Why should people believe anything you say on this topic? How can they know you're not a bot or a psy-ops troll working for Xi or Putin with the mission to undermine the very fabric of Democratic societies?
What truths/facts should people NOT doubt when they're using "common sense" and thinking "critically". Are we not all affected by propaganda that directly targets what we consider "facts" and "common sense"?
So, to complete the paradox, I will claim one "fact": As humans there are VERY FEW "facts" we can know from first principles, and there are even fewer pinciples we can now for a fact to be universal, or even useful.
We DEPEND on at least some authorities, whether those are people, institutions, ideas or beliefs.
When someone says "think critically!", they mean that you should put some higher burden of evidence on SOME of your beliefs. But not all, and definitely not those that this someone take as axiomatical truths.
An my main worry is not to find some celebrity's face on PornHub. My main concern is the day when almost everything we see that claims to be news has been tampered with in such a way. If we have now way to tell a deepfake from a true video, we can be made to believe absolutely anything. This can be used to ruin lives, trigger wars, including civil wars, cause nuclear holocaust. And it's already happening. Twitter is full of lies of every kind and from all parties and countries.
We may need to find a way back to a world where there is one main shared narrative that we can all more or less trust. Where the custodians of the institutions that provide the narrative understand the need to maintain the trust and the risks involved in undermining the trust for personal gain, and where there are checks and balances that removes bad actors from such positions.
Without this, I believe we're f'ed, but HOW to obtain it, I don't know.
> We may need to find a way back to a world where there is one main shared narrative that we can all more or less trust. Where the custodians of the institutions that provide the narrative understand the need to maintain the trust and the risks involved in undermining the trust for personal gain, and where there are checks and balances that removes bad actors from such positions.
When was such time in history? I'm trying to think of one and I can't. Misinformation has spread in the past too, albeit slowly. The checks and balances did nothing to stop the custodians of the institutions from dismissing heliocentrism, the germ theory, or the continental drift. And for a modern example, the checks and balances failed when the authorities shared a narrative about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
All of that was possible without today's technology.
> Misinformation has spread in the past too, albeit slowly.
I would argue that almost all information is "wrong" in the strict sense. Everyone has a ceiling for how detailed a model of reality they need (including moral and ethical reality). And even those weith the highest ceiling (most exact model) are simplifying in ways that others can see as "wrong".
"The earth is flat", "Earth is spherical" and "Earth is an ellipsoid" are all "wrong", technically, yet most people would be fine with the last 2.
What we have, at times, in the past been able to, is to agree on a general narrative and the core of a shared model, at least within our own extended tribe or country.
At times these world views have been diverging. This happened many times with religion, such as during the Reformation. This gave rise to severe wars and civil wars.
> Misinformation has spread in the past too, albeit slowly. The checks and balances did nothing to stop the custodians of the institutions from dismissing heliocentrism, the germ theory, or the continental drift.
These are all cases where scientism started taking over custody for many beliefs that were previously governed by religion. This did cause some friction, but not nearly as bad as during the reformation.
> And for a modern example, the checks and balances failed when the authorities shared a narrative about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
There are two aspects to this. I personally believed that the Bush administration actually believed this, and that this was simply bad intel. But if you think they were spreading misinformation on purpose, well, that means you already lost faith in the government. Which is bad if you're right, and maybe even worse if you're wrong.
> All of that was possible without today's technology.
I would argue that the paradigm that we've had in the west based on scientism and liberalism has worked relatively well, except in cases where there have been clashes with traditional religions or novel religion-like ideologies (nazism and communism). Conservatives, liberals and even social democrats shared most core beliefs, and diffences in opinion about details related to relgion or priority were possible to resolve (with some pains, of course).
Part of the reason this worked, was geographical distance. Minor disagreements don't seem quite so important if some person is 1000km away.
Now, though, it seems that technology (twitter being the worst one) forces us into groups, and even punishes those who are not faithful to the canonical beliefs of those groups.
If you're in the MAGA group and believe global warming is a problem, you will be seen as a RINO. If you're progressive (or even "WOKE") and belive that climate change is only a moderate problem (even if fully accepting the IPCC findings), you're labelled a "Climate Denier". In both cases, you may be well within the range that is compatible with the scientific consensus, but that doesn't seem to matter anymore.
And I'm not sure if there are ANY generally trusted institutions around that clearly and loudly express what the scientific consensus really is, including what the uncertainty band is.
Since most people do not have nearly the scientific literacy to interpret the IPCC findings (not to speak of the undelying science), they are left with 2nd hand interpretations, and those tend to be highly oriented towards one of the extreme "tribe-narratives", which (as far as I can tell) both are almost equally wrong.
And demagoges of both sides are excellent at explaining why the OTHER side is wrong, but they almost never why beliefs popular on their OWN side is wrong. More and more people are thinking that the other tribe members are either all stupid, liars or even evil, while they think that their own side are factually correct and morally virtous.
Twitter and Facebook have obviously been boosting this. On twitter you risk being bombarded with propaganda and hit pieces that are either inaccurate, incomplete, or in some cases completely made up.
Now, if people are making up stories already. How will that when anyone can create a video that appears to show that the opponent's champion is doing exactly what the worst conspiracy theories claim (like Hillary raping a child or Trump peeing on some prostitute, live action backup up by people you trust claiming it's all real)?
That's the stuff civil wars (or world wars) are made of.
> Now, if people are making up stories already. How will that when anyone can create a video that appears to show that the opponent's champion is doing exactly what the worst conspiracy theories claim
I see. Some people can't help but believe what their eyes see and what their minds think. Instead of considering that just a candidate for a working hypothesis. We must pity them.
> Why should people believe anything you say on this topic?
They shouldn't. I would just be glad if they would analyse my oppinion and try to understand what do I mean. Whenever I mention a fact they should check it if they consider it important.
> How can they know you're not a bot or a psy-ops troll working for Xi or Putin with the mission to undermine the very fabric of Democratic societies?
I am a psy-ops troll working for myself, my mission is to destroy unconscious beliefs, help people choose their own perception and beliefs counsciously, develop habits to exercise valid logic and become unmanipulatable and happy this way. Perhaps this indeed can undermine the fabric of Democratic societies. Democratic (let alone autocratic) is not free, it generally is a dictate of opportunist manipulators who manage to mesmerize the majority (while majority is never too bright). Isn't it?'
> As humans there are VERY FEW "facts" we can know from first principles
"A person looking like this is being shown on TV waying that right now" is a fact (not 100% reliable, perhaps I'v dreaming, but it most probably is). The statement he announces is not a fact, probably a lie. But now we can speculate about why would he say that now, given current context, how probable it is he is nit a deepfake and whether or not does this matter.
Only 5 different regular polyhedra forms can exist in euclidean 3D space - this is another fact.
So you say. How can I know you're not lying even there?
> Only 5 different regular polyhedra forms can exist in euclidean 3D space - this is another fact.
Most people are no more able to verify this statement than statements about 11-dimensional string theory.
If you have their trust, they will belive you, otherwise, not. Regardless of whether it's true.
This goes all the way down. If highly educated and intelligent people are not able to overcome their diffences and clearly state what math and science is saying, including what the error bars are, and for all domains (including climate and sociobiology), people will distrust scentists they see as aligned with the other side.
You never know. People mostly just believe what and whom they feel like believing. People having an idea of reasonable credibility are extremely rare. Simply adjusting your voice is enough to make a non-expert to believe or disbelieve you and more.
Why should people believe anything you say on this topic? How can they know you're not a bot or a psy-ops troll working for Xi or Putin with the mission to undermine the very fabric of Democratic societies?
What truths/facts should people NOT doubt when they're using "common sense" and thinking "critically". Are we not all affected by propaganda that directly targets what we consider "facts" and "common sense"?
So, to complete the paradox, I will claim one "fact": As humans there are VERY FEW "facts" we can know from first principles, and there are even fewer pinciples we can now for a fact to be universal, or even useful.
We DEPEND on at least some authorities, whether those are people, institutions, ideas or beliefs.
When someone says "think critically!", they mean that you should put some higher burden of evidence on SOME of your beliefs. But not all, and definitely not those that this someone take as axiomatical truths.
An my main worry is not to find some celebrity's face on PornHub. My main concern is the day when almost everything we see that claims to be news has been tampered with in such a way. If we have now way to tell a deepfake from a true video, we can be made to believe absolutely anything. This can be used to ruin lives, trigger wars, including civil wars, cause nuclear holocaust. And it's already happening. Twitter is full of lies of every kind and from all parties and countries.
We may need to find a way back to a world where there is one main shared narrative that we can all more or less trust. Where the custodians of the institutions that provide the narrative understand the need to maintain the trust and the risks involved in undermining the trust for personal gain, and where there are checks and balances that removes bad actors from such positions.
Without this, I believe we're f'ed, but HOW to obtain it, I don't know.