I guess a big part of living in a post truth world is figuring out just how we got here, why, and where do we go from here. This (at times pedantic) article charts the situation of the modern world to thoughts from the 60s. I can't say I agree with all of it, but the gist is that we've been building our own perceptions of realities, which mixed with the ability to form narrow dedicated pools of thoughts through mediums like the Internet have helped bad ideas (conspiracies, cults, conspiracy cults) fester by pooling together and self reinforcing, and not dying out on the margins like they should have (the entire anti-vaccination/autism debacle, for example). Living in our own realities has made working with other people significantly harder ('not my president' being an easy example), and that's made us often more insular, compounding the entire problem.
Now, I know it's ironic that I'm using the internet to ask the internet whether the internet was a good idea or not, but that's my question. Do you think the internet was a good idea, or did we fail in our execution, or both? For alternate internet frameworks, check out China's system where their version of Yahoo DID become the homepage for everyone including civil services. Another reference is the Military's version of the internet (highly secured, unlike ours which is specced towards ease of access). Would banning anonymity have been a better idea? Would banning anonymity now be a good idea (everything you do can be tracked and traced via cookies and other easy to access methods)?
I'd like to hear your views on this
I want to nitpick and argue/discuss anything tonight, so here I am (again) to do just that.
Your comparison with how politics also, like the internet, suffers from human 'corruption' is (IMO) misguided. The ideal nature of statecraft and leadership is to be able to lead the people (breaking news I know). Whether virtue and honour (honesty), Machiavellian expediency (dishonesty), or ruthlessness are ideal characteristics in a leader (a politician) is debatable. A man's worth as a private individual does not necessarily ensure his value as a public ruler (a dishonest man is not necessarily a bad ruler). A morally repulsive act may at times be a politically desirable one, while a man who acts from the highest of motives may be too busy keeping his conscience clean to lead well, and a man who once does evil in the expectation that good will be the final result may be forced more deeply into self-deception and impotence than a man who acts simply from expediency. On the other hand, the pursuit of expediency and a lack of scruple do not guarantee the ability to govern. Just wanted to point out that your comparison didn't add up.
Courtesy to my notes on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and my 10th grade English teacher for this tangent.
Umm, the response I wrote further down is basically my answer to this as well. Instead of shutting down networks and censoring ideas that are extremist, it would be more helpful to revamp the education system (teaching methods, better teachers [not just qualified idiots] who can control classes and teach kids, spreading awareness of key issues to parents and children alike etc.). As I see it now, the American schooling system (elementary to high) isn't pretty.
I could make the argument that the internet, which allows people with 'bad ideas' to congregate and self-reinforce, also puts these ideas and groups into the spotlight for everyone else to see and critique. For example, flat-earthers may delude themselves by reinforcing and 'cultivating' their ideas in their corner of the internet, but the ability to access and criticise their ideas (as well as critique of their ideas) has resulted in them being absolutely blasted by practically everyone else. Of course, the risk of mob mentality also runs against 'good ideas'. However, I find that said 'good ideas' aren't so easily 'debunked' or denigrated because there is usually a sizeable defence for their virtue(s). If we shut down avenues of expression for these 'marginal' ideas, it could result in a public that is less informed (or ignorant) of the merits and faults of said ideas. This makes bad ideas more insidious and more able to do harm. IIRC, there used to be a white supremist party in Britain that was actually garnering sizeable support. That dissolved when they were allowed to express their views to the public. Right now, they have almost no influence in Britain's political sphere. What could have been a sly and problematic force in politics was exposed by its own self-expression.
So yeah, I don't think that's the case. It's hard to hide your faults under the scrutiny of millions.
If the threat of a 'tide of falsehoods' is so great (to the point where everyone who has a say in it is in on it), there really isn't anything the average joe can do is there? How would shutting down 'marginal'/alternative lines of thought improve the situation? Doesn't that disadvantage those expressing the truth? The majority falsehood is already overrunning the minority truth - why would handing the power to censor the internet/media to some NGO/MCO improve the situation? How will we even know if something's a hoax or not in the first place (ad infinitum)? I don't see how your model fixes the extrapolation you've proposed.
Either we're dealing with organised hoaxes or we're dealing with singular absurdities. The latter is usually ignored altogether, so there's no need to fend off every false claim. There's plenty of false, poorly justified claims that have been spun up in the internet, we're not spending all our time debunking each one. Hardly anyone would stop and "not get anything productive done" if they came across a conspiracy theory detailing how lizard people are running the world. And the reason conspiracy theories don't have a larger hold on the population is (I wager) because they aren't forced to operate insidiously in the background and are exposed outright by the publicity of the media and the subsequent publicity of its critique.
For your analogy, I see the exploitation of the voting system to be a cause of 'the strong man' - coupled with poor design for the voting system. Mob mentality is a seemingly inherent issue in everyone. The ability to appeal to the masses (by being 'the strong man' ~> Trump, Putin, Hitler etc.) is, therefore, a critical skill to being a politician. It makes sense to exploit the math behind a voting system to win a democratic election. Changing the method of voting to one that doesn't lead to strong man politicians (there was a model that was used to do so in some debate I had - I'll see if I can dig it up) should cut out over-characterisation of politicians and subsequently prevent a majority 'conversion' to extremism. I still don't see how cutting out alternative views would be helpful in this regard. So, instead of trying to police the internet, wouldn't it be more useful to fix the education system/enhance it (by actively reforming how things are done, instead of throwing money at the education sector) and harbour an educated people? The problems you are proposing are a cause of poor judgement in a large number of people, so shouldn't we prevent the problem at its source instead?*
*Basically, we should fix the politicians and the sheeple instead of trying to shut down minority ideas.
I assumed you were proposing the Chinese or military internet as a solution to the problem, my bad. I still don't see how restricting anonymity would address the problem though. I agree that spreading and moderating marginal ideas would keep them in check, but how could we go about it? Yeah, I don't deny that it's a problem, but there isn't much point to complaining if there isn't a solution in sight.
If anacyclosis is indeed in effect (haven't heard of it before until now)... There'll probably be greater concerns that need attention rather than this.
I think that, by taking successful education models from other countries (Singapore etc.), and adapting them into an education system like America, it would take at most three generations to achieve memetic immunity (whether we have the time to do so is questionable, but I don't see another way of fixing a 'dumb' population). In the meanwhile, adjusting the voting system to what I mentioned before would probably combat any extremism attempting to take up positions of power (unlikely to happen, but any other model is probably just as or even more dubious). Ideally, this would last in the long-term and prevent any more Pizzagates. With the state things are, however, that probably won't happen.
All of this sounds fair enough. I'll check out the anacyclosis stuff though (just in case I missed something).
