Hacker News Reader

Comment by throw0101a | Hacker News Reader

The problem is not "media firms" that provide {mis,dis}information. The problem is that there is demand for the stuff in the first place.

It is not possible to stamp out people talking about (e.g.) Flat Earth if there are folks that believe it to be true.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_flat_Earth_beliefs

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Modern_flat-Earther...

IMHO it's necessary to take a step or two back and ask why people get into this stuff in the first place.

View on HN

> In the end that is the core malfunction of the flat-earthers, and the modern populist rejection of expertise in general. It is a horrifically simplistic view of the world that ignores (partly out of ignorance, and partly out of motivated reasoning) to [sic] real complexities of our civilisation. It is ultimately lazy, childish, and self-indulgent, resulting in a profound level of ignorance drowning in motivated reasoning.

One experts view on why people get into it, from your first link.

I think stopping this is never the intent. It can't be realistic. But giving the majority of people "on the fence" of Earth curvature etc. different point of view, or at least showing where exactly they are being misled, seems achievable.

As I understand it, modern flat earth stuff borders on outright religious belief (with a dose of antisemitism and conspiracy theories - a lot of qanon is just flat earth rebranded), so convincing someone like that with physics is like trying to convince a religious person that god doesn’t exist because we flew to space and didn’t see him.

I think what definitely works is reducing exposure and minimizing the number of new susceptible people who become aware of this stuff.

People will read and believe what ever trickles in to their generated news feeds.

Of course there will always be demand for confirmation bias and an alt reality, but the fact there are teams of people manufacturing dis info with an agenda, actively competing for mind share, is way more concerning.

Bad actors taking advantage of weak minds

Reply on news.ycombinator.com