality"? At least we can trust that those who have to power to stop others from "defining reality" will not abuse it.
> Next time you visit your 'Corrupt High Priest Doctor' who represents the institution of Medicine, who recommends a therapy, why don't you ignore him and make your own concoction, at home, using the 'alt method' you discovered on some podcast? Good luck.
If the doctor recommends that the treatment to a strong cold is to amputate your hands, will you just agree to it or will you apply some level of your own discernment?
> Doctors and Medical researches have a fundamentally better understanding of the human body that idiots on Twitter.
And yet there were (and are) a ton of doctors prescribind Hydroxicloroquine and Ivermectin to their covid patients.
> Which is why some medicine is 'behind the counter' and we don't argue about that very much.
We argue about it all the time. That's why people get second, third and fourth opinions. That's why there are medical panels. That's why people sue doctors for malpractice.
You're going to use 'If they tell you to jump off of a cliff, would you do it?' arguments? Really?
Are you suggesting that doctors don't have an institutiona legitimacy?
Seriously?
Hydroxicloroquine and Ivermectin? They are medicine. Doctors have been prescribing them for a while. We don't know the full effects of them, but we also know they are otherwise benigng in specific dosages, and there were hopes that there wouldbe an effect. It's good that some Hosptials were making the prescription.
And finally, no, we do not argue over the concept of 'behind the counter drugs'.
There is 0 debate anywhere that people should just be able to 'self prescribe' and get what drugs they want.
That doctors can be wrong is besides the point.
I don't think you've made any arguments to suggest that we shouldn't remain having some fairly serious instittional legitimcay in the field of medicine.
Doctors are like any other profession. There are average doctors, there are really good doctors, and there are also really bad doctors. The world is full of nuance. Sadly some people don't want to believe nuance exists, and others deny that nuance exists for personal gain.
> You're going to use 'If they tell you to jump off of a cliff, would you do it?' arguments? Really?
One reply to "Would you jump off a bridge if all your friends did it?" would be "Yes. My friends are not stupid. If they are all jumping without exception, it's probably because the bridge is on fire."
Imagine every "controversial" gene mutation amplified to gain engagement, selecting for degenerative, "weird looking" mutations because they serve as clickbait for some outside observers.
As much as I like to doubt a lot of "experts with PR agents", the established community vetting process did evolve for a reason and survived centuries in one form or another.
The emerging moderation rules and techniques are just another facet of that evolution.
Good luck with your fight. Please don't stop, it serves as a part of the process. Just as TFA does.
> A few layers of shares later, the post is going viral, reshare-optimized ranking algorithms are putting it top of everyone’s feeds, and the dairy industry is using ads to boost distribution. Ad-funded news sites see that the topic is trending and quickly produce copycat articles, including some that say cheese makes you immortal, or immune to vampires. Millions of people, seeing similar arguments from many sources, assume it to be true, switch to cheese only diets, and get admitted to hospital with cheese overdoses.
Help me out here, so this person who does not have a history of going "viral" which I assume means likes by well reputed long term accounts that have good ad engagement (they buy stuff in reponse to ads) makes some content and their algorithm allows that to go viral because ______? No proven commercial or reputationsl benefit. So what gives?
Systemic problems like this are the hardest to solve. The process of improving the state of public knowledge suffers from the free rider problem, where you can sit back, do nothing and let others work on it, and yet enjoy all the benefits of the improvement that work brought about.
These problems are too big for any single person's contribution to make a meaningful impact in solving, so it is in no individual's self-interest to contribute instead of free ride on other people's contributions.
Surely it's worth asking why so many people share posts they believe to be factual so unquestioningly in the first place? Is it really so naive to think we couldn't significantly improve the average Joe's critical thinking skills? If not then it seems unlikely there's any real solution that doesn't have unwanted downsides.
But having some sort of AI capable of doing basic fact checks mightn't be so crazy... (if we can accept a red squiggly line under a misspelled word, would it bother anyone to have it automatically added under verifiably factually incorrect claims?)
People interpret "sharing" differently. Someone might share an article because he thinks it would be interesting if true, and wants to see more discussion of it, and someone else might interpret this as vouching for the truth of the article. Even the same person might share something without thinking about it much, then get defensive when he's attacked for it.
> (if we can accept a red squiggly line under a misspelled word, would it bother anyone to have it automatically added under verifiably factually incorrect claims?)
If you are ever able to find a definition of 'verifiably factually incorrect claims' that is accepted by everyone, the red squiggly is the trivial part.
If we had used this model in past centuries we would believe the earth was the center of the universe and that germ theory was a crackpot idea. Those ideas would have polled poorly in their target audience and been suppressed.
20 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 61.7 ms ] threadCounter perspective: We are way past the era in which an authority broadcasts "The Righteous Truth." This model has been dying a slow death since the second spoken word.
The rapid spread of ideas is fine and well. 'Experts' doing the vetting are often wrong or misguided, even in time. Credentialing and trust will evolve to accommodate a fast-paced spread of ideas. The high priests of today's opinion-based hyperventilating "authorities" will pass as time reveals them to be untrustworthy frauds.
The notion that the loudest and most populist voices that make ridiculous arguments and appeal to sentimentality - have anything to do with the 'truth' or anything positive, is obviously wrong, and for some reason seems to be deeply rooted in some circles.
Ironically, it's a glibly populist view of glib populism.
Next time you visit your 'Corrupt High Priest Doctor' who represents the institution of Medicine, who recommends a therapy, why don't you ignore him and make your own concoction, at home, using the 'alt method' you discovered on some podcast? Good luck.
Doctors and Medical researches have a fundamentally better understanding of the human body that idiots on Twitter.
Which is why some medicine is 'behind the counter' and we don't argue about that very much.
Ideas and memes can define reality, and those who have the power to define reality will possibly abuse it which is why it's not in anyone's interest to have insane people influence how we think.
'Freedom of Expression' is a fundamental and inalienable right, so if Alex Jones wants to believe that Sandy Hook victims are 'actors' it's his right, it may even be his right to stand on the corner and yell it at the top of his lungs, email individuals, or put it on his own web page. But there's also no reason for us to facilitate spread of garbage through the public commons or other sites.
People have been following Sandy Hook families, harassing them and the adversarial courts system is no place to have that worked out.
Similarly with people trying to overthrow the government on lies about election results.
The truth is difficult, it's always subject to perspective and context, most mediums are biased, all institutions have their flaws, and freedom of expression is a fundamental right, at the same time, truth does really matter and it's in everyone's interest to have quality information in the commons, and not noise, or worse, idiots usurping the channels for their own diabolical stupidity.
... is an obvious strawman.
> Next time you visit your 'Corrupt High Priest Doctor' who represents the institution of Medicine, who recommends a therapy, why don't you ignore him and make your own concoction, at home, using the 'alt method' you discovered on some podcast?
Again an obvious strawman. Your doctor vs "some podcast". According to a survey done in april 2022, 5.2% of U.S. primary care doctors weren't vaxxed against covid[1]. If you had such a doctor, would you override his judgement based on stuff you've read on the internet? I would.
> Ideas and memes can define reality, and those who have the power to define reality will possibly abuse it which is why it's not in anyone's interest to have insane people influence how we think.
Woah, sounds dangerous. Should anyone have the power to "define reality"? At least we can trust that those who have to power to stop others from "defining reality" will not abuse it.
[1]: https://theconversation.com/the-1-in-10-u-s-doctors-with-res...
The entire nature of 'free speech without consequences' is about populist appeal to stupidity.
The evidence exists in the fact that 30% of Americans believe the election was stolen despite there being no material evidence.
And all sorts of other things.
If the doctor recommends that the treatment to a strong cold is to amputate your hands, will you just agree to it or will you apply some level of your own discernment?
> Doctors and Medical researches have a fundamentally better understanding of the human body that idiots on Twitter.
And yet there were (and are) a ton of doctors prescribind Hydroxicloroquine and Ivermectin to their covid patients.
> Which is why some medicine is 'behind the counter' and we don't argue about that very much.
We argue about it all the time. That's why people get second, third and fourth opinions. That's why there are medical panels. That's why people sue doctors for malpractice.
Are you suggesting that doctors don't have an institutiona legitimacy?
Seriously?
Hydroxicloroquine and Ivermectin? They are medicine. Doctors have been prescribing them for a while. We don't know the full effects of them, but we also know they are otherwise benigng in specific dosages, and there were hopes that there wouldbe an effect. It's good that some Hosptials were making the prescription.
And finally, no, we do not argue over the concept of 'behind the counter drugs'.
There is 0 debate anywhere that people should just be able to 'self prescribe' and get what drugs they want.
That doctors can be wrong is besides the point.
I don't think you've made any arguments to suggest that we shouldn't remain having some fairly serious instittional legitimcay in the field of medicine.
One reply to "Would you jump off a bridge if all your friends did it?" would be "Yes. My friends are not stupid. If they are all jumping without exception, it's probably because the bridge is on fire."
As much as I like to doubt a lot of "experts with PR agents", the established community vetting process did evolve for a reason and survived centuries in one form or another.
The emerging moderation rules and techniques are just another facet of that evolution.
Good luck with your fight. Please don't stop, it serves as a part of the process. Just as TFA does.
You should read some newspapers or watch news. Damn, even Wikipedia has this problem.
Help me out here, so this person who does not have a history of going "viral" which I assume means likes by well reputed long term accounts that have good ad engagement (they buy stuff in reponse to ads) makes some content and their algorithm allows that to go viral because ______? No proven commercial or reputationsl benefit. So what gives?
These problems are too big for any single person's contribution to make a meaningful impact in solving, so it is in no individual's self-interest to contribute instead of free ride on other people's contributions.
It might have been a good strategy for the age when information was scarce. But in abundance it wrecks us.
If you are ever able to find a definition of 'verifiably factually incorrect claims' that is accepted by everyone, the red squiggly is the trivial part.