Biases, Belief and Information: How does one decide?

submitted by [deleted] from self.AskSaidIt

[deleted]

all 6 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]Tom_Bombadil 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I read an article/blog some 25 years ago that basically said, in the future the fight will be for your brain and what you believe.

This fight for your brain has always existed. Otherwise no one would submit to any others rule.

In fact, it was happening at the time you read that article; except that the authors assumption was predicated on the fact that they were winning (at the time), and your brain was under their control.

They were also recognising that this would be increasingly difficult.

It's much more difficult to deceive people today.

I suspect that the missing downvote feature is quite alarming to those with less than honorable intentions. The SaidIt admins are hardened veterans of many a shill encounter.

This will be a difficult nut to crack.

[–][deleted]  (2 children)

[deleted]

    [–]Tom_Bombadil 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    I am so sad. I enjoy saidit and am disappointed the second comment on my challenging post degenerates to...me being under someone else's control.

    I'm stating that every society controls an individual belief's to some extent. Some are more controlling than others. The West has been heavily propagandized for over 100 years, so if you grew up in the West then it would be a miracle if you have no biases that aren't of your own making. These biases are an effective means of social mental control.

    Patriotism. Religion. Culture. Society. These factors overwhelmingly dictate ones beliefs and actions. These are extremely means of socially induced mind control.

    Maybe you feel that you decided each and every opinion on the objective merits. I suppose it's possible. How realistic is that assessment?

    It's difficult to begin the process of examining one's biases without first accepting their existence. It's difficult to free one's mind from external influence, without coming to terms with some uncomfortable realities.

    This isn't meant as a personal attack. This is a fact.

    [–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    Does saidit contain post/s with misinformation or as we know it now as fake news?

    How can we know the answer? No one here has a crystal ball? There is very likely to be some that are misinformation, simply due to the volume of posts, as you'd see on any social media.

    I agree it's a problem, and I don't have an answer either. All I know is that having non-sold-out admins is better than having sold-out admins, hence the creation of saidit. That's the foundation of the new security from censorship that the site offers, but again there is no way we can pretend to be arbiters of truth, we are just humans like anyone else.

    I'm not sure there is a silver bullet to solve the misinformation problem, but there seem to be many smaller solutions that help.

    [–][deleted]  (2 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

      How is a new Saidit person to assess how unsold-out the admins are or are not?

      Well for starters, on reddit if you challenge an admin in any serious way, they will ban you just for speaking your mind. That won't really happen on saidit. Furthermore on reddit the mods will sometimes escalate to the admins, which is why I'm magnora7 instead of magnora, because they kept banning me site-wide just for speaking my mind.

      On saidit, if there is a ban-heavy mod, the admins here (me and d3rr) would be more likely to get rid of the mod than support them. That's why having non-sold-out admins matters, big time. Because reddit is corrupted from the top down, which, if given enough time, results in a completely corrupted mod structure.

      There is not going to be a silver bullet, but we're doing our best to right the wrongs of reddit and learn from what went wrong so we can protect this site and give it longevity.

      [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

      After you wake up a mind you get the ass to follow. https://represent.us/anticorruption-act/

      [–]Tom_Bombadil 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

      I've been following your ass....