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Comment by fatcat500 | Hacker News Reader

They burnt through all the cultural capital they had by spending it on short-term political victories. Now people see the media not as a source of information, but as an instrument of the establishment to influence and control.

The same will happen with the other institutions. We already have large amount of people skeptical of the CDC, WHO, and other health oriented orgs. We have growing skepticism of large financial institutions (fed & inflation, IMF & "you will own nothing", etc.). There is widespread skepticism of academic institutions, which will cause the value of academic titles to depreciate.

All this because the people who control these institutions insist on using them as political instruments (at certain times).

I wonder what the situation will be 50 years from now...

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Maybe this is part of the picture, but it is far from the whole picture. You are just completely ignoring the attacks on the trustworthiness of institutions that have come from outside forces. For example, was it the people controlling the National Weather Service that made it a political instrument by covering climate change? Or was it politicians and other powerful people who made the factual reporting of a changing climate a political issue?

> was it the people controlling the National Weather Service that made it a political instrument by covering climate change?

This USA Today comic explains it well: https://www.gocomics.com/joelpett/2009/12/13. For better or worse, climate change is used as tool for advancing political agendas with a certain vision for the future.

An interesting current example of political interests at stake far beyond the on-face discussion of sustainability is the Dutch farmer protests. Discussed a few days ago on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31989112

> You are just completely ignoring the attacks on the trustworthiness of institutions that have come from outside forces.

Conservatives have been complaining about “liberal media” since forever. But the divergence in media trust between Democrats one hand and Independents/Republicans on the other grew dramatically in the Bush era, and again during the Trump era: https://www.allsides.com/news/2020-12-31-0913/trump-era-driv...

In the 1980s I assume most NYC news anchors hated Reagan, but they at least tried to hide their contempt.

This take would be a lot more reasonable if people weren’t turning to crazy Facebook uncles for information instead.

They turn there because what could be less establishment? The establishment gives its imprimatur to the news media, and they've proven untrustworthy, so the (weak) reasoning goes, why not turn to whatever the establishment condemns? Listen to Alex Jones, Joe Rogan, Sargon of Akkad, Q, the Doomsinger of Alexandria (okay, I made that one up). They don't trust any of it anyway, except a few of the worst Q addicts, but they figure, we know CNN lies and twists, and they hate us, so might as well listen to the liar who's on our side.

I agree with everything except that last part:

"So might as well listen to the liar who I trust is on our side"

I said it's poor reasoning.

Maybe I could have phrased it differently. I really appreciated what you wrote and wanted to add to it, saying that often people don't realize they implicitly trust the sources that they do.

Many of them are turning to new sources of opinion-driven news, like the daily wire and the young turks. I can't say for certain that this is a worse future than what we have had over the last 5 years in mainstream news, but it cements the balkanization of information channels.

People have recognized that the New York Times and NPR are less trustworthy than crazy Facebook uncles.

Maybe folks want to be responsible and eat their vegetables, but if they’re going to be served nutrition-free calorie bombs either way, it makes sense to go with the flavor you prefer.

The problem with saying institution X is "not as a source of information, but as an instrument of the establishment to influence and control" is that most people who say this do believe some institutions. The ones that tell them what they want to hear are obviously honest. The ones that say otherwise are obviously corrupt.

Believing "institutions are corrupt" without addressing specific instances of corruption is an abandonment of critical thought itself.

You can LARP life for a while, but reality continues outside your fantasy, and at some point you will have to reconcile the two. You may find at this point that you weren't on the side of truth and justice after all.

People assume all institutions are default-corrupt.

True for any social system that grants one group power over another.

Only constant and consistent demonstration of honest behavior signals otherwise. Trust is a delicate thing, and must be maintained.

That may be true of some people, but what we’re seeing right now is people’s trust swinging to media vehicles and political leaders that have done nothing to earn trust aside from charismatically asserting that they are more trustworthy.

Trump’s brand isn’t built on trust, it’s built on fighting.

Trustworthy institutions enable people with conflicting interests and values to cooperate. When people lose trust and believe institutions are biased against them, they don’t seek an alternative source of trusted authority. Instead, they seek a champion who will be biased in their favor and fight for them.

You see this in third world countries all the time. The factions there aren’t built on leaders being trustworthy, but instead sectarian affiliation.

The article we're discussing specifically talks about the run-up to the second iraq war. I didn't watch the link, but I assume they highlight when the New York Times helping trick the country into war.

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