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by spoinkaroo
3496 days ago
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Great post - and very accurate, if a bit black on white on the difference between low/high value content. Why do you think it is that 'low' value content is so prevalent - and we fail to refer to refer to actually high value content? Do you think a service like a distilled wikipedia would be value - which would aggregate indisputable facts about the world around us. Both the IPCC reports on climate change and the Koran are very high value sources of information, and even offer summarized versions and lessons... yet people still don't refer to them whatsoever. Personally, it makes everyday conversation very frustrating as people continually fail to ground their stances in any semblance of fact or reality - and don't even begin to make an effort to do so. I also currently resort to 'doing my homework' for researching these issues, but it seems like there has to be an easier way in a landscape with wikipedia, thousands of fact checking services, and access to high quality information in the form of reports academia that fails to materialize in conversation, policy, and isn't even aggregated if you aren't determined or an expert. |
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> a bit black on white on the difference between low/high value content
Agreed. I was simplifying - it was long enough as is! And it is already so speculative (it's almost embarrassing - ironically low-value) that I would hesitate to try to add nuance.
> Why do you think it is that 'low' value content is so prevalent - and we fail to refer to refer to actually high value content?
My personal hypotheses:
1) Few people care enough about the world to even consider making an effort to be better informed
2) Of those who care, few even consider that low-value content is so unreliable and high-value content exists (as I said in #2 in my original post)
3) Of those who care and know what they are missing, few want to make an effort to find and read the high-value content. People are lazy (me too!)
4) The low-value content establishes the norms: People read it and believe it, and therefore anything that contradicts it - especially from a whole different perspective - seems wrong, ridiculous, and at best challenges their worldview - not something many people will accept. If everyone thinks the Sun orbits the Earth, the person telling the truth is ridiculed.
> Do you think a service like a distilled wikipedia would be value
Absolutely, but it takes time and skilled labor. I've often thought about how to get the high-value content into the public conversation.
But there are good online resources: Try Encyclopedia Britannica, for example. It's what you describe, though necessarily smaller than Wikipedia.