Politics, truth, and ideology: A syllabus
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Democracy, technocracy, Marx, ideology, critical theory, identity politics, standpoint theory, free speech, cancel culture, truth, populism, and post-truth
#Marx #truth #Politics #critical #ideology #populism #Democracy #posttruth #freespeech #technocracy
on Tue, 9PM
Is the internet worse than a brainwashing machine?
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A recent article in The Atlantic argues that the internet functions as a transformative "justification engine" rather than a "brainwashing machine." The truth is more complicated.
on Jan 12
The deep and unavoidable roots of political bias
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Your political worldview is inevitably simplistic, selective, and distorted.
on Dec 7
What is misinformation, anyway?
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Misinformation research aims to transcend politics in favour of objective scientific analysis. The broader its definition of the term “misinformation”, the less realistic that ambition is.
on Dec 3
Strategic paranoia: When irrational fears serve rational ends
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The role of strategic paranoia in witchcraft accusations, conspiracy theories, the Satanic panic, tribal narratives, the mafia, and sexual jealousy.
on Nov 23
There is no "censorship industrial complex"
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Biased and misguided online censorship is a genuine problem. However, popular claims about a sinister "censorship industrial complex" are hysterical, conspiratorial, self-serving, and dangerous.
on Nov 4
The confused crusade against online misinformation
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(Mis)information: the battle for free speech online
on Oct 20
For the love of God, stop talking about "post-truth"
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There was never a golden age of objectivity, and today’s epistemological problems result from competing visions of reality, not a conflict over the value of truth.
on Oct 17
Tenet Media and the limited reach and impact of Russian disinformation
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Russian incompetence, useless idiots, anti-establishment politics, and the perennial panic about foreign propaganda
on Sep 30
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What role do bias and irrationality play in shaping people's political opinions?
on Sep 26
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The ideas you dislike—whether wokeism, religion, or misinformation—are not “mind viruses” and do not spread via contagion. This framing seeks to demonise, not understand, and poisons public discourse.
on Sep 6
Debunking Disinformation Myths, Part 3: The Prevalence and Impact of Fake News
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Contrary to conventional wisdom, online fake news is rare and mainly consumed by a minority of social media users with pre-existing fringe views.
on Aug 25
Did online misinformation fuel the UK riots?
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On the importance of thinking carefully about complex problems
on Aug 10
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The aesthetics of information (and reflections on luxury beliefs).
on Aug 4
Why do people believe true things?
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Ignorance and misperceptions are not puzzling. The challenge is to explain why some people see reality accurately.
on Jul 29
The marketplace of misleading ideas
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In the marketplace of ideas, are people shopping for truth?
on Jul 22
Are people too flawed, ignorant, and tribal for open societies?
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A deep dive into four factors that prevent members of open societies from understanding political reality: complexity, invisibility, incentives, and politically motivated cognition.
on Jul 14
Biden's age and the problem with the misinformation cope
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The tendency to dismiss challenges to liberal orthodoxies as "misinformation" is costly.
on Jul 1
Socialism, self-deception, and spontaneous order
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In 'Why Not Socialism?', G.A. Cohen mistakes our self-deceptive fairytales about cooperation for the real motives that underlie it.
on Jun 26
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Ideology, left versus right, and political psychology
on Jun 25
Misinformation poses a smaller threat to democracy than you might think
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A new article in Nature by prominent misinformation researchers is badly argued, misunderstands basic issues, and misrepresents critics.
on Jun 23
Cynicism for thee but not for me
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Is it only your rivals and enemies who seek status and engage in virtue signalling?
on Jun 4
Strategic Altruism: The Machiavellian Roots of Human Kindness
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Nice Nazis, friendly factory farmers, and the evolution of sincere but selective moral instincts
on May 20
Debunking Disinformation Myths, Part 2: The Politics of Big Disinfo
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Does widespread alarm about “disinformation” reflect an objective and apolitical concern with dangerous lies or a thinly veiled political project designed to demonise anti-establishment perspectives?
on May 15
Rational Persuasion vs Cancel Culture
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Some thoughts on why it is probably bad to bully people into accepting your beliefs.
on Apr 27
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Witches, conspiracies, threats, burdens, rivals, enemies, and weirdos.
on Apr 20
The media very rarely makes things up
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Fake news, media bias, and the misinformation wars.
on Apr 16
People are persuaded by rational arguments. Is that a good thing?
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Power, persuasion, rationality, conservatism, knowledge, politics, Burke, Sowell, Henrich, Mercier, Sperber, Dewey, Hanson, evolution, the Enlightenment.
on Apr 8
The marketplace of good and bad ideas
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On why the free exchange of ideas is a complex breeding ground for truth, appealing falsehoods, and self-serving rationalisations.
on Mar 30
In politics, the truth is not self-evident. So why do we act as if it is?
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People are "naive realists" about politics, treating their beliefs as objective, unbiased, and unmediated interpretations of self-evident facts. I explore the roots of this harmful delusion.
on Mar 21
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In "Public Opinion" (1922), Walter Lippmann argued that the vastness, complexity, and invisibility of the modern world make democracy impossible. He got a lot right.
on Mar 17
Debunking Disinformation Myths, Part 1: This is not the "disinformation age"
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Are we living through an unprecedented informational crisis, disinformation age, or post-truth era? Drawing on a wide range of evidence and arguments, I give some reasons for scepticism.
on Mar 15
The Survival of the Friendliest?
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Have we evolved to love our ingroup? Did our ancestors go through an evolutionary process of self-domestication? Is the occasional genocide just an unfortunate by-product of how friendly we are?
on Mar 2
My five favourite academic articles from 2023
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Evolution, Ideology, Religion, Misinformation, Reputation, Humility
on Feb 29
Should we trust misinformation experts to decide what counts as misinformation?
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Science, truth, bias, ideology, postmodernism, expertise, and more.
on Feb 14
People embrace beliefs that signal their traits and loyalties
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This is often bad and we should develop stronger norms against it.
on Feb 8
Hawking was wrong: Philosophy is not dead, and it has kept up with modern science
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Some recommendations for those interested in learning about the philosophy of science
on Feb 2
AI-based disinformation is probably not a major threat to democracy
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Alarmism surrounding this topic is driven by popular but mistaken views about psychology, democracies, and disinformation.
on Jan 27
Misinformation and disinformation are not the top global threats over the next two years
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The World Economic Forum's ranking of top global threats is either wrong or not even wrong.
on Jan 23, 2024
Misinformation researchers are wrong: There can't be a science of misleading content.
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Clear-cut cases of misinformation are rare and largely symptomatic of other problems. Subtler forms of misinformation are widespread and harmful - but not suitable for scientific study.
on Jan 21, 2024