The Loss of Shared Facts \ stacker news ~culture

4430 sats \ 12 comments \ @Undisciplined 3 Jan culture

One of the biggest problems with the corporate press's relentless propaganda is the destruction of a shared set of facts about the world. Without common ground on premises, it's not possible for people to reach agreement, even if they are all acting in good faith.

Brett and Heather discuss this problem briefly in the following clip, but you can find better examples on Timcast IRL, if you're interested.

Trump and the destruction of a shared set of facts (from Livestream #204)

I'm curious if anyone has good ideas about how to build consensus (and how to do so in the general vicinity of the truth).

I've thought about the problem of honest media for a while, but it hasn't gotten me very far. The core of the problem is that people don't demand honesty from media. People prefer to have their views reinforced over being challenged and they're more interested in scary stuff than calming stuff. Those forces lead market driven media to be biased (not to mention the problem of catering to advertisers) and obviously anyone operating non-market media will inject their own agenda.

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1579 sats \ 5 replies \ @elvismercury 4 Jan

This topic (erosion of consensus reality) is one of the most interesting things happening in the world right now, with implications that are hard to imagine.

I wonder if it will have weird parallels to antiquity, where propagation time (e.g., physical travel) was so slow that cultures were incredibly distinct and varied; except instead of long propagation times, now you have instant propagation, but people are inhabiting entirely different mental spaces due to tribalism, affiliation, etc.

1642 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 4 Jan

people are inhabiting entirely different mental spaces due to tribalism, affiliation, etc.

At least in areas they perceive as being important. In art, which could be defined as novelty seeking, consensus seems like it has never been stronger.

Without audio it's hard to tell a modern foreign movie from a modern domestic one. Movies coming out of the far east are occasionally an exception (e.g. the chinese favoring intricacy and low contrast or bollywood's dancing), but fashion has mostly lost its borders.

It makes me wonder if consensus reality has always been broken and its just failing to collapse into sameness as fast as everything else.

1322 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 4 Jan

I like that nuance -- some things have collapsed into a singularity, some things have fragmented into shards. Which is which, and what forces determine that? Of course it was kind of sloppy of me to talk about reality fragmenting; it's easy to make grand pontifications and lose the important details.

The New Atlantis had a series on the death of facts -- I read the first article which I thought was really good but have not yet got around to reading the others. Makes me want to revisit it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 4 Jan

Just thought of this paper I was reading this weekend about whether or not there was a global super-bourgeoisie -- didn't make the connection at first, but I think this is related to TFA and to this discussion.

(Short answer: yes, there is a global super-bourgeoisie.)

1000 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 4 Jan

That's a great point and I hadn't thought about it as a counter to the trend of global homogenization that people have been complaining about for decades.

Hopefully, it's possible for such distinct cultures to peacefully coexist when they're geographically proximate, because I think we'll be continuing without consensus for a while.

1053 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 4 Jan

Yeah, riffing on @k00b's point, I guess the devil must be in the details. I don't feel adequate to the task of opining, but there's a few contradictory ideas in the mix: we've all probably seen regions of the world where it's a complete enjambment of cultures, where people with seemingly nothing whatever in common from a {race, culture, economic} perspective sweat together on subways and in tuk-tuks, and it's generally fine.

And these other distinctions where you can't have a civil conversation with your neighbor who, from an outside vantage, would appear indistinguishable from you. So when can you co-exist peacefully and when not? How much of reality do we have to agree on, and could we curate that process?

2080 sats \ 3 replies \ @SimpleStacker 3 Jan

It's a tough question. "Covid vaccine is safe and effective." Should this have been a shared fact, or not?

I think more important than agreeing on a common fact set is having some humility to know that you might be wrong, being willing to listen to other perspectives, and most of all--respecting the freedom for people to act in accordance with their own beliefs.

Also, a healthy skepticism of the leadership class couldn't hurt either.

671 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 3 Jan

Without veering into a vaccine debate, I would differentiate between shared conclusions (like "safe and effective") and shared facts. The facts would be the actual details of the trials.

From a cultural standpoint, I think you're right that people being more humble about what they actually know would go a long way.

397 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 4 Jan

It's a tough question. "Covid vaccine is safe and effective." Should this have been a shared fact, or not?

I think first you need to define "safe" and "effective" since ime, people talk past each other all the time and don't realize or don't care. What one sees as safe isn't safe for the other. Same for effectiveness and basically everything. I think this is also what @Undisciplined mentioned with shared facts vs shared conclusions.

This is definitely related to your argument about humility. It seems like we're not trying to convince others anymore, we're trying to convince ourselves (and our tribe if we blast our arguments into a digital space seen by million followers) that we're not wrong.

23 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 17 Mar

Yes. It turns out that if you try to get really specific about what safe or_effective_ means, you run smack into the full complexity of the universe.

Stuff that seems simple ("define safe") is surprisingly not simple.

482 sats \ 1 reply \ @chaoticalHeavy 3 Jan

I recommend the Bitcoin Bugle by Dick Greaser. https://www.thebitcoinbugle.com/

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 3 Jan

I feel like this problem is more with people who read sources like that vs those who watch the corporate press, so I'm not sure it helps.

That said, I always appreciate learning about independent media outlets. Thanks for the recommendation.