Truth Decay
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- Опубликовано: 26 июн 2024
- Trust is eroding, in part, due to the over-abundance of opinion-based content; we must all develop better tools and habits for consuming information to regain a shared understanding of what is true.
RESOURCES
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RAND resources:
Truth Decay Is a Threat to Democracy. Here’s What You Can Do to Help Stop It | www.rand.org/blog/2022/03/tru...
RAND's Analysis of News in the Digital Age: Three Takeaways | www.rand.org/blog/2019/05/ran...
Why Can’t We Agree on the Facts? | www.rand.org/research/project...
What Americans Think of the News-and What That Means for Democracy | www.rand.org/blog/articles/20...
Facts Versus Opinions | www.rand.org/pubs/research_br...
The Drivers of Institutional Trust and Distrust | www.rand.org/pubs/research_re...
Other Resources:
This Video Will Make You Angry by CGP Grey | • This Video Will Make Y...
Post-Truth by Veritasium | • Post-Truth: Why Facts ...
What We're Missing in the Fight Against Misinformation by Dietram Scheufele | • What We're Missing in ...
Why every social media site is a dumpster fire by Carlos Maza, Vox | • Why every social media...
Flat Earth "Science" -- Wrong, but not Stupid by Sabine Hossenfelder | • Flat Earth "Science" -...
The Social Dilemma by Netflix | www.netflix.com/watch/81254224
The Science Behind How We Perceive Truth by Hilary McQuilkin and Meghna Chakrabarti | www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/02/...
Why Can’t we Agree on Facts? by This Place | • Why Can't We Agree on ...
Why do we believe things that aren't true? by Philip Fernbach | • Why do we believe thin...
There is No Algorithm for Truth by Tom Scott | The Royal Institution | • There is No Algorithm ...
What to trust in a "post-truth" world by Alex Edmans | • What to trust in a "po...
Social Media Manipulation Playlist by SmarterEveryDay | • Social Media Misinform...
The Illusion of Understanding by Phil Fernbach | • The Illusion of Unders...
I accept scientific consensus - and you prob should too by Adam Ragusea | • I accept scientific co...
Who's Afraid of the Experts? by PhilosophyTube ft. Adam Conover | • Who's Afraid of the Ex...
I'm a Journalist Who Hates The News by Johnny Harris | • I'm a Journalist Who H...
Somebody once told me.... by vlogbrothers | • Somebody once told me....
Respectability by Robert Miles | • Respectability
Factfulness by Hans Rosling | smile.amazon.com/Factfulness-...
Amusing ourselves to death by Neil Postman | www.amazon.com/Amusing-Oursel...
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt | www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind...
You Are Not So Smart (Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, an d 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself) by David McRaney | smile.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-...
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CREDITS
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Want to know more about Truth Decay? Check out RAND's page on the topic www.rand.org/research/projects/truth-decay/why-cant-we-agree-on-the-facts.html and their tips on what you can do to stop its spread www.rand.org/blog/2022/03/truth-decay-is-a-threat-to-democracy-heres-what-you.html.
is this message supposed to be pinned soon?
Lol everything now is a "threat to democracy" to the point is just a meaningless meme.
I'll try this again since my comments are hit with automated censor.
R$ND 1S fund3d b.y U$ g0v
This comment proves that time travel to the past is possible. While the video (as of writing this) was uploaded 50 minutes ago, this comment was posted 17 hours ago. It would be really interesting for MinuteEarth to make a video about how entropy is irrelevant in time travel.
Disappointed that you were so uncritical in liking that "parental rights bill" post. Didn't know you supported "Don't Say Gay" and the anti-CRT hysteria. You've lost a longtime viewer.
Remember folks, the internet may hold all the truths, but it also holds all the lies, with little way of distinguishing between the two
The sad part is American education is going backwards
From learning science/truth go back to religion
Truth ™️
Oh and both the left and right are very guilty of this. Too many opinions and not enough fact.
@@bungkusi2432 the only religion I’ve learned in school is a class I chose to take of my own accord, so I’m not exactly sure what you’re getting at here. I’m not saying I believe you’re wrong, I just don’t have enough information here.
@@magicalmercy
America now believe that kids learning darwinism make them become less believe in religion.
Thus America in great crossroads on removing darwinism and making them learning creatism as a "where's human come from"
What’s very frustrating is when the news reports on peoples reactions or opinions regarding some controversial topic rather than the controversial topic itself. A recent example is the Florida Parental Rights in Education bill (aka the “Don’t Say Gay” bill). For all the articles on that bill, very few included the relevant text of the bill.
And as a result, misconceptions or exaggerations spread easily because it is in alignment with one's worldview
Agreeing, like the pet lacey act thing I'm not sure of completely, but I know alot of things I've seen are just showing problems, not talking about the other things... It's weird
And it was only 7 pages!
The Bill is only 7 pages long, and anyone that actually read it, could conclude the bill might as well be called the "don't say straight bill".
The bill has nothing to do with homosexuality, but with banning teachers from having conversations about sex and sexuality with kids from kindergarten up to third grade, forbidding teachers from withholding information about children's mental health from their parents (unless there is reasonable reason not do so) and provides parents with legal means to issue complaints to their school board.
That's basically it. But don't take my word for it, check yourselves.
But social media's and mainstream media's reaction to this bill is absolutely psychotic, and this is just one example why an increasingly larger group of people lost all faith in most forms of journalism.
@@Danarogon And also banned discussions at any grade level about sexuality and gender the state of Florida considers "Not Age Appropriate". That's a pretty important one.
I remember years ago when a news article referenced Twitter opinions. I knew we had gone too far.
Its one thing to show a couple of selected (for even spread) opinions either as interviews with the public or sampling from social media and make it clear this is just to show community reaction to an event.
Its another to cite Twitter as definitive fact of what happened (you can use a company's social media departments tweets for anouncements if thats a clear channel of information dispersal for the company, and usually they will hold a press conference to use in conjunction with the tweets, but those aren't exactly opinions are they)
As far as the media being awful, thats been true since the printing press was invented. Historians can't use newspapers about the civil war because its 99.95% pure slander and propaganda, they instead use soldiers letters home which are expected to be diluted as the soldiers try and make it sound better than it is for their families. We have all told white lies to make our parents worry less, so of course soldiers in war would too)
Entire news pieces are being created from nothing but Tweets all the fucking time, especially if the news piece is about some hobby or has an agenda to push. This is evident if the "souce tweets" have barely any engagement.
Citing experts is often not enough these days because these citations have been misused and abused so frequently to support a political bias. Just because someone has an piece of paper certifying they are an expert, nothing actually prevents them from outright lying to embellishing facts. Instead thats EXACTLY what they do. Or at least partisan news organizations such as CNN and Fox news bring on the experts who are most willing to destroy their own credibility and the credibility of the entire field.
Experts are in a position of authority and you are relying on their good faith that they don't lead you astray. You just can't rely on them anymore. The only solution is a strong education and determining facts for yourself. Your eyes and your evaluation is more credible than any expert opinion these days.
@@iankmak the problem isn't that experts aren't in the field, it's that we have taken to calling people experts who aren't even hobbyists.
And there are a bunch of news companies and youtubers who are just doing that now, sourcing all info about their opponents' arguments from 3 like Twitter replies
The issues come when you start realizing that your day only has 24 hours.
8 of those I sleep
8 of those I work
1 of those I drive (to work, to the daycare, back to home)
3 of those are for preparation (cooking supper, cooking lunch for the next day, raising the kids, etc...)
leaving me with 4 hours to myself.
during those 4 hours I might want to watch my favourite show, play with my wife, or talk with some friends... not necessarily double check your sources and the sources of your sources.
I can listen to your video fairly easily while at work, in the car driving (listen not watch) or while preparing a meal. But to search and read your sources, then validate those sources to make sure your sources are not corrupted. require dedicated time for that (and if we go back to the research paper, special education on reviewing research paper is required to avoid the idiotic journalist error about "science discovered that chocolate makes you lose weight" clickbaity title.
So yes I agree to summarize all that information within a 5 minutes capsule that I can easily listen to while cooking will make it incomplete. But it is great to spark my interest. I might not have clicked on a 2 hours long documentary about "truth Decay" but your 5-minutes video sounds safe, what is the worst that could happen if i's boring? I wasted 5 minutes. But now that I'm interested, I still don't have time to go do the research myself, so maybe you could release a 2 hours long documentary now talking about it? or refer me to another video (easy to listen to while cooking, driving or working) but this time that lasts 2 hours and can go into the details and the nuance that your 5-minutes video cannot afford to even approach
Exactly, "adults with busy lives" have every little free time to spend on entertainment, education, fact checking, ect. and on weekends you can remove "work related time sinks" if you're lucky but you probably have household chores to deal with.
Fortunately you can sorta verify is an info source (like a youtube channel) is good by looking at who recommends them. As am engineer i can tell that "Practical Engineering" is infact a valid source because i am already familiar with some of the content of his videos (electricity, and he is a civil engineer so if he has my field right he should have all the engineering fields right), he will then do a collab with another channel which then shares credibility onto the other channel.
Note: this only puts sources in the same boat and valid or invalid together, you still need to verrify atleast 1 is infact good to then extend trust. Fortunately any channel that puts its sources in the description is already making clear efforts to be transparent and even without validating them that is a good sign. (Also read the comments and see what kind of people are watching, people with high level degrees usually won't tollerate BS misinformation on their field, or will offer minor corrections and furtherings. If the audience instead is very toxic its probably a bad channel to be watching.)
Tldr, most adults and teenagers are very busy and have to resort to less rigourous verrification of sources.
This is why we need trusted experts who provide peer reviewed sources.
64% of corporations admit to tackling problematic research by funding research which discredits the original research.
(Also, I made up that statistic to emphasize how easy it is to contribute to Truth Decay)
ruclips.net/video/T1vW8YDDCSc/видео.html
They actually did provide the documentaries! Look at their sources below. Many are RUclips videos. And you may also find more time; I often listen to podcasts, play documentaries, and so on while I cook or clean. This gives you up to 8 hours then to study and learn (you can certainly listen to an audiobook or informative podcast or video in the car). Okay, maybe not the full 8 hours- you do have kids, and not all activities are conducive to multitasking. But on that note- even with kids- wouldn't this be a fun topic to dive into with them? Lots of MinuteEarth and other videos are very basic introductions; usually it's stuff I know, but they are great "gateway drugs", and perfect for getting kids or less science-minded people hooked on learning. Maybe watch this with your kids (if they're old enough) and have a talk about misinformation and social media, and then watch and discuss the sources together?
What you said is really true and really sad ,
It's also sad that nowadays production has increased , but shifts didn't decrease and pay didn't increase ,
We could have the means to have 6 hours workdays and 4 days workweeks ,
Also cars are a gigantic timesink : i never lost as much time waiting for a train as i did stuck in traffic ,
And also public transit should be way way more common ,
In japan there is a really small fraction of the population that drives on the regular ,
Same for the netheralnd ...
Most of the world got played like a damn fiddle
For the first time in my life I did a full year of full time research. The second paper I ever looked at, I must have read 40+ times. I'm 8 months in and only finally understanding why it's so brilliant. You're right about things being slow to digest
Papers may be more legit than the average stuff you find online, but they're still written by fallible people. Every time I show someone how to read a paper, I always ask them to try to find errors or oversights and ask them if the evidence is still convincing, given these errors. Sometimes, your takeaway changes when you notice the errors!
I've always worried a bit about RAND. They are an outgrowth of the military industrial complex (created by Douglas Aircraft to advise the military, I believe, and the US government still funds a lot of their work) and, up until the Trump administration, RAND alums have always been a very high proportion of senior advisors in every administration, both Republican and Democrat. That could support their political independence and broad respect but an alternate interpretation would be that they have their tentacles in everything. There are many ways an organization can start or go bad, beginning with groupthink, and they aren't all obvious from outside. I've definitely had my doubts in the past about some of their foreign policy stances, particularly when it comes to oil rich nations. That said, their papers are often quite good and I don't think they are wrong about truth decay.
Personally I don't think of "government funded" as inherently bad. In a country with free press it can easily become a trustworthy source of fact-based information since they don't have to rely on advertisement and viewership as much.
On the other hand I totally get your point of an organization turning bad, but while power can easily corrupt it doesn't invariably do so. That said viewing a claim with a healthy amount of scrutiny is usually a good thing and getting your information from multiple sources, possibly even from opposing viewpoints, is almost always advisable.
@@Gaehhn It isn't necessarily bad, no. I only pointed that out because a key point of the video was the source of funding of information sources and while they mentioned RAND, they didn't mention who paid RAND for the underlying research and support of this video.
The MIC is concerned people will stop believing their press releases posing as news stories.
@@Paul-A01 Possibly, but the DOD is clearly concerned about Russian intelligence's propaganda campaigns in the US and abroad. They've been actively supporting educational videos about checking sources for a few years now. It's a pretty good strategy. It's hard to argue with a PSA reminding you to be aware of who you get your information from. Directly countering misinformation could be seen as political and would be immediately suspect. Using RAND, however, is suspicious because it's a common tactic to launder lobbying and propaganda through thinktanks. Even the MyPillow guy knows that. He founded a fraudulent sleep institute to give himself an endorsement which he touted in his pillow ads to make them look more credible.
I guess you could also say that cigarette companies also did some good, by funding sports and education programs.
Or you could weigh up the scales of their products in terms of harm and conclude they are an evil corporation profiting off the suffering of humanity.
The same applies for rand corp. They are a grotesque organisation that supplies the military with think tanks and war games scenarios to try and help them refine their death machines to be more lethal.
Something feels a bit fishy using RAND Corp's description of themselves and taking it at face-value. It's a think tank with origins in the U.S. military-industrial complex.
I do agree with the analysis presented in this video, but the claim that RAND is just "dedicated to deep knowledge and ingenuity" seems, ironically, disingenuous.
Thanks for succinctly stating what I was also feeling.
Yeah I definitely raised an eyebrow when their name popped up
Curious how comments parroting the message of this video get hearts... then comments actually doing what the video suggests we do don't get hearted... really makes you think
Yeah, it's a think thank rooted in the defense industries of the US, which means they are interested in the US not failing (either by foreign or domestic sources, which in misinformation"s case is both), so the video above is pretty fitting. I don't think that's fishy or anything.
Hmmmm, the most honest, unbiased way a journalist could report on an organization is through their official statement. To report on more isn't the point of this video, and would invite negative or positive bias with the conclusions the journalist makes of the org. Additionally, the author mentions that they are biased because they did receive money from the organization, it's how they make their living.
What you give here is still valuable information, assuming it's true. But it's still not the whole picture. An organization isn't "bad", or "good", it's a construct with goals and filled with people achieving those goals. We are right to question the goals of the org, but also should question the outcomes and results of the org. I believe their truth decay coverage is useful, regardless of intentions.
In college, I took a few different logic and psychology courses, and I also took an elective Critical Thinking course. It covered things like statistics, biases, fallacies, what counts as evidence and what doesn't, etc. It was a gift and a curse: on the one hand, it made me better able to notice when people are speaking nonsense. On the other hand... it made me notice how often people are speaking nonsense. Good for finding the truth, bad for having any faith in humanity.
Two common issues I've noticed are the misunderstanding of what "evidence" means, and the lack of understanding of subjective vs objective claims. For the former, the number of people who say things like "how ELSE could it have happened?" to support their explanations of "how it happened" -- that is, the argument from ignorance fallacy -- is astounding. "I don't know how else" is *not* evidence for anything other than that you don't know how else. To paraphrase Neil Degrasse Tyson, once you say "I don't know" then you should stop making claims, because you admitted you don't know. That should drive you to *find* evidence, not make you more confident in your evidence-free explanation.
For the latter, it's frustrating how often people think their opinion is objective fact. This is especially true, in my experience, when it comes to music. My college roommate didn't like electronic music, so he decided that "it's objectively bad, it's not even music, people dance to it but no one actually thinks it's good". Whenever an artist tries a different style on a new album, hordes of people comment to complain that they've "sold out because there's no way they'd make such bad music because they actually *like* it". And just a couple weeks ago, my entire group of friends spent about 20 minutes outraged and mocking me because I have a different ranking of my own favorite sandwich shops than they all agree on. All these things are *opinions* and yet people aggressively and emotionally treat them as facts. Whereas actual facts, with empirical and logically validated evidence behind them -- like "vaccines are safe", "COVID is deadly", "GMOs are generally safe", "humans have been on the Moon", "the Earth is round", "evolution happens", etc. -- are treated as opinions up for debate.
Truth is decaying in large part because we value democratic decisions over empirical evidence, so much that many people don't even know the difference between facts and opinions anymore. Take a hypothetical political discussion for example: universal health care. Let's say you read two different things about it: 1) "Universal health care leads to better survival rates across a population," and 2) "Universal health care is a good thing that we should implement." One is a claim of fact, the other is an opinion: do you immediately know which is which? It should be obvious the first is a claim of fact (which can be verified through empirical analysis of outcomes in similar countries with and without UHC), while the second is an opinion. The irony is that I think most people would agree that "better survival rates" is a good thing that we should strive for, and yet many people disagree with statement #2, because of political emotions. In other words, they agree with the opinion on principle, but don't think they agree with it on politics, so they decide to disagree with it, often going so far as to then rationalize it by denying claim #1 entirely, dismissing any evidence that backs it up. I've had similar discussions with people about other politically polarizing topics as well, like gun control ("We need our guns to stay safe, so you can't regulate them!" "The data shows that actually, areas with stricter gun control have less homicide." "But... we can't be safe without guns, so that can't be true!").
Overall, my understanding of the world has increased over time, while my optimism about humanity has waned. We're creating more and more powerful tools every day, but getting less and less capable of understanding reality; that combination seems dangerous to me. (And no, I'm not saying we're getting "dumber" over time -- that's demonstrably false if you consider IQ a valid measure of intelligence. I'm saying we're getting less objective over time, which is a problem because the universe exists as it does whether we believe it or not, so if we act on beliefs that contradict reality, we're in danger.)
I agree with you on this subject. I am wondering if it isn't a result of short comings in our educational systems. I grew up in the 60's and was introduced to the idea of critical thinking in HS, if not earlier. It is a basic part of the "scientific method" and in school we were encouraged to look at things critically, to ask questions and even question authority. I think schools are afraid to have kids asking some of these questions today. Maybe they are getting pressure from parents, but it seems that wouldn't be an issue for parents used to looking at things critically and forming their own opinions. 🤔
@@davidbryden7904
The goes back to creationism because our kids becoming atheist... Killing the science
@@HELLO7657 "There is nothing ironic about it. Changes usually have both positive (health outcome) and negative impacts (higher tax burden) at the same time. Some people might be hit harder by the negative impacts or just evaluate them harsher than other people and vice versa with positive impacts, which causes them to come to a different conclusion to other people."
Fair enough. But what you're saying implies that people who are against UHC are so because they consider "I have to pay a bit more taxes" is a worse outcome than "thousands more people will die". Which, sure, would mean it's not evidence of people being less objective, but that would be evidence of people being selfishly cruel (in fact, I personally would consider that position borderline evil, putting your currency above human lives; but that's just my opinion). So either people are failing to be objective, or people are unbelievably cruel... that's a lose-lose situation.
"'The data shows that actually, areas with stricter gun control have less homicide.'
That is straight up false, there is no correlation between gun ownership and homicide rate. However proportion of black people has a strong correlation with gun violence in the USA, but that's not a kosher approved topic to talk about."
Actually, that correlation is spurious as it misses a third common factor: poverty. There is an increase in gun violence as the average income in an area decreases, controlling for other factors including race. There's also an increase in the proportion of BIPOC people in areas with lower income. The former correlation makes sense if you think about it: people who can't buy what they need more often resort to violence to obtain it than those who can just swipe a plastic card and get whatever they want. The latter -- the correlation between income and race -- is more complex and would require an in-depth discussion of systemic racism to analyze, which is not something fit for a RUclips comment thread.
As for your claim that there is no correlation between gun control and homicide rate, I refer you to a UN analysis on homicide rates around the world: www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/Homicide/Globa_study_on_homicide_2011_web.pdf
The relevant quote from there, so you don't have to read through 128 pages unless you want: "...42 percent of global homicides are
actually committed by firearm... The role played by firearms in homicide is fundamental and, while the specific relationship between firearm availability and homicide is complex, it appears that a vicious circle connects firearm availability and higher homicide levels. Firearms undoubtedly drive homicide increases in
certain regions and where they do members of organized criminal groups are often those who pull the trigger."
It's true that gun control doesn't reduce the rates of *attempted* murder, but because firearms are so efficiently lethal, limiting their availability does reduce the rates of *successful* murders.
I'd say "Approved vaccines are generally safe" and "COVID kills people" are objective facts, you worded them in an ambiguous way that makes their truth value unclear, and my guess for the reason you worded them that way is you want something particular to happen: you want more people to have a COVID vaccinated. To be clear I want that too. But my point is that if you are having a conversation because you want a certain thing to happen, instead of philosiphizing purely for the fun of trying to find truth, your "facts" will inevitably be colored in this way. Many sentences are neither objectively true nor false because most sentences are ambiguous to some degree, and these sentences are common among those advocating for change.
I would like to add that there is no fact-opinion dichotomy, which is what annoys me so much about people who dub themselves as "fact-checkers". There are several types of truths; objective truths are only one of the many. A different example is an utilitarian truth, which is something like evolution. And another thing is that people cross the "what is" to "what ought" line way too often. Even trained professionals and intelligent people
Not to be confused with tooth decay, a rare condition often brought on by smoking methamphetamine. I wouldn’t know Personally
I definitely don't know personally. Most certainly no lies here.
Rand is also heavily funded(more than half) by the US military and NSA, DHS, as well as defense contractors for the US military. alongside other think tanks such as Center for a New American Security (CNAS), Atlantic Council, New America Foundation, German Marshall Fund of the United States, CSIS, Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, Stimson Center, etc.
although they have a hand in everything so it's not like you can easily find any information not tainted by someone who can profit off one agenda or another.
it's also a common practice now to circlejerk confirmation bias into "fact" by media corporations. CNN quotes Reuters said BBC claims CNN said is how evidentless garbage becomes news "fact".
isnt that because they do research and development of the military? It would make sense for them to be funded by defense contractors and the military then
@@Fr00stee it is but the point is they may not be entirely impartial, so it’s still better to have multiple sources of verifiable facts if/when possible and not blind faith believe the first thing you hear you agree with as the video states.
On a philosophical level, I’ve always thought of “truth” as an experience or understanding that many/most people can arrive at independently, which is then strained through a filter of logical reasoning to catch illusions.
But that requires people to be motivated to find objective truth in the first place, rather than a comfortable narrative.
Though the narratives people choose tell their own kind of truth.
I guess it depends on your level of zoom. If you look deeply at scientific knowledge you see things like p-hacking, publication bias, and a terrifying lack of confirmatory experiments. But if you zoom out far enough you can say Science Works, Bitches! and be right.
Elephants in the dark indeed.
Understanding seems largely unrelated to me. Take the quadratic formula for example. I know it. I know how to use it. I can see that it works. But I don't understand it. I have no idea how it is derived, no knoledge of how it came into existence, when it came into existance and why.
I think it's more accurate to say that science works more often than the alternatives. Most published science is wrong, but we'd be worse off without it.
That's what ciantifct studies are, diferent people getting to a conclusion
Then easy to make mistakes can lead you into thinking you have found something true. Forget about finding truth, search for objective knowledge by eliminating mistakes through criticism and guessing new explanations. We don't need infallibility to make progress.
i disagree, i dont think you can always reach the same conclusions independently, as much as logic is a filter, we also have another one, perception, in an infinite number of facts it is necessary to operate in the world, side effect is we can disagree on everything.
It is not much of a problem if we agree that we can in fact disagree but get along. But the trouble is , we lost the second part, the "checks and balances" mechanism of society. So we are only left with infinite number of facts to choose and difering conclusions and no doubt the advent of social media agitated this result by rewarding people most spiteful and who can come up with the worst insults rather than who can come up with best ways to mitigate differencecs
"People believe anyone who has a verified check mark"
- Elon Bezos
So true besty
So true eight
Facts
lmao elon bezos
Elongated muskrat
I'm a viewer from the Philippines, and this came in just the right time for me. I've just been thinking about facts/fraud, the relationship between us and institutions, and how we consume information. Thank you for posting this video!
i love how analogous this all is to nutrition, from the title all the way through to the end of the video
Can I call people fat heads now?
I think part of the problem of truth decay was that it was always there but people had less access to misinformation
We’re told that certain sources are “not biased and non partisan” but that’s completely impossible, there will always be some form of bias that just cannot be accounted for
People can’t always put a finger on it but know that our government and corporate institutions aren’t always honest and don’t always have our best interests in mind
The lack of clarity and media illiteracy puts a lot of people in a situation where they’re more susceptible to conspiracy theories and even worse when said theories are dangerously racist and antisemitic in nature
I take it here you mean "anything that goes against the official story of those in power" when you say "misinformation."
Here's the problem. I don't trust anyone to tell me what is "misinformation." And why should I?
This is true, but it also gives the sources that do have more information far more powerful. The internet might allow conspiracy theories to spread like wildfire, but it also allows far more people and organisations to check facts and present their own experiences to determine the truth.
@@PvblivsAelivs Maybe they are an expert in the field and can spot inconsistencies that you just don't know about. Maybe they produced the information themselves, but have since come to a different conclusion. Maybe they contributed to the misinformation and later, when they viewed the final product, they feel that their views were misrepresented.
If you never trust anyone but yourself, you can only learn from your own mistakes. Sometimes that feedback process is longer than a human lifespan, so you never learn where you were wrong. There are many reasons to believe people, and even some reasons good enough to actually justify it.
@@SocialDownclimber
And maybe they are flat-out lying to me, whether they are "experts" or not. I am not talking about not listening to anyone. I am talking about not trusting anyone to run a "Ministry of Truth."
@@PvblivsAelivs It is very tempting to have a "ministry of truth", but then again, knowledge equals power and most people use it to their advantage and make their own subjective truth, ESPECIALLY a ministry of truth, who knows all, but only goes for whatever benefits them the most. They don't even need to lie, they can indeed be telling the truth, but not the whole truth.
I think what's happening (and this is solely from my own observations over my life) is that more intense, political discussions have become democratized, i.e. spread out to more people. When I was younger, it seemed like nobody really cared about politics. I did, but I was weird for it. People mostly just felt the way they felt and didn't care to argue about it. This definitely had downsides, possibly more downsides, but it was what we were used to.
Now, with everything being so interconnected and controversy generating clicks, discussion of controversial topics has spread out to nearly everyone, but the level of knowledge about any given topic in the general population has remained mostly stagnant. We're all expected to form an opinion about things we don't know about, don't personally affect us, and don't even necessarily interest us. The music plays and everyone must dance.
Decentralization of the internet (i.e. breaking the effective monopolises of sites like Twitter, RUclips, etc.) would help take things back to how it used to be
I don't find it clear how the decenteralization of the web would make the discourse on politics less polarizing. Can you elaborate on that?
@@mayabartolabac I think that what OP points out is indeed a correlation, but that doesn't necessarily mean one caused the other. I believe both of these trends share the same external influencing factors. That is, the thing that monopolized the internet is the same thing that caused the political discourse to be so polarized nowadays
Decentralization don't matter if there's no freedom of speech. And yes, that includes the right to say things that others find offensive, and tell outright lies.
Freedom of speech and critical thinking is the recipe for success, IMO.
I remember when Yahoo News had a comment section. It was vibrant.
@@acctsys Sure it does. Decentralization makes restrictions on speech more difficult, if not impossible, to enforce through convenient means. Freedom of speech just means you can't be taken to court for running your mouth, but if you can't exercise that right without getting banned from the only viable platform, it doesn't make a difference. If there are many, equally viable platforms, being banned from one makes less of an impact.
Just remember: everyone has an agenda. That agenda may or may not be harmful, and what's harmful is dependent upon your beliefs.
Even if someone is sharing facts with you, they likely have a reason unless they're just really into learning new things (and they might be). Why are they so into learning though? Are they trying to collect all information and become omniscient or something?
Okay that last part was a joke obviously, but you should rarely if ever let your guard down on taking in information especially if it's on a topic you don't know well.
I may or may not be trying to become omniscient
That's what media literacy is about. To teach you the difference between information and propaganda. You are assuming that everything and everyone is out to get you somehow, and make little distinction between a lie and a mistake.
I highly recommend you the Media Literacy lessons in the Crash Course RUclips channel, and the courses given by the Poynter Institute. If you don't want to go so deep, factchecking sites like Snopes, or the ones run by big newspapers do a good job analysing claim by claim.
And, please don't start with "media literacy courses and factcheckers have an agenda." The mindset of '"they" are all lying to me, "they" are all against me' puts you right in the tinfoil hat way of living.
Personally I like learning because I have a generally difficult time understanding the world around me in the same way as your average neurotypical person. I want go into things as prepared as possible so I have the best experience possible (which I believe is common goal for most). There are also things that I genuinely find interesting because they excited me or make me happy.
On another topic, checking multiple sources for something can be helpful to a degree (though you should always remember that at a certain point you’re wasting time more than being through, and this point will be different depending on the complexity of what you’re looking for). If I wanted to find a certain sign in American Sign Language, for example, ASL is varied enough place to place that checking multiple sources would be helpful.
Sounds like some apathetic Zoomer shit.
Not everyone is evil. Find a Millennial, you'll be far less willing to burn the world down out of spite.
It seems to me that the shift to more opinion occured as a bit of a feedback loop. The fact-based stuff gets ignored without the anecdotes. But, at the same time, the anecdotes make the facts seem more like opinion.
For example, the health guidelines during the current pandemic were ignored over the emotional "doctor" or "victim" who denied the facts. You'd get the occasional (coincidental) horror story or an untested treatment that seemed to work.
So the way to combat this became to show the anecdotes of those who really were suffering, of the people who were in denial, etc.
Based on this, I would argue that some people value fact-based information more than others. We all can fall prey to the bias in the video, but some people have decided that even the fact based information is no more than opinion.
I feel guilty for reading the title as Truth Daddy in that tone
We need Truth Daddy instead of truth decay!
The light of truth must be carried on and must never fall, guiding us to the brighter future!
The best sources are the ones that acknowledge there own shortcomings
My hands were hovering over the comments just before the record scratch
Interesting
I wonder if this was a cheeky way of admitting you guys are funded by the Rand Corporation
Thank you though because that was jarring enough for me to start checking who funds what I watch better
No, I'm pretty sure they would have stated that openly regardless since it would still be sponsored content. It's not the most or least worrying partnership but I'll give them a fee videos before I make a judgment.
Always follow the money, and you will find who rules over you.
Your assertion that lack of facts and data in modern news was causing polarization already had me skeptical. Given the premise that we're getting less facts in news i doubt it's causal and think it's more likely a symptom.
A reminder that cynicism to the point where you believe everyone is lying equally, means you regard outright lies and near-propaganda to the same degree as generally reliable institutions.
To groups that profit off this, this can still be a win - you may not have to believe them, just disregard facts inconvenient to them.
A certain someone did regard this as "flooding the zone with shit"
Just because news is from an institution,, doesn't make it reliable. Generally, an institution wants to keep running and individuals want to use/produce for an institution for their own ends. Everyone has an agenda after all, and that agenda can align or diverge.
Looking into funding and incentives (rather than making conspiracy theories) is a pretty good way to make sense of decisions made by organizations in general.
You touched imho the biggest problem humanity is facing. Cause every issue is solved by facts, not opinions. Reducing our capacity to think rationally is the key to slow down human progress.
I had this feeling for a while and this video puts a name to it. Gonna bookmark this!
I can only share my own personal experience and im a Swede, i was born 1980 back then Sweden was still trying to make socialism work but our politicians were also rather honest so they saw the problems, but that is not a part of this perspective. We had two tv channels both of them state sponsored growing up i thought this was normal and that the news were pretty objective but i lacked the critical thinking skills when i was young. Sweden changed in the 90s and started practicing capitalism again to pay for our welfare and we got more tv channels to watch even from other countries.
Looking back on the tv channels we had in the 80s it was nothing but state propaganda, a prime example would be when Sweden decided to go nuclear it was proclaimed by our Prime Minister Olof Palme on the tv channels we had. Instantly the tv channels said that nuclear power is the best, the safest, the cleanest source of electricity, now i am personally pro-nuclear. But if you look at the media here in Sweden at the time it was nothing but how good nuclear power was and they brushed away all the problems with nuclear power like they never existed in the first place.
This is why i dont trust media anymore, neither left wing nor right wing media mind you because all they do is spin a narrative that suits their own opinion today, and people drink it up like its the most delicious cool aid. Regardless of what you think about Kyle Rittenhouse yourself, look at the reporting by the left wing media and the right wing media and you will clearly see they are not reporting the same story at all even though both sides had access to the same information.
On the right he was almost reported as a hero, and on the left as a villain that took an AR15 to protest with the aim to kill protestors. Neither of these two stories are true in any way. He was a naive kid that wanted to be playing the part of a hero "this fearless young teen came to the protest to help defend a private car-lot from destruction and he is also a trained paramedic that helped anyone with injuries" that was probably his idea behind it all, but reality is far too messy with so many differing opinions about things so what you plan to have happened often isnt what happens.
Both the left and the right considers the reporting from the other side as fake news and both are correct in that assumption. The war we are seeing today with Elon Musk buying twitter is from the left misinformation and angry racists on twitter, the "war" is between which side should be allowed to control what is misinformation. Twitter was very left wing and they did ban a lot of right wingers so the left sees it as a fair and open and objective place for information, the right doesnt.
And both sides understands that those who controls information controls elections by using descriptive emotionally charged language to sway the peoples perception one way or the other and both are correct here again. It is not about misinformation at all it is about which side controls the information because both sides comes with their own misinformation.
I am center right politically today, i was a radical leftwinger when i was young, in my twenties center left and today im 42 and center right.
Spot on! (In my objectively subjective opinion)
I started banning any website from my discover feed that would show headlines that have emotion in it, a quote, a leading question or anything like that. Before I knew it google was struggling to put anything in front pf me, apart from the occasional nature article and some seriously random ads. Both google and journalism are broken.
One thing I keep seeing is that A LOT of studies I come across are focusing on Americans.
Love the idea of "truth decay," and the nice description and introduction you gave it. Thank you!
We are drowning in information, while starving for knowledge.
Why am I just now seeing this video... 9 months later?! I constantly study misinformation and echo chambers hoping to find and support new efforts that may mitigate what I consider society's greatest existential threat (given its role in literally every other danger). I watch and enjoy MinuteEarth regularly. But somehow, the algorithm didn't think I'd be interested in seeing or sharing this quick video or its many relevant links?! I'm familiar with some of the links, but as important as this is (to me if not modern society) all this should be promoted far, far better than this.
I really appreciate the self-reflective and humble tone and viewpoint of this video. 'Are we falling prey to the very problems we are pointing out? Can you trust us? Do we have an ulterior motive, or do our funders?'
Excellent way to do both a 'worked example' of checking for reliability, and to admit the limitations of your own chosen format.
Top tier.
I've only seen Kurzgesagt do something similar.
As I was reading your comment I was thinking of the KurtzGesagt video only to see you mention it.
That “not in this for sponsors to write the video for us” mentality made me think of Extra Credits. Channel I liked a long time ago that felt like they were selling the platform to different writers when certain videos popped up. As much at those were “my story” pieces it had me suspecting the integrity of the channel a few times.
As someone who reads academic papers for the job I have now, I definitely find myself trusting the sources a lot more then I do any news source, even the highly trusted sources like the AP. Having a bunch of sources all cited properly and having it be completely about the facts and logic of the hypothesis at hand make it almost undeniable that what they are saying is true. Vs in the news when they have so much opinion, and biases it makes even simple facts seem unreasonable due to the sheer amount of opinion.
Viewing news media as historically trustworthy and fact-based is very inaccurate. The ability to verify facts has massively increased over the last two centuries. The only difference between now and then is the interconnectivity of sources and that any individual's opinions are publishable.
Was gonna ask about the 1/3 Americans thinking news is less reliable now. The record scratch was perfect. Well done.
Wait, so your source for the claims made at the start of your video is an organization that paid for you to make this video? That was then allowed editorial control over the contents of this video?
Even if the sponsors have sources on their own site, you can see why that might be a little problematic, right?
It's not problematic at all. Thing is, "people that believe [x] motivated you to say [x]" is not actually a problem. It's just an indication that you should look a little deeper to find out why those "people" believe [x] in the first place. For instance, if NASA sponsored a video about planetary formation, and was allowed to suggest changes, that wouldn't tell you *anything* about how accurate the information in the video is. Same here. "Who said it" doesn't have any impact on "is it true?"
@@IceMetalPunk NASA doesn't need to pay people to say that planets exist because it's actually true, this video is ideological not factual, your point is moot
@@Alex-nl5cy "This video is ideological, not factual." It's talking about observable and measurable human behaviors. How is that not factual?
@@Alex-nl5cy NASA doesn't need to tell people how planetary formation works but does have public outreach programs that educate general audiences about space travel, planetary and solar system formation, and all kinds of other topics. Why? It's good press, increases general knowledge, and generates further interest in space travel and research.
More for the other commenter than you but, who said it may not have any direct affect on the truth of something itself but information, true or not, isn't spread in a vacuum. Information is usually spread with the idea that some kind of action will be pursued as a result of increased knowledge. It is also possible to try to direct people towards questionable ends without ever stating anything untrue. Arguably the entire purpose of think tanks, like the RAND foundation, is to do just that.
I don't want to sound alarmist here though, Minute Earth has been fine for many years and, while I've found the occasional video off in its thesis, I'm not saying that they are becoming a mouthpiece for Defense agency propaganda. I would not find it questionable for the NHS to suggest washing your hands, wearing a mask, and even getting vaccinated are good methods to protect yourself and those around you from diseases since the abundance of evidence suggests these are all true. I wouldn't find it untrustworthy if the bill and melinda gates foundation helped fund a video saying just that since the information is still true and leads to an end that is, according to all available evidence, good. If a similar video suggested that international patent holders maintaining their rights to profit from the vaccines while other countries could not produce enough to protect civilians, then the partnership has become very questionable, even if the information can still include accurate safety data and new medical research funding data, since the action encourages something that is largely unproductive and likely outright harmful.
@@IceMetalPunk It's problematic because the video starts out AS IF it was the ideas and conclusions of the video makers, and then partway through we find out actually no, it was just saying what some other company told them to say.
Like imagine if you spend 10 minutes watching a review of a game like Raid Shadow Legends, reviewer seems really into it... and then at the end of the video you find out it was sponsored by Raid Shadow Legends. The game itself might still be great, the review might be accurate and true, but the fact of the sponsorship itseld introduces bias, and thus suspicion. And the fact it was hidden until the end means the viewer had no chance to contextualize the rest of the video either.
If this video had *started out* saying "hey, this company who sponsored us said this", I'd still listen, but I'd have the context to know I might be hearing a paid-for, biased view.
Is RAND not basically an extension of US Military policies and strategies?
Yes.
Yes it is. And minute earth dishonor themself by taking their money.
The suggestion that they are somehow just a few experts with a PhD is really disgusting, and anyone with a cursory glance would see that.
I hope they were paid well because credibility is like glass, once broken is cannot be repaired.
It is...
I LOVE IT!! It's so true!
TRUTH MATTER!! Always
TLDR of Rand Institute: "It's a big problem that dummies who don't agree with us keep not wanting to vote away their rights! Don't they understand how smart we are compared to them???".
It’s annoying because in this good message of the video about the idea of factual information getting lost, they got sponsored by the Rand institute. Instantly makes me question the motivation.
But maybe that’s the point? That in this dissection of their video they bring up a controversial think tank. You had the information provided to you, now think whether it’s good information or not with the knowledge of who “says” it. They’ll never talk bad about a sponsor even to explain that hypothetical test, so we will never know whether that was intentional.
been with you original henry's channel for 11 years, the world has become more complicated despite my specialty training(s)
the syllabus has been never-ending, it's disheartening, stressful due to cognitive overload and yet immeasurably curiosity-evoking.
i'm glad y'all have been here since before that fateful day CERN announced the 2012 discovery, i vaguely remember watching along your itunes podcasts maybe in 2010? 2011?
This is one of your best, and that's telling something! A bit less passionate (which I think is good) than that excellent disheartening Derek's video...
(BTW, I never viewed RAND as a truly non-partisan institution; sponsoring this video considerably improved my impression (too little hard information for actual opinion) on them. I will certainly follow some of your links. )
(BTW2 - I already watched most of YT videos you reference, and those are among my favorite creators. Should I feel proud/smug, or do we just live in the same bubble? Well, if it is a bubble, it seems to be pretty big...)
damn you got here quick
bro how did you comment, the video was literally uploaded seconds ago
@@rpgruli Patreons.
What video of Derek are you talking about ? :)
@@rpgruli Don't you stingy folks know that Patreon patrons (and YT members) get early access to the videos and the main perk?
As Ricky Gervais said: "You can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts. People today believe that their opinion is worth more than facts, which it is not."
I learned that “facts” are not facts many years ago. When working on the layout of an annual report in the 1980s the numbers kept changing. I asked why, since the numbers were from the previous year. I was told numbers are moved from column to column depending upon where the company wanted them placed. Trust me, there is your truth, my truth and THE truth.
Curious as to how you used RAND's self-published description to portray them, without any of your own observations or qualifiers. Do you trust them because they are an 'established institution' in this society?
Whether you do or not... it's not usually wise to take someone's own advertising as a wholly-accurate portrayal.
I wrote this in another comment but maybe that was the point. You had this information provided, you got told who the sponsor is (incredibly controversial think tank), now chew on it and think whether it’s good information.
i have always used these kinds of videos to get a "tip of the iceberg" feel for something to test the waters and see if i would want to delve deeper into it.
Let's talk about how less than 1% of the coverage on a school shooting is about motives or prevention by improving society.
To my fellow science students:
Listen to this!!
My technique for dealing with this kind of thing is to take everything as an opinion. Especially given how easy it is to manipulate facts and research to fit a false narrative, I think it's important not to take things as truth unquestioningly, no matter how much you trust the person saying them, because everyone's wrong sometimes. Like 'climate change is real' might be a fact, but it's only important in how it supports the opinion that, 'we should be working to stop climate change'. Really just about everything we consume is and was opinion, sometimes wrapped in facts to make it appear more true. It's important to understand that we are listening to ideas that we can choose to accept and reject, and as we learn facts along the way we can start to sort them out as we build our worldview. There's no harm in hearing new ideas, but there is harm in believing ideas that contradict evidence.
We can't agree on the facts because a lot of what we think of as facts are really just ideas in disguise, usually with at least some evidence pointing either way. In science, there's always room to accept new ideas over accepted ones, even when they become considered fact. Because no matter how consistent an idea is, it's still just an idea, and something contradicting it could make a new idea work better. It's important that you understand the facts, but also that you're exposed to those ideas, because otherwise a few ideas start to seem like fact, and then evidence against them can be safely ignored because "you can't argue with facts". You can and you should argue with "facts", because that's literally what science is. The process of taking an idea that may or may not be consistent, and, in a way, arguing with it through analysis and experiments to decide if it should still be considered a fact. But nothing isn't worth reconsidering just because it seems so obvious as to be fact. Especially if people are out there disagreeing with you. See what they actually have to say, and then consider if their ideas make sense. If they don't, figure out why.
And just because you can't find a contradiction in a set of ideas you disagree with doesn't mean it's true either, just that maybe you should consider it a little more. And consider if/how they contradict your beliefs and what makes you think those ideas are better. Also something being "common sense", or "just obvious", really isn't reason to believe it. Usually it means that it's very closely linked with facts, like how "don't put your hand in a fire" is common sense because it's clear that what is likely to happen is you will be burned which is not a desirable outcome. But sometimes I think things can be shared around and become part of this body of common sense without anything actually supporting it, or they can remain in common sense even as science disproves them. Especially if you find yourself in an echo chamber, which can make things appear unquestionably true just because everyone around you believes them.
This comment is also an opinion that could be wrong. You have to decide for yourself whether it makes sense, I don't have all the answers either.
The thinking “it’s what I was always taught so it must be true” is so prevalent and simultaneously so problematic. I also feel like it’s something that people don’t often realize until they’re so set in their personal truths, whether they’re actually true or not, that they don’t want to believe they’re wrong.
As an extreme example, let’s imagine a hypothetical child is brought up being told by everyone around them that people with mental disorders are fundamentally terrible and shouldn’t be considered as equal to people who do not have mental disorders. Then, when the hypothetical child becomes an adult, suddenly they’re told by the new people they interact with that people with mental disorders are just people like everyone else, just with a few differences. It might be difficult for them to internalize this new information because it’s completely foreign to them.
Thinking about everyday life, people do less extreme versions of this all the time. In politics, sports, conversation, and any part of everyday life, there are things that people just accept without thinking, and if something directly challenges their view, they have a decision to make. They can decide that the opposite party is wrong without much consideration, or they can stop and think about for a moment to consider why that person might be thinking that way, and to consider how their own beliefs compare.
Obviously, this isn’t black and white, the world is complicated after all, and some things are far simpler to gain an understanding of than others. But we should stop and consider what other people believe and why they believe it before we decide they’re not worth our time.
The basic point is that we should always be careful with what we think we know and be accepting towards new perspectives, even if we don’t end up agreeing in the end. Nothing can stay static forever, and that includes individuals like me and you.
I hope that you have a good day, or that you can find something good about your day. I’m just a random person on the internet trying to say what she thinks.
Dumbest and most pretentious comment I’ve seen in a while
I like your format, but if you ever want to give more than just an appetizer and do a deep dive video, I'll be here for that, too.
I found a problem beeing, that in televised discussions, every opinion gets one representative. For example one scientist and one representative of some company. This leads to an overrepresentation of more radical opinions as it is presented as "choose between two equally valid points" although only one is backed by facts
The bane of my existence is news articles on reports that dont actually include the link to the report.
I very rarely comment on videos but lets see how this goes. I watch / listen to a lot of informational videos on youtube and I really enjoy them. I try to cross reference info and understand stuff in general. I don't watch the minute ___ channels that often because I don't think these go deep enough. The point has to get across way too quickly and without the ability to get into the nuance. One of the first videos to cause me to not be as fond of this channel was "How to Build a Better City" its a 2.5 min video that basically says everyone should be moving into cities. While there isn't anything factually wrong with the video the problem is it tries to sell the idea that everyone should live in cities without thinking about why people wouldn't want to do that. There are tons of ways to reduce resource usage but it has a very limited scope. The problem with that video existing is due to its limited scope, purpose and content I think it detracted (at least for me) from the quality of the channel. It caused me to think this channel was less about providing info and more about selling their view. That video was from 2014 so its been a while but that is the type of content that may cause people to think this channel is less credible or more biased towards a specific way of thinking.
Any source will have a bias towards a certain way of thinking. Unless you want to do a diploma on the topic, in which case you can cover all points of views by all authors. Did you consider the fact that maybe you were biased towards the sprawl-loving way of thinking and minute earth got it right?
The video you are referencing made very quantitative claims. Refute them if you can, but don't call claims you personally disagree with as biased or "not providing info". FYI, living in suburbia and driving a 1 ton vehicle 30 km to the city and back everyday is not going to be offset by "buying organic" or whatever.
@@ChasmChaos you are making a lot of assumptions against me. This comment doesn't seem to be made in good faith. Obviously all things have biases. I don't think the length of the videos is in favor of reducing the spread of misinformation and if the length must remain this short, as the name of the channels suggest, then topics should be less focused on persuasion towards a narrative and more focused on things that are not alienating any group.
@@Drewface14 it's alienating for a group because they refuse to see reason. The reasons of why sprawl is bad is ironclad. I don't see you come up with a rebuttal, other than emotional arguments.
@@ChasmChaos Hypothetically lets say there is a world wide pandemic. Is it safer to be in a city or away from a city? Also if you work from home does that contribute to how much someone drives? Are people who grow food supposed to not have any of the privileges of people who live in the city? Do farmers have to pay to get all their utilities built, in order to get power / water / internet? What if people have phobias about being around other people? What if people want privacy? What if people could generate their own power and grew most of their own food? Would these be worth thinking / talking about?
I think its important for people to be challenging their beliefs and trying to critically think about whether they should change them. Your short responses that suggest I don't think as deeply or critically as you, and I must base my decisions on an inferior method, are not a good way to converse, which could lead to change. I don't mind thinking about what is the best way forward for humanity, but there is a lot to think about. I am not sure if building cities with higher density is the best way to reduce global climate change. I know it is likely to contribute in a positive way, but that doesn't make it the "best" way to do it. Another huge incentive to living away from cities is the cost, it is significantly less expensive to live in a rural area as apposed to a urban area (I am not sure if that is universally true in the world but from my experience it is).
All of this is specifically talking about urban vs rural which is not the point of the video in question but instead the video focuses on urban sprawl and I do understand that. However, I think that there is already a large divide between rural people and urban people. Getting rid of suburbia could make that divide even more pronounced. Also figuring out exactly where that divide should be and who goes into what category is not a easy thing to do. I do not think that suggesting the "simple" answers, such as the video did, is a good way to go about civil discourse that actually will promote change.
Very importantly even if I did agree with the solutions proposed in the video, my point is actually that, I don't think that is the way to promote conversations positive change. I put this comment, on this video, because I think it is important to think about what causes misinformation to spread. The vast majority of people do not read sources after watching a video. I think it is good that some people do, but I think one reason videos are made is to make information easier to digest. Otherwise, why would the video be made if the sources are already available? I think a contributing factor to misinformation spread is people do care about topics and they like to find videos that support their views. The less nuance in the video that easier it specifically targets a very specific demographic; however if nuance and a taste of complexity can be introduced into the video it can get the viewer to critically think about the topic. Talking about both sides of an issue and agreeing with different aspects of each side means that more civil discourse is promoted and this can help cause people to critically think and I hope / think this could contribute to less misinformation spread.
@@Drewface14 why are you talking about urban vs rural? The video in question was about suburbia, which has the worst parts of both.
Do suburbia folks work as farmers? No, they are traffic that clogs up the streets of the city every time. They are tourists in the city that results in the city being dead after 5 PM, and no soul of the city. They cause the city to go broke as it tries to service these far flung, low density suburbs.
All of your whataboutism was targeted at emotional appeals. A lot of socially awkward people manage to live just fine in the city. The pandemic is something that happened in 2020, 30 years after the suburbia boom so please don't use that as an excuse for the genius of urban planning that resulted in suburbia.
There is no way for a video in 2014 to talk about the pandemic that happened in 2020. What are you playing at?
There are a lot of social problems with suburbia as well. Your kids are under house arrest. You need multiple cars for basic day-to-day activities like getting groceries. Suburbia leads to the housing crisis because there aren't enough houses, especially for people who are single, or are without kids, or whose kids have moved out and started their own family.
Have you done an actual study of your own ideas? There is a lot of literature published about the points I mentioned. You keep comparing suburbia against the strawman of "cramped city living" but both extremes are bad and, in fact, directly cause each other. I'm guessing you are American. Why is it that Americans go to holiday in beautiful European cities like Amsterdam, London, and Paris and then come back and don't recognize the atrocity that is the American city and American suburb?
Imagine describing RAND as nonpartisan. 🤣
The have a pro military industrial complex agenda, but I doubt they care who is in power toward that end.
I had a conversation yesterday with a friend at University, we where discussing the Australian election and the many issues we both have regarding the candidates, parties, and the health of our democracy and media. My friend was arguing that facts should be avoided during a debate, citing how Trump 'was so successful' at targeting peoples emotions, rather than discuss facts and citing statistics. He believes that in order to successfully win public opinion, it's one's appearance, confidence, and public speaking abilities that matter most. Unfortunately, I believe his point is somewhat valid, as the media politicians really on are mostly interested in headlines that are sweet, rather than substantive, as this video discussed. I believe there is a strong correlation between media and the degradation of truth and logic, as advertisers trickle so much money into the pockets of sweet viral content. How can we can reel in the media, and in turn out politicians, without infringing on the rights of individuals and companies?
Politics is marketing with the stakes turned up to 11. People for the most part do not want to know the truth, they want to feel their truth is being validated because our wealth and relatively safety in most developed countries have removed most of the real threats to out lives. It is why economic issues are at the forefront of politics but unfortunately people don't really want to have to understand economic complexity in order to make the simple decision of who to vote for.
Narrative beats facts unless the facts put our lives in a threatened state and even then it has to be imminent. How do we real in the narrative power of the media and the interests of the people who control it? No one yet has done it successfully so no one really has an answer. I am not sure it is even a solvable problem by democratisation may help.
You think Trump doesn't have any facts on his side, that your side is somehow almost perfect? Have you tried to listen rather than debate?
@@the11382 Childish remarks.
How do you make that "process audio" that you mentioned at 1:46 ? That voice change really caught me off guard, I thought that was your real voice
Never trust a corporation, nor the people who work for them.
I mean... that's bias right there. Corporations, despite legal definitions, are not hive minds or uniform entities. They are made up of individual people, each with their own thoughts, ideas, beliefs, motivations, and behaviors. To immediately dismiss anything anyone says because they "work for a corporation" is to intentionally blind yourself to the ideas of millions of people, without even checking to see if those ideas have merit first.
TL;DR watch out for fake news
TL;DR don't rely only on bite-sized summaries
TL;DR: Make sure you understand what "fake news" means, *then* watch out for it.
I had a look at RAND and read a few articles and the lack of woke or populist topics and opinions is VERY refreshing. Will follow it for a few days and see how good it stays.
Truth in the age of the internet is the ability to search out the news that you *want* to hear, rather than the news you *need* to hear.
Did you mean to switch "need" and "want"? 🤔
@@WanderTheNomad Not one bit.
@@DeathlyTired oh so you were talking about what *is* and not what *should be*
your truth, my truth and the actual truth. we must explore all and come to an agreement. except today it's my truth or censorship
Why do we need to be in agreement?
Nope, we don't need to come to an agreement. The only one of those three things that matters is the actual truth, backed up by objective and empirical evidence. Everything else is opinion or misinformation, no matter *who* believes it.
For more I recommend the Crash Course: Navigating Digital Information. This is what I think exactly reflects the "what if we had more than a 5 minute in this video". One of the best parts of that course aside of the fact that it's free is that it gives concrete examples of what kind of sources are good and what kind are bad.
I like sinking my tooth into truth
True decay not just happen in United Stage, it's also happen in my own country when people reject the law, saying it isn't law when they don't even search for that law itself.
Thanks a lot for not making this about climate change again.
You using twitter's blue checkmark as a symbol of truth is laughable.
Extraordinary, that's why I always love to watch your videos for its reliability and for the direction you give people
Even if there isn’t a source, you can also judge the accuracy of a claim through its logical consistency, though of course that’s no substitute for real world facts.
Sponsored by RAND. HA! I’m out.
Sources are just other people saying something. They are only as good as how right they are. When you have a lot of bad sources, you don't know who to trust, therefore: the topic on this video. Sources are also very time consuming to read, and even more to analyze. If the system of good information was intact, people wouldn't distrust it so much: From scientist to news to dad on the couch.
I'm a fan of Sabine Hossenfelder, purchased her book Lost In Math, and was pleased you listed her video Flat Earth "Science,"-- Wrong, but not Stupid, one that improved my perspective on believers.
I feel horrified because I didn't feel alerted or offended by the topic; I know that I'm used to brain sugar, yet I don't feel the magnitude of it.
Maybe we don't really recognize our situation because the Truth Decay was so gradual...
Why 'brag' about linking sources if you can't do them properly. Not a single date is given for publication as well as access. I shouldn't have to check every source just to find if it's recent or outdated.
Hi Johan! In all our other videos, we use a citation style that includes publication date. In this case, we prioritized working links and clear titles in an effort to make it easier for more of our audience to access the materials.
Why are you hiding so many comments?
RUclips does most of the hiding automatically with no input from the creator. something in yours or someone else's comment probably had a flagged word that just shadow banned the comment most immediately. unfortunately this has being on for months if not over a year by now
@@AuroraAce. all I Said was that Rand was inpart funded by the US government and the comment was hid, (probably this one too)
youtube has a system set up to prevent bots from spamming the comment section, usually they all use a specific keyword so any comment that has that keyword gets thrown out by the filter. However even this system doesn't really work that well anymore
@@AuroraAce. so I just replied and it was hid when I signed out so here it is
R&ND 1S FUN3D B.Y U$ G0V
@@AuroraAce. without that statement jumbled up like that it gets auto censored. That's a little unsettling
Years ago I read a book called "How to watch television news" and it pointed out that every new source has an owner who wants their ideology presented. It also described why, even if the new station is trying to provide good information, they are limited by time because they put so many short clips between each commercial break that there is no time for any depth to the story.
Network news used to at least try to appear "fair & balanced" , but more and more, they have instead been catering to a "target audience". If I want to "...get my fair share of the views" today, I go to a variety of sources. It takes time and effort to be well informed and most ppl just don't have the time I spend on it.( I'm retired)
SponsorBlock edits made in this video were a work of art. Whoever you are, kudos.
let me get this sorted,
your sources are other youtubers (some of which are experts), netflix, journalists and so on.
in a video where you told us to get sources from experts and scientific papers.
a case of who watches the watchmen here, where do sources get their sources it just turns into a chain that kinda defeats the whole point
I think these were more their "resources" (and labeled as such) - just like this video is a educational resource in thinking about the topic (but not a main source in itself).
They even mentioned in the video itself their main facts come directly from rand as a source.
(But I do agree they could perhaps have directly pointed at specific Rand sources for specific claims, maybe either in the bio or in a separate document, instead of broadly just saying "check out Rand")
if you are talking about how journalists write news stories then journalists talking about how they write journalism would be a good source
I watch em and can confirm they are sources
@@entropino9928 no thats not how that works
@@AustinPinheiro_uniquetexthere Nah nah I second the sources, trust me bro
I half expected this video to be an overly politicized take on how dangerous Elon's buying of twitter is and I must say I'm pleasantly surprised that it wasn't, kudos for that.
Thank you for posting this for the younger audience you reach❣️❣️
Being a skeptic is the only solution.
LOL rand corporation is a right wing funded imperialist think tank, nice sponsor
Well they are funded by the US government so they probably take which ever wing gives them more money
Rand... Ayn... Rand... No.
It doesn't have anything to do with Ayn rand thankfully, it stands for "Research ANd Development Corporation". It is however tied with the US military and DHS so that's uhhh... not that good either.
Thank you so much for making this video! I think this is something a lot of people need to understand :) (please don’t interpret this as rude, if you do interpret it as rude I’m sorry, have a great day/night)
Well, this is by far the best thing I've watched in 3 days
RAND corp... Lmao
Thank You, and let us hope many brains enjoy this tasty treat.
That cut from animation to live filming was extremely good as a means of making the viewer stop and think. I know I did.
Very timely
This video was just served to me as an ad, but like...why months after it posted?
American news would be putting bias
Wow, I haven't watched a minute earth video in a while. Thanks for getting back to my recommend page Minute Earth team with such a useful sources list on a crucial topics like this one.
Had to pause the video to write this comment. Where the effects switched off and on again.
Now I'm really interested to know how you changed/tuned the audio from this to that. Please. Thank you!
I am glad to see it in the resources, because this is a similar topic to CGP Grey's video "This Video Will Make You Angry". Thanks for all the other links as well to veg out on!
The other big issues are the heavily opinionated news, where people can describe the same thing or event from 2 different sides based on their agenda, just like lawyers in a court. If you have good lawyers/media personal you can convince most of the planet, shift political views, change presidents and start wars.
The third big issue is blowing up something out of proportions while covering up something that's a lot more important.
Even children can do these to a certain extent so now imagine if huge teams of professionals work on these things.
Unless you have the mentality to question everything or just ignore all the media totally, you will have no chance. They will play mental tricks on you just like magicians until you believe what they say and try to convince others about it or just argue about it. But that's also great since you are already blinded by their truth and your focus is on something less important that they especially chose to force feed you. They are just taking away your attention while they are doing their dirty schemes in the background.
The two parties would prefer if the three hundred and fifty million voters only had two opinions. My goals fall outside of the Overton Window, and I vote on them even if they aren't talked about.
I feel like a lot of people get lost in the argument and the topic itself loses its priority in our minds. Even I do that. Yes, I start arguments, continue arguments, get lost in rage, say things I shouldn’t, etc. I’m not proud but I think it’s important to be honest, face the consequences and learn from it. It might not seem like it but I do genuinely learn from it and think about the other people’s perspectives. I just don’t bring it up to them because I have social anxiety.