[kranke155]

I think you're going about this in a way that won't make sense to anyone but individuals like yourself.

People watching Fox News all day can't possibly think that it's a picture of reality, unless they use their intuition and rational systems in exactly the opposite sense that you are doing here (and this system of ratings would serve). People are not interested in more information, they are interested in the right information. Information that's belief affirming.

These individuals are using their "survival mode" default setting of understanding reality, not the scientific, rational, system 2 type thinking you're using here.

They feel like they're constantly under attack, so they join a system-world where constantly being under attack is validated for them.

There's no overlap between "let's give people more information" and fixing the actual problem. The actual problem isn't lack of information, but the overwhelming lack of emotional balancing and maturity to take in information you don't like.

[cdrini]

I can't say for certain but I'm not so sure the people you're describing are a sizeable majority. I think most people are just watching news and doing their best. If a news site has a "C" rating on it -- which would require some sort of government regulation to enforce which would be a whole other thing -- which is then clickable and let's you see "exactly" what it has that rating ( eg "17 inaccuracies in last month [links] > 10" ), it could help (a) incentivise the news site to have better standards, (b) incentivise the watcher that they might have to be more diligent. The main thing is: provide any incentive to news to be more reputable.

[kranke155]

If they weren’t a sizeable majority, I don’t think we’d be having the same kind of leaders we’re getting in the west tbh.

[marcosdumay]

I large part of it is that the leader selection is highly oligopolized, and you are partially in denial about how undesirable the other candidates are. (Probably because you see the need to pick them, as they are the rational choice, but you can't feel aligned with their actual values, because they are horrible.)

[kranke155]

It's all connected. The oligopoly of leader selection is highly influenced by the owners of media, which usually are aiming to influence national policy to their preference.

The destruction of the newspaper and the "liberty of information" of the internet is now compressed through information warfare, or as Steve Bannon puts it "flooding the zone with shit".

You flood the main channels (social media now) with disinformation and misinformation, or even information calculated to create as much anger as possible (Cambridge Analytica knew that making people angry was the easiest way to make them change their minds). You use bot networks and sockpuppets to spread it.

Through that you get the same overall effects as when newspapers were a thing - even with "unlimited" channels, they're all showing what you want them to show. You flooded the zone with what you want people to see, and you made it so that it follows the response that the algorithm will propagate it even more (sharing, liking).

Overall the effect is the same. And for the same reason. Those controlling the information want to control leadership, leadership choices, and leadership selection. That's the target.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. This is why Bob Mercer bought Cambridge Analytica (an information warfare firm that was doing counter terrorism work for NATO) and put Steve Bannon in charge. Influencing elections.

[marcosdumay]

Yes, it's a complex self-reinforcing system.

But blaming the consequences on the capacity of random people to decide for themselves is a completely wicked and wrong conclusion to take from it.

[kranke155]

Im not sure I follow. Blaming the consequences of the capacity of random people? Could you expand and clarify what you mean there?

[JeremyNT]

I suspect part of this is that "news junkies" are also more inclined to be "likely voters" and vice-versa, so you have some selection bias towards these people in the electorate.

[mistermann]

Our "good" leaders are only good because they are "measured" (perceived) on an absolute scale. This is due to our heavily ingrained cultural norms and beliefs.

[standardUser]

Yeah, and lots of people eat junk food despite the nutritional labels. But no one in their right mind would suggest scrapping the those labels. We should always push for more information for consumers.

[kranke155]

Junk food makes people fat.

It has a noticeable, immediate effect.

Accuracy ratings for news would just make people say your rating is biased, I think.

[cdrini]

I think with news we have a benefit that it's generally all online, so we can link to the rating page and further link to the places where they failed. Unlike a nutrition label where you have to like buy a mass spectrometer to verify their accuracy, with news checks you can view the failed checks and links to the articles that caused them to fail and verify it yourself. But that does require the checks being really basic; things that could be open to a lot of interpretation wouldn't work, cause folks could then argue the interpretation is biased.