[tenaciousDaniel]

The ability to use subtle psychological tricks to influence the citizenry of a foreign adversary is perhaps the most surprising new feature of a world connected by the internet. I have no idea how a nation as large, diverse, and fragmented the USA (where I live) is going to combat it.

[Frost1x]

An educated and critically thinking populace who can question and analyze information independently and don't always require authoritive sources, that's how you combat this. People need to be able to identify and defend against the 'grenades' of the 21st century. It doesn't even run counter to democratic principles, I'd say educating people against misinformation/disinformation and providing them with independent analysis capability provides strong legs for democracy.

The problem we run into is that a lot of current leadership in this country seem to rely on an easily manipulated population through misinformstion/disinformation. Leadership who utilize this need to be willing to abandon this to strengthen our democracy even if it may be the undoing of their own source of power. I'm not certain we're going to see that happen.

What I instead think we'll see is a shouting match of disinformation/misinformation between foreign adversaries and questionable leadership we already have which may hopefully undermine misplaced trust for many put in the free flowing mis/disinformation we have today. We could also end up with direction dictated by whoever can shout the loudest and most convincingly.

[wyager]

> An educated and critically thinking populace who can question and analyze information independently

To whatever extent this skill exists, it certainly can’t be acquired by going through the university system.

I suspect the most relevant characteristic here is the tradeoff between socially motivated consensus (where people believe whatever beliefs are minimally socially costly) versus observationally motivated beliefs. People’s position in this tradeoff space has little if anything to do with formal education; it’s probably heritable or trained through some social process we don’t understand. It might not be feasible at all to meaningfully push the population towards observational beliefs.

[evgen]

> An educated and critically thinking populace who can question and analyze information independently and don't always require authoritive sources

This is quite inaccurate, almost delusionally so. It is the sort of thing well-educated people tell themselves as a way of trying to distinguish themselves from the 'common rubes' who fall victim to obvious propaganda and influence. If we have learned anything over the past five to ten years is is that the educated critical thinking population is just as likely to crawl up their own backside in self-assured certainty that they are right and the so-called authoritative sources are wrong when in fact they are nothing more than Dunning-Kruger replicators. I don't have any answers to offer, but the oft-quoted idea that the solution to misinformation and bad speech is more speech is the biggest lie repeated on HN, and one that continues to have tragic consequences.

[mhoad]

From the point of view from the manipulator they are the best kinds of targets because they are so certain that they would never fall victim to it.

There’s a very specific kind of mentality that conflates I’m smart in one particular area (tech for example) therefore I am smart in general and therefore immune to magical thinking which just as a theory has been blown apart more times than I can imagine, it’s a meme at this point.

[Frost1x]

>If we have learned anything over the past five to ten years is is that the educated critical thinking population is just as likely to crawl up their own backside in self-assured certainty that they are right and the so-called authoritative sources are wrong when in fact they are nothing more than Dunning-Kruger replicators.

I too hear this quip often on HN and I see no foundation for it at all. Part of being educated and having an ability to think critically is to question your own assumptions and be willing to change them. To look at evidence and reevaluate, to experiment and test. It's the process science uses to dig through the unknown and uncertainty to find nuggets of truth and separate the mistakes and lies. It's slow and in the absence of analysis you shouldn't rush to conclusions. An often tell tale sign of misinformation/disinformation at play is pushing a false sense of urgency to persuade people to make decisions without thinking and often simply lean or what's beibg projected as an authorative answer.

I'm not speaking about those who think they're informed and ready to combat persuasion but are just entrenched in their own perhaps false viewpoints, say the antivaxers of recent times. Being truly educated in this domain is understanding that you might actually be wrong or are susceptible for persuasion, acknowledging what you do and don't know, figuring out what the information is saying and potential motives of it, and be willing to check to see if you are wrong and change your views if so.

[mistermann]

> I too hear this quip often on HN and I see no foundation for it at all.

Strange, I see large quantities of it on HN on a very regular basis - what could explain this apparent paradox? Is it that you haven't read any of the same threads as me, and all the threads you've read are completely devoid of instances of the phenomenon, or might there be something else going on?

> Part of being educated and having an ability to think critically is to question your own assumptions and be willing to change them.

This is certainly reasonable advice, but I suspect it is much(!) harder than people who advise this approach think.

> To look at evidence and reevaluate, to experiment and test. It's the process science uses to dig through the unknown and uncertainty to find nuggets of truth and separate the mistakes and lies. It's slow and in the absence of analysis you shouldn't rush to conclusions.

Science (the scientific process) is excellent, but I regularly encounter people people who sincerely perceive themselves to be Scientific Thinkers who are....not very good at the process they hold in such high regard. I sometimes wonder if the current fashion of ~worshipping science and scientists might be causing some harm in addition to the good that (I presume) it is doing.

> An often tell tale sign of misinformation/disinformation at play is pushing a false sense of urgency to persuade people to make decisions without thinking and often simply lean or what's being projected as an authoritative answer.

I agree, but this is also a fairly common talking point that you can find in conspiracy forums, do you believe those people are righteous in using this methodology?

> I'm not speaking about those who think they're informed and ready to combat persuasion but are just entrenched in their own perhaps false viewpoints, say the antivaxers of recent times.

Personally, I think this is doing it wrong. Rather than constantly amuse ourselves beating up on strawman caricatures of the (often virtual) members of our outgroups, I think it would be better to focus our critical eyes on those who actually are relatively(!) "informed and ready to combat persuasion", and realize how rare it is even among the best of the best to find thinking that is completely without flaw....maybe then we would learn something new about the true complexity of thinking and perception, and perhaps then have the ability to develop some educational countermeasures to the tricky cognitive phenomenon that plagues each one of us.

> Being truly educated in this domain is understanding that you might actually be wrong or are susceptible for persuasion, acknowledging what you do and don't know, figuring out what the information is saying and potential motives of it, and be willing to check to see if you are wrong and change your views if so.

These are fine ideas, but there is much more to it than this.

[skulk]

From the CW project:

> In an era where memory is outsourced to Google, GPS, calendar alerts and calculators, it will necessarily produce a generalised loss of knowledge that is not just memory, but rather motor memory. In other words, a long-term process of disabling connections in your brain is ongoing. It will present both vulnerabilities and opportunities.

The CW project seems to think we're headed for Wall-E, but mentally instead of physically. I'm extremely curious to see how this actually plays out.

[ldehaan]

I am a huge fan of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saager, no lies to make a profit. Independent news.

[afarrell]

How on earth would a US citizen independently analyse information about (for example) Hunter Biden's interactions with Ukraine? It costs hundreds of dollars and most of a workweek to fly from the US to Ukraine and then at least 6 years of education+experience to competently practice independent investigative journalism.

Almost nobody has time to learn to do that, conn a ship, or butcher a hog. People spend most of their time on their their friends, family, and employer. We need have to have thoughtful and attentive sources we can trust.

[Frost1x]

You can independently analyze the secondary information being provided. You can look for common denominators from multiple sources. You can look at trends of specific sources. You can also say "I don't know, so I won't let this idea effect decisions." Not every piece of information out there needs to be incorporated into your independent world view. This can of course lead to selection bias where your world view is shaped by only what you choose to look at. It's good to challenge your view, to consider the information and look into it even if you don't care about say Hunter Biden (I frankly don't, nor what Ivanka Trump may or may not be doing).

People need to realize you don't always have to come to a conclusion when you're presented with information, it's possible to just say here is some uncertain information and I will treat it as such.

[high_5]

> People need to realize you don't always have to come to a conclusion when you're presented with information, it's possible to just say here is some uncertain information and I will treat it as such.

Then most of the political information should be then inconclusive for the ordinary citizen. Which does not happen.

[skulk]

Nationally televised sports are incredibly successful in the US, so it's no surprise politics has morphed into a version of it. Everyone supports a "team" and is focused on winning rather than, you know, actual politics.

[mistermann]

> You can independently analyze the secondary information being provided. You can look for common denominators from multiple sources. You can look at trends of specific sources. You can also say "I don't know, so I won't let this idea effect decisions."

Our "reality runtime" seems to support these things, but the degree to which each individual actor within our reality has the ability to skilfully perform (aka: "can") these things is both very complex, and controversial. The ability to say "I don't know" seems like it should be very easy when one is thinking about the notion abstractly, but the ability to not "know" something when contemplating or discussing object level matters (particularly those that fall under the culture war category) seems to be damn near impossible, especially in the internet age.

Based on my observations of internet and real life conversations, I have become a firm believer that most of the time, people cannot actually say "I don't know", in large part because the idea never crossed their mind (at the time).

[blacktriangle]

It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out a cokehead who was kicked out of the navy who speaks 0 Russian or Ukranian, and has 0 experience in the energy industry but whose dad is a prominant politician getting millions is corruption.

I think the bigger issue is how so many people refuse to see this.

And for you people who want to write this off as partisan, Romney was in on it too by a similar line of reasoning.

[hoseja]

That populace also doesn't toe either party line.

[mc32]

It seems country by country, governments will begin putting up "Great National Firewalls' prompted by two things, disinformation as well as wanting to control what content is permissible and not (whether it's copyright, or privacy or other laws regulating content) and to have jurisdiction over that information.

[anticodon]

> I have no idea how a nation as large, diverse, and fragmented the USA (where I live) is going to combat it.

USA is a pioneer in this battle. It also owns all the tools and media necessary for the combat and uses it for its advantage for years (Google Search, Google YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Netflix, etc).

It's everyone else that is losing this battle.

[sumnole]

fortunately there's also a lot of work being done in the USA towards decentralized platforms. it's not a silver bullet but a step in the right direction imho.

[creamytaco]

I find this comically out of touch with reality. To think that the most powerful information replicators of our age can be under the control of some mythical centralized entity (USA) so that “everyone else is losing this battle” is to be so ignorant about the way technology operates (non-linearity, meta-level control) as to completely and utterly miss the point.

[closeparen]

I don't think that's surprising. One of the main drivers of official support for a free and open internet is to promote a universal culture. To turn scary and unknown foreigners into just-like-us peaceful and prosperous trading partners. That's obviously a two way street - we can export our memes to them, but they can also export their memes to us.