> The question we need to be asking is whether we should banish certain ideas to an echo chamber that the rest of us have no incentive to enter, or whether we should allow free expression of all ideas — no matter how repulsive — so rational minds may finally have an opportunity to prevail.
I don't think the person that believes Bill Gates is trying to insert microchips into people is going to listen to rational thought from you or anyone else.
Most normal people don't want to even see this kind of crap in their social feeds. There is just too much other interesting stuff to read on a daily basis. If Twitter doesn't remove this crap and decides to show it to me (because having an audience is a constitutionally protected right or something) I'm leaving Twitter and going somewhere else.
Agreed. I don't have time nor do I want to watch incendiary videos that unnecessary raise my blood pressure and stress me out.
I know what it like to be under such information cycle. You just spiral out of control as you become unmoored from reality. Depression and anxiety sets in, and it get worse and worse until the cycle get disrupted or something really bad happen. In my case, I was able to disrupt the cycle.
Imagine someone more susceptible to conspiracy theories get sucked into such a cycle when youtube video recommend an endless stream.
>How is it possible for the most modern society in the world, with all the evidence right at our fingertips, to be so misinformed?
well there's two answers to that question. Either the society you're talking about is in fact not the 'most modern' society on the planet, or having evidence at the tip of your fingers doesn't make you more informed.
Spoiler alert, it's both. American society has a knack for conspiracy theories, rugged individualism and responding to expert recommendations with contrarianism. I've seen no other place whose response to climate change is not just mere indifference, but coal rolling.
Secondly, and this is not America's fault, people don't do that well with a surplus of information. Even smart people don't. Experiments have shown that the mathematical intuition of statisticians is not much better than a laypersons, and modern behavioural science has highlighted the extreme cost of choice.
Achen and Bartels in their most recent book have shown that folk theory of democracy is largely a myth. People are not naturally enlightened. Being more engaged and higher educated actually leads people to hold more false opinions on politically charged factual matters. (Highly educated Democrats tend to overestimate how homophobic Republicans are, highly educated republicans are climate deniers more often than working class ones).
Reason is indeed slave to the passions as Hume had already figured out and trying to cure motivated and psychologically biased reasoning with more information is going to make the problem worse, not better.
Thank you for your valuable insight as I rewrite this to be less incendiary and better researched. I feel I have been too careless with my pseudonymous writing (see rubyist5eva’s valid criticism).
I am taking a step back to read deeper and improve the statistics/reproducibility side of my write-ups first.
> We should all be seeing the same images of overcrowded hospitals
Yes, like the picture of the Italian ICU which was dishonestly placed in reports by US journalists to show overcrowded, chaotic American ICUs.
> Americans have suffered far more during the pandemic than any other country
4.2% of the global population and a 20% share of the world's infections and deaths. How does that add up, especially when compared to countries like India and Nigeria which have higher squalor and population density (not to be demeaning) but much lower incidents of infection and death? The US has not implemented fewer precautions than the rest of the world (indeed some states have instituted some of the most onerous mitigation tactics) yet it is faring the worst? The numbers and tactics do not add up.
> How is it possible for the most modern society in the world, with all the evidence right at our fingertips, to be so misinformed?
Because so much of this 'most modern society' gets its information from the same 6 corporations through a telescreen instead of walking out and experiencing it firsthand.
> In the case of Bill Gates, he came out as a vocal supporter of public safety measures that were especially loathed by Americans who felt it encroached on their civil liberties.
Bill Gates is unaffected by government forced shutdowns of private industry. He can slink away and live for the rest of his life on what he has in the bank and market. The average American can't come up with $400 to cover an emergency expense, and you wonder why so many people don't like being told they aren't essential? They get a $600 pittance while the vast majority of the CARES act got routed to corporations to keep up their bottom line.
I could pick this misinformation apart further, but it's not worth my time and keystrokes to piss into the wind.
Hey, author here - thank you so much for this pointed criticism. I honestly realized I had not researched or taken as open of a viewpoint as I had previously thought. I appreciate you taking the time to read what I wrote and write this clear feedback as it has helped me tremendously in developing a more objective perspective and neutral tone as a writer.
Just wanted to let you know that your keystrokes did make an impact on the writer, who sincerely appreciates your honest thoughts.
> The US has not implemented fewer precautions than the rest of the world
That depends if you just consider the nominal commands or if you also consider whether, and in what manner/degree, the commands are enforced (and complied with.)
Brought to you by pseudonymous medium writer "anonymousdatascientist"
Talks about people that he disagrees with as "dark cave creatures" and "weak intellectual immunity" - and we wonder why half the country is defensive and angered by the "educated" and "elite"?
He talks about Dr. Fauci in such high regard even though Fauci has admitted he deliberately lied to the American people in order to try to shape their behavior. Yet, won't even use the honorifics for Dr. Atlas or the President of the United States. What about Dr. Jill Biden, Mr. DataScientist - does she deserve her honorific according to your standard because her Ph.D is "only" in Education?
Good grief - incendiary, partisan trash like this does not belong on HN.
Hey author here - I mean it sincerely when I say thank you for the feedback, I agree with you completely that by making partisan jokes like that I am alienating my audience. I also meant the "dark cave" as more a metaphor to bats/coronavirus and I should not have tried to make cheap jokes if I'm trying to make a serious point. I realized after reading your comment how a lot of what I wrote could be interpreted another way. I'm going through the article now and changing the tone.
I'm actually new to writing anything online, I've just lurked the Internet for years and read so much good writing on HN. I'm going to take a step back, re-evaluate and get more eyes on what I'm writing before I carelessly post something again. I love this community more than any other, and I want to meet the standard.
Plus if I am stoking partisan fire as you are suggesting, I am accomplishing the opposite of what I hope to actually do as a pseudonymous writer. I really do appreciate you taking the time to read and provide this honest feedback.
Edit: I finished revising based on your suggestions and will look at it with a fresh eye tomorrow. Thanks again for explaining your perspective to me so succinctly.
> The question we need to be asking is whether we should banish certain ideas to an echo chamber that the rest of us have no incentive to enter, or whether we should allow free expression of all ideas — no matter how repulsive — so rational minds may finally have an opportunity to prevail
Has the free expression of all ideas through current means allowed rational minds to prevail? It seems that the status quo has failed to facilitate rational discussion.
And what sort of metric would we use to evaluate the success of a community to have rational discussion?
The algorithms are not neutral, nor are front page neutrals. They all optimize for the most popular and often the most incendiary material to show to the people at large. These websites are always choosing something to say.
When a website remove links from the front page or from the algorithm, they are necessarily choosing something else to say, unless they really do run out of content.
Obviously both are important, but I would at least thing that approaching an issue from a rational mind (not angry, etc.) would help one arrive at truth much more quickly.
>> Has the free expression of all ideas through current means allowed rational minds to prevail? It seems that the status quo has failed to facilitate rational discussion.
> Which matters more: rational minds, or truth?
That question is based on a false premise. Irrational minds aren't going to arrive at truth through their own processes, except by accident.
And "free expression of all ideas through current means" hasn't allowed the truth to prevail, either. It's allowed even blatant, meritless lies such as QAnon and "Stop the Steal" to become widespread and influential, supported by a whole constellation of other more subtle lies.
> I sincerely hope to see this election put to a thorough legal test after the inauguration, because I'm falling short of agreement with you here.
Why? It was already heavily scrutinized and no problems where found, and certainly none that would change the outcome in any way.
Also, it's clear that the main (perhaps only) reason this election was challenged was to assuage the fragile ego of an insecure man with a gift for demagoguery, a man who apparently has always used "loser" as the ultimate insult and cannot tolerate being one.
I don't think the person that believes Bill Gates is trying to insert microchips into people is going to listen to rational thought from you or anyone else.
Most normal people don't want to even see this kind of crap in their social feeds. There is just too much other interesting stuff to read on a daily basis. If Twitter doesn't remove this crap and decides to show it to me (because having an audience is a constitutionally protected right or something) I'm leaving Twitter and going somewhere else.
Censorship is a competitive advantage.