[intended]

Yeah, our information and training systems are kinda failing at dealing with the reality of our actual information environment.

Take law for example and free speech - a central tenet to a functional democracy is effective ways to trade ideas.

A core response in our structure to falsehoods and rhetoric is counter speech.

But I can show you that counter speech fails. We have realms upon realms of data inside tech firms and online communities that shows us the mechanics of how our information economies actually work, and counter speech does diddly squat.

Education is also stuck in a bind. People need degrees to be employable today, but the idea of education is tied up with the idea of being a good educated thinking human being.

Meaning you are someone who is engaged with the ideas and concepts of your field, and have a mental model in your head, that takes calories, training and effort to use to do complex reasoning about the world.

This is often overkill for many jobs - the issue isn’t doing high level stats in a day science role, it’s doing boring data munging and actually getting the data in the first place. (Just an example).

High quality work is hard, and demanding, and in a market with unclear signals, people game the few systems that used to be signals.

Which eventually deteriorated signal till you get this mess.

We need jobs that give a living wage, or provide a pathway to achieving mastery while working, so that the pressure on the education lever can be reduced and spread elsewhere.

[freezePeach2958]

> A core response in our structure to falsehoods and rhetoric is counter speech.

> But I can show you that counter speech fails

Could you show me that? What's your definition of failure?

[intended]

I get the feeling that you aren’t asking for the short version, because most people wouldn’t latch onto that point and create an account for it.

Hmmm.

An example - the inefficacy of Fact checking efforts. Fact checking is quintessentially counter speech, and we know that it has failed to stop the uptake and popularity of falsehoods. And I say this after speaking to people who work at fact checking orgs.

However, this is in itself too simple an example.

The mechanics of online forums are more interesting to illustrate the point - Truth is too expensive to compete with cheaper content.

Complex articles can be shared on a community, which debunk certain points, but the community doesn’t read it. They do engage heavily on emotional content, which ends up supporting their priors.

I struggle to make this point nicely, but The accuracy of your content is secondary to its value as an emotional and narrative utility for the audience.

People are not coming online to be scientists. They are coming online to be engaged. Counter speech solves the issue of inaccuracy, and is only valuable if inaccuracy is a negative force.

It is too expensive a good to produce, vs alternatives. People will coalesce around wounds and lacunae in their lives, and actively reject information that counters their beliefs. Cognitive dissonance results in mental strife and will result in people simply rejecting information rather than altering their priors.

Do note - this is a point about the efficacy of this intervention in upholding the effectiveness of the market where we exchange ideas. There will be many individual exchanges where counter speech does change minds.

But at a market level, it is ineffective as a guardian and tonic against the competitive advantage of falsehoods against facts.

——

Do forgive the disjointed quality in the response. It’s late here, and I wish I could have just linked you to a bunch of papers, but I dont think that would have been the response you are looking for.

[california-og]

I think this 3-part essay might be relevant to your argument: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/147/623330/society-of-the-psy...

[intended]

I’ve been recommending network propaganda recently. The book has the data that makes the case better than I can about structural issues in the information ecosystem.

Also started going through this legal essay (paper?) recently, Lies, Counter-lies, and Disinformation in the Marketplace of Ideas

https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...

[zestyrx]

The book "Nexus" by Yuval Noah Harari essentially makes this same point. The way he phrases it is that information's primary role throughout history hasn't necessarily been to convey objective truth but to connect people and enable large scale cooperation. So more information is not necessarily better.

Worth a read or you can check out one of his recent podcast appearances for a quicker download.