Are we living in the age of info-determinism?
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
This happens because the so-called "authoritative sources" have lost their trustworthiness, creating a vacuum that is filled by new sources, some good and some bad.
The problem is, people are bad at thinking for themselves, and basically outsource their beliefs to third parties. Are we worse at this than we used to be, or has it always been like this?
We need more primary sources of information, and less filters trying to persuade us, who often have unseen agendas and different motivations.
This was in the early 2000's when the CIA analyst said this, but with familiarity of a time when the majority of online sources had been trustworthy (if not completely authoritative), it was easier to navigate the pitfalls at the time.
It was still possible to judiciously exploit the new sources for deep research to a worthwhile degree for another reason because there was lots more info (but noisier by far) coming from all directions, but I wouldn't say they were exactly near-infinite.
Not compared to today.
Now I would say it's near-infinite.
Although AI may not have yet had the full effect that it could be capable of.
So I could be underestimating . . .
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law
I personally remember it as “an ounce of bullshit takes a pound of truth to clean up”.
The most ironic thing would be if this "post truth" situation we seem to be in drives people back to brick and mortar libraries.
For instance - ddg, google, doesn't really matter the search engine - typing in something like "ohtani batting average with runners in scoring position with 2 outs" used to be so easy it'd practically pop up in the quick answers with the exact link to the ESPN table or dudewhoneverleavesbasement.com that has tracked every baseball stat for the last 150 years.
Now you just get basically the same results for "ohtani batting average" or "ohtani news." It's impossibly frustrating. It's like that with everything now.
I guess that's more of a problem with search than anything else, but honestly, search is the main way people navigate the web. If I want anything authoritative, honestly, I'm probably going to wikipedia to see a source list and then checking out authors in the local library. Anything dated post 2022 I consider inherently unreliable.
That doesn't exactly solve the authoritative problem, but theoretically it makes it more centralized (one AI company vs. innumerable websites.)
On the other hand I’m not sure how the current state of the web is really any different. We just rely on Google or whatever search engine to “fact check.”
I think the small sites like that are either mostly gone or simply not ever indexed.
More recent data is not. Major League Baseball has wide open APIs that give you a huge amount of nearly real-time data, and runs a site where you can bulk download data. For personal, non-commercial purposes only. They will go after you for running a commercial service and demand licensing fees.
That's basically why everything polished is now behind a subscription, while you can DIY all you want.
But "authoritative" is a social construct.
And that's before introducing exponent AI ;)
People are too used to "having a platform" being a credential in and of itself. They wouldn't let just anyone be a TV News anchor or have a drive time talk radio show or write a book, right? There have always been snake oil salesmen, but what's unique about today is that it's very easy to make yourself look like Dan Rather or Barbara Walters or even Hunter S. Thompson. Some people fall into this false authority trap.
Anecdotally, I find that older generations are more willing to accept what they see online just because it is "published" online. Hopefully this is something that works itself out as more and more people grow up with these platforms.
And recently Hollywood released a movie that tried to whitewash this.
A lot of the hand-wringing about how no one cares for the truth is mainly the elite crying over the loss of power to define truth for everyone.
There will always be failures of integrity. Our expectation can't be infallible people, but rather the rigor of an organization to care about the failures.
However if his lies had not become public they would have been happy to ignore it and move on to the next thing.
Despite this, journalists in the later part of the 20th century successfully created an aura of professionalism borrowed. Cronkite, Rather, the 60 Minutes crew, etc. projected a sense of seriousness and professional care. In some instances, the newspapers really did and to some extent still do engage in fact checking and other professional activities to increase reliability. However, because all of these measures are self-enforcing, they became over time even more corrupted than they were before.
They increasingly relied on anonymous sourcing for important matters, which is inherently open to abuse (it's why the Constitution requires that a defendant be able to confront their accusers and witnesses against them). They could no longer maintain this false aura because they were repeatedly confronted by bloggers and other small creators with evidence of their unreliability.
The standard proposed solution to the problems created by powerful universal publishing technology tends to be a licensing regime of some kind as a preventative measure, or otherwise that publishing technology providers submit to close supervision by the state (as they did during the cough cough era).
I think the better way that comports better with the Constitution is to just to enforce the criminal laws and facilitate civil suits against individuals retroactively for the harms that they cause through illegal speech. There are lots of kinds of illegal speech, e.g. you cannot engage in the unauthorized practice of law, you cannot provide medical advice without a license, you cannot defame people, you cannot incite riots, you cannot procure criminal acts, you cannot defraud, you cannot infringe on copyright, and so on and so forth. More lawsuits and prosecutions for illegal speech -- a reactive way of addressing the issues -- is less harmful and better comports with the Constitution than proactive means such as requiring that every social media user have a license that can be revoked or that the platforms submit to close management by the Article II government.
Is this sentence unauthorized practice of law?
edit: It's a rhetorical question. If I had power over policing and the justice system, and I disagreed with you, and it were actually illegal to give legal or medical advice to people without a license (which it is not), it would absolutely be unauthorized practice of law and the spreading of misinformation. I might also claim that you're doing it to help Russia weaken a potential future law that would force journalists to be licensed. I will claim this with no evidence, but I will claim it everywhere, through dozens of different, soon-to-be-licensed, mouths. The rumor will be used as grounds to investigate you.
We've just been through a week of Americans on Twitter getting shocked at Brits on Twitter because there's some, very minimal, legal action being taken against people who incited riots through false statements on social media. I think you need to be much clearer about what this actually means. Especially as there has been very little prosecution of Jan 6 "inciters" (as opposed to people who were physically there committing crimes while being filmed)
The term "unfunded mandate" come to mind. Journalists should aspire to a higher standard (just as software developers should), but nobody's incentivizing it. Get the scoop, get the clicks, publish first and make it an exclusive. Traditional media is getting squeezed from all angles, who's got time to fact check, who's got the budget for deep research? It's hard to blame the poor journalist, who's just trying to survive in a landscape where anyone with a social media account is given the same consideration as an authority.
If say Fauci declares that there was no gain-of-function research, and some random blogger does a FOIA that turns up a paper trail proving otherwise? That's much easier to find out about these days than if I was limited to what a TV channel or two and maybe a couple newspapers decided to cover.
That only applies when the content is something they philosophically agree with. Those same people, when presented with information they disagree with, will say "they'll let anyone put anything on the internet", with a completely straight face. The cognitive dissonance is strong.
The opposite is a problem too when authoritative sources on X topic start to talk about Y topic as if they still have the same knowledge and expertise and we should trust them. I see this more and more everywhere, here on HN too.
How many times have you believed and old wives tale, but then found out it’s not true at all? Now apply that less to specific beliefs but more generally, and scale it across all your beliefs.
I wish the majority of dwellers of the Internet is able to do this (I feel I'm quite reflective), but it seems like a lot of the noise online is people insisting that they've been right the whole time...
His training is in medieval military history. He is not an anthropologist. Yet he is always make grand pronouncements about human behavior.
Most of his fame is not due to his academic achievements but because he can write very engaging popular works. Harari has a lot more in common with a popular YouTube “expert” than he would care to admit.
Some of the best software engineers studied something else. Only because his training is in something else doesn't mean he didn't read up on it or is not knowledgeable about human behavior.
Also history kind of chronicles aggregate human behavior, so it's at least a related discipline.
I'm not saying he is knowledgeable, mind you, I just think you shouldn't pigeonhole people based on doing exactly what they studied. Because many people don't do exactly what they studied and are experts in it.
You can learn more about the deranged minds of CIA officers and "public intellectuals" from the backgrounds of their arguments than you can from taking them at face value.
These people are _completely afraid_ of living in a world which does not require their permission or ideology in order to function. This article is written entirely from the "state" point of view and completely lacks any "humanity" whatsoever.
> And yet, “the public opposes, but does not propose.” Demolishing ideas is easy in a subreddit; crafting new ones there is mostly beside the point.
Give me a break. Tons of new ideas and new systems and new projects have been created on the internet using precisely this mechanism and with zero government authority involved. This is a completely ridiculous assertion by the article.
> How can a society function when the rejection of knowledge becomes a political act?
Is it the rejection of knowledge or simply the rejection of authority? Perhaps people expect those in authority to actually explain themselves, to act in a transparent manner, and to not use their power to unfairly benefit one group over another.
> But democracy on a mass scale depends on mass institutions—mass media, mass education, mass culture—that seem likely to fracture or mutate with the arrival of A.I. The forms of government that flourished in one info-epoch may not thrive in the next.
I'm sorry, but what a total crock of shit, this idea that "mass anything" is somehow _required_ for "mass democracy" to function, or even that "mass democracy" is something experienced in any of our governments.
It really sounds like these people want to diminish humanity at all costs, in favor of AI, so they can regain control of our information space, and have the ability to manipulate the entire world en masse and without any oversight or responsibility for it.
I'm completely grossed out by this article and the people within it.
Edit: also want to add this quote:
>...disillusioned voters might adopt more realistic expectations about how much leaders can improve their lives.
This article positions itself against "nihilism" but this is the most nihilistic thing I've seen in a piece of political writing. This is no more than a way to say that elites should tell voters: "Peons, stop expecting your lives to get better. That's not our relationship. This is not a democracy, and your role in society is to suffer silently while also praising us."
Well of course it's pro-statist: it's from The New Yorker. There aren't many more leftist publication than that one and leftists love the state: it's their religion.
To these people every single problem is due to "not enough state" and the solution is always "more state", which can be seen here:
> But democracy on a mass scale depends on mass institutions—mass media, mass education, mass culture ...
Yeah. Mass state. Mass mind control. More left.
I honestly don't understand how anyone who thinks for himself cannot see through this pile of horseshit.
The signal/noise ratio it's not a new thing of course, but the real problem is mean (absence of) culture not information per se.
Currently, we have built our systems so strongly that we practically develop technologically deterministically. Can we help but develop new computer security technology? No. Can we decide NOT to make computers faster, even if making new technology constantly requires the unsustainable extraction of raw materials and is polluting the entire planet? No, because SOMEONE will make their computer faster, so we call have to do so to keep up.
Our modern society is so intertwined, that we cannot make decisions at ALL on which technologies to develop and which technologies not too. The Amish do it, because they have some foresight into it social impact, and because they've structured their society to place their way of life ABOVE that of technology. But the outside world IS technology now, and we are but cells in the new amalgamation of humanity and machine and we can no longer do anything about it...
...that is, until someone starts a revolution and destroys it.
It cannot.
Living in a "post-truth" society is just a sanitized way of saying living in a society without truth. Such a society must inevitably collapse.
No evidence for that.
Can you define "knowledge"?
We had the tripartite definition, a "justified true belief", and the argument against it exemplified by a person looking at a fluffy white creature in a field and justifiably saying that they know there is a sheep in this field, but unbeknownst to them what they're looking at is a komondor and though there is a sheep elsewhere in the field it is not visible from where they are.
I think there is only belief, that we can have degrees of certainty about our beliefs but there is no way to transition to P(1) or P(0), and no specific probability other than 0 and 1 where we can reliably say that we "know" something to be true or false.
Belief is labeling the pattern and calling it a sheep.
Belief is also the labeling the pattern a Komondor.
Belief is thinking there is a person seeing the sheep.
That definition classifies every dream I have dreamed, every video I've seen, every game I've played, as "knowledge".
If anything, it is an easier thing to dismiss than the examples you give as "beliefs".
See "naive realism": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naïve_realism
Also isn't dismissal also just another belief?
2. I'm saying everything is
Societies built on lies can go on for quite a while, there are tests, a war for example, that can finish them off. But even then, they might stumble along.
This is a self-defeating statement. It's false on its face. If there is no such thing as truth, then this statement can't be true because it would mean there is at least one truth.
Normally this falls into the realm of moral truth. Or perhaps in a broader sense existential truth. For example: rape is wrong is not an absolute truth. It’s just like your opinion man.
In an entirely materialistic system morality is not universal. It merely the taste of whatever society wants at a time. Morality is ultimately might makes right. If you can enforce your morality through force, your morality wins. If the pro-rape camp could enforce their view, within a few generations we’d all say that the anti-rape camp was on the wrong side of history.
1+1 = 2, the earth is ~80% water, water freezes at 0degC.
What to you mean there aren't truths?
Do you mean people form opinions that are wrong? Sure. After sitting back at looking at it, it seems like the big problem is: there are small circles of power that make decisions for the rest of their population under the guise of "best interest of the people" when in reality we all know this isn't true.
So these small groups make the little people distracted with things that are very hot-button topics that affect a very small majority of people, by making appeals to emotion on both sides.
The small folks eat this up, rip a huge divide, and the small circle people sit back and laugh.
When people talk about "truth" with regard to society, government, politics, culture, etc, they're talking about "the story". A story is something that shortcuts discussion, an agreement that two parties don't need to litigate the foundation of.
Take the statement "Joe Biden is president of the USA." Many people accept that as truth not requiring further discussion. Many people do not accept that for a variety of reasons. If you're going to make that statement, you need to be prepared that some percentage of those hearing it will object. There are people that will object to "The earth is round."
So "post-truth" means that there's not a stable foundation of generally agreed upon facts. The least common denominator for discussion and agreement is smaller.
That doesn't mean it isn't true about Biden being president. It is a fact, Biden is the sworn-in president of the United States. The part where people don't believe this doesn't make the world post-truth, it just makes some people wrong.
I don't care how hard someone believes Biden isn't president, he is. he was sworn in, this is a fact, not an opinion, not a story, not up for debate. The dude was sworn in as the president, he is the president.
Was he elected fairly? I think so, some don't. Debate that, sure. If two people on the opposite of that debate try and convince the other, it won't happen. That isn't post-truth, at all.
Truth still exists. People don't look for it. I posted this the other day as an example: My Brother-in-Law said recently "The NFL has declining viewership and is losing interest because of all the different platforms they stream to." Which I'm sure he heard/read somewhere, and knowing the fella, had a political slant towards what he was saying. I do not know what the slant was, but I DO know he was wrong. The NFL had one of the best ratings years ever in the 23-24 season.
My brother in law is just spouting nonsense. He didn't try and find the truth. We argued for 3 minutes, I pulled up the numbers, and he was wrong.
That isn't post-truth, it is willful ignorance, choosing to believe a false narrative because it aligns with core values.
What does a life well lived mean? Is there a god or gods? Which one should one worship if so? What does it mean to be a good or bad person? Where does one find meaning? I don't believe there are truthful answers to questions like that, and modernity seems to annihilate the answers that cultures have developed in past. I'm not particularly versed in Nietzsche, but I believe he said it as "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."
You posited a lot of philosophical questions, and quoted a famous philosopher.
"Philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and value. These are questions that everyone asks" [0]
If you're trying to say "we don't have answers to the philosophical questions of our time" I would agree with you. This would not be a salient point on your end, or even a useful one. This is an example of a well-established... dare I say... fact.
[0] https://www.cmich.edu/academics/colleges/liberal-arts-social...
Believe me, I'm not happy about it either.
Something recognized since Socrates, whose death was foretold by Nietzsche, and finally rendered obsolete by the postmodernists a la Baudrillard (1981):
All Western faith and good faith became engaged in this wager on
representation: that a sign could refer to the depth of meaning,
that a sign could be exchanged for meaning and that something
could guarantee this exchange-God of course.
Language and rational discourse are based upon this principle - that when we exchange words or symbols with one another that refer to a thing, we have some hope in hell of referring to the same thing, such that I can represent an object in the "external world," or even a thought in my intellectual "internal world" or "soul", serialize it into a literate form, and have you deserialize that literate string into the same intellectual or cognitive structures that I beheld in my own soul when I put those words together and hoped to communicate to you.
"The death of God" means that we can no longer guarantee this exchange of "meaning" between minds/souls (both of which I regard as terms that refer to exactly the same thing and are perfectly coextensive), because no symbols are tethered to an underlying objective meaning nor reality. Language and definitions are relative, malleable, subject to revision. Context and intent of language and expressions are irrelevant; the meaning of any string of symbols is now unilaterally determined by their impact or impression on the receiver, and thus any subjective meaning can be inferred from any expression.
The condition of post-truth is a consequence of this rejection of objective reality, of the elevation of relativism to the highest degree, and the confusion of (hyperreal, manufactured) symbols with actual reality. There is no objective truth any more, only relativism, narrative, and belief.
> finally rendered obsolete by the postmodernists
is better render as "finally discarded as obsolete by the postmodernists". Since, after all, they didn't prove that symbols do not correspond to reality (they couldn't do that, since that would upend their arguments), they simply asserted that it was so.
This sounds an awful lot like a higher being who sits in judgement of their creation; and something that humanity seems to reach for very quickly. I was taught something similar as a child, but lost the belief when I was still quite young. I'd love to believe in a higher power or purpose because nihilism is quite a terrible experience. I often wonder if I'm just wired differently so in some way unable to believe things as others are or if a lifetime of chronic pain has revealed things to me that most people do not learn until they are older.
At the aggregate we seem to be making progress while at the individual level humanity always seems doomed. It seems a constant that the individual wants to pretend they live in the end times because at least then your time on this rock was a little bit special.
What are the examples of that? It's closer to a phase transition than an actual collapse at the kind of scale we're talking about here.
I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, though.
Truth does exist. And the ultimate truth is Christ. Yes, those words ring as ignorance to most, but just like we are forced to reckon with gravity and the laws of physics, we all will one day reckon with the ultimate truth.
But it is not my job to compel anyone to believe this. I just find it fascinating that non-believers will believe in magic, ghosts, simulations, aliens, evolution, but that a Creator that exists outside of time, space, and matter created this universe? Nah, that's ignorant religious thinking.
I never said that truth doesn't exist.
For example, in World War 2, the Japanese authoritarian regime took over newspapers and newsreels. Any time they would lose a battle, or have to withdraw, that would be stated as a victory. By the end of 1942, they had stated that the Imperial Japanese Navy had sunk "11 aircraft carriers, 11 battleships, 46 cruisers, 48 destroyers, and 93 submarines" (December 8th, 1942)
The Japenese people could look at maps, and see that the "glorious victories" were somehow occurring further and further west, closer to home each time. But they had no power, no way to challenge the newspapers and announcements from Navy and Army HQs. And the constant propaganda had warped the perspectives of everyone, including progressives and liberals, so they fell in line too.
A large part of Japan's defeat was because they fought an opponent capable of out-producing and out-training them. They had started to believe their own bullshit about being a superior race, about being simply better than the Americans, and as you said, collapse was inevitable. Before the atomic bombs convinced Hirohito to accept unconditional surrender, Japan was close to famine. If the war had lasted into 1946, millions of Japanese people would have died of starvation.
Which, yeah. Of course it is, and that's a great thing. Sure, we get some fringe communities but on the whole we get so many more communities of people who want to help each other.
If you think we're suddenly "worse" then you're probably too used to your alleged set of beliefs being spread and shared by the major narrative setters and you were too comfortable in that echo chamber.
But hey, it's easier to call anyone who thinks differently some name (Today it's customary to rail against the evil right, in "the west" but your mileage may vary) and write "insightful articles" about post truth eras and the like.
On the other hand, you could argue that at a certain philosophical high level, you can’t use current generation paradigms to meaningfully explore next generation paradigms anyway – so how else are we gonna intuit the world we’re transitioning into? I suspect that to explain emerging social phenomena we’re going to have to adopt some strange ideas, whether it’s neo-religious, postmodernism or Harari-style scientism. Pick your flavor I guess..