The Information War

[agent00f]

I don't wish to get between you and ivwshane in your back and forth here but to suggest for your considerations that one of the greatest obstacles a lack of objective introspection about problems one may have is the assumption that one is free of such problems. One doesn't tend to focus on things one doesn't think are there.

Have you ever considered this in context of your anecdotal amateur psychology?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Was thinking about how news agencies fight to be the first one out of the gate with a new story, and an idea popped in my head of something we might see at some point soon:

Machine learning based predictive headlines, something where AI/machine learning is able to procure enough information across the internet/whatever to form a percentage chance of a thing being true (think this whole Trump <-> Russia connection), and news agencies run headlines based on that, either revealing the percentage chance or not, depending.

 

[hal2kilo]

I'm a firm believer that twitter and facebook and global instantaneous communication is not the social environment that us humans were designed for. It will only lead to problems. And I'm a person who grew up on the internet, which ultimately may make me more discerning about the information that I receive from it.

Sure had me fooled.

 

[vi edit]

I'm a firm believer that twitter and facebook and global instantaneous communication is not the social environment that us humans were designed for. It will only lead to problems. And I'm a person who grew up on the internet, which ultimately may make me more discerning about the information that I receive from it.

Most of us were granted a number of senses - vision, hearing, perception as a whole. When you talk to someone in person you pick up inflection in their voice, non-verbal queues as to their demeanor and attitude. You just have a much more complete set of data to evaluate the conversation. Facebook and social sites remove a ton of that. You don't often know (or can validate) the source. You can't entirely pick up inflection, and you miss out on a number of other non-verbal queues that help you assess the delivery of a message.

I do agree that we are entirely blunting our social and perceptive skills hiding behind text.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Most of us were granted a number of senses - vision, hearing, perception as a whole. When you talk to someone in person you pick up inflection in their voice, non-verbal queues as to their demeanor and attitude. You just have a much more complete set of data to evaluate the conversation. Facebook and social sites remove a ton of that. You don't often know (or can validate) the source. You can't entirely pick up inflection, and you miss out on a number of other non-verbal queues that help you assess the delivery of a message.

I do agree that we are entirely blunting our social and perceptive skills hiding behind text.

Some might argue as well though, that text lowers inhibitions enough for people to speak about things the way they truly feel. That, or at least it allows them to flex a bit on things they've always thought they felt and would like to express, even if they could be convinced they were wrong. Not to say that this is necessarily a good thing, as time as gone on I've come to the conclusion that most people are either raving lunatics or just severely toxic.

 

[zinfamous]

Is there any doubt that the Russians have infiltrated with liberal academia in all the US colleges and Universities and have succeeded and disrupted beyond their wildest dreams??

Yes, there is 100% doubt of this. This is something that dumbass idiot people would claim.

 

[nickqt]

Is there any doubt that the Russians have infiltrated with liberal academia in all the US colleges and Universities and have succeeded and disrupted beyond their wildest dreams??

Right-wing oligarchs who own and operate Russia have infiltrated America through left-wing liberal academia.

This is a reasonable proposition, if you're an idiot.

 

[Vic]

"The irony of the information age is that it has given newfound credence to the uninformed opinion." -- Michael Crichton (IIRC)

 

[Jaskalas]

It really is about left/liberalism vs right/conservatism given the inherent contrasting nature of the mindsets.

Would you say anti-vaxers are strictly right wing?

 

[jmagg]

The Disinformation War is a more apt thread title.

 

[Jhhnn]

Would you say anti-vaxers are strictly right wing?

Would you say that the vast, vast majority of conspiracy theory believers aren't right wing?

That's the real issue, not if more liberal types join them on rare occasions.

 

[agent00f]

Would you say anti-vaxers are strictly right wing?

You would have a point if anti-vax were as common as conservatism.

 

[Jaskalas]

Would you say that the vast, vast majority of conspiracy theory believers aren't right wing?

Certainly the idea of small, limited (anti) government would also attract a certain mindset beyond normal, healthy, people.
That would naturally grow into a voting segment worthy of... recognition. Alex Jones apparently saw it and capitalized.
Does the same sort of crazy and/or organization for crazy exist among Democrat leaning voters? No, not that I can see.

But the speech used... "inherent contrasting nature", I wanted to be clear that it's not exclusive. Crazies do vote for you too. Sounds like you want to dispute that and make sure that you pin the tail of the Elephant. I'm saying Donkeys have tails too. If you really think that's worth contesting, you really want to measure !@#$s, I don't have those numbers, or a list of issues. I really just happened to mention the first thing that came to mind, a very real issue that has reached enough people to hit critical mass, to become a real problem for this country.

And anti-vaxing is spread by fake news / information, is it not?
It has spread enough to cause outbreaks of previously eradicated diseases, the problems of which make headlines.

 

[Jhhnn]

Certainly the idea of small, limited (anti) government would also attract a certain mindset beyond normal, healthy, people.
That would naturally grow into a voting segment worthy of... recognition. Alex Jones apparently saw it and capitalized.
Does the same sort of crazy and/or organization for crazy exist among Democrat leaning voters? No, not that I can see.

But the speech used... "inherent contrasting nature", I wanted to be clear that it's not exclusive. Crazies do vote for you too. Sounds like you want to dispute that and make sure that you pin the tail of the Elephant. I'm saying Donkeys have tails too. If you really think that's worth contesting, you really want to measure !@#$s, I don't have those numbers, or a list of issues. I really just happened to mention the first thing that came to mind, a very real issue that has reached enough people to hit critical mass, to become a real problem for this country.

And anti-vaxing is spread by fake news / information, is it not?
It has spread enough to cause outbreaks of previously eradicated diseases, the problems of which make headlines.

You're seeking to establish false equivalency. You're right that fake news affects us all to varying degrees. OTOH, absorption of too much of it has established a complex of belief among right wingers that's basically delusional. Witness Trump as President.

Decades of concerted effort made that possible.

 

[Moonbeam]

You're seeking to establish false equivalency. You're right that fake news affects us all to varying degrees. OTOH, absorption of too much of it has established a complex of belief among right wingers that's basically delusional. Witness Trump as President.

Decades of concerted effort made that possible.

Why the effort? How can the effort have success? If there is some common root shared but perhaps unequally by conservatives and liberals, how should that be pointed out without raising the alarm of false equivalency? How do we check that the meme of false equivalency hasn't become a reflexive defense itself?

IGBT: "Is there any doubt that the Russians have infiltrated with liberal academia in all the US colleges and Universities and have succeeded and disrupted beyond their wildest dreams??"

And the result? One person trying politely to logically reason with him and another tagging him as one of the stupid victims, etc.

Notice no analysis of the validity of his point of view, to wit, why he holds it, why he expresses it, why he believes it, why he is indifferent both to reason or insult and so on.

Let's look at it from the point of view of morality, a belief not only that there is a good but that the good should be defended as well as the chaos and disaster to humanity that would be visited on us were we to cease to believe in the good. Remember that IGBT is a conservative and that conservatives have a much larger plate of moral concerns than liberals do and thus a greater range of issues they need to preserve and keep from collapsing for the common good, a possible reason one might not wish to dismissively ignore all of their concerns, maybe maybe? As liberals, it might just be possible, I postulate, that we may be blind here, OK?

So I want to suggest another radical idea here, that IGBT is motivated to take the stands that he does because he is a loyal, courageous and extremely dedicated member a very special and worthy (in his and perhaps your mind anyway) group of people called Americans and that he sees in your much narrower band of moral concerns great danger to the nation, including such so called liberal loves of communism and socialism and that he sees liberalism to go hand and hand with a university education. He is afraid that liberals will win and destroy the holy good that America represents to him.

You, on the other hand, fear that it is his kind of thinking that is a danger to the nation.

So what does that make the two of you if not patriots with different opinions. But you do not see him as a patriot nor does he see you that way. There is no trust but there is fear, the fear of the loss of the moral good and the greater the fear becomes the more mutually the hatred increases. Thus is lost the realization that we all want the same thing, the good to prevail.

This, of course, leads us to the question of what the good is, is there a good, why do we care if the good wins and in order to understand those things you have to have some real idea of what you feel and how you came to feel it.

I would suggest, therefore, that to seek to understand misinformation requires a psychological understanding of moral motivations, how we became attached to certain moral beliefs, what is our motivation and if for some reason known or unknown we might actually be motivated to look anywhere but there for the answers, condemning ourselves to endless holy wars.

 

[Jaskalas]

You're seeking to establish false equivalency.

It's like you didn't read the first paragraph.

Here's another one though, to add to the list.
PETA Says Milk is a ‘Symbol of White Supremacy’
All they're really missing is an Alex Jones type character to make use of the raw material and coalesce it into something more organized.

 

[Jhhnn]

It's like you didn't read the first paragraph.

Here's another one though, to add to the list.
PETA Says Milk is a ‘Symbol of White Supremacy’
All they're really missing is an Alex Jones type character to make use of the raw material and coalesce it into something more organized.

All they're really missing is chumps to believe in them. Trump & the Repubs don't have that problem.

 

[nickqt]

It's like you didn't read the first paragraph.

Here's another one though, to add to the list.
PETA Says Milk is a ‘Symbol of White Supremacy’
All they're really missing is an Alex Jones type character to make use of the raw material and coalesce it into something more organized.

All they're really missing is chumps to believe in them. Trump & the Repubs don't have that problem.

That is the crux of the BothSidesDoIt™ BigLie that the right-wing lunatics require in order to keep the conversation about anything other than their break with objective, observable reality.

There are, of course, dipshit lunatic morons on the left.

That said, they typically have almost zero influence over anyone other than themselves, and almost never have patrons to supply them with money and a platform on which to sell their bullshit to the masses.

It's fun when conservatives brag about how the left's attempts to have a "liberal" radio or TV presence failed utterly and completely even with lots of money and big names behind it, because they miss the forest for the trees and, in fact, bring attention to the fact that the left isn't nearly as monolithically gullible as the right.

The left isn't seeking out bullshit misinformation which might make their pre-existing ideas more compatible with the reality they occasionally see out of the corner of their eyes, unlike the people on the right who kinda/sorta know the world isn't how they describe it, but base their entire political life on the fact that how they describe it is correct, never mind the world around them.

Instead, the left seeks out the best information on which to make cogent, reasonable arguments on why their description of reality is more/the most accurate.

The left shies away from hierarchy and common wisdom, which is pretty much inherent in being a leftist who doesn't automatically by default support "tradition" without question. It isn't to say that the left is 100% able to avoid misinformation, which it isn't. But it explains why the left has a much better grasp on objective, observable reality than the right, especially here in the "public relations" propaganda capital of the world.

 

[Atreus21]

I agree that coming across as non-partisan makes it more likely that people across the spectrum will listen and take you seriously. It's a real dilemma though when trying to come across as non-partisan involves misleading your readers. The passage which concerns me is this:



This language gives the inaccurate impression that this phenomenon is rather even across the spectrum. Look, you have this right wing nutty website, and over here is a left wing nutty site. Sounds kind of like it has nothing to do with right vs. left. But it does have to do with it. A lot to do with it. Just look at the laundry list of positions the article describes as "anti-globalist" in that last sentence: anti-media, anti-immigration, anti-science, anti-US government, anti-EU. Come ON. Every last one of those is common on the right and uncommon to virtually non-existent on the left.

Leftists are no less anti-science than the right.

See anti-GMO groups and abortion.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Leftists are no less anti-science than the right.

See anti-GMO groups and abortion.

Really?

"Surprisingly, anti-science views on vaccines and GMOs, typically attributed to the left, were equally distributed amongst liberals and conservatives. Fifty-seven percent of conservatives and fifty-six percent of liberals said that it is generally unsafe to eat GMOs, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. Luckily, misguided views on vaccines were far less prevalent. Just twelve percent of liberals and ten percent of conservatives believed that childhood vaccines are unsafe (but that is still far too high)."

http://www.realclearscience.com/jou...conservatives__liberals_stand_on_science.html

and a link to the Pew survey referenced

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/01/americans-politics-and-science-issues/

And, abortion is anti science?

 

[brycejones]

Leftists are no less anti-science than the right.

See anti-GMO groups and abortion.

Really?

"Surprisingly, anti-science views on vaccines and GMOs, typically attributed to the left, were equally distributed amongst liberals and conservatives. Fifty-seven percent of conservatives and fifty-six percent of liberals said that it is generally unsafe to eat GMOs, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. Luckily, misguided views on vaccines were far less prevalent. Just twelve percent of liberals and ten percent of conservatives believed that childhood vaccines are unsafe (but that is still far too high)."

http://www.realclearscience.com/jou...conservatives__liberals_stand_on_science.html

and a link to the Pew survey referenced

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/01/americans-politics-and-science-issues/

And, abortion is anti science?

Someone just got a watermelon to the face.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Someone just got a watermelon to the face.

Maybe he can find an edited video somewhere.

 

[disappoint]

I would argue against this assertion, there's definitely several state actors pushing agenda against western influences, but the idea of Boris and Natasha infiltrating the thousands of US higher education facilities is just silly.

Liberalism is not equatable to Russia, and in fact it is oppositely aligned in vast, vast ways. Don't assume that your enemies are all the same thing (if you do indeed feel that both Russia and Liberalism are your enemy).

 

[Jaskalas]

More case study for the subject.

MSNBC's O'Donnell: Putin 'Might Have Orchestrated' Syria Strike to Help Trump
Going to be a long 4 years of birtherism pointed in the other direction.

 

[Jhhnn]

More case study for the subject.

MSNBC's O'Donnell: Putin 'Might Have Orchestrated' Syria Strike to Help Trump
Going to be a long 4 years of birtherism pointed in the other direction.

I doubt it'll reach the fever pitch that Repubs employed for the last 8 years.