The Founders Anticipated ‘Fake News.’ Here’s What They Did About It.

originally posted by: Aazadan
The entire concept of a press has failed. It got so free and open that it's brain fell out.

I would rather have more free than less free, that applies to pretty much everything. The quote by Tocqueville makes this clear.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Would you rather have 100% freedom and 0% honesty or 99% freedom and 80% honesty?

I think I would take the latter.

originally posted by: Aazadan
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Would you rather have 100% freedom and 0% honesty or 99% freedom and 80% honesty?

I think I would take the latter.

Im having a hard time figuring out how this fits into the real world.

It would be far easier for humanity if we had our emotions intrinsically tied to our autonomic system, like dogs and lizards do. When part of our communication derives from involuntary movements, it makes it impossible to refrain from speaking the truth, even when you want to be silent.

Freedom drives dishonesty. You cannot have one without the other. At least not in a human experience.

originally posted by: Aazadan
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Would you rather have 100% freedom and 0% honesty or 99% freedom and 80% honesty?

I think I would take the latter.

Funnily enough posts like this contribute to the dearth of disinfo out there when you make up percentages and statistics on the spot to try to "prove" your opinion. You are feeding into what you are railing against.

originally posted by: Aazadan
Would you rather have 100% freedom and 0% honesty or 99% freedom and 80% honesty?

I think I would take the latter.

That is a rather useless hypothetical as it is not in any way some sort of practical inverse ratio.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Funnily enough posts like this contribute to the dearth of disinfo out there when you make up percentages and statistics on the spot to try to "prove" your opinion. You are feeding into what you are railing against.

Then do it without the numbers. The point was: Would you rather have total press freedom, and along with that the complete lack of substance, sourcing, and reliability that we're now seeing or would you rather have a tiny bit less press freedom and some regulations that keep things mostly honest?

Personally, I would take the regulations that push out foreign propaganda like Russia Today, and that teach people that Infowars is not a reliable journalistic source (if not outright banning them). This is to say nothing of the blogs out there, especially the blogs on places like Forbes and Huffington Post which masquerade as legitimate articles/authors, but are really just people buying a spot on a website to say whatever they want with no oversight. I see some major problems with the approach that feigns reputability.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
That is a rather useless hypothetical as it is not in any way some sort of practical inverse ratio.

That's because it doesn't function as an inverse ratio, 0% press freedom doesn't result in 100% trustworthiness, it too results in 0% because everything is dictated by the state.

originally posted by: Aazadan
That's because it doesn't function as an inverse ratio, 0% press freedom doesn't result in 100% trustworthiness, it too results in 0% because everything is dictated by the state.

Neither does your figure of 100% freedom equaling 0% honesty.

a reply to: Aazadan

I'd rather just properly teach people critical thinking skills. Why does the situation have to be a zero sum game between your false equivalence you made up on the spot?

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
Neither does your figure of 100% freedom equaling 0% honesty.

I used the wrong word, I suppose I should have said trustworthiness. The media has none of that these days, even when something is reported you can't assume it to be the truth. Some percentage of the time they're going to report the truth, but the reliability on information is so low, that the default is that you have to assume it's a lie.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
I'd rather just properly teach people critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking doesn't solve it. Two people can be given the exact same set of facts, think it over, and come to two very different conclusions. Both individuals will be able to logically walk through their thought process as to how they arrived at that conclusion, but only one of them (if either) will actually be correct. Furthermore, if you publish both of these results, the split on which gets accepted will be about 50/50, creating controversy out of nothing.

More problematic though, is the fact that people don't like to think about subjects they find difficult or boring. People really only like to think about subjects they find to be entertaining, where the thought process is a form of entertainment in itself. This is true of people of all intellectual capacities, very smart people will rely on professors and text books to teach them advanced mathematics. Few people if any work ahead by using one piece of information in order to derive a more advanced concept. Those who do, typically only do it for one or two subjects. Those who can do it for everything, as is required for proper critical thinking are geniuses. Even with recreation people often prefer to be told an answer, just read through virtually every forum here. As a rough guess I would say 75% of material isn't original, it's quoting someone elses opinion (especially in the political sections).

I don't think that simply expecting people to better reason through arguments and come to their own conclusions is a realistic expectation. Most people simply aren't capable of doing so, and that's before you get into the time issue. No matter how smart you are, you cannot be an expert on every field. At some point, you will run across information that you simply aren't qualified to make a decision on. That means, you have to rely on the recommendations of whoever is reporting that information, and as a result you need to have some level of certainty that you're being fed good information and good recommendations on that information.

originally posted by: Aazadan
I used the wrong word, I suppose I should have said trustworthiness. The media has none of that these days, even when something is reported you can't assume it to be the truth. Some percentage of the time they're going to report the truth, but the reliability on information is so low, that the default is that you have to assume it's a lie.

When has that never been the case? From my initial example, through Yellow Journalism to the present.

originally posted by: Aazadan
Critical thinking doesn't solve it. Two people can be given the exact same set of facts, think it over, and come to two very different conclusions. Both individuals will be able to logically walk through their thought process as to how they arrived at that conclusion, but only one of them (if either) will actually be correct. Furthermore, if you publish both of these results, the split on which gets accepted will be about 50/50, creating controversy out of nothing.

No. That is 100% wrong. Neither of them will be correct. No human in no point in time has worked with EVERY fact surrounding a situation so at SOME level all humans are incorrect in their interpretation of reality. This is a basic guiding principle of the Scientific Method. So I KNOW you should be familiar with this thinking.

So what happens is you get two interpretations of a situation, which spurs debate, which leads to further conclusions being drawn by others as well as the two original debators possibly even altering their views based on the others' opinions.

More problematic though, is the fact that people don't like to think about subjects they find difficult or boring. People really only like to think about subjects they find to be entertaining, where the thought process is a form of entertainment in itself. This is true of people of all intellectual capacities, very smart people will rely on professors and text books to teach them advanced mathematics. Few people if any work ahead by using one piece of information in order to derive a more advanced concept. Those who do, typically only do it for one or two subjects. Those who can do it for everything, as is required for proper critical thinking are geniuses. Even with recreation people often prefer to be told an answer, just read through virtually every forum here. As a rough guess I would say 75% of material isn't original, it's quoting someone elses opinion (especially in the political sections).

I don't think that simply expecting people to better reason through arguments and come to their own conclusions is a realistic expectation. Most people simply aren't capable of doing so, and that's before you get into the time issue. No matter how smart you are, you cannot be an expert on every field. At some point, you will run across information that you simply aren't qualified to make a decision on. That means, you have to rely on the recommendations of whoever is reporting that information, and as a result you need to have some level of certainty that you're being fed good information and good recommendations on that information.

We wouldn't know because our school system hasn't been properly teaching critical thinking in a LONG time. Colleges are constantly exasperated by the fact they have to teach kids this skill from scratch.

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: ElectricUniverse


I've been wondering if the was a way of 're-balancing' the MSM without violating the First.

Enforcement of anti-trust laws and elimination of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which opened the door to massive media conglomerate consolodations would be an excellent way to stymie fake news and propaganda without violating the First.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
No. That is 100% wrong. Neither of them will be correct. No human in no point in time has worked with EVERY fact surrounding a situation so at SOME level all humans are incorrect in their interpretation of reality. This is a basic guiding principle of the Scientific Method. So I KNOW you should be familiar with this thinking.

I did say that neither would be correct in most circumstances.

We wouldn't know because our school system hasn't been properly teaching critical thinking in a LONG time. Colleges are constantly exasperated by the fact they have to teach kids this skill from scratch.

My high school claimed to teach it, it's been too long for me to remember much of it at this point but I think they did a pretty good job. I did go to a rather exclusive private school though.

My experience with College is that just like in real life, there's a wide range in peoples abilities. I have this bad habit with most of my professors, that I like to get them to tell me I'm a genius or at least really smart before my semester with them is over. I've been pretty successful at it, especially in more abstract classes. A few semesters ago for example, I took a class called "Philosophy of Religion" and the instructor is probably one of my all time favorite professors (easily top 5, and I have over 400 semester credits on my transcript so I've had a lot of professors).

Anyways, in the class we had a lot of various discussions. The professor always liked my input (to the point we've since started having the occasional lunch meetup for debates) so I assume it was well thought out. Some others in my class though just didn't have what I would consider to be deep thoughts on the subject. At the same time though, I think that like anything else, critical thinking is a skill you develop over time with practice but kids simply haven't had that time to practice it.

I guess that what I'm trying to say, is that until the age of 16 or 17 your brain can't start critically processing information, and most college students (unless they've been there forever like me) are in the 18-25 range. They just haven't had enough life experience with a fully functional brain to have had the opportunity to actually practice critical thinking. So I don't think it's fair to blame it on the schools. At best they can show students the path, the students have to go down that path themselves though years later.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: ElectricUniverse


I've been wondering if the was a way of 're-balancing' the MSM without violating the First.

Enforcement of anti-trust laws and elimination of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which opened the door to massive media conglomerate consolodations would be an excellent way to stymie fake news and propaganda without violating the First.

Watch it now....logic has no place in political discussion.

a reply to: theantediluvian


The balance is was referring to was political, political balance.

Also the subject was 'fake news'. Not much a Presidential change is going to affect that.