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Comment by ano88888 | Hacker News Reader

Right. When that chaos happen, just remember that you will not be safe from it

Whats your alternative? Attempt to hide the fact that everything can be easily faked, and that you don't need to be a hollywood studio to do it? What good do you think that does? Instill a false sense of security and trust in a medium which cannot bear it ? How's that not worse?

Even outright banning this technology won't make a dent in the bad uses, since those individuals are highly motivated, highly competent and don't care the least about the ban..

It's not like the development won't happen, it will just be hidden, making it less obvious to the potential victims (increasing the size of this group, since you then need to be "in the know").

So no, the only way forward is to have this out in the open as much as possible so that as many people as possible become aware of how trivial it already is to fake stuff.

So, what are you saying ?

If you truly believe all that, what are you doing to minimise the inevitable damage?

The transition will suely be traumatic. What's your interest in mitigating the trauma? Does it bother you at all?

I agree with what you wrote above. I wish to slow implementations, to allow time for adjustment.

> If you truly believe all that, what are you doing to minimise the inevitable damage?

I'm not doing anything, in particular, I don't know what to do about it ?

I could say that I "do my research" but I don't, because I don't know how to do that withing the framework of not trusting what I read.

I probably use my personal version of common sense, which of course is biased and lacking.. For instance, with the covid masks, I ignored the media arguments from both sides, and thought "if it's in the air, a mask might trap some particles, it might reduce my chance of spreading it or catching it".. I didn't believe the studies that said it was inefficient because I know doctors are using masks during surgery, and Japanese during common cold, so, I know they're at least not going to be detrimental.

I'm old enough that I learned a lot of stuff before the information apocalypse.. I try to apply my understanding of the world to selecting a course of action, but I also understand that it will be imperfect.

I listen to arguments and try to apply my own rationale in deciding whether to believe them.. But we all do that.. I don't take statements as facts at face value because I don't know how they were derived, I will try to think about how plausible it is, together with the sources and my existing knowledge.. Of course I will fail.

Yeah, I believe it but I don't know what can be done about it. I put more confidence in some sources than other, but I don't believe anything to be 100% true simply based on the source..

Why does it have to be traumatic? Maybe the development of mass media was traumatic, everyone putting near-complete trust in any video they see or piece of text they read was traumatic, and now we will see some of that trauma be undone.

>> Maybe the development of mass media was traumatic,

Yes, it really was. Adolf Hitler, for one, found radio and cinema and he just used what was already there. Before his countrymen had developed the media chops to deal with his messaging.

Others' past failures are not an excuse for our future ones. Nor should we allow ourselves to blithely imagine that this time it'll be different. Without strong evidence to the contrary.

So imagine if we had done what you suggest and slowed the spread of radio and cinema. People have barely any idea that such things are possible. And then one day Hitler comes along after surreptitiously developing radio and cinema, and distributes it among the German population, and uses it for his propaganda campaigns. Would that have been better?

Timing is all. You may dislike the analogy - sorry I don't mean to antagonise.

At the start of the pandemic, and in the middle and towards the end there were always voices arguing for "herd immunity now! Let the inevitable happen, as it must".

For me, those voices were too early, until other things had fallen into place. Then they were eventually right.

No worries, I thought it was a good analogy.

I am already not safe from it, but it is less obvious because people like to think the technology doesn't exist merely because it is kind of expensive.

Thank you saurik for what you have done ... and if appropriate for what you have chosen not to do.

Fake information being promoted does not inherently spread chaos.

The church has been around for years and despite the millennia of lies we are all still here and thriving and improving.

Bullshit spreads faster, but truth wins out over centuries because it doesn't go away when you stop looking at it.

    The church has been around for years and despite the millennia of lies we are all still here and thriving and improving.

Sure, certain members of the church got carried away with their power but the church has also been a huge psychological boon to billions of people. For example, we have Christianity to thank for the concept of individual rights and sovereignty. It wasn't that long ago that individuals did not have any inherent value. Christianity is at the root of the "modern" concept of "innocent until proven guilty".

I'm not referring to "certain members", I am talking about the big lie that is central to the church, espoused by every member.

Somehow even with that, vested in authority, we have managed to move past it as a species and have progressed beyond superstitions.

Spreading misinformation is a self-correcting problem. It simply goes away when people get bored with the meme. Reality and truth does not.

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