The whole disinformation and misinformation discussion is pure, unadulterated lies. Lie is the old fashioned word for disinformation. FYI, mistake is the old fashioned word for misinformation.
Do people lie? Heck yeah and so do companies, governments and experts. Lying comes with the squishy grey matter and your human card. It’s as natural as breathing.
So you know, arsenic is also perfectly, 100% natural. Not everything natural is good for you. Lying is natural to the human condition. It’s also usually self destructive.
Are there exceptions? Sure – we use arsenic to this day in a variety of industrial processes, too. Can once in a while be used for good doesn’t make lying a virtue. Not by a long shot. Plenty of people will tell you that it’s ‘relative’ and some lies are okay. Look, if the Nazis are knocking on the door looking for the Jews in your basement, go right ahead and lie like a dog. Otherwise, value your own integrity enough to deal honestly with people.
Simple, not easy.
Most of you have grown up in a world where personal integrity and doing what’s right for its own sake have been derided as outdated and having no place in the modern world. Why, then, are you surprised that the ‘official’ sources you have been taught to trust lie to you? What’s so surprising about a culture riddled with lying when that same culture doesn’t value honesty?
If you’re thinking that there’s nothing you can do about it, you’re being stupid.
Things got this bad one drip at a time. There was no Big Brother forcing everyone to lie. There were academic and cultural voices slowly hacking away at the expectation of honesty. If no one is really honest, why should you be?
Because that’s how you make the world a better place. You start with that person staring back at you every morning from the mirror. You only have the right to expect honesty from others if you yourself are honest.
It took a long time to disconnect culture from virtue. It will take time to get it back on track. No time like the present to get started.
In the meantime, you have to deal with a world of lies and sloppy mistakes.
Aw, man, this is gonna be work, isn’t it?
Some, sure but not nearly so bad as you think. the hardest part is going to be learning how to think. Not how to think for yourself – you can’t really help doing that unless you are dependent of people pleasing – but to actually think effectively.
Quit panicking – you’re doing this anyway. Being able to think well differentiates adults from kids.
No, you don’t need to buy a pipe and sit by a library fireplace pretending to read a book. Reading the book is a good step but the book isn’t the point – the information is.
But, but, how do I know what information is good or not?
Exposure. Read a book, watch a video, listen to a podcast – pick a lane and go – THEN turn it off and think about it. If you hit a hard bit, stop right then, consider it. If need be, look stuff up so you understand better then press play.
When you’ve had enough, walk away and do something else. When it occurs to you, think about it a bit more.
Now that you’ve come to some conclusions, go find something else on the subject that takes a different view. Repeat. See how your conclusions change.
THIS is where you really learn – you’ll find that you see where you were right – and wrong – before. You will get better acquainted with how you process information. That invaluable bit of info is the key. Once you know how you think, you can start working on improving it.
The other thing you’ll find as you expose yourself to more information is that lies frequently come packaged in very similar packaging. A lot of them disguise themselves in logical fallacies. Now, that doesn’t mean everyone committing a fallacy is a liar, but you’ll find the repeat offenders often are.
Ad Hominem attacks – attacking the person instead of the argument – are incredibly common, but so are affective fallacies – emotions being immune from challenge – and appeal to closure – basically we’re done so you can’t argue anymore. The astute among you will notice I haven’t gotten out of the A’s yet.
Familiarizing yourself with the most common fallacies will help you spot them more readily. Don’t get too comfy – even the smartest philosopher will catch himself committing the occasional fallacy. All you’re wanting is to be savvy enough that you can spot the problem points readily. You aren’t going to become Einstein.
That job’s taken, anyway.
Along the same vein – and also a fallacy – are the claims of consensus. Everyone thinks so, don’t you? First off, if you don’t then by definition, ‘everyone’ doesn’t. Second, even if you were really the lone hold out, it doesn’t matter. Truth is not determined by consensus.
In modern parlance, these are usually claims of being ‘deniers’. It comes from the infamous Holocaust deniers. Here’s the thing – those guys are largely ignorant idiots. The way to prove it is to show the evidence, not make them shut up. The whole ‘climate denier’ and ‘antivaxxer’ nonsense shows a weakness of evidence. If the evidence supports the claim, trot it out for everyone to see. If they can’t do that, should you be trusting their conclusions?
Oh, and don’t fall for the ‘but we’ve debunked this so many times before’ line. If they have, then trot out the video, posts, threads, or other digital link to where the thing was debunked. It’s not like they need to go to the library and check out the book. Too lazy to make the argument or fully aware that they can’t win are the usual culprits here. Don’t fall for it.
And that gets us to the final point. Most ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ aren’t even information. It’s usually commentary, opinion or analysis. Information is the facts – those are easy to confirm. Just look it up and see how many sources agree with the factual statement.
For example, the statement ‘South Dakota class battleships were equipped with 16 inch, .45 caliber guns’ is a statement of fact. If you search for it online, you’ll find the majority of responses that address the main guns agree with that statement. You can safely conclude that the fact is true.
But what if the statement were ‘South Dakota class battleships were equipped with 16 inch, .50 caliber guns’ instead? Most sources won’t agree. You may find one or two that do – but it’s only because they made the same mistake I just did.
Remember, consensus doesn’t define truth. So now we need to look at the sources themselves. Is the author an expert on naval history or battleships? Is the source a trusted source like an encyclopedia (not Wikipedia)? Is the source a government document directly linked to South Dakota class battleships or some other direct documentary evidence?
Myself, I’d trust the direct documentary evidence over even the best expert – experts make mistakes. In this example, there’s little reason to lie about USS South Dakota’s main guns so we’re more concerned with mistakes. But then again, egos have made people lie about some really weird stuff and Professor Dumbbunny might just be jerk enough to not admit a mistake.
Still, facts are easily checked and usually, very easily confirmed. Opinion masquerading as fact, that’s where the fun starts.
But it’s not so hard. As you get more familiar with information, spotting the difference between statements of fact and those of opinion or assessment gets easier. It just takes practice.
And a little time spent in your own noggin.
