Misinformation, political psychology, social media, cultural evolution, mind viruses, luxury beliefs, the marketplace of rationalisations, political persuasion, and artificial intelligence.
I wonder how much the prevalance of clear cut falsehoods, and our inability to agree on them, drives the misinformation debate on everything else.
One could imagine a world where intellectual duellists are more willing to concede that their ideas are just as plausible a perception of reality as another, if all abided by baseline information about fact. Because we don't have alignment on the basics, I think this makes us unwilling to concede that our interpretations of reality are merely interpretations. This is almost a defensive posture in the presence of such factual fracturing.
E.g. it's much easier to rethink your opinions on free trade when not needing to debate about Obama's birthplace
Quite interesting that this counterproductive dynamic continues to persist. That incentives to toe the in-group line remain stronger than the incentive to bring more outsiders on board.
Do we see this with churches too where more outlandish beliefs provide a stronger commitment test?
While I might sadly agree that your speaking capabilities aren't as strong as your writing ones,I think going to podcasts can give people opportunity to get engaged with your content,which is rather underrated.Especially popular podcasts like BARpod.There is a balance between good marketing and product value,u should appeal to a broad audience without using cheap strategies like clickbait and exaggeration lowering the percieved standards.I hope your substack grows,maybe you personally want to focus on other stuff but podcasts can be a driving force either way,and something you should consider
I would suggest that a good way to think about how the "censorship industrial complex" exists is like how (hopefully convinced per previous post discussion) "woke" exists. Yes, it is absolutely and completely true that right-wingers extensively use the phrase as a curse-word for general liberal things. Nonetheless, even though they throw it around so freely, it does gesture at very real phenomena. I believe liberals should consider what happened with the Hunter Biden story to be utterly terrifying. And they don't, because it really is a case of tribalism. Interestingly, I suspect right before our eyes, we're now undergoing a shift in current liberalism's ability to perceive the problem, due to Trump and Musk and recent hedging by other media oligarchs. When Musk suspended a journalist over posting the Vance dossier, there was a notable lack of leftish apologism, e.g. "He's only acting to counter foreign meddling (from Iran) in our election. Besides, there no's evidence of US government action, so it's *LEGAL*, it's HIS RIGHT, there was - *gasp* - a VIOLATION OF THE TERMS OF SERVICE!". If Trump wins and creates some sort of "Office Of Protecting America From Subversion", which starts sending out "advisories", I'm sure we're not going to hear from progressives: "But those companies WANT to comply with these informative notices about potential foreign disinformation actions. It's right and good for the government to use its own free speech to bring attention to potential violations of the Terms Of Service. If you have evidence of an actual threat by the government to those companies, show it, or you're a crazy conspiracy theorist!
(then again, Trump is probably unfiltered enough to make an explicit threat, so the line will be "THAT'S DIFFERENT!" - but maybe he'll just let someone more polished handle this stuff).
Perhaps a minor point in your overall post, but I think the reframing is worthwhile.
Smith v Marx was, in my mind, still serves as a productive, dialectical tension. I find Smith to be rather naive and Marx to be intractably cynical. The broader conclusions of Smith's perspective greatly outweigh those of Marx, but Marx's insights on the evolution of incentives while under those incentives is rather apt.
However, your average classical leftist could not be more Smithian when it comes to esteem and reputation. Their social capital is spent accruing and protecting social capital. Meanwhile, your average classical rightist gets rather Marxist with praise, redirecting it to community or to God, a common store of all good things made available just by asking. That sounds flippant and dismissive, but I'm being serious and intend respect. That I have to clarify has everything to do with the common cudgel wielded in "preemptive defense" of selective toleration.
Oh the irony of Smithian conceptions of capital (greed is an engine!!) trying to be justifed in the war against Smithian conceptions of social capital (likes and votes are the engine of social change!!) and vice versa. Or of Marxist conceptions of capital (Rise up!! Everything is terrible!!) at war with Marxist conceptions of social capital (Stand united in pretending everything is fine!!).
In the Jesse Singal podcast, the New York Times is frequently used as a representation of left-leaning media, while InfoWars stands in for the right. Isn’t this approach somewhat biased? Wouldn’t it be fairer to use a source like the Wall Street Journal editorial page as a more balanced example of right-leaning media?
Thanks. I didn’t mean to imply that Infowars should stand in for the right (or that NYT should stand in for the whole of the left). Rather, in certain misinformation research, NYT is treated as a clear example of non-misinformation, whereas Infowars is treated as a clear example of misinformation (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01174-9), and that’s what I was referring to. (Note that in this article, Wall Street Journal is also included as an example of reliable information). I also think Info wars-style content is more prevalent on the right than on the left, but that doesn’t mean it’s representative of right-wing content in general. I’d recommend the book “Network propaganda” for an overview in the differences between lib and right-wing media. And finally, I’d note that WSJ is definitely not a main source of info for political right in America today (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2014/10/21/section-1-media-sources-distinct-favorites-emerge-on-the-left-and-right/). If anything, its audience leans a tiny bit left.
Thank you for your comments. If the statement that the New York Times is a clear example of non-misinformation can be interpreted as un biased, then I disagree https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2007/05/08/measuring_media/. The Wall Street news may have a slight left bias but I specifically referred to the editorial or Opinion page which is definitely conservative.
I am in the middle of listening to your discussion with Singal, and my perception so far is that you present well in audio.
"Does Marxism constitute misinformation? In one important sense, I would argue that it does. Insofar as the core ideas of Marxism involve gross simplifications, distortions, and misrepresentations of reality, it misinforms people about reality."
I have to agree both with your specific example, and with that analysis of human belief systems writ large. Most if not all of them seem imbued with various types of misinformation. And my perception has led me to be deeply skeptical of human nature and Homo sapiens' beliefs. I try not to believe any dogma.
As I inferred in a comment I made under one of your other recent blog posts, even when bundles of stories *could* be considered as just fictional entertainment, sometimes billions of people turn them into (or continue to perceive them as) supernatural mystical belief systems: various religious ideologies around for millennia now.
Whether considering such supernatural mythologies, or nationalism, political parties, politicians, or aspiring politicians and political campaigns, or sexual moral purity based upon sex, gender, gender identity, location, chronocentric sexual purity (the same sex is somewhat permissible for one age varying by time and jurisdiction, but another age in another jurisdiction or one day later in the same legal jurisdiction is vile and deserves severe punishment or death), laws such as currently in the U.S.A. severely punishing fictional depictions of fictional sex with fictional characters, sexual purity based on whether in or out of marriage, speciesism sexual morality (dogs, cats, and livestock fornicating in public, but if humans do the same, moral outrage and punishment is applied), etcetera.
Humanity is *unanimously* ruled by an enormous range of such ideological misinformation. Even when we do not personally subscribe to such ideologies, we are subjected to them as a member of society.
So yes, ideological misinformation seems unanimous in humans. I consider myself a world citizen who does not subscribe to nationalism. But wars and nuclear weapons controlled by and defending nationalism, affect or risk affecting all of us. 'What!? You do not worship our flag?! If you do not love it here, you should leave our country and go somewhere else!!' (Where people insist on the same blind obedience.)
There is also the matter of a human standard called apathy: quietly going along with instead of protesting absurd status quo ideologies and their accompanying misinformation, even if not an active subscriber.
Humanity's various incessant ideologies, their accompanying endless propaganda / misinformation, as well as common apathy about them, help explain why I have never personally known even one positive exception to human nature, and why I subscribe to the philosophy of the fictional X-Files genie (season 7, episode 21: "Je Souhaite" / "I Wish"):
"That's your analysis, that I'm evil? The only thing you people are cursed with is stupidity. All o' you, everybody. Mankind. Everyone I have ever come into contact with, without fail. In 500 years people have not changed a bit. Granted, they smell better, generally speaking. But: human greed still reigns, shallowness, a propensity for self-destruction."
So your focus on such topics is *very* much needed by society. Carry on.
I was genuinely surprised to read the first couple of sentences of this post, because I currently find myself in a job which requires a fair amount of public speaking (much more than I'm comfortable with). And as a result, I have gotten into the habit of bookmarking any examples I come across that, to me, are good benchmarks of the level of public speaking quality that I'm aspiring to achieve. These examples are typically podcasts, YouTube videos, etc., and your BARpod episode was an instant addition to the database- and prompted me to subscribe to this sub.
I listen to a lot of podcasts. Some public intellectuals like Sam Harris speak exceptionally well, but many don’t, with numerous “you knows”, awkward pauses, and sentence fragments. I listened to your podcasts and believe you to be in the first group. Please do more.
I'm not a podcast listener but I will listen at least to the part on the "marketplace of ideas." I doubt that it's a great metaphor since ideas don't exist in a system of price signals. Also, since so many people dislike markets that metaphor might further encourage them to have government bureaucracies and politicians regulate ideas. Scary!
If I recall correctly, you recently expressed interest in the topic of censorship. So F.Y.I., recent Slate reporting on Facebook censorship.
My impression from the article is that with Republicans habitually squawking about how unfair Facebook is to their views / ideological distortions, and Trump threatening to sentence Zuck to life in prison, Facebook is socio-politically between a rock and a hard place on the topics of misinformation / comment moderation / censorship.
I will be looking for your censorship views in future blog posts. Until you block me, that is. Since I have a bit of a habit of provoking people to that point, right or wrong. 😉
Writ large, I see a fair amount of your blog posts as alerting the public that much of what we see are pendulums: how excessively far one direction or another public sentiment swings on various topics.
When people referred to 'Marxism' and its alleged undesirable historical outcomes IMHO they are not really talking about what should accurately be termed Marxism.
Marx didn't have a developed political theory or associated practice. His theory of the state was embryonic at best
It was precisely this shortcomings that led Lenin to develop an explicitly political theory and it is this theory paired with Marx's social and economic theory that became Marxist Leninism.
IMHO it was this highly authoritarian ML that did the damage in say Russia and China which is so often attributed to Marxism.
Are you suggesting that if Marx had not written his ourvre, that Lenin would still have come up with a revolutionary strategy of some sort? Perhaps based on a lesser communal version of "captialistic or industrial benefits for everyone" or something?
My knowledge of Russian history is subpar, but it occurred to me that probably almost all of the colonists in America had better quality of life and more freedom than the serfs in Russia, and yet the Americans rebelled against being denied normal rights of Enghlishmen by the Crown and the Parliament. While the slaves in America in 1776 and later might well have been poorly treated compared to Russian serfs, especially if they were field hands, perhaps the "house slaves" had it better (unless they were subject to sexual assault by their masters).
Lenin wanted a revolution [for valid or invalid reasons], but the Americans had already had a revolution, with far less justification when comparing the situation and status of almost all of the colonists vs. the average Russian serf.
Slaves were a special case where that assertion might not quite apply.
The serfs certainly had grounds for revolting against the Tsar, based on the principles in the American DOI. Unfortunately they did not have a cadre of well educated leaders [??], nor a 40 to 100 year prior history and experience with localized "self" government and the concepts of rights that went with it.
Your point about Lenin's strategic political additions to Marxism is one I had not fully appreciated before, but sounds entirely valid to me. It is a distinction worth keeping in mind.
I honestly didn't know whether Lenin would have found some other ideological underpinning theory to justify revolution had Marx never existed but for what little it is worth I strongly suspect he would have done 😀
He had a big up his ass about the status quo in Russia that's for sure and in fairness there was broad discontent. He was pushing at an open door
I wonder how much the prevalance of clear cut falsehoods, and our inability to agree on them, drives the misinformation debate on everything else.
One could imagine a world where intellectual duellists are more willing to concede that their ideas are just as plausible a perception of reality as another, if all abided by baseline information about fact. Because we don't have alignment on the basics, I think this makes us unwilling to concede that our interpretations of reality are merely interpretations. This is almost a defensive posture in the presence of such factual fracturing.
E.g. it's much easier to rethink your opinions on free trade when not needing to debate about Obama's birthplace
Quite interesting that this counterproductive dynamic continues to persist. That incentives to toe the in-group line remain stronger than the incentive to bring more outsiders on board.
Do we see this with churches too where more outlandish beliefs provide a stronger commitment test?
Thanks Dan, really enjoyed our conversation! Now keen to read about your disagreements with Henrich / Boyd & Richerson…
While I might sadly agree that your speaking capabilities aren't as strong as your writing ones,I think going to podcasts can give people opportunity to get engaged with your content,which is rather underrated.Especially popular podcasts like BARpod.There is a balance between good marketing and product value,u should appeal to a broad audience without using cheap strategies like clickbait and exaggeration lowering the percieved standards.I hope your substack grows,maybe you personally want to focus on other stuff but podcasts can be a driving force either way,and something you should consider
I would suggest that a good way to think about how the "censorship industrial complex" exists is like how (hopefully convinced per previous post discussion) "woke" exists. Yes, it is absolutely and completely true that right-wingers extensively use the phrase as a curse-word for general liberal things. Nonetheless, even though they throw it around so freely, it does gesture at very real phenomena. I believe liberals should consider what happened with the Hunter Biden story to be utterly terrifying. And they don't, because it really is a case of tribalism. Interestingly, I suspect right before our eyes, we're now undergoing a shift in current liberalism's ability to perceive the problem, due to Trump and Musk and recent hedging by other media oligarchs. When Musk suspended a journalist over posting the Vance dossier, there was a notable lack of leftish apologism, e.g. "He's only acting to counter foreign meddling (from Iran) in our election. Besides, there no's evidence of US government action, so it's *LEGAL*, it's HIS RIGHT, there was - *gasp* - a VIOLATION OF THE TERMS OF SERVICE!". If Trump wins and creates some sort of "Office Of Protecting America From Subversion", which starts sending out "advisories", I'm sure we're not going to hear from progressives: "But those companies WANT to comply with these informative notices about potential foreign disinformation actions. It's right and good for the government to use its own free speech to bring attention to potential violations of the Terms Of Service. If you have evidence of an actual threat by the government to those companies, show it, or you're a crazy conspiracy theorist!
(then again, Trump is probably unfiltered enough to make an explicit threat, so the line will be "THAT'S DIFFERENT!" - but maybe he'll just let someone more polished handle this stuff).
Perhaps a minor point in your overall post, but I think the reframing is worthwhile.
Smith v Marx was, in my mind, still serves as a productive, dialectical tension. I find Smith to be rather naive and Marx to be intractably cynical. The broader conclusions of Smith's perspective greatly outweigh those of Marx, but Marx's insights on the evolution of incentives while under those incentives is rather apt.
However, your average classical leftist could not be more Smithian when it comes to esteem and reputation. Their social capital is spent accruing and protecting social capital. Meanwhile, your average classical rightist gets rather Marxist with praise, redirecting it to community or to God, a common store of all good things made available just by asking. That sounds flippant and dismissive, but I'm being serious and intend respect. That I have to clarify has everything to do with the common cudgel wielded in "preemptive defense" of selective toleration.
Oh the irony of Smithian conceptions of capital (greed is an engine!!) trying to be justifed in the war against Smithian conceptions of social capital (likes and votes are the engine of social change!!) and vice versa. Or of Marxist conceptions of capital (Rise up!! Everything is terrible!!) at war with Marxist conceptions of social capital (Stand united in pretending everything is fine!!).
Our opera is gettin' kinda soapy.
In the Jesse Singal podcast, the New York Times is frequently used as a representation of left-leaning media, while InfoWars stands in for the right. Isn’t this approach somewhat biased? Wouldn’t it be fairer to use a source like the Wall Street Journal editorial page as a more balanced example of right-leaning media?
Thanks. I didn’t mean to imply that Infowars should stand in for the right (or that NYT should stand in for the whole of the left). Rather, in certain misinformation research, NYT is treated as a clear example of non-misinformation, whereas Infowars is treated as a clear example of misinformation (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01174-9), and that’s what I was referring to. (Note that in this article, Wall Street Journal is also included as an example of reliable information). I also think Info wars-style content is more prevalent on the right than on the left, but that doesn’t mean it’s representative of right-wing content in general. I’d recommend the book “Network propaganda” for an overview in the differences between lib and right-wing media. And finally, I’d note that WSJ is definitely not a main source of info for political right in America today (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2014/10/21/section-1-media-sources-distinct-favorites-emerge-on-the-left-and-right/). If anything, its audience leans a tiny bit left.
Thank you for your comments. If the statement that the New York Times is a clear example of non-misinformation can be interpreted as un biased, then I disagree https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2007/05/08/measuring_media/. The Wall Street news may have a slight left bias but I specifically referred to the editorial or Opinion page which is definitely conservative.
The Enigma of Rationality was a huge influence on me too. And I found the Secret of our Success fascinating so me too there as well
😀
I am in the middle of listening to your discussion with Singal, and my perception so far is that you present well in audio.
"Does Marxism constitute misinformation? In one important sense, I would argue that it does. Insofar as the core ideas of Marxism involve gross simplifications, distortions, and misrepresentations of reality, it misinforms people about reality."
I have to agree both with your specific example, and with that analysis of human belief systems writ large. Most if not all of them seem imbued with various types of misinformation. And my perception has led me to be deeply skeptical of human nature and Homo sapiens' beliefs. I try not to believe any dogma.
As I inferred in a comment I made under one of your other recent blog posts, even when bundles of stories *could* be considered as just fictional entertainment, sometimes billions of people turn them into (or continue to perceive them as) supernatural mystical belief systems: various religious ideologies around for millennia now.
Whether considering such supernatural mythologies, or nationalism, political parties, politicians, or aspiring politicians and political campaigns, or sexual moral purity based upon sex, gender, gender identity, location, chronocentric sexual purity (the same sex is somewhat permissible for one age varying by time and jurisdiction, but another age in another jurisdiction or one day later in the same legal jurisdiction is vile and deserves severe punishment or death), laws such as currently in the U.S.A. severely punishing fictional depictions of fictional sex with fictional characters, sexual purity based on whether in or out of marriage, speciesism sexual morality (dogs, cats, and livestock fornicating in public, but if humans do the same, moral outrage and punishment is applied), etcetera.
Humanity is *unanimously* ruled by an enormous range of such ideological misinformation. Even when we do not personally subscribe to such ideologies, we are subjected to them as a member of society.
So yes, ideological misinformation seems unanimous in humans. I consider myself a world citizen who does not subscribe to nationalism. But wars and nuclear weapons controlled by and defending nationalism, affect or risk affecting all of us. 'What!? You do not worship our flag?! If you do not love it here, you should leave our country and go somewhere else!!' (Where people insist on the same blind obedience.)
There is also the matter of a human standard called apathy: quietly going along with instead of protesting absurd status quo ideologies and their accompanying misinformation, even if not an active subscriber.
Humanity's various incessant ideologies, their accompanying endless propaganda / misinformation, as well as common apathy about them, help explain why I have never personally known even one positive exception to human nature, and why I subscribe to the philosophy of the fictional X-Files genie (season 7, episode 21: "Je Souhaite" / "I Wish"):
"That's your analysis, that I'm evil? The only thing you people are cursed with is stupidity. All o' you, everybody. Mankind. Everyone I have ever come into contact with, without fail. In 500 years people have not changed a bit. Granted, they smell better, generally speaking. But: human greed still reigns, shallowness, a propensity for self-destruction."
So your focus on such topics is *very* much needed by society. Carry on.
I was genuinely surprised to read the first couple of sentences of this post, because I currently find myself in a job which requires a fair amount of public speaking (much more than I'm comfortable with). And as a result, I have gotten into the habit of bookmarking any examples I come across that, to me, are good benchmarks of the level of public speaking quality that I'm aspiring to achieve. These examples are typically podcasts, YouTube videos, etc., and your BARpod episode was an instant addition to the database- and prompted me to subscribe to this sub.
Thanks Ian - that's kind of you to say 🙏
Interesting that just a few hours prior to reading this, I also had the recognition that "you know, Marxism is basically misinformation, too".
I listen to a lot of podcasts. Some public intellectuals like Sam Harris speak exceptionally well, but many don’t, with numerous “you knows”, awkward pauses, and sentence fragments. I listened to your podcasts and believe you to be in the first group. Please do more.
Glad to hear that the fog is clearing, Dan!
I'm not a podcast listener but I will listen at least to the part on the "marketplace of ideas." I doubt that it's a great metaphor since ideas don't exist in a system of price signals. Also, since so many people dislike markets that metaphor might further encourage them to have government bureaucracies and politicians regulate ideas. Scary!
If I recall correctly, you recently expressed interest in the topic of censorship. So F.Y.I., recent Slate reporting on Facebook censorship.
My impression from the article is that with Republicans habitually squawking about how unfair Facebook is to their views / ideological distortions, and Trump threatening to sentence Zuck to life in prison, Facebook is socio-politically between a rock and a hard place on the topics of misinformation / comment moderation / censorship.
I will be looking for your censorship views in future blog posts. Until you block me, that is. Since I have a bit of a habit of provoking people to that point, right or wrong. 😉
Writ large, I see a fair amount of your blog posts as alerting the public that much of what we see are pendulums: how excessively far one direction or another public sentiment swings on various topics.
https://apple.news/Ag3YnVbF2TheoDvBYlW49sw
A tiny observation.
When people referred to 'Marxism' and its alleged undesirable historical outcomes IMHO they are not really talking about what should accurately be termed Marxism.
Marx didn't have a developed political theory or associated practice. His theory of the state was embryonic at best
It was precisely this shortcomings that led Lenin to develop an explicitly political theory and it is this theory paired with Marx's social and economic theory that became Marxist Leninism.
IMHO it was this highly authoritarian ML that did the damage in say Russia and China which is so often attributed to Marxism.
Are you suggesting that if Marx had not written his ourvre, that Lenin would still have come up with a revolutionary strategy of some sort? Perhaps based on a lesser communal version of "captialistic or industrial benefits for everyone" or something?
My knowledge of Russian history is subpar, but it occurred to me that probably almost all of the colonists in America had better quality of life and more freedom than the serfs in Russia, and yet the Americans rebelled against being denied normal rights of Enghlishmen by the Crown and the Parliament. While the slaves in America in 1776 and later might well have been poorly treated compared to Russian serfs, especially if they were field hands, perhaps the "house slaves" had it better (unless they were subject to sexual assault by their masters).
I have no idea what Lenin might have come up with.
I'm sorry and I'm probably being slow here but I'm not following what you're arguing in the second paragraph
I probably could have phrased it better.
Lenin wanted a revolution [for valid or invalid reasons], but the Americans had already had a revolution, with far less justification when comparing the situation and status of almost all of the colonists vs. the average Russian serf.
Slaves were a special case where that assertion might not quite apply.
The serfs certainly had grounds for revolting against the Tsar, based on the principles in the American DOI. Unfortunately they did not have a cadre of well educated leaders [??], nor a 40 to 100 year prior history and experience with localized "self" government and the concepts of rights that went with it.
Your point about Lenin's strategic political additions to Marxism is one I had not fully appreciated before, but sounds entirely valid to me. It is a distinction worth keeping in mind.
Ok. I try
Thanks for the clarification
I honestly didn't know whether Lenin would have found some other ideological underpinning theory to justify revolution had Marx never existed but for what little it is worth I strongly suspect he would have done 😀
He had a big up his ass about the status quo in Russia that's for sure and in fairness there was broad discontent. He was pushing at an open door