Fake News!

[Dwarvenhobble]

You know I wonder on some level how many people know they're being lied to but prefer the comforting lie to the truth so convince themselves the other person must be evil and lie themselves into a little bubble.
I say I wonder if on some level how many people know because I've challenged people in forums and other places to my little game of spotting fake news I called Truth or Trumped and I don't think anyone has ever played my little game of spotting the truth news story among the fake ones. They deflect, ad hominem and try to do whatever they can to avoid it.

 

[tstorm823]

Going back to the original topic...yes? Now, I'm guilty of believing I'm "better than average" in not being tricked by important fake news (not necessarily by spotting it, but by keeping a vague suspicion of what people say about important stuff), but unless people think it's not a problem for them, it's not a problem. If people know they are easily fooled, they'll try not to be so easily fooled.

Well, that's the real issue displayed in the OP. 90% of people surveyed consider themselves above average at identifying fake news. 70% of the whole survey rated themselves as better at spotting it than they really are. A supermajority of people (based on this study) have a problem that they don't see.

This topic brings me back to me favorite piece on TV Tropes:

Cowboy BeBop at His Computer - TV Tropes

This is when the media reports blatantly incorrect facts about a creative work that any fan or — in the most egregious cases — even just someone with any kind of passing knowledge of said work would know to be wrong. It seems like …

tvtropes.org

You can spend a bunch of time and get some real good laughs reading through that list of stupid things media people have gotten horrifyingly wrong , and every so often you get the sobering moment where you remember that the vast majority of people reading those mistakes believed them. "Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for that rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge."

And that quote reminds of a Magic player whose content I watch occasionally, who will talk of Twitter and Reddit as these hateful awful places where most of the people posting are morons who don't know what they're talking about and all the opinions expressed are arrogant self-entitled nonsense... but only when talking about Magic: the Gathering. You get him talking about news or politics, you can one-for-one match all his "hot-takes" to the comments made on the social medias, all stated with unwavering confidence, it is only the thing in which he is personally an expert that you see disagreement with public opinion and humility about his own knowledge.

 

[Jarrito3002]

Now a healthy bit of skepticism towards news media is good for the soul I will not dismay someone not taking something at face value.

But complete dismissing everything because it does not confirm what you want to hear and replace it fantastical conspiracy nonsense that you pass as your "own research" you are not even part of the problem you just become another pile of shit that people have to shift through to find some modicum of factual reporting.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

One should engage in a healthy amount of skepticism in things, especially ones self. On the other hand though, I don't see the issue with being skeptical of scumbags, I think that's a normal reaction.

 

[Cheetodust]

Kinda reminds me of how everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them. Everyone likes to think they're very smart. Most of us aren't. And even those who are are usually smart in a very limited field.

 

[Agema]

Kinda reminds me of how everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them. Everyone likes to think they're very smart. Most of us aren't. And even those who are are usually smart in a very limited field.

This vaguely reminds me of reading people mock highly specialised people for being useless at other things.

What this overlooks is that basically everyone is useless in most things. These highly specialist people have actually done better, in that they have at least transcended uselessness in one thing.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Kinda reminds me of how everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them. Everyone likes to think they're very smart. Most of us aren't. And even those who are are usually smart in a very limited field.

But advertising doesn't work on me. Because almost everything they advertise is stuff I don't care about and the stuff that would work on me, I'm too lazy to bother getting.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Effect of Dunning Who-now?

Have been observing ppl smarter than me putting in the effort of late, as this topic has been growing only ever more relevant in recent years from social media reprogramming the mental fabric of society with hugely varying levels of subtlety, fueling a mostly fear-fueled obsession for learning the skills required to combat the increasing push of misinformation. So while I can't claim to be any good, there is at least more work being put into the implied "...yet!" But yeah, ppl have way too much unearned confidence in way too many areas of life. I do remember having confidence once though, before the horror of the alcohol and drugs wearing off up became a reality.

 

[Cheetodust]

This vaguely reminds me of reading people mock highly specialised people for being useless at other things.

What this overlooks is that basically everyone is useless in most things. These highly specialist people have actually done better, in that they have at least transcended uselessness in one thing.

That's why I kind of admire Richard Dawkins for saying he is too stupid to make a decision on brexit and why I despair when people Stan for Elon Musk, a man who I feel isn't even particularly clever when compared to the average person.

But advertising doesn't work on me. Because almost everything they advertise is stuff I don't care about and the stuff that would work on me, I'm too lazy to bother getting.

Honestly I'm probably very similar to you. I mentioned in another thread how I literally own a t-shirt that is now 21 years old. I am 31. I very rarely buy anything other than books or video games.

But I still think advertising works on you. If you were aware of it working then it wouldn't be working. We're advertised to practically all day everyday. If you think that hasn't affected your thinking in anyway I'm afraid you're probably wrong. For example, I'm studying a science degree in strength coaching and the amount of absolutely wrong things people believe and useless or harmful things they buy because of advertising without even realising it's advertising is staggering. Even people I studied with to be a PT bought BCAA drinks and that's just the useless end of the scale. I know people who went vegan largely based on documentaries they had seen, at least one of whom ended up with a serious B12 deficiency.

Not all advertising is a 30 second video where a company tells you to buy a thing they made.

 

[Agema]

That's why I kind of admire Richard Dawkins for saying he is too stupid to make a decision on brexit and why I despair when people Stan for Elon Musk, a man who I feel isn't even particularly clever when compared to the average person.

Depends what we mean by clever.

The great physicist Richard Feynman apparently once did an IQ test and came out with ~120. Various people I've read cannot credit that, and assume there must have been some sort of mistake. But I think this is to misunderstand what makes someone clever. I think studies suggest average income peaks at about 120, and declines for people higher: in all likelihood these people become sufficiently intelligent that they tend to gravitate to intellectual jobs (like rocket scientists) that don't actually pay that well in the greater scheme of things.

Intelligence at one level might be a sort of raw processing, ability to understand. But then there are all sorts of fields people may have varying ability to do this: number-crunching, emotional intelligence, spatial reasoning, etc. And then what about creativity? Some people can be brilliant at picking something apart and understanding it, but little good at novelty. How about openness to new ideas? People can consider the contribution of things like memory, attention span, and psychological factors like motivation, diligence and conscientiousness, confidence, etc.

So perhaps Feynman really was not that intelligent in terms of an IQ test, but the rest of the cognitive and psychological package he had made him superbly suited to being a physicist. Perhaps Musk is indeed not that smart in many ways, but he has a lot of the right supporting assets and attitude to make him wildly successful as an investor. And why also that sometimes maybe you need to treat with caution that you want particularly intelligent people running things. Maybe you want someone a bit stupider, but with better, other aspects to their personalities.

 

[Agema]

But advertising doesn't work on me. Because almost everything they advertise is stuff I don't care about and the stuff that would work on me, I'm too lazy to bother getting.

I will absolutely bet you even as a baseline, you have seen an advert for something (say, a computer game, film, book) that you haven't seen before and checked it out as a result.

This is the most basic function of advertising after all: making you aware something exists that you can acquire. Persuading to buy one product over another, or to buy something a person otherwise not be interested in, etc. I suspect plenty of people are relatively resilient to.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

That's why I kind of admire Richard Dawkins for saying he is too stupid to make a decision on brexit and why I despair when people Stan for Elon Musk, a man who I feel isn't even particularly clever when compared to the average person.


Honestly I'm probably very similar to you. I mentioned in another thread how I literally own a t-shirt that is now 21 years old. I am 31. I very rarely buy anything other than books or video games.

But I still think advertising works on you. If you were aware of it working then it wouldn't be working. We're advertised to practically all day everyday. If you think that hasn't affected your thinking in anyway I'm afraid you're probably wrong. For example, I'm studying a science degree in strength coaching and the amount of absolutely wrong things people believe and useless or harmful things they buy because of advertising without even realising it's advertising is staggering. Even people I studied with to be a PT bought BCAA drinks and that's just the useless end of the scale. I know people who went vegan largely based on documentaries they had seen, at least one of whom ended up with a serious B12 deficiency.

Not all advertising is a 30 second video where a company tells you to buy a thing they made.

I will absolutely bet you even as a baseline, you have seen an advert for something (say, a computer game, film, book) that you haven't seen before and checked it out as a result.

This is the most basic function of advertising after all: making you aware something exists that you can acquire. Persuading to buy one product over another, or to buy something a person otherwise not be interested in, etc. I suspect plenty of people are relatively resilient to.

I was mostly joking and trying to poke fun at myself but I guess I failed at communication again. A recent example of me noticing advertising working but not succeeding is the commercials for a mobile game on youtube where you have a character that you move around to beat enemies weaker than them so you can level up to beat stronger ones. It has it so they fail to do basic math and mess up and the trick is that makes me feel the desire to play the game in order to show that "Hey, dummy, that's not how you do that, let me show you how it's done." but while the they did manage to make me feel that, I understand what it's doing and have no interest in mobile games so it doesn't succeed.

I am well aware that there's plenty of marketing that does work on me even if I'm not aware of it though. Over the last three years I've become a lot more discerning of what I'm told by people though.

 

[Agema]

I was mostly joking and trying to poke fun at myself but I guess I failed at communication again.

No need to be negative - it's hard to spot on a computer and I'm the last person to condemn anyone for that sort of thing.

I am unfortunately very deadpan. A few years ago I delivered a very sarcastic view on something at a Christmas dinner and my mother paused and told me she could never tell whether I was joking or not. And my wife chimed up with "No, I can't either". Oops.

 

[Cheetodust]

I was mostly joking and trying to poke fun at myself but I guess I failed at communication again. A recent example of me noticing advertising working but not succeeding is the commercials for a mobile game on youtube where you have a character that you move around to beat enemies weaker than them so you can level up to beat stronger ones. It has it so they fail to do basic math and mess up and the trick is that makes me feel the desire to play the game in order to show that "Hey, dummy, that's not how you do that, let me show you how it's done." but while the they did manage to make me feel that, I understand what it's doing and have no interest in mobile games so it doesn't succeed.

I am well aware that there's plenty of marketing that does work on me even if I'm not aware of it though. Over the last three years I've become a lot more discerning of what I'm told by people though.

Not your fault. Obviously I missed the tone of your post. Happens to me all the time.

 

[tstorm823]

Maybe you want someone a bit stupider, but with better, other aspects to their personalities.

I don't know if it's even so much about better, other personality traits. Just the genuine desire to do something is so much more important than personality or raw brain power.

 

[Seanchaidh]

It has it so they fail to do basic math and mess up and the trick is that makes me feel the desire to play the game in order to show that "Hey, dummy, that's not how you do that, let me show you how it's done." but while the they did manage to make me feel that, I understand what it's doing and have no interest in mobile games so it doesn't succeed.

I know exactly the group of ads you're talking about and let me say that there are very few things I more passionately despise... and also, I kind of want to see if that game is as stupid as it looks. But I haven't broken yet.

 

[SilentPony]

My point about bringing up history and linking it to fake news is that we have no idea what actually happened. We don't have time machines, we can't go back and check, and we all know the phrase history is written by the winners. Who knows what major events, world leaders, epic wars and battle happened nothing like how history tells us they did.
In keeping with fake news its much harder now to fake news because everyone is online all the time with phones, cameras, social media, etc...A cop kills a black man by stabbing him in the eye with a red hot poker, its on the news from a dozen angles, no more claiming it was a "suicide". Israel is sending in terror squads to Mosques to fuck with Muslims, its live on SnapFilter or whatever. Mike Flynn says he wants to march on Washington and stage a coup, and looked into a camera while he did it.
No more relying on three hundred hands accounts from across the world in 10 languages 5 years ago to know what the last words of Emperor Dude were.
And even when it comes to "fake news" its often not fake news. Its people simply not liking reality and refusing to accept it. The news is often accurate, people just don't like the facts and feel uncomfortable. Trump coined the phrase fake news not because the news was fake, but because he was gaslighting his supporters who didn't want to know where the trains were running to.

 

[Kwak]

I don't know if it's even so much about better, other personality traits. Just the genuine desire to do something is so much more important than personality or raw brain power.

What's so good about doing stuff?

 

[tstorm823]

Trump coined the phrase fake news not because the news was fake, but because he was gaslighting his supporters who didn't want to know where the trains were running to.

Trump didn't coin the phrase "fake news".

What's so good about doing stuff?

I don't know, but I've been told it's pretty magical.

 

[SilentPony]

Trump didn't coin the phrase "fake news".

Fine, but he used it in office. He made it, for lack of a better term, mainstream.