Comment by Mezzie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mezzie | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know what the answer is either and it scares me.

I'm about as well armed as a person can be when it comes to being able to suss out what I'm being told: I've been online for 30 years (and thus understand how information spreads online and how digital communities work), I have an MLIS (understand how news and information was transmitted historically + how most citizens are taught [or not] media literacy + I understand things like the replication crisis in the sciences), I was raised by an accountant (I'm economically literate/understand financial incentives), and I've worked in nonpartisan political/civics communication (I'm aware of what every side is saying or can get that info in ~5-10 minutes). I can even read multiple other languages - French, Arabic, and Mandarin - so I'm not limited to the anglosphere for my information.

I still have low confidence in almost everything I'm told, and doing proper investigations into all of it is excessively time consuming, terrible for my mental health, and frequently impossible/difficult without institutional affiliation for things like being able to read primary academic sources that are being reported on.

How is the average person supposed to navigate this? There's literally no way.

TBH I think the answer is really quite simple and also fairly nihilistic: It's incredibly unlikely that you will personally be able to find the full truth in anything, even wildly important things like the justification of a war.

At the same time, the reason why the war justification is so notable is because it was eventually brought to light, and its unusualness of the lie made it notable enough for reporters to believe people need to hear about it.

It makes sense to me to generally conclude: liars happen, but generally dishonesty isn't something that's considered moral/ethical by society. Most people don't bald-faced lie about stuff, when they do its considered a scandal. Generally people will honestly tell some truth of what they understand from their own incomplete knowledge and that's about as good as you're going to get (there is no "objective truth").

Trustworthiness then becomes people who knowingly lie less often relative to others, or people who source their truths less often from known liars. For example, I don't believe Alex Jones on much of anything given that he's knowingly lied repeatedly, extensively, and built his career on it. But Joe Rogan I'm pretty sure just sources from liars more often than I'd like in his claims, so I don't really listen to him either. I'm more likely to believe the Slate Star Codex guy, because I don't think he knowingly lies about his analysis but he has his own biases and blindspots and so I generally don't believe what he concludes when he says things that correspond to his blindspots.

> It makes sense to me to generally conclude: liars happen, but generally dishonesty isn't something that's considered moral/ethical by society. Most people don't bald-faced lie about stuff, when they do its considered a scandal. Generally people will honestly tell some truth of what they understand from their own incomplete knowledge and that's about as good as you're going to get (there is no "objective truth").

I disagree with this, which is why I'm so freaked out. I would have agreed with this 20-25 years ago, but not now.

For example, re: your last paragraph, I'm also from a purple district in a purple state with family equally split between the left and the right (and split into multiple factions within each). There are a lot of social incentives for people and institutions to lie and, more importantly, for the middlemen to amplify and present those lies. I also think that with so many of our fundamentals on shaky ground, a lot of the lies might not be purposeful. Scientific reporting is a good example: If the science media lauds an experiment that it turns out is non-replicatable, they're not lying on purpose but they're still reporting something that isn't true.

Scientists are incentivized to publish too often/fudge numbers/not do "boring" experiments. The NYT and Fox are incentivized to cut editors and fact checkers and reduce turn around time because people have been conditioned to expect immediate reporting. They're incentivized to cover things with a partisan slant because it goes viral.

The incentives are perverse at this point.

Well I just pointed to knowing liars and people who rely on knowing liars. Honestly I think most people are just doing their best to tell their incomplete knowledge accurately, and assessing people in that lens helps clarify a lot. Science media tends to laud an experiment that turns out to be non-replicatable, so it's good to keep that in mind when you read science media. Scientists are incentivized not to do boring experiments, so that's useful to keep in mind when reading science.

But like, how did you know that science media tends to do X? Scientists are incentivized to do Y? How do you know that NYT and Fox are incentivized in the ways you're talking about? The reason why they're even notable is because someone else is looking at it and going "hey!! this is going on!!" and presumably this person isn't a known liar/acting on known lies. Maybe enough independent people are saying it that collusion is statistically unlikely. But you do have a knowledge base. It's as simple as knowing what your knowledge base is, in relative to the knowledge bases others are using.

>I still have low confidence in almost everything I'm told, and doing proper investigations into all of it is excessively time consuming, terrible for my mental health, and frequently impossible/difficult without institutional affiliation for things like being able to read primary academic sources that are being reported on.

>How is the average person supposed to navigate this? There's literally no way.

By embracing the fact that we live in a state of information uncertainty and you can't know everything.

People need to put in hard work to develop their worldview based on analyzing primary source material.

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