tripu @tripu@qoto.org
Technologist, Spaniard, male, 42
Joined May 2020
👍 Mostly agree.
To clarify: I do think that “deliberate floods of misinformation” cause harm. We agree on that, too. It's just that I think top-down efforts to label them and suppress them are usually counter-productive and have dangerous side-effects.
“Why wouldn’t you dismiss it?”
You don't get my point. I might dismiss the lab-leak theory, okay. It's probably not the best one, given what we know now. What I think about this is irrelevant, and I don't want to impose my ideas on anyone.
The issue is: do you feel *that* confident about the “Huanan Seafood Market” theory, and about the potential danger of allowing competing theories to be communicated, as to label any departure as a “conspiracy theory” or “misinformation”, and defend that those posts should be flagged, hidden, or removed?
As for motivated reasoning and political purposes, those go both ways. Few sources are neutral, and anyone could throw the same accusation at proponents of other theories. Are nature and Wikipedia non-motivated and apolitical? It's a rhetorical question :)
“That FBI report was specifically ‘low confidence’”
Yes. A hypothesis that three huge governmental institutions report to be the most likely, even with low confidence, cannot be a conspiracy theory, or misinformation. That was my point. The FBI etc necessarily had *even lower* confidence in all other competing theories, by definition.
I agree about the “military” bit. That is probably a stretch. I haven't found much pointing in that direction, specifically (only in the general sense of secret research being conducted there).
“How useful are those ideas?”
All ideas are useful, including wrong ones (cf John Stuart Mill). No need to expand here on “the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion”, as he said.
What if someone has “an idea how x technology should work” and the idea is wrong? Why flag, hide, remove it?
> _“There are facts and they matter. There is science and there are actual experts. It’s not just opinions.”_
Of course, I agree.
But telling facts and experts apart from mistakes and amateurs is very hard. We should discuss, promote, and criticise — but silence no-one.
Being wrong should be allowed. And sometimes those who seemed wrong initially end up being right.
> _“Who is to decide? Professionals, scientists, experts.”_
No special group should decide anything alone — experts and scientists inform the public and influence public policy. But in matters of _speech_, no “expert” should decide what can or cannot be communicated.
Experts get things wrong, too (of course). The scientific consensus would not move much if we removed all ideas that go against it.
3/3
To me, the most important aspect of all this is: I have no idea how good the lab leak hypothesis is. I don't feel any need to defend it against competing theories. I don't have the resources nor the skills to do that research. And what seemed likely back in 2021 may be less so today (and vice versa). But I understand enough to know that it can't be dismissed (let alone suppressed) as a conspiracy theory, or as misinformation.
At the meta level, the fact that we're disagreeing so strongly about this supports the idea that efforts to identify and remove misinformation are a very bad idea: you would flag any content online that says “bio-engineered in a military laboratory” as misinformation, but I would not. Who's to decide? What useful ideas would be silence by mistake?
/cc @koalie
2/3
What the “Chinese Academy of Sciences” has in Wuhan are “laboratories”, yes. How is the word “lab” controversial or relevant?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology
The US “was funding gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Lab”
https://reason.com/2024/06/04/anthony-fauci-gives-misleading-evasive-answers-about-nih-funded-research-at-wuhan-lab/
and gain-of-function research “genetically alters an organism”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gain-of-function_research
so yes, there was “bio-engineering” of coronaviruses in Wuhan.
Both the US Energy Department and the FBI concluded at some point that “an accidental laboratory leak” was the most likely origin of the pandemic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/us/politics/china-lab-leak-coronavirus-pandemic.html
US Department of State: “despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, [it] has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military [and it] has engaged in classified research […] on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017”.
https://2017-2021.state.gov/fact-sheet-activity-at-the-wuhan-institute-of-virology/index.html
Are those three institutions fringe, or misinformed?
/cc @koalie
1/3
“Lack of evidence” ≠ “conspiracy theory”
“lack of evidence” ≠ “misinformation”
There is “no evidence” of a supernatural creator, or of alien life forms. And yet, billions of people believe there's a god, and many scientists think life in other corners of the universe is more likely than not. Those are not conspiracy theories, or misinformation.
/cc @koalie
Chapter VIII of Book III is the best in #MichelDeMontaigne's #Essays so far.
I'm highlighting so many insightful passages having to do with #rationality, #logic, [rules of discourse](https://vita.tripu.info/life#debates-and-discussing-with-people), merit vs chance, etc. And it is the more timely for me as I'm right now pondering the value of debating ideas with strangers, and of #SocialMedia more broadly.
I shall share many quotes and thoughts on a blog post when I'm done, as [I've done with the previous two books](https://blog.tripu.info/montaigne-2).
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Essays_of_Montaigne/Book_III/Chapter_VIII
> _“When you demonize those who #disagree with you, you invite treatment in kind. When you refuse to engage in political #argument and resort to performative #moralizing, you make it clear to any neutral observer that, for you, there’s only one side, one #opinion, one conformist crowd.”_
https://www.thefp.com/p/martin-gurri-donald-trump-political-divide
tripu
boosted
tripu
boosted
*Boy, Spain and Italy are dong great, cheerfully said the American. guy who spent a lot of time in Italy and Spain
tripu
boosted
Unity
Click for full comic: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/unity-3
tripu
boosted
🇳🇱
Even after the switch from Twitter to #Mastodon, and even after migrating from my previous instance to the haven that is @QOTO, I keep on having occasional discussions that I find very frustrating.
@fidel's [words yesterday](https://blog.fidelramos.net/personal/new-years-resolutions-2024) resonate with me:
> _“I wasn't anticipating […] the mental and emotional effort of opposing the hegemonic zeitgeist. This is something that has taken a toll on my happiness and mental health. It would be easy to bow to the majority and return to the fold, to avoid #arguments and #fights, but I think I would feel bad about myself for intellectual dishonesty. […] One thing is the ideas you have and another is that you do not want or can dedicate greater efforts to supporting them in opposition to almost the entire society. I will focus on educating my children in the values that I want to see in the world. […] I will dedicate #SocialNetworks only to the topics that interest me […] and I will reduce ideological topics.”_
I'm thinking of giving up #microblogging, at least for a while.
We'll see.
Oh, dear. Why is it so difficult to discuss stuff dispassionately?
What I'm saying is that many people I know (good, non-violent, non-sexist people) have at some point in their lives kissed someone without been given explicit consent to do so beforehand. I have even witnessed that, and I did not call the police. In those instances I have in mind, the “victim” themselves definitely didn't think much of that — and not because they were afraid of the “perpetrator”, brainwashed or delusional. No violence ensued. More often than not, there were awkward laughs. At most, a shout and an expletive. If I told you about those incidents in detail, I think in most cases you would find the situation more “cute” or “embarrassing” than “offensive”.
All I'm saying is: those were not “sexual assaults” in the least, those people are not “criminals”, and surely their employers don't need to know about those incidents.
Is all this really so alien to your own experience and so far from your expectations about flawed human interactions?
I promise this is my last answer to you in this thread, unless you tell me that you want to continue.
If “non-consensually kissing someone” were a criminal offence an left a criminal record, wouldn't many/most people be criminals and carry a criminal record for life?
The specific incident at the WWC was particularly bad for a number of circumstances (power dynamic between boss and employee, and millions of people watching in real time). But the act itself (someone non-consensually kissing someone else) happens quite often. I was young once. Ask teenagers flirting (or thinking they're flirting). I'm not saying it's OK. But, isn't it very disproportionate to call it a crime?
Me too.
Technologist, Spaniard, male, 42
Joined May 2020
