This is difficult subject. I'll relate it to my days working in the field of electronic warfare. There are noise jammers that drown out or distort the victim signal. It is a form of censorship. There are also deception mode jammers. They start with a signal that is seemingly legitimate before if pulls of your lock with a false signal. It…
This is difficult subject. I'll relate it to my days working in the field of electronic warfare. There are noise jammers that drown out or distort the victim signal. It is a form of censorship. There are also deception mode jammers. They start with a signal that is seemingly legitimate before if pulls of your lock with a false signal. It is a form of false news. Our problem is finding truth in a world of noise and deception. We can only turn to discernment, and it has its built-in jammer, confirmation bias. It affects us all and only fools deny it.
Borrowing from thoughts from China, the official press is the running dog lackies hoping to be tossed scraps of meat from those in charge. I'll limit my reason for finding the official press untrustworthy to three.
1. My government told me that the communist North Vietnamese attacked our Navy ship. Nobody can do that, except on nearly the day I enlisted in the Marines, Israel attacked the USS Liberty. The Gulf of Tonkin incident probably was a lie and the attack on the USS Liberty was explained away as an accident (pure bullshit). But as a patriotic young man I went to the other side of the world to kill communists based upon the words of my government.
2. Some of my training as a Marine was about "venereal disease" where we saw films that showed the penises of black men rotting off from syphilis. The Tuskegee Syphilis study where these men were told they were receiving treatment. Horrific injustice.
3. Years later when I worked as a contractor for the Air Force in the Electronic Test Environment my job was analyzing jamming. Between missions I was listening to the Voice of America. It was broadcasting a speach in the UN Security Council that was making America look bad. The signal seemed to fade but my spectrum analyzer displayed a strong signal way above the grass. The noise was modulated in at the source. I checked across the band and every VOA signal sounded like it was in a fade. The VOA jammed itself until the speech ended.
I said that I would stop at three. The list of reasons to not automatically trust the official press is longer.
At the other extreme there are the detractors of government stories. A mix of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones types. A blend of truth and lies no better or worse than governments. One difference is that it is OK for governments to turn young men into killers but it's not for others.
All of that to reach this thought. When you hear the words disinformation and debunked do you ask yourself, is that true? The answer to our conclusion is highly biased by our existing beliefs. No matter how hard we may try, no one is exempt. My bud Chris objects to the question, "Who decides?" but it is fair to ask, is there any reason to assume that the government is a reliable decider of what we should hear? I find none. I'm not an anarchist, but relying upon government is walking with a tiger. I long for a world of truth, but it makes me sound like a Miss Universe Pageant contestant to say it because it is a dream that starts in a brass bowl pipe.
"A mix of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones types."
I really don't understand why you put these four men in the same category. Or maybe you weren't trying to equate them. Either way, these people are wildly different and represent completely different parts of the free speech conundrum.
As for whether I ask myself whether "disinformation" or "debunked" claims are being accurately described, of course I do. Without wishing to toot my own horn, I think I do this far more carefully than average because I often use the information I consume to write articles, which means I'm more motivated than average to get the details correct. And also means I'm painfully aware of how much sloppy and/or dishonest reporting there is out there.
The problem is that a growing number of people on the left and the right are happy to describe information as "debunked" or "disinformation" simply because they dislike it. And they demand almost no standard of evidence beyond "the people on my side are saying it."
This has led to a discursive environment where we almost literally can't talk about anything. And that, in turn, means we can't solve any problems.
Immigration, election security, COVID, climate change, racism, trans inclusion, Israel Palestine, you name it, it is almost impossible to find any consensus on any of the issues that we face. Some people, again, on the left and the right, seem to have given up on the notion of truth entirely. And while I'm much more tolerant than Chris of questions like "Who gets to decide," I agree with him that this question is almost always just used as a minimally thought out distraction. In almost all cases, anybody with a functioning brain and a willingness to look at the evidence can agree on what's true.
There is, in fact, such a thing as the truth. There is such a thing as objective reality. There is such a thing as a lie.
It's so weird to me that some people don't grasp how dangerous it is to cede these points. It's exactly the same mistake that "woke" people make about "lived experience" and "truth" just being a form of "power."
Yes, there are also lots of areas that are just matters of opinion. But a world where we pretend that 2+2 = 5 is just a matter of opinion or whether vaccines work in general is just a matter of opinion or whether a former president who spent four years undermining faith in democracy, never producing a shred of evidence, and then admitting that he'd been lying all along, did anything wrong is just a matter of opinion, will very obviously collapse under the weight of its own stupidit.
The four that I mentioned are obviously not the same but the association is that they are critics of government, its secrets and lies to the public (sometimes accurate). Just as I think it is foolish to accept an accusation of disinformation because of who said it, it is also foolish to dismiss it on those grounds.
I'm certain that you know that I'm certain that you consider things carefully and take a nuanced view of things. As I wrote, I am not an anarchist but without regard to political tilt, I also see government as an entity that often puts out disinformation and does not always act in the public interest. Humans are quite good at rationalizing bullshit when it suits their purpose while believing that that is not what they are doing.
I am more biased toward the idea of incompetence or denied bias than grand conspiracy, but conspiracies do exist, it's even a crime when combined with conspiracy to commit a crime.
Political parties (plural) are not above dirty tricks and lies from government are sometimes associated with partisan politics. And sometimes disinformation is to protect legitimate classified secrets. On two occasions when I asked the right people about documents that seemed technically incorrect I heard the words, "You found it. It's like that because..." I had no trouble supporting the disinformation when I knew why it existed, but it was non political.
In other comments I pointed out that Whitehouse claims of disinformation might also be disinformation. Does that mean it is to hide political conspiracy or an attempt to deny human incompetence to maintain faith and confidence? I make no claims because I don't have evidence I'd take to peer review.
I'm not just assuming the role of curmudgeon, I just think that far to often accusation of disinformation is disinformation. That relates to the article and the difficulty of determining what is true. Deception leads to loss of confidence in people honestly seeking truth and to high confidence in people who want to believe something they agree with is correct.
As for the importance of deciders, history books are written by the victors and they decide what is in them. As with many things, lies of omission are common. They are as much a lie as blatant falsehood, perhaps worse because they are less obvious.
This is difficult subject. I'll relate it to my days working in the field of electronic warfare. There are noise jammers that drown out or distort the victim signal. It is a form of censorship. There are also deception mode jammers. They start with a signal that is seemingly legitimate before if pulls of your lock with a false signal. It is a form of false news. Our problem is finding truth in a world of noise and deception. We can only turn to discernment, and it has its built-in jammer, confirmation bias. It affects us all and only fools deny it.
Borrowing from thoughts from China, the official press is the running dog lackies hoping to be tossed scraps of meat from those in charge. I'll limit my reason for finding the official press untrustworthy to three.
1. My government told me that the communist North Vietnamese attacked our Navy ship. Nobody can do that, except on nearly the day I enlisted in the Marines, Israel attacked the USS Liberty. The Gulf of Tonkin incident probably was a lie and the attack on the USS Liberty was explained away as an accident (pure bullshit). But as a patriotic young man I went to the other side of the world to kill communists based upon the words of my government.
2. Some of my training as a Marine was about "venereal disease" where we saw films that showed the penises of black men rotting off from syphilis. The Tuskegee Syphilis study where these men were told they were receiving treatment. Horrific injustice.
3. Years later when I worked as a contractor for the Air Force in the Electronic Test Environment my job was analyzing jamming. Between missions I was listening to the Voice of America. It was broadcasting a speach in the UN Security Council that was making America look bad. The signal seemed to fade but my spectrum analyzer displayed a strong signal way above the grass. The noise was modulated in at the source. I checked across the band and every VOA signal sounded like it was in a fade. The VOA jammed itself until the speech ended.
I said that I would stop at three. The list of reasons to not automatically trust the official press is longer.
At the other extreme there are the detractors of government stories. A mix of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones types. A blend of truth and lies no better or worse than governments. One difference is that it is OK for governments to turn young men into killers but it's not for others.
All of that to reach this thought. When you hear the words disinformation and debunked do you ask yourself, is that true? The answer to our conclusion is highly biased by our existing beliefs. No matter how hard we may try, no one is exempt. My bud Chris objects to the question, "Who decides?" but it is fair to ask, is there any reason to assume that the government is a reliable decider of what we should hear? I find none. I'm not an anarchist, but relying upon government is walking with a tiger. I long for a world of truth, but it makes me sound like a Miss Universe Pageant contestant to say it because it is a dream that starts in a brass bowl pipe.
"A mix of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones types."
I really don't understand why you put these four men in the same category. Or maybe you weren't trying to equate them. Either way, these people are wildly different and represent completely different parts of the free speech conundrum.
As for whether I ask myself whether "disinformation" or "debunked" claims are being accurately described, of course I do. Without wishing to toot my own horn, I think I do this far more carefully than average because I often use the information I consume to write articles, which means I'm more motivated than average to get the details correct. And also means I'm painfully aware of how much sloppy and/or dishonest reporting there is out there.
The problem is that a growing number of people on the left and the right are happy to describe information as "debunked" or "disinformation" simply because they dislike it. And they demand almost no standard of evidence beyond "the people on my side are saying it."
This has led to a discursive environment where we almost literally can't talk about anything. And that, in turn, means we can't solve any problems.
Immigration, election security, COVID, climate change, racism, trans inclusion, Israel Palestine, you name it, it is almost impossible to find any consensus on any of the issues that we face. Some people, again, on the left and the right, seem to have given up on the notion of truth entirely. And while I'm much more tolerant than Chris of questions like "Who gets to decide," I agree with him that this question is almost always just used as a minimally thought out distraction. In almost all cases, anybody with a functioning brain and a willingness to look at the evidence can agree on what's true.
There is, in fact, such a thing as the truth. There is such a thing as objective reality. There is such a thing as a lie.
It's so weird to me that some people don't grasp how dangerous it is to cede these points. It's exactly the same mistake that "woke" people make about "lived experience" and "truth" just being a form of "power."
Yes, there are also lots of areas that are just matters of opinion. But a world where we pretend that 2+2 = 5 is just a matter of opinion or whether vaccines work in general is just a matter of opinion or whether a former president who spent four years undermining faith in democracy, never producing a shred of evidence, and then admitting that he'd been lying all along, did anything wrong is just a matter of opinion, will very obviously collapse under the weight of its own stupidit.
The four that I mentioned are obviously not the same but the association is that they are critics of government, its secrets and lies to the public (sometimes accurate). Just as I think it is foolish to accept an accusation of disinformation because of who said it, it is also foolish to dismiss it on those grounds.
I'm certain that you know that I'm certain that you consider things carefully and take a nuanced view of things. As I wrote, I am not an anarchist but without regard to political tilt, I also see government as an entity that often puts out disinformation and does not always act in the public interest. Humans are quite good at rationalizing bullshit when it suits their purpose while believing that that is not what they are doing.
I am more biased toward the idea of incompetence or denied bias than grand conspiracy, but conspiracies do exist, it's even a crime when combined with conspiracy to commit a crime.
Political parties (plural) are not above dirty tricks and lies from government are sometimes associated with partisan politics. And sometimes disinformation is to protect legitimate classified secrets. On two occasions when I asked the right people about documents that seemed technically incorrect I heard the words, "You found it. It's like that because..." I had no trouble supporting the disinformation when I knew why it existed, but it was non political.
In other comments I pointed out that Whitehouse claims of disinformation might also be disinformation. Does that mean it is to hide political conspiracy or an attempt to deny human incompetence to maintain faith and confidence? I make no claims because I don't have evidence I'd take to peer review.
I'm not just assuming the role of curmudgeon, I just think that far to often accusation of disinformation is disinformation. That relates to the article and the difficulty of determining what is true. Deception leads to loss of confidence in people honestly seeking truth and to high confidence in people who want to believe something they agree with is correct.
As for the importance of deciders, history books are written by the victors and they decide what is in them. As with many things, lies of omission are common. They are as much a lie as blatant falsehood, perhaps worse because they are less obvious.