And when you have a billion people doing this, that’s a lot of insanity. Like, world-spanning plague-level insanity.
The ability to learn from other people without needing the same first hand experience is a hallmark of intelligence. It’s one of the things about our species that allowed us to develop past just being yet another animal in the wild. Education is largely based on that principle; your history teacher didn’t experience the horrors of trench warfare firsthand.
So I wouldn’t call social media insanity so much as potentially addictive, which can cause you to overindulge in those behaviours. Admittedly addiction can feel like insanity when you’re in the throes of it.
It is not the obvious function of knowledge that’s at issue, it is its quality. When the observation and the knowledge get too far apart, the words cease to refer to the observation and begin to refer only to themselves.
And then the quality becomes poopoo. A solipsistic black hole.
I have never verified 99% of the knowledge I read in textbooks either. But aside from math little in the textbooks held much truth. Especially the economy books.
All the economic textbooks in the US at least basically boil down to “Neo-classicalism works guys… no really. No really, really”
People have been spouting authoritative-sounding bullshit about things they have no business talking about for as long as humans have had language. The only difference is that now, any single humans bullshit is able to reach everyone on the globe with a smartphone in seconds.
Agreed. It’s an old problem. Call it “bad epistemology” (BE).
The method of Science was arguably contrived to combat BE (or at least to offer an advantageous alternative).
Which gives us a nice spectrum. On one end strong reference to observation, delivering high-quality knowledge (IE science etc). On the other end a recursive BE machine.
Social media has turned the BE into a kaiju. A reverse scientific enlightenment.
So exactly how the world worked before the internet except instead of getting your misinformation from aunt Becky you get disinformation from xXxFrenchmansCumsockxXx a12 year old in a foreign country… or a bot
Here’s a couple of differences
Millions of us communicate our ideas to millions every minute. (Think of that. 10E6^minute. Such a churn.)
An idea can go anywhere in the world instantly.
So there’s that vast amplification. A cannon vs a pistol.
Is the “stupid question” if it’s literally insane? If so then no, that’s not what insanity means. But I think this is a thinly-veiled vent more than a question…
When reality goes east and opinion goes west, getting further apart every day, then yes, I call that insanity.
And that’s more than just the present state of opinions. That’s arguably the core function of the present system. (not necessarily by design of course. That would probably be just paranoid).
Imagine a game of telephone. Where, a hundred exchanges down the chain, the chain twists upon itself, looping, conversation feeding upon recycled conversation, recursively. That’s where we are.
If that’s insanity then humans have been insane for thousands of years. People talking out their asses isn’t new at all
By that logic a little plutonium never hurt anybody. And you’d be quite right. But now we have a big hill of the refined stuff.
Except we’ve had this kind of brand of plutonium for hundreds of years. The concept of a widely distributed collection of knowledge dates back to the printing press. And believe it or not it was even more filled with utter bullshit than anything today. Remember when we thought diseases were caused by bad smells?
Lol no. That’s not at all where the current state of things is. Yes, you do have localized echo chambers where people repeat their insane little opinions about whatever bullshit alex Jones or musk or Jordan Peterson or whomever says. But that represents a minimal number compared to the amount of people out there who are vastly knowledgeable and studied and experienced in the things they do. Your hyperbolic hot take is not only wrong, but is also reductive and neglects to acknowledge that there are a lot of intelligent people out there doing good things for society.
not only that, but occasionally someone with significant professional experience will contribute, but will be immediately downvoted if their professional take isn’t in line with the uninformed consensus.
Oh yes. All the time.
Every AI discussion I’ve read this morning following the SORA promotional release.
But, also, this describes every response to a ML prompt.
Do you think people only talk about things online that they haven’t experienced irl?
Personally I tend to only talk about things I’m sure about or have first hand experience in.
When this happens on a topic with which you have expert level knowledge, it is so blindingly obvious and eye opening just how wrong every other conversation may be. It strongly suggests having a highly critical eye on any topic.
The popular criteria for sane conversation appear to be
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logically consistent more or less
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sounds like something that I already agree with
There you go. Stick to those rules and you can have a conversation about goddamn vulcan brain surgery. And everybody involved will wisely nod their heads.
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Your explanation is wrong, though. People might have experience, but you don’t know who, because they can lie. And if you think about it, a lot of what we learn is stuff we haven’t experienced directly, for a variety of practical reasons.
Doesn’t matter . I had an anti vaxx lady wave a meme in my face and tell me doctors can’t be trusted.
They not only have experience they have proof. Confirmation bias is a bitch I guess.
Antivaxxers tend to be uneducated people with agendas. They are actually wanting to see more people get sick and die, because they think it “eliminates” undesirable (ie, educated liberal good people) from the world. When it fact, it only eliminates their own ignorant breed. That’s why I don’t argue with them, I let them go ahead and exhaust themselves on their cross of ignorance.
Remember, reddit didn’t do it.
Source: trust me bro
Sounds like real life
Um… why do I feel like I should ask: do you have any experience organizing social media conversations? :-D
literally
Adverbs are fun. Know any others?
When we repeat statements from scientists in that particular field, and it’s a well-proved assertion that has survived regular scientific challenges, it’s a different thing from parroting the verbal drool of someone paid to say outlandish and unfounded gibberish.
If we’re talking vaccines, give me an army of epidemiologists vs a street-preacher like Joe Rogan.
Credulously, conventionally, smugly, provincially, dogmatically, unironically
As others pointed out, having the feeling of knowing (about) things without actually having experienced them yourself is a core feature of what one might call intelligence, and as such not insane.
I would argue instead that the problem isn’t with arguments over stuff you haven’t experienced yourself, but rather people caring too much about their fixed opinion and not about actually trying to find the truth (e.g. though argument) as they might proclaim.
(I am relatively certain of this point as I’ve seen seemingly good counter examples to this provided by the LessWrong community, where people often discuss topics they do not necessarily have experience with, but rather try to find the truth and therefore not have a fixed opinion beforehand.)
Do you have any personal experience with insanity, then? /j
I mean, sort of. “Insane” is pushing it, as it’s very normal. You’re not really supposed to take anyone’s statement at face value.
