I guess what I meant by “easy” is compared to not doing any fact checking. So, 2-5 minutes of additional searching/additional sources would often be sufficient to realize something is most likely biased and/or fake news in, say, 80% of cases. It’s quite sad and discouraging that so many readers are unwilling to do even that, though again if the aim is confirmation of world view and not highest probability of accuracy and truth… it actually “makes sense” to not check ;)
It’s quite sad and discouraging that so many readers are unwilling to do even that
I think it’s eminently reasonable to avoid spending time on learning facts about the world that come to your attention as popular news, and not because you are interested in them. Epistemic hygiene needed to render the possibly biased and confused news articles harmless shouldn’t in itself require additional research, however minimal. Otherwise it won’t work in situations where that research is not immediately feasible, and then you are truly in peril.
I had to read that twice to make sure I figured out what your point is :) Alright—well, look. The truth is, of course, that 95% of the news you read is utterly and completely irrelevant to you in any impactful sense. Try not following news for a month—you will soon realize you have not actually missed anything. Well—now with COVID this might be a little different, but only a little.
However.
If you do follow news, it would be proper and prudent to at least care about the veracity of it, especially if you have a habit of forming opinions about said news, and, in particular, if you somehow do find the time and energy to spread this opinion online. The combination: “Follow all sorts of news” + “Form ignorant opinions” + “Spread my ignorant opinions” is not a good one. Worse things of course have happened ;) but that is certainly not an admirable state to be in.
And if people read news to, you know, feel like they are aware of what’s going on in the world, however superficially, you would want to expend at least a minimal/nominal effort to ensure at least some confirmation of the veracity of what you are reading. For example, to have a moderately sensible opinion about Black Lives Matter, you don’t need to study the entire US history… but reading a serious article or two (ideally from different sources) would be appropriate to make sure you at least know more than one point of view (especially since your point of view is probably “pre-confirmationbiased” by your Google bubble ;)
but reading a serious article or two (ideally from different sources) would be appropriate to make sure you at least know more than one point of view (especially since your point of view is probably “pre-confirmationbiased” by your Google bubble ;)
“Knowing more then one point of view” is a goal that’s distinct from knowing the truth.
For example, to have a moderately sensible opinion about Black Lives Matter
It seems to me that there are a lot of different issues involved in the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter and if you try to understand what’s happening through the complexity of a hashtag.
One of the interesting things about it is that when the key BlackLivesMatter organization has an about page about what their organization is about. It spents more time critizing traditional Black Liberation movements then directly critizing police brutality.
Power changes in Black politics is however not a topic that anybody has a real interest to tell us about. Maybe, there will be a good book in a few years that recounts our contemporary history but at the moment the information that’s publically available seems very superficial.
We can observe about pages and attacks on King’s legacy by bringing up old tapes, but those are only the things that stick out and there’s a lot of room that’s unknown.
When it comes to understanding hashtag politics it’s worth noting that we are one year after #MeToo at the point where two US candidates with multiple credible sexual assault charges are fighting each other. It’s embarrasing enough that it’s not often talked. It’s like the Skulls&Bones vs. Skulls&Bones election of 2004 which would be a great narrative but nobody is interested to talk in those terms about this election.
Oh I don’t really “do” Twitter actually… nor Facebook since about a year. Now and again one of my friends shares and tweet and sometimes it can be an interesting start of a topic but… though I’ve been doing Internet since 1995, Twitter is just too vacuous for my liking. In response, now and again I’ll send a 1 hour+ YouTube link back ;)
And yes of course, multiple points of view need not bring one close to the Truth, however...
In a large number of narratives, especially, it seems, the most relevant ones, finding the truth may be practically impossible, and sometimes there simply is no truth, or at least not just one. To some people aspect X is irrelevant, others might believe it crucial. This news network claims Witness Y is credible, some other one calls him a corporate shill. Unless you would be able to get into the minds of each human involved, what you end up believing is the truth will always be an approximation.
Take for instance the recently more often occurring phenomenon of “influencers” (shudder) bloggers or journalists looking into the obscure past of what someone who is having his/her 15 minutes of fame has posted back in, say, 2004 on some now-defunct blog, and bleating out on Twitter anything remotely controversial or tentatively indicative of hypocrisy. I doubt you will ever settle the debate whether people can genuinely change or not. I know that I’ve had views I no longer hold today—both “benign” and “tough love” ones… and while previously held view will always have the familiarity bias, they can actually be genuinely a thing of the past. Yet if they are found online and are at odds with what I would be saying today, poof there goes half of my credibility...
And—getting multiple points of view at the very least will give you some idea why certain people apparently seem to find a given topic or story important. The net outcome may well be that you will be further from the truth, swimming in a sea of conflicting interests… and yet, still understand the nature of the issue in more detail :)
If you do follow news, it would be proper and prudent to at least care about the veracity of it
My point is that there is an important skill that should allow you to passively observe unreliable stories without being harmed by them. It’s possible for this skill to give you more than nothing, so its application to news is not equivalent to not following news. In particular, you can notice something potentially interesting or useful and research it, but there should be no need to do any research. If there is such a need, it should be satisfied by improving generally applicable epistemic defenses, not by fighting off specific news articles.
That’s the traditional option. A simple improvement is to compartmentalize ideas (according to origin and epistemic status) while still taking them seriously within each cluster (thinking about their implications in a lawful gears-level way). I’m guessing this is how Judaism works.
I guess what I meant by “easy” is compared to not doing any fact checking. So, 2-5 minutes of additional searching/additional sources would often be sufficient to realize something is most likely biased and/or fake news in, say, 80% of cases. It’s quite sad and discouraging that so many readers are unwilling to do even that, though again if the aim is confirmation of world view and not highest probability of accuracy and truth… it actually “makes sense” to not check ;)
I think it’s eminently reasonable to avoid spending time on learning facts about the world that come to your attention as popular news, and not because you are interested in them. Epistemic hygiene needed to render the possibly biased and confused news articles harmless shouldn’t in itself require additional research, however minimal. Otherwise it won’t work in situations where that research is not immediately feasible, and then you are truly in peril.
I had to read that twice to make sure I figured out what your point is :) Alright—well, look. The truth is, of course, that 95% of the news you read is utterly and completely irrelevant to you in any impactful sense. Try not following news for a month—you will soon realize you have not actually missed anything. Well—now with COVID this might be a little different, but only a little.
However.
If you do follow news, it would be proper and prudent to at least care about the veracity of it, especially if you have a habit of forming opinions about said news, and, in particular, if you somehow do find the time and energy to spread this opinion online. The combination: “Follow all sorts of news” + “Form ignorant opinions” + “Spread my ignorant opinions” is not a good one. Worse things of course have happened ;) but that is certainly not an admirable state to be in.
And if people read news to, you know, feel like they are aware of what’s going on in the world, however superficially, you would want to expend at least a minimal/nominal effort to ensure at least some confirmation of the veracity of what you are reading. For example, to have a moderately sensible opinion about Black Lives Matter, you don’t need to study the entire US history… but reading a serious article or two (ideally from different sources) would be appropriate to make sure you at least know more than one point of view (especially since your point of view is probably “pre-confirmationbiased” by your Google bubble ;)
“Knowing more then one point of view” is a goal that’s distinct from knowing the truth.
It seems to me that there are a lot of different issues involved in the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter and if you try to understand what’s happening through the complexity of a hashtag.
One of the interesting things about it is that when the key BlackLivesMatter organization has an about page about what their organization is about. It spents more time critizing traditional Black Liberation movements then directly critizing police brutality.
Power changes in Black politics is however not a topic that anybody has a real interest to tell us about. Maybe, there will be a good book in a few years that recounts our contemporary history but at the moment the information that’s publically available seems very superficial.
We can observe about pages and attacks on King’s legacy by bringing up old tapes, but those are only the things that stick out and there’s a lot of room that’s unknown.
When it comes to understanding hashtag politics it’s worth noting that we are one year after #MeToo at the point where two US candidates with multiple credible sexual assault charges are fighting each other. It’s embarrasing enough that it’s not often talked. It’s like the Skulls&Bones vs. Skulls&Bones election of 2004 which would be a great narrative but nobody is interested to talk in those terms about this election.
Oh I don’t really “do” Twitter actually… nor Facebook since about a year. Now and again one of my friends shares and tweet and sometimes it can be an interesting start of a topic but… though I’ve been doing Internet since 1995, Twitter is just too vacuous for my liking. In response, now and again I’ll send a 1 hour+ YouTube link back ;)
And yes of course, multiple points of view need not bring one close to the Truth, however...
In a large number of narratives, especially, it seems, the most relevant ones, finding the truth may be practically impossible, and sometimes there simply is no truth, or at least not just one. To some people aspect X is irrelevant, others might believe it crucial. This news network claims Witness Y is credible, some other one calls him a corporate shill. Unless you would be able to get into the minds of each human involved, what you end up believing is the truth will always be an approximation.
Take for instance the recently more often occurring phenomenon of “influencers” (shudder) bloggers or journalists looking into the obscure past of what someone who is having his/her 15 minutes of fame has posted back in, say, 2004 on some now-defunct blog, and bleating out on Twitter anything remotely controversial or tentatively indicative of hypocrisy. I doubt you will ever settle the debate whether people can genuinely change or not. I know that I’ve had views I no longer hold today—both “benign” and “tough love” ones… and while previously held view will always have the familiarity bias, they can actually be genuinely a thing of the past. Yet if they are found online and are at odds with what I would be saying today, poof there goes half of my credibility...
And—getting multiple points of view at the very least will give you some idea why certain people apparently seem to find a given topic or story important. The net outcome may well be that you will be further from the truth, swimming in a sea of conflicting interests… and yet, still understand the nature of the issue in more detail :)
My point is that there is an important skill that should allow you to passively observe unreliable stories without being harmed by them. It’s possible for this skill to give you more than nothing, so its application to news is not equivalent to not following news. In particular, you can notice something potentially interesting or useful and research it, but there should be no need to do any research. If there is such a need, it should be satisfied by improving generally applicable epistemic defenses, not by fighting off specific news articles.
Yeah alright… I guess you could call that passive casual observance :)
That’s the traditional option. A simple improvement is to compartmentalize ideas (according to origin and epistemic status) while still taking them seriously within each cluster (thinking about their implications in a lawful gears-level way). I’m guessing this is how Judaism works.