I admire your patience! I hope many people see this and raise their awareness (again). This video should be shown in every classroom. I mean it! Thank you 🙏🙋♀️
This video is suberb!. Two years ago, I started a personal campaign of trying to correct errors in BBC, Reuters, Washington Post and New York Times errors. You will find that the feedback mechanisms of these institutions are not set up for sincere communication, especially if the critique is aimed at at special correspondent. The IT departments haven't given editors or department heads real-time responses from consumers, either inadvertantly or intentionally. Of all of these, Reuters is the best. I have had corrections, deletions of articles and simple automated responses. I eventually gave up because too many writers who call themselves journalists do not have the credentials, therefore, no real ethical awareness, to take responsibility for what they are writing. The war in Ukraine has magnified the need for international standards in journalism. The crisis in Israel has thrown the crisis into the atmosphere in a molecular level. Social media is addictive as well as a mechanism where one can get automatic feedback. This is a new world, one that few can navigate without getting into layers upon layers of the thickest mud. As an analogy of what you are saying I thought the following: I was never a great fan of Hemingway, but his writing style's simplicity was effective. I prefer to read Jane Austen stylistically but the world needs the Hemmingways. We lack both. Peter Zeihan is the now Hemingway of RUclips geopolitics. I have to have some trust in his facts because it is impossible to fact check the zilions of presumptive conclusions he makes of forgone events. There are those who try to disprove him, particlarly with China.The Hoover Institute similarly is producing thought provoking products yet not all guests are equal, as we have seen recently.
The flowers, music (baroque, spinett solo(!)) and listening to some destilled rationality enbodued in Kinzinger and Hodges did the trick. I am ready for another round. Let's go.
@ 14:25. "It is possible to give an untruthful evaluation while getting every single fact right." May I nominate you for Quote of the Year? IMO, this topic deserves its own video, with an emphasis on how to make constructive responses. What flabbergasts me is how seldom people seem to notice. I seem to run into this more and more as I get older.
Vlad's main channel ruclips.net/user/VladVexlervideos Support Vlad's work on Patreon! www.patreon.com/vladvexler Support Vlad via PayPal www.paypal.com/paypalme/vladvexler?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB 00:00 Intro 03:40 Factual vs evaluative vs normative 08:26 6 claims about Putin's invasion of Ukraine 15:02 Vlad's approach 23:22 Fact checking
I find your approach interesting. I first encountered it decades ago - yes, I'm old - in school in a book by S.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action. The understanding of a multi valued versus binary valued approach, confusing levels of abstraction, the recognition of an open or closed mind, emotive appeal versus intellectual appeal,.... My regret stems from the seemingly insurmountable obstacle that 'missionary ' work carries. I hope that even the smallest increments of progress can be effective in bringing about the necessary changes in society. Time will tell.
Dear Vlad, keep up the great work! Given the clarity of your mind and sharpness of your delivery, your disease is truly a misfortune to the world for it limits the ability to communicate it all to the public.
The rules of evidence in western legal systems are a useful parallel to show the importance of fact-checking in journalism. Without rules of evidence and a judge (i.e. a very senior lawyer) who is extremely well-trained and diligent about enforcing the rules, it's obvious that a court's decision couldn't be trusted as based on fact. Instead it could too easily be based on politics or fear or strategic interest, etc, i.e. what they have in authoritarian regimes. Hence the importance of rules of evidence, rule of law, separation of powers, etc in democracies. Same issues for journalism.
Western legal systems very often arrest people based on fabricated evidence. In other words lies. Too bad that western society is full of gullible, navel gazing idiots who have their heads buried in the sand. They are brainwashed worse than others they call religious fanatics. It's so bad that they celebrate their own exploitation as a good thing.
There's probably also room to say "that's a bold and surprising claim made without giving us anything concrete to even fact check" and calling that out separate from fact checking as such. Calling out when a claim needed to be supported and wasn't; it was just slipped in with the hope few will look critically. There's probably a way to make that factual, pointing that public controversy does exist, and that arguments addressing that aren't presented.
Good lesson. To categorize facts from flat to rich facts through more valued and normative facts is useful. Untill now technical evidence were facts and the rest more or less advanced speculations.
In journalism the lines are sometimes blurred on purpose because there’s the fear that the recipients could otherwise end up with undesired conclusions. (It’s not a conspiracy theory, there are studies about the shift of priorities in journalistic values.) Some fact-check topics are chosen to „correct“ interpretations by putting a label on them as an authority, not to investigate the facts.
Since the 1970's, here in America, journalism majors are told that their job is to change the world. Their job is to educate us unwashed with the truth as interpreted through their superior insight. To reference Vlad, they think they are Susans and we are Helens. In fact, they aren't journalists, they are propaganda pamphleteers, not that there's anything wrong with that as long as one admits it.
@@AstroGremlinAmerican Agree. And the next step then is to separate us into two kinds of Helens, those who can be teached the correct interpretations and those who are lost and don’t need to be addressed anymore.
neither Ukraine, nor Russia existed back then. there were different entities, not equal to what we call countries today. and whatever was happening 1000+ years ago could not justify military invasion.
@@catch_2022 Of course it does, as Russia has laid claims on Ukraine being nothing more than their extension. Ukraine was unique from Russia long before, hence, not Russian
Yet another great free teaching from prof. Vlad. ❤ Expected a talk on how we determine what's true, got a lecture on fact vs interpretation and I liked it.
Well the BBC have presenters that read the reports but dont process what they are saying. On itv some presenters report on things without any checks at all. The BBC presenters and the report writers need to equally accountable. Mistakes can be made but repeated mistakes are not really that forgivable. The damage to trust is the long term effect as you say. Circunstances don't change the need to report correctly.
what you are describing is generally "the" experimental scientific method - you generally report and interpret what your data tells you, nothing more nothing less, otherwise your transgress towards speculation.- but the most important thing that your interpretation MUST be falsifiable.
I cannot thank you enough, @vlad for how much I learn from you and your content. Its so valuable, especially for those who didn’t have classes or access to philosophy as a powerful tool to distill truth from the messy informational space.
Thank you for these very good and important distinctions on how to best and most effectively use the term "fact" in conversations in our very fractured and siloed world. 🌻
Thank you for bringing up this VERY important subject! On a frivolous note, in Mexico, limes are considered a variety of lemon, with some taxonomical justification, so even your refrigerator example is more fluid than one might think. The indisputable fact , though, is that the refrigerator contains citrus fruits, regardless of how naming customs might vary about them. That's the trick about facts: knowing where to draw the line between variable and fixed, or whether it's even important. One of the big debates in the USA, for instance, is whether gender is variable or fixed. The real debate should be about the inalienable rights of human beings, regardless of gender.
What you describe in the fridge example is a matter of paradigms. Sometimes we use different words to point at the same thing, and the same words to point at different things. The facts do exist, but they are obscured by differences in how we talk about them. A cooperative debate could figure out the differences. Most of our, competitive, debates make a sport out of derailing the argument of the other before this can happen. That is why debaters are often so stubborn.
The real problem in American politics is money. Our Supreme Court decided in the Citizens United decision that corporations are people and that corporations spending unlimited amounts of money to get their candidates elected is just people exercising their freedom of speech. Unless we can overturn that ruling we're fucked.
I don't think so. As obscene as the current disparity in wealth is, it's not new and probably doesn't even represent an historically unprecedented level. I've seen estimates of the Gini ratios associated with various historical regimes, and I think there have been some liberalizing regimes that were higher--18th century British Empire--and some absolutely despotic regimes--ancient Rome--that were significantly lower. I think it's more about he consolidation of cultural hegemony--and that's not the same thing as wealth--to an ideologically unproductive binary system. There are actually billionaires on both 'sides' of this system--Peter Thiel, Bill Gates. Ironically, that's a product of consensus. As societies become further and further removed from the confusing ideological uncertainty of their founding era, received certainties prevent meaningful exploration of different points of view. People stop trying to bridge acknowledged gaps in understanding, and instead assume disagreements are due to simple, willful perversity.
there has been some tracking since that ruling on PACs and donation mechanisms, which found that there are 'democratic' leaning entities that contribute enough to balance out the "baddies", for example, Unions, hedge funds working in alternative energy etc. ...sorry I can't cite the research, but that ruling does make me very uncomfortable.
Citizen's United was a Supreme Court decision, so overturning it requires a constitutional amendment based on supermajorities in congress. It would be much easier to get campaign finance reform passed, which (if filibusters are bypassed) only requires a simple majority.
@@petermelville5524 IMO? Complete waste of time trying to legislate these downstream functions. There are an infinite variety of shell games available to people intent on defeating those laws. When we get serious about this problem, we'll codify a ban on any single political party from holding a majority of legislative seats. Pursue the precedents already set in antitrust law, etc. Let the majoritarian principle play out on the level of substantive legislation rather than symbolic personal representation, as these 18th century squires envisioned. F these stupid games chasing our own tails. Cut to the chase and admit the reality that political agency is vested in political parties, not individual donors or voters. Our problem is that all disagreements are reduced to simple symbolic binary Rep/Dem oppositions, completely incapable of describing the actual contours of the substantive issues at hand. This provides absolutely no room for productive debate because no fundamentally conservative person will vote for a progressive and vice versa. What we need are multiple conservative parties and multiple progressive parties, to problematize exactly what is ideological orthodoxy, and create meaningful debate.
nice work! minimized facts-keeping it simple, fact checking traps, evaluations, interpretations, ...good stuff, I often struggle to scale between them.
Vlad thank you for your voice of reason and logic and for bringing these analytical philosophical principles as ways we can navigate the current climate of informational overload, competing emotional claims and often unconsciousness verbalisations adrift on the oceans of reactivity where facts no longer provide solid anchor. Your words are a solid anchor and it is becoming more apparant why the world needs philosophers - like desperately! Thank you for your work! ❤
Vlad, you are funny. "You cannot fact-check if Obama is some demonic traitor" That truly made me laugh. Thank you 🙂 Keep going; your video's are really worth watching.
I think the key thing here is to choose the correct words for the level of precison related to the Truth of a matter. And verifying a fact the most precise you can get it. Then you have the right to state whatever you say as 'fact'. Else there are many words and phrases like 'I think', 'I read somewhere', 'I believe', 'I assume' or 'I hope' mixed with 'maybe' to still be able to make statements WITHOUT messing up your credibility and/or the credibility of the matter you're talking about. Truth and Fact should be treated as the highest form of knowledge, the foundation of your thoughts construction, and thus as precisely verified before stating them as facts ot truths. You can always use the word 'Hypothesis' for something you cannot prove (or disprove) to be right, or what you believe to be true without being able to get the evidence (yet). It is very, very usefull to stick to those scientific rules here. It depends a lot on the field you are talking about. As a chemist the Truths and Facts on that matter are usually not (yet) absolute, as better methods and instruments give you a deeper insight into the chemical aspect over time, so every fact and truth is made to the best knowledge of its time. But key is always the will to get to the Truth, and not something else. I assume in History, Social Sciences or Philosophy this is much less focusable, as I think there is not much you can 'measure' precisely, quantify and thus crosscheck with other measurement methods. In natural sciences the usual and best approach to find facts and truths is to measure them with completely different, independent methods and check if the independently received results match. Here, you leave out your own opinion, but leave the finding of truth and facts to machinery and/or mathematics.
Interesting idea about fact check institute in crisis. But in my opinion sticking to 'flat' facts is an understandable move but it lacks engage with a modern audience. Who would look up a "fact check" without any evaluation and normative takes in modern media consumption culture? No narratives, no fun.
Brilliant, Vlad. Really. I have a maths'ish'like brain, and having a framework explained and atomised like this is very useful. I find it easy to get bogged down and unsure otherwise, and then of course emotion takes over and I get temporary bans on social media platforms for calling Russian supporters rude words 🙃
If i had one wish for public education it would be to some how break through the climate science denial perpetrated by some of the radical oil men and conservatives. I wish this could be done in a non partisan way , because accepting this fact doesnt determine the political response. And if we have urban easterners , and Quebecers with a hydro based energy system making policy for Alberta which export oil the country will break up , but the danger is worse if Albertans just think its eastern malice not based on fact. But we already have farmers and forestry workers who strongly suspect climate change is real in a way city people or oil workers dont yet suspect in the west. I am unhappy about the immense power of billionaires to corrupt opinion and promote self serving falsehoods as the tobacco industry did and some of the oil industry does.
The most impactful allies of the oil industry are the current green movements that sympathize with extreme left values. They discredit the entire enterprise of protecting the planet.
Thank you for a clear discussion on what is and what is not a fact. Opinions have a sneaky way of weading themselves into supposed facts. What you suggest is, in my opinion, a fine remedy.
Just discovered "Disorder", a good podcast with a lot of real expertise that addresses a lot of the issues Vlad discusses. I thought it might be of interest the the beautiful community: > "Gone are the days of coherent international coordination. Rather than working together to solve pressing crises, many of the world’s most powerful states are actively making those crises worse. The result? We’re living through a novel historical era: The Global Enduring Disorder."
Great stuff, food for thought. One thought is: to say you can't fact check whether something is racist..... that is something I agree with, with a little wiggle room. It's not a line I would open with in any corporate structure in the world. Not a one. Second thought is fact checks don't sell papers or drive clicks. 👍
Hey Vlad. I don’t use twitter so I’m not sure if this question has already been answered but am wondering what your thoughts are on what is happening in the Middle East specifically the horror being played out on innocent Palestinians and hospitals/homes/etc…..❤
Putin recognized that the modern state of Ukraine exists. We have to represent his arguments accurately. He sees this modern state as having been formed by remnants of pre-WW1 empires, and a part of Poland, that were glommed together. Thus, naturally, Ukraine, before the uniting-power of this war, was a divided nation - far more so than eg Czechoslovakia. After the USA became heavily involved in Maidan AND some Russian-speaking sections of the country felt threatened by right-wingers and neo-Nazi groups allied to the new govt, Putin felt a responsibility to stand up for their autonomy (still as part of the modern state of Ukraine). Once he saw Western manipulation appearing to put Russians at risk, then he started his referendum&annexation scheme. The Kremlin's and Pentagon's paranoia (the latter which has duped Vlad and many others) feed off each other. What's so tragic for Ukrainians is that if the US under Obama had agreed to seriously discuss mutual security assurances, missile placements etc amicably with Russia, the paranoia would not have held sway and Ukraine would be intact today. 🇺🇦🌍
Fact (definition) the truth about events or phenomena that can be verified and measured objectivley through recorded documentation, or mathmatical formulae (scientific method), as opposed to interpretation or subjective notion. "When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose." - Harry G Frankfurt
The problem is that the most interesting elements of any claim are not susceptible to direct objective measurement (e.g., intent). I get what Vexler is pointing to here. He's drawing out the latent political content inherent in most claims, and working out a way to negotiate them with people who disagree with you. Factual assertions are essentially claims to political power--making a decision that cannot reasonably be contested. In this video, the takeaway is that a good speaker minimizes the scope of his claims in order to encourage a respective balance of power among rivals. Okay as far as it goes. But only a negligible percentage of the audience is going to catch onto that, and only an even smaller percentage will be in a position to make any use of it. Political culture, even in democracies, never percolates up from below, but always flows down from above.
Purely on ‘neutral’ tone: I think there’s still a structural flaw in the difference in ‘fact levels’, which says neutral/minimal information language - e.g. ‘A group of people made their way to the supermarket’ - provides a ‘lower interpretation level’ than say ‘A group of people stormed to the supermarket’. But if that group was indeed moving quickly, angrily, shouting, then the first statement of lower factual information is in fact not ‘neutral’, it is *omitting* facts to provide less information that now misinforms the person who is hearing that information. Now it wins a moron’s argument, sure, ‘uh uh uh I never said they *didn’t* move in an aggressive way, that was your *assumption* that you pictured them walking normally’, but it doesn’t hold water in real life. You could of course argue that it would have been better to say ‘the group of people (approximately 46-50 when counted by eye) travelled on foot at an average speed of 4.2mph (slightly above standard walking speed of 3mph), while making x decibels of noise (usual decibels of a group being y) and shouting slogans [lists all that was heard while disclaiming they couldn’t hear all of them clearly].’ But that isn’t going to fit in a tweet let alone an opening sentence or headline. So therefore on the surface the more emotive language sentence with an interpretation, would ultimately be a higher fact level, than the one which omits information in favour of apparent ‘neutrality’ and would lead an observer to come to an incorrect image and conclusion. ‘Neutrality’/interpretive minimisation can be as much as a tone as minor interpretation - as a receiver of information you are in the same position, it is only as a giver that you have an understanding of which might be more factually pure, and therefore for all intents and purposes, it leaves everyone else but you in the world in the same position of having to distrust and sift through yourself. Which is somewhat the root problem with ‘fact checking’, as ultimately people have realised they can’t always, or even usually, trust neutral/minimal interpretation/minimal fact sounding information, as that is precisely the way people are most commonly lied to. (‘Are you joking? Biased news outlets and Twitter people lie constantly!’ - ah, but people assume to a certain extent that these *are* biased people, that they are indeed receiving biased information, they just are willing to sift through or simply don’t care. But when a person appearing neutral/minimising fact says something, the person believes it, and is later proven untrue, that is the person being lied to. When your six year old cousin says they saw a dinosaur in the garden, you don’t feel lied to. When a news show says ‘there is a new scientific discovery some are saying might mean a “technological revolution in green energy”’, only for experts to go ‘no, that’s one guy, Graham’s an idiot, no it won’t, that’s not how this material works,’ that has the sense of being lied to. Which is why people gravitate to lying and hyperbolic politicians - if they’re all lying and minimising anyway…)
great comments on this one! some of the adj. for facts seem to beg more questions, 'flat' 'rich' or 'normative". you also might want to comment of Ground News or other tools which RUclips folks like Jake Broe, Artur Rehi and others have mensioned using to review info. Slava Ukraini
I originally wrote a version of this in 2016. Since then I've revised it several times. Here is the latest: The Big Lie In Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle) he originates the idea of "Das Grosse Luge" (The Big Lie): "But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success." Donald Trump claims that he won the 2020 election, that his impeachments were fake, and the new indictments against him are part of an ongoing witch-hunt to keep him from being reelected in 2024. He repeats these and a host of other unfounded claims incessantly. In the run-up to taking complete control of Germany Hitler did a similar thing. He repeated the same lies, over and over, until the German People started to believe them. Eventually, things got to a point where no one questioned the lies, either because they believed them, wanted to believe them, or were too afraid not to. Many Germans didn’t know what to believe so they went along with the crowd. This is human nature. In every nation, you have people who are somewhat aware of what is happening and choose to be on one side or another. Then you have those people who know something is happening but don’t know what to believe. You also have people who don’t have a clue as to what is what. And finally, you have the people who don’t give a damn. Men like Hitler and Trump take advantage of these divisions of awareness by sowing the seeds of discontent and stirring up action within each group. First, they choose a side they think will best serve their interests against those that do not. Then they tell those people who don’t know what to believe, what they should believe. They explain what is what to those people who don’t know what is what, and they inspire those people who don’t give a damn, by giving them something to give a damn about. Finally, they use fear, xenophobia, resentment, and anger as catalysts for fusing these groups into one mass of people, ready to do anything for the man who gave them answers and a focus under the banner of making America great again. Of course, the big lie is presented as truth. As Orwell warned, truths become lies and lies become truths. But for the people who choose to believe the leader, this doesn’t matter. It feels too good to be united under the banner of making America great again. It feels good to believe in a big lie that gives meaning and purpose, no matter how false, excuses all kinds of behavior, no matter how disgusting, simplifies every issue, no matter how complex, and enhances the personal ego, no matter how devoid of substance. And what is the purpose of the big lie? Initially, the purpose of the big lie is to get more power. And more power is achieved by any means necessary. Once power is attained, the leader’s agenda is enacted, initially within the law, eventually by undoing the laws that prevent the enactment of the parts of his agenda that those laws were supposed to prevent. Meanwhile, the hamstringing of a free press is achieved by sowing seeds of doubt in the validity of the media that the leader and his cohorts do not control. The creation of a press controlled by the leader is then enacted. Winning the support of the police and military is achieved by appealing to their inherent and natural tendency to support the establishment of order. Winning the support of members of the political and business establishments is achieved through bribery or, if necessary, fear. At the same time, maintaining the support of those who love the leader is achieved by giving them an enemy to hate and a threat to fear. This includes giving them permission and encouragement to act, violently if necessary, against that enemy and that threat. Revenge against all enemies and all threats, real or imagined, then becomes an acceptable way to protect the leader and his state. The final purpose of the big lie is to get complete control of the country for the leader, his cohorts, and his close associates. Their goal is to control the power and wealth of the nation and use it to enhance their egos, pocketbooks, and positions in the world. To do this, they will lie, cheat, steal, and destroy their enemies in any way they can. Ultimately, they do not care about democracy, the people, or the country. These things are means to an end, and that end is raw power over all things. Donald Trump is said to have read Hitler’s speeches, and, according to his now-deceased ex-wife, he kept a copy of Mein Kampf by his bed. And just as Adolph Hitler did all of the above while building Germany’s economy, rebuilding its military, and fooling the German People into believing the big lie that he was making Germany great again, Trump did all of the above and fooled a large portion of the American People into believing the big lie, that he has made America great again by building its economy and rebuilding its military. And just as Hitler gave the German People enemies to blame, fear, and hate, Trump gave a minority of the American People enemies to blame, fear, and hate, including the majority of their fellow citizens. Since his disastrous response to the coronavirus, his support for the insurrectionists who assaulted the Capitol Building, in the name of the biggest lie of all, that the 2020 election was rigged, and his mishandling of secret government documents, etc., it is clear that Donald Trump and his minions are a clear and present danger to the United States of America. Donald Trump was not the savior of America, anointed by God, as some of his followers believe. And hopefully, the minority of Americans who continue to support Trump and believe his big lie, will come to realize, just as the German People did by 1945, that they have not hitched themselves to a Phoenix rising but a rabid hound, who was and still is, trying to drag us all into hell. JRB
I wonder what you would say to Sarcasmitrons latest video concluding his 4-part-Ukraine narration about the new world order and it's influence on Putin, when it comes to interpretation vs. facts Until now, everyone who saw them was positively surprised about it's quality Anyway thank you for your clear words, and for me to help understanding your thoughts
Thanks Vlad. You might need to start doing power point slides so we can keep our place as you go through your explanation (that might just be my low focus levels). Freedom is the right to say that two plus two equals four. The word 'fact' is sometimes misused to describe other kinds of thing, as you say. That can be just inadvertent or due to confused thinking, with no bad intent. Or it can be deceptive and dishonest. I suspect that Helen might not agree that Susan has superior insight and there can be disagreement even about some clear statements. To be flippant, take: "Two armies are fighting in Eastern Europe." Well, the Ukrainian Army is fighting a collection or more or less organised mobs. I think Putin is not interested in 'facts' - as you said, elsewhere, he perceives a deeper, almost mystic, level of explanation and then creates pseudo-facts (well, lies) as part of the mystical narrative. I don't entirely agree with you about fact checking. Although one cannot fact check some assertions beyond all doubt, one can check whether factual evidence is cited in support of an assertion, and then assign a relative level of credibility to that assertion. It certainly is possible to try to check if an act has occurred which is generally regarded as a war crime (defining what is a crime is a different matter). Even after exhaustive investigations in criminal justice or other forensic contexts, it can be difficult to establish a fact or causal explanation to absolute certainty or beyond reasonable doubt. If statements are not being fact checked or cannot be established, then the speakers must be clear in describing the basis for their assertions such as sourcing.
Belgium may not have invaded Germany in WWI but that does not prevent Russian propaganda from saying that Russia was "forced" to do an innocuous "special military operation" in Ukraine because Nato broke its promises to Putin
This is a very valuableand complex analysis of our crisis when it comes to the reporting of matters of truth versus falsity in our times, and recommending the "minimal" use of the concept of "fact". Thank you, Vlad.
Vlad, can you give an example of things you think are overwhelmingly right, but are not facts? I'm finding it hard to grasp the thinking behind your final statement.
Vlad that was very enlightening. I'd like to challenge you on one point: You cannot even fact-check how many civilians have died in Gaza, because already the question whether someone is a combatant is interpretative
This is a classically liberal point of view. The assertion of a "fact" is fundamentally a political act, a claim to some kind of decisive interpretive privilege. Minimizing the extent of the claim is seen as a way of maintaining a respectful balance of power. But I think you need to go much further than that. If you're going to bridge the gap in contentious cases, you're going to have encourage honesty about subjective motivations for differing interpretations. The problem we have today is that there is not enough trust among rivals to establish the factuality of anything but the most politically inert events.
@@petermelville5524 Why? I think there are a lot of things that are uncontroversial, even in our hyperpoliticized atmosphere in the US. Like there is statistically zero percent chance that the US will reject Israeli calls for financial and military assistance. There may be some discussion about the precise amount of that aid, but nobody assigns any chance of it being denied. Of course I'm not talking about undergrads or Breadtubers. I specified the event is "politically" inert. Anyone who is not in Congress, a party functionary or large donor lacks political agency.
My response to this is that I understand the tiers of identifying and imparting dialogues and how this creates beneficial or best effects on engagement, however I am personally informed by the thinking of the well known psychanalyist Carl Rogers. As a brief summary you may condemn actions or behaviours but you do so whilst holding the person in unconditional positive regard. You do this through a framing of attention, deep attention and listening. You become a partner through reframing the inner dialogues of shame, defensiveness and deep resistance. My problem with your treatise is that it explores and identifies first base engagement but the other factors of evaluation et al will eventually follow and we need to find a way of authentic engagement which includes the 'other'
If Rule of Law, the means by which every nation can prosper and lift themselves our of squalor seeded by the British Empire is at risk, then where are the lawyers and justice system in reminding us why we need to fight for it.
It seems very difficult to determine for oneself whether one has more or less insight/points-of-view to draw upon than your conversational partner. I guess if you bring up a competing point of view and are dismissed outright (without reason) that is one indicator?
Ngl, I had to repeat the third of the six suppositions, because I thought I missed it. 'Russia invaded Ukraine' is so banal and obvious to me I didn't realize that was the point. Learned something new again.
You are in your own bubble, i hope your viewers can see that. That big air castle you are floating on can burst pretty quickly when all your arguments are human made constructs.
I am a bit unclear about the practical implications. Is it that we need to call some things we take to be true "interpretations" and "evaluations" and that's enough, or is it something else? If vlad means the former, I am not clear what relabeling can achieve. If he means the latter, I am not sure what exactly it boils down to.
I agree. We need to become better at finding observations we can all agree on. 100% objective observations. A fact has to be something that's not up for debate - at all.
I mean every believe one has about reality is on some sort of confidence spectrum. Of course they are. That does not neccessarily mean that certain interpretations do not rise to the confidence level of being able to be called a fact. Something like the earth being round is in interpretation of experimental data, but it is also a fact.
@@VladVexlerChat We can't check whether Barack Obama is a spawn of hell, but Putin is a crazy tyrant. We can't verify whether ethnic cleansing is happening in Gaza, but the Russian invasion is "brutal" with genocidal rhetoric (whatever that means). But we can check the numbers, like you said. The UN released a figure that over the past year and a half, more than 9,500 civilians have died in Ukraine; according to Amnesty International, more than 6 thousand people have already died in Gaza in a month. How long will you cowardly avoid the facts?
Let’s say NATO gets involved in the conflict. I don’t think any posturing would preserve the moral high ground, because I know what will be done in the name of freedom. The first step militarily would be obtaining air superiority on multiple fronts.
EXTREMELY INTERESTING How should Susan, practically, socially acceptably, raise Helen to a superior level, if Helen already thinks that her own level IS superior (because she does not (will not?) UNDERSTAND that her insight ISN'T superior - though she FEELS so?) Question based on MANY futile discussions with loved ones, that did not distinct between 'feeling strongly/being certain' and being able (or even willing) to argue their point. Can one say ANYTHING about how much more Susan is 'likely to be correct' ? Are there any normative judgements at all that can be reasonably made from having the superior insight? Or are there any other ways in which Susan, having the superior, double, insight can likely use it to raise the awareness/insight of Helen? Where do I find more of this? It might solve a great deal of communicative and relational frustration for me.
Is it possible for us to disagree about whether "democracy" is the best way to characterize the various features that you view as constituting democracy, and still be part of the same node in the network of political discourse?
Well democracy has two meanings. A prosaic one - parliamensts, courts etc. And a telic one - a sense of democracy as something richer that we are moving toward. On the latter there is and should be profound pluralism.
Vlad, I wonder if you are familiar with General Semantics and the Structural Differential of Korzybski? Some of what you talk about here regarding facts echoes it and I wonder what you think about the application of Korbyski’s epistomology to today’s issues. (Perhaps for the philosophy channel)
Hey Vlad, I was thinking a lot about Israel-Palestine conflict and the so much in-group-out-group tribal opinion-war over that. I propose to not just talk about FACTS but about MORAL AXIOMS, based on 1 person vs. a (potentially criminal) government or authority. Say, we know that it is immoral to kill/inprison/harm a person without a fair trial. Yes lot of the people out there a totally OK with shooting down people and "show them a lesson". Another axiom could be how do we obtain property: in my opinion either you want to sell and someone buys it, or an authority pays you a good price and evicts for some common good. Anything else is criminality. Now if we start the conversation from this, I think that we can catch populist/extremist views in the act.
It's possible to fact check how many people in Gaza died. You could fact check how many children died, or how many women, or how many elderly people. Is there any robust way to determine how many of the people who died were civilians, given that Hamas fighters identities are often kept secret? How would you fact check that?
Hi Vlad, very thought provoking! Are scientific discoveries facts or are they normative opinions? What are we to make of Samuel Johnson’s refutation of speculative nonsense?
Thanks Vlad, so much appreciated! And yes, please go back to this room again and again. I love the irony of making this kinds of statement on youtube. My inner cinema showed me a picture of the algorithm imploding in space after he (?) was watching this video (I use starships instead of rooms).
🤔 Vlad, while you state you would never say this (the point you juxtapose Tim Snyder and yourself) what do you actually believe? While I can consider and respect several points of view.. I do believe there are interpretations which are facts, period. Regardless of how minimalistic or verbose. Appreciate you always:)
I guess I am Helen. As a western Jew I see this as attack on both my identity and my culture. I do not want to live in the world Hamas wants, even if I was allowed to live there.
I find myself arguing with many in the West want to call this invasion of Ukraine by Russia a Civil War, it is not because Ukraine and Russia are and have been distinct states. The easiest argument to show that Ukraine is a separate state: 1. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic created a number of separate Republics (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc...) all of which were united by rule from one political party, the Communist Party. 2. Article 26 of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR allowed each republic to voluntarily leave. 3. In 1991 Ukraine asked to leave. In 1991 Russia under Yeltsin asked to leave. Russia wanted to be and asked to assume the treaty obligations of the USSR. 4. The USSR was voluntarily dissolved by the USSR in 1991. 5. No backsies ....... particularly after 30 years
The reason why some people in the west call this invasion a civil war is not because they don't have access to the facts or cannot comprehend them. It is simply because they are in favour of Russia fighting this war of aggression and they will therefore try to find the best arguments to justify it - even if those arguments cannot convince others.
The reason some call this a civil war is because they do not respect the independence of Ukraine. Surprise. I bet that caught you off guard. It's not an argument that can be settled by reference to any single specific fact like a signed treaty or diplomatic recognition, etc. because Russia is contesting the legitimacy of the entire world order. For my money, the most convincing argument is not about Ukraine's history or behavior, but rather Putin and Russia's. Even the most benign interpretation of Russia's behavior makes them out as asserting their own independence rather than respecting cooperation and dialogue. All of their arguments are premised on the illegitimacy, un-reality and insincerity of their adversaries. On the other side, you don't hear anybody in the West saying that Russia does not exist. So no, you can't defeat the Russian argument with logic. But you can convincingly question whether it's the kind of attitude than any sane person would want in a boss, neighbor or partner.
@@EvgeniyYakushev-m2u The Government of the Ukrainian SSR voted to leave the USSR about four months before the USSR voted to dissolve on the day after Christmas, 1991. They are the 5th Republic to do so after Lithuania, Georgia, Estonia and Latvia. They declared independence at almost the same time as the attempted coup against Gorbachov. Under the USSR constitution they had the right to do so.
@@richardhighsmith I love to gamble. What odds will you take on a bet that this fellow's reply will be to question the legitimacy of those representatives of the Ukrainian SSR or whether they had the constitutional right to secede? This kind of thing is about an attitude and not facts or formal logic, because these people don't believe in the existence of independent facts.
This channel is an absolute gem on this website. And that's not a fact.
I admire your patience! I hope many people see this and raise their awareness (again). This video should be shown in every classroom. I mean it!
Thank you 🙏🙋♀️
This video is suberb!. Two years ago, I started a personal campaign of trying to correct errors in BBC, Reuters, Washington Post and New York Times errors. You will find that the feedback mechanisms of these institutions are not set up for sincere communication, especially if the critique is aimed at at special correspondent. The IT departments haven't given editors or department heads real-time responses from consumers, either inadvertantly or intentionally. Of all of these, Reuters is the best. I have had corrections, deletions of articles and simple automated responses. I eventually gave up because too many writers who call themselves journalists do not have the credentials, therefore, no real ethical awareness, to take responsibility for what they are writing.
The war in Ukraine has magnified the need for international standards in journalism. The crisis in Israel has thrown the crisis into the atmosphere in a molecular level. Social media is addictive as well as a mechanism where one can get automatic feedback. This is a new world, one that few can navigate without getting into layers upon layers of the thickest mud.
As an analogy of what you are saying I thought the following: I was never a great fan of Hemingway, but his writing style's simplicity was effective. I prefer to read Jane Austen stylistically but the world needs the Hemmingways. We lack both.
Peter Zeihan is the now Hemingway of RUclips geopolitics. I have to have some trust in his facts because it is impossible to fact check the zilions of presumptive conclusions he makes of forgone events. There are those who try to disprove him, particlarly with China.The Hoover Institute similarly is producing thought provoking products yet not all guests are equal, as we have seen recently.
The flowers, music (baroque, spinett solo(!)) and listening to some destilled rationality enbodued in Kinzinger and Hodges did the trick. I am ready for another round. Let's go.
OMG! The UN should have an instant fact checker when leaders are speaking that make a strike noise and light up a big X whenever they lie.
@ 14:25. "It is possible to give an untruthful evaluation while getting every single fact right."
May I nominate you for Quote of the Year? IMO, this topic deserves its own video, with an emphasis on how to make constructive responses.
What flabbergasts me is how seldom people seem to notice. I seem to run into this more and more as I get older.
Thank you Vlad. Your videos are very substantive to my health on a daily basis. Best regards.
Vlad you've very good at teaching. I love how whenever you used a term, you explained its meaning in an easy to understand way.
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00:00 Intro
03:40 Factual vs evaluative vs normative
08:26 6 claims about Putin's invasion of Ukraine
15:02 Vlad's approach
23:22 Fact checking
pin el di pin pin pin pin el di pin.
This is so important. Thank you, Vlad. Good to see/hear you. ❤
I find your approach interesting.
I first encountered it decades ago - yes, I'm old - in school in a book by S.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action.
The understanding of a multi valued versus binary valued approach, confusing levels of abstraction, the recognition of an open or closed mind, emotive appeal versus intellectual appeal,....
My regret stems from the seemingly insurmountable obstacle that 'missionary ' work carries. I hope that even the smallest increments of progress can be effective in bringing about the necessary changes in society. Time will tell.
Dear Vlad, keep up the great work! Given the clarity of your mind and sharpness of your delivery, your disease is truly a misfortune to the world for it limits the ability to communicate it all to the public.
The rules of evidence in western legal systems are a useful parallel to show the importance of fact-checking in journalism. Without rules of evidence and a judge (i.e. a very senior lawyer) who is extremely well-trained and diligent about enforcing the rules, it's obvious that a court's decision couldn't be trusted as based on fact. Instead it could too easily be based on politics or fear or strategic interest, etc, i.e. what they have in authoritarian regimes. Hence the importance of rules of evidence, rule of law, separation of powers, etc in democracies. Same issues for journalism.
Western legal systems very often arrest people based on fabricated evidence. In other words lies. Too bad that western society is full of gullible, navel gazing idiots who have their heads buried in the sand. They are brainwashed worse than others they call religious fanatics. It's so bad that they celebrate their own exploitation as a good thing.
There's probably also room to say "that's a bold and surprising claim made without giving us anything concrete to even fact check" and calling that out separate from fact checking as such. Calling out when a claim needed to be supported and wasn't; it was just slipped in with the hope few will look critically. There's probably a way to make that factual, pointing that public controversy does exist, and that arguments addressing that aren't presented.
Good lesson. To categorize facts from flat to rich facts through more valued and normative facts is useful. Untill now technical evidence were facts and the rest more or less advanced speculations.
In journalism the lines are sometimes blurred on purpose because there’s the fear that the recipients could otherwise end up with undesired conclusions.
(It’s not a conspiracy theory, there are studies about the shift of priorities in journalistic values.)
Some fact-check topics are chosen to „correct“ interpretations by putting a label on them as an authority, not to investigate the facts.
Since the 1970's, here in America, journalism majors are told that their job is to change the world. Their job is to educate us unwashed with the truth as interpreted through their superior insight. To reference Vlad, they think they are Susans and we are Helens. In fact, they aren't journalists, they are propaganda pamphleteers, not that there's anything wrong with that as long as one admits it.
@@AstroGremlinAmerican Agree. And the next step then is to separate us into two kinds of Helens, those who can be teached the correct interpretations and those who are lost and don’t need to be addressed anymore.
Ukraine existed way before Moscow was more than a swamp; the efforts to oppress Ukraine are historical.
"the efforts to oppress Ukraine are historical." By whom?
@@EvgeniyYakushev-m2u You might want to watch Anna from Ukraine as she has an entire series on this and has been with Vlad & him on her channel.
neither Ukraine, nor Russia existed back then. there were different entities, not equal to what we call countries today. and whatever was happening 1000+ years ago could not justify military invasion.
@@catch_2022 Of course it does, as Russia has laid claims on Ukraine being nothing more than their extension. Ukraine was unique from Russia long before, hence, not Russian
@@eringo-bragh4243fairly interpretive, doncha think?
Yet another great free teaching from prof. Vlad. ❤
Expected a talk on how we determine what's true, got a lecture on fact vs interpretation and I liked it.
Well the BBC have presenters that read the reports but dont process what they are saying.
On itv some presenters report on things without any checks at all.
The BBC presenters and the report writers need to equally accountable. Mistakes can be made but repeated mistakes are not really that forgivable.
The damage to trust is the long term effect as you say. Circunstances don't change the need to report correctly.
what you are describing is generally "the" experimental scientific method - you generally report and interpret what your data tells you, nothing more nothing less, otherwise your transgress towards speculation.- but the most important thing that your interpretation MUST be falsifiable.
I cannot thank you enough, @vlad for how much I learn from you and your content.
Its so valuable, especially for those who didn’t have classes or access to philosophy as a powerful tool to distill truth from the messy informational space.
Thank you for these very good and important distinctions on how to best and most effectively use the term "fact" in conversations in our very fractured and siloed world. 🌻
Thank you for bringing up this VERY important subject! On a frivolous note, in Mexico, limes are considered a variety of lemon, with some taxonomical justification, so even your refrigerator example is more fluid than one might think. The indisputable fact , though, is that the refrigerator contains citrus fruits, regardless of how naming customs might vary about them.
That's the trick about facts: knowing where to draw the line between variable and fixed, or whether it's even important. One of the big debates in the USA, for instance, is whether gender is variable or fixed. The real debate should be about the inalienable rights of human beings, regardless of gender.
What you describe in the fridge example is a matter of paradigms.
Sometimes we use different words to point at the same thing, and the same words to point at different things. The facts do exist, but they are obscured by differences in how we talk about them.
A cooperative debate could figure out the differences.
Most of our, competitive, debates make a sport out of derailing the argument of the other before this can happen.
That is why debaters are often so stubborn.
@@nielskorpel8860 Thank you--that's a very insightful perspective!
Thank you! I appreciate your enlightening input on the issue of facts.
The real problem in American politics is money. Our Supreme Court decided in the Citizens United decision that corporations are people and that corporations spending unlimited amounts of money to get their candidates elected is just people exercising their freedom of speech. Unless we can overturn that ruling we're fucked.
I don't think so.
As obscene as the current disparity in wealth is, it's not new and probably doesn't even represent an historically unprecedented level. I've seen estimates of the Gini ratios associated with various historical regimes, and I think there have been some liberalizing regimes that were higher--18th century British Empire--and some absolutely despotic regimes--ancient Rome--that were significantly lower.
I think it's more about he consolidation of cultural hegemony--and that's not the same thing as wealth--to an ideologically unproductive binary system. There are actually billionaires on both 'sides' of this system--Peter Thiel, Bill Gates.
Ironically, that's a product of consensus. As societies become further and further removed from the confusing ideological uncertainty of their founding era, received certainties prevent meaningful exploration of different points of view. People stop trying to bridge acknowledged gaps in understanding, and instead assume disagreements are due to simple, willful perversity.
there has been some tracking since that ruling on PACs and donation mechanisms, which found that there are 'democratic' leaning entities that contribute enough to balance out the "baddies", for example, Unions, hedge funds working in alternative energy etc. ...sorry I can't cite the research, but that ruling does make me very uncomfortable.
Citizen's United was a Supreme Court decision, so overturning it requires a constitutional amendment based on supermajorities in congress. It would be much easier to get campaign finance reform passed, which (if filibusters are bypassed) only requires a simple majority.
@@petermelville5524 IMO? Complete waste of time trying to legislate these downstream functions. There are an infinite variety of shell games available to people intent on defeating those laws.
When we get serious about this problem, we'll codify a ban on any single political party from holding a majority of legislative seats. Pursue the precedents already set in antitrust law, etc. Let the majoritarian principle play out on the level of substantive legislation rather than symbolic personal representation, as these 18th century squires envisioned.
F these stupid games chasing our own tails. Cut to the chase and admit the reality that political agency is vested in political parties, not individual donors or voters.
Our problem is that all disagreements are reduced to simple symbolic binary Rep/Dem oppositions, completely incapable of describing the actual contours of the substantive issues at hand. This provides absolutely no room for productive debate because no fundamentally conservative person will vote for a progressive and vice versa.
What we need are multiple conservative parties and multiple progressive parties, to problematize exactly what is ideological orthodoxy, and create meaningful debate.
Comment for algorithm.
nice work! minimized facts-keeping it simple, fact checking traps, evaluations, interpretations, ...good stuff, I often struggle to scale between them.
You have been warned BBC
Thanks Vled, good advised
This is so brilliant.
Vlad thank you for your voice of reason and logic and for bringing these analytical philosophical principles as ways we can navigate the current climate of informational overload, competing emotional claims and often unconsciousness verbalisations adrift on the oceans of reactivity where facts no longer provide solid anchor.
Your words are a solid anchor and it is becoming more apparant why the world needs philosophers - like desperately! Thank you for your work! ❤
Dealing with totalitarian dictatorships, that developed over generations under Stalin and CCCP's WW2 mismanagement, is unbelievably challenging!
Vlad, you are funny.
"You cannot fact-check if Obama is some demonic traitor"
That truly made me laugh. Thank you 🙂
Keep going; your video's are really worth watching.
I think the key thing here is to choose the correct words for the level of precison related to the Truth of a matter.
And verifying a fact the most precise you can get it. Then you have the right to state whatever you say as 'fact'.
Else there are many words and phrases like 'I think', 'I read somewhere', 'I believe', 'I assume' or 'I hope' mixed with 'maybe' to still be able to make statements WITHOUT messing up your credibility and/or the credibility of the matter you're talking about.
Truth and Fact should be treated as the highest form of knowledge, the foundation of your thoughts construction, and thus as precisely verified before stating them as facts ot truths. You can always use the word 'Hypothesis' for something you cannot prove (or disprove) to be right, or what you believe to be true without being able to get the evidence (yet). It is very, very usefull to stick to those scientific rules here.
It depends a lot on the field you are talking about. As a chemist the Truths and Facts on that matter are usually not (yet) absolute, as better methods and instruments give you a deeper insight into the chemical aspect over time, so every fact and truth is made to the best knowledge of its time. But key is always the will to get to the Truth, and not something else.
I assume in History, Social Sciences or Philosophy this is much less focusable, as I think there is not much you can 'measure' precisely, quantify and thus crosscheck with other measurement methods. In natural sciences the usual and best approach to find facts and truths is to measure them with completely different, independent methods and check if the independently received results match. Here, you leave out your own opinion, but leave the finding of truth and facts to machinery and/or mathematics.
Interesting idea about fact check institute in crisis.
But in my opinion sticking to 'flat' facts is an understandable move but it lacks engage with a modern audience.
Who would look up a "fact check" without any evaluation and normative takes in modern media consumption culture?
No narratives, no fun.
I always think focus on the simple truths, they’re the foundations that help you make sense of today’s world.
Brilliant, Vlad. Really. I have a maths'ish'like brain, and having a framework explained and atomised like this is very useful. I find it easy to get bogged down and unsure otherwise, and then of course emotion takes over and I get temporary bans on social media platforms for calling Russian supporters rude words 🙃
I've mistaken a lemon for a lime before haha.
If i had one wish for public education it would be to some how break through the climate science denial perpetrated by some of the radical oil men and conservatives. I wish this could be done in a non partisan way , because accepting this fact doesnt determine the political response. And if we have urban easterners , and Quebecers with a hydro based energy system making policy for Alberta which export oil the country will break up , but the danger is worse if Albertans just think its eastern malice not based on fact. But we already have farmers and forestry workers who strongly suspect climate change is real in a way city people or oil workers dont yet suspect in the west. I am unhappy about the immense power of billionaires to corrupt opinion and promote self serving falsehoods as the tobacco industry did and some of the oil industry does.
The most impactful allies of the oil industry are the current green movements that sympathize with extreme left values.
They discredit the entire enterprise of protecting the planet.
Thank you for a clear discussion on what is and what is not a fact. Opinions have a sneaky way of weading themselves into supposed facts.
What you suggest is, in my opinion, a fine remedy.
Great rant Vlad👍
Just discovered "Disorder", a good podcast with a lot of real expertise that addresses a lot of the issues Vlad discusses. I thought it might be of interest the the beautiful community: > "Gone are the days of coherent international coordination. Rather than working together to solve pressing crises, many of the world’s most powerful states are actively making those crises worse. The result? We’re living through a novel historical era: The Global Enduring Disorder."
Great stuff, food for thought. One thought is: to say you can't fact check whether something is racist..... that is something I agree with, with a little wiggle room. It's not a line I would open with in any corporate structure in the world. Not a one.
Second thought is fact checks don't sell papers or drive clicks. 👍
Hey Vlad. I don’t use twitter so I’m not sure if this question has already been answered but am wondering what your thoughts are on what is happening in the Middle East specifically the horror being played out on innocent Palestinians and hospitals/homes/etc…..❤
Bull's eye. Thank you, Vlad!
Actually limes are much larger but they are harvested before fully ripe because we expect them to be small and not lemon sized 🤓
😮
Putin recognized that the modern state of Ukraine exists. We have to represent his arguments accurately. He sees this modern state as having been formed by remnants of pre-WW1 empires, and a part of Poland, that were glommed together.
Thus, naturally, Ukraine, before the uniting-power of this war, was a divided nation - far more so than eg Czechoslovakia. After the USA became heavily involved in Maidan AND some Russian-speaking sections of the country felt threatened by right-wingers and neo-Nazi groups allied to the new govt, Putin felt a responsibility to stand up for their autonomy (still as part of the modern state of Ukraine).
Once he saw Western manipulation appearing to put Russians at risk, then he started his referendum&annexation scheme. The Kremlin's and Pentagon's paranoia (the latter which has duped Vlad and many others) feed off each other.
What's so tragic for Ukrainians is that if the US under Obama had agreed to seriously discuss mutual security assurances, missile placements etc amicably with Russia, the paranoia would not have held sway and Ukraine would be intact today. 🇺🇦🌍
Fact (definition) the truth about events or phenomena that can be verified and measured objectivley through recorded documentation, or mathmatical formulae (scientific method), as opposed to interpretation or subjective notion.
"When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."
- Harry G Frankfurt
The problem is that the most interesting elements of any claim are not susceptible to direct objective measurement (e.g., intent).
I get what Vexler is pointing to here. He's drawing out the latent political content inherent in most claims, and working out a way to negotiate them with people who disagree with you. Factual assertions are essentially claims to political power--making a decision that cannot reasonably be contested.
In this video, the takeaway is that a good speaker minimizes the scope of his claims in order to encourage a respective balance of power among rivals.
Okay as far as it goes. But only a negligible percentage of the audience is going to catch onto that, and only an even smaller percentage will be in a position to make any use of it. Political culture, even in democracies, never percolates up from below, but always flows down from above.
Well said.
Purely on ‘neutral’ tone: I think there’s still a structural flaw in the difference in ‘fact levels’, which says neutral/minimal information language - e.g. ‘A group of people made their way to the supermarket’ - provides a ‘lower interpretation level’ than say ‘A group of people stormed to the supermarket’. But if that group was indeed moving quickly, angrily, shouting, then the first statement of lower factual information is in fact not ‘neutral’, it is *omitting* facts to provide less information that now misinforms the person who is hearing that information. Now it wins a moron’s argument, sure, ‘uh uh uh I never said they *didn’t* move in an aggressive way, that was your *assumption* that you pictured them walking normally’, but it doesn’t hold water in real life. You could of course argue that it would have been better to say ‘the group of people (approximately 46-50 when counted by eye) travelled on foot at an average speed of 4.2mph (slightly above standard walking speed of 3mph), while making x decibels of noise (usual decibels of a group being y) and shouting slogans [lists all that was heard while disclaiming they couldn’t hear all of them clearly].’ But that isn’t going to fit in a tweet let alone an opening sentence or headline. So therefore on the surface the more emotive language sentence with an interpretation, would ultimately be a higher fact level, than the one which omits information in favour of apparent ‘neutrality’ and would lead an observer to come to an incorrect image and conclusion. ‘Neutrality’/interpretive minimisation can be as much as a tone as minor interpretation - as a receiver of information you are in the same position, it is only as a giver that you have an understanding of which might be more factually pure, and therefore for all intents and purposes, it leaves everyone else but you in the world in the same position of having to distrust and sift through yourself.
Which is somewhat the root problem with ‘fact checking’, as ultimately people have realised they can’t always, or even usually, trust neutral/minimal interpretation/minimal fact sounding information, as that is precisely the way people are most commonly lied to. (‘Are you joking? Biased news outlets and Twitter people lie constantly!’ - ah, but people assume to a certain extent that these *are* biased people, that they are indeed receiving biased information, they just are willing to sift through or simply don’t care. But when a person appearing neutral/minimising fact says something, the person believes it, and is later proven untrue, that is the person being lied to. When your six year old cousin says they saw a dinosaur in the garden, you don’t feel lied to. When a news show says ‘there is a new scientific discovery some are saying might mean a “technological revolution in green energy”’, only for experts to go ‘no, that’s one guy, Graham’s an idiot, no it won’t, that’s not how this material works,’ that has the sense of being lied to. Which is why people gravitate to lying and hyperbolic politicians - if they’re all lying and minimising anyway…)
great comments on this one! some of the adj. for facts seem to beg more questions, 'flat' 'rich' or 'normative". you also might want to comment of Ground News or other tools which RUclips folks like Jake Broe, Artur Rehi and others have mensioned using to review info. Slava Ukraini
I originally wrote a version of this in 2016. Since then I've revised it several times. Here is the latest:
The Big Lie
In Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle) he originates the idea of "Das Grosse Luge" (The Big Lie): "But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success."
Donald Trump claims that he won the 2020 election, that his impeachments were fake, and the new indictments against him are part of an ongoing witch-hunt to keep him from being reelected in 2024. He repeats these and a host of other unfounded claims incessantly.
In the run-up to taking complete control of Germany Hitler did a similar thing. He repeated the same lies, over and over, until the German People started to believe them. Eventually, things got to a point where no one questioned the lies, either because they believed them, wanted to believe them, or were too afraid not to. Many Germans didn’t know what to believe so they went along with the crowd.
This is human nature. In every nation, you have people who are somewhat aware of what is happening and choose to be on one side or another. Then you have those people who know something is happening but don’t know what to believe. You also have people who don’t have a clue as to what is what. And finally, you have the people who don’t give a damn.
Men like Hitler and Trump take advantage of these divisions of awareness by sowing the seeds of discontent and stirring up action within each group. First, they choose a side they think will best serve their interests against those that do not. Then they tell those people who don’t know what to believe, what they should believe. They explain what is what to those people who don’t know what is what, and they inspire those people who don’t give a damn, by giving them something to give a damn about. Finally, they use fear, xenophobia, resentment, and anger as catalysts for fusing these groups into one mass of people, ready to do anything for the man who gave them answers and a focus under the banner of making America great again.
Of course, the big lie is presented as truth. As Orwell warned, truths become lies and lies become truths. But for the people who choose to believe the leader, this doesn’t matter. It feels too good to be united under the banner of making America great again. It feels good to believe in a big lie that gives meaning and purpose, no matter how false, excuses all kinds of behavior, no matter how disgusting, simplifies every issue, no matter how complex, and enhances the personal ego, no matter how devoid of substance.
And what is the purpose of the big lie? Initially, the purpose of the big lie is to get more power. And more power is achieved by any means necessary. Once power is attained, the leader’s agenda is enacted, initially within the law, eventually by undoing the laws that prevent the enactment of the parts of his agenda that those laws were supposed to prevent.
Meanwhile, the hamstringing of a free press is achieved by sowing seeds of doubt in the validity of the media that the leader and his cohorts do not control. The creation of a press controlled by the leader is then enacted. Winning the support of the police and military is achieved by appealing to their inherent and natural tendency to support the establishment of order. Winning the support of members of the political and business establishments is achieved through bribery or, if necessary, fear.
At the same time, maintaining the support of those who love the leader is achieved by giving them an enemy to hate and a threat to fear. This includes giving them permission and encouragement to act, violently if necessary, against that enemy and that threat. Revenge against all enemies and all threats, real or imagined, then becomes an acceptable way to protect the leader and his state.
The final purpose of the big lie is to get complete control of the country for the leader, his cohorts, and his close associates. Their goal is to control the power and wealth of the nation and use it to enhance their egos, pocketbooks, and positions in the world. To do this, they will lie, cheat, steal, and destroy their enemies in any way they can. Ultimately, they do not care about democracy, the people, or the country. These things are means to an end, and that end is raw power over all things.
Donald Trump is said to have read Hitler’s speeches, and, according to his now-deceased ex-wife, he kept a copy of Mein Kampf by his bed. And just as Adolph Hitler did all of the above while building Germany’s economy, rebuilding its military, and fooling the German People into believing the big lie that he was making Germany great again, Trump did all of the above and fooled a large portion of the American People into believing the big lie, that he has made America great again by building its economy and rebuilding its military. And just as Hitler gave the German People enemies to blame, fear, and hate, Trump gave a minority of the American People enemies to blame, fear, and hate, including the majority of their fellow citizens.
Since his disastrous response to the coronavirus, his support for the insurrectionists who assaulted the Capitol Building, in the name of the biggest lie of all, that the 2020 election was rigged, and his mishandling of secret government documents, etc., it is clear that Donald Trump and his minions are a clear and present danger to the United States of America.
Donald Trump was not the savior of America, anointed by God, as some of his followers believe. And hopefully, the minority of Americans who continue to support Trump and believe his big lie, will come to realize, just as the German People did by 1945, that they have not hitched themselves to a Phoenix rising but a rabid hound, who was and still is, trying to drag us all into hell.
JRB
I wonder what you would say to Sarcasmitrons latest video concluding his 4-part-Ukraine narration about the new world order and it's influence on Putin, when it comes to interpretation vs. facts
Until now, everyone who saw them was positively surprised about it's quality
Anyway thank you for your clear words, and for me to help understanding your thoughts
Thanks Vlad. You might need to start doing power point slides so we can keep our place as you go through your explanation (that might just be my low focus levels). Freedom is the right to say that two plus two equals four. The word 'fact' is sometimes misused to describe other kinds of thing, as you say. That can be just inadvertent or due to confused thinking, with no bad intent. Or it can be deceptive and dishonest. I suspect that Helen might not agree that Susan has superior insight and there can be disagreement even about some clear statements. To be flippant, take: "Two armies are fighting in Eastern Europe." Well, the Ukrainian Army is fighting a collection or more or less organised mobs. I think Putin is not interested in 'facts' - as you said, elsewhere, he perceives a deeper, almost mystic, level of explanation and then creates pseudo-facts (well, lies) as part of the mystical narrative. I don't entirely agree with you about fact checking. Although one cannot fact check some assertions beyond all doubt, one can check whether factual evidence is cited in support of an assertion, and then assign a relative level of credibility to that assertion. It certainly is possible to try to check if an act has occurred which is generally regarded as a war crime (defining what is a crime is a different matter). Even after exhaustive investigations in criminal justice or other forensic contexts, it can be difficult to establish a fact or causal explanation to absolute certainty or beyond reasonable doubt. If statements are not being fact checked or cannot be established, then the speakers must be clear in describing the basis for their assertions such as sourcing.
Belgium may not have invaded Germany in WWI but that does not prevent Russian propaganda from saying that Russia was "forced" to do an innocuous "special military operation" in Ukraine because Nato broke its promises to Putin
This is a very valuableand complex analysis of our crisis when it comes to the reporting of matters of truth versus falsity in our times, and recommending the "minimal" use of the concept of "fact". Thank you, Vlad.
Vlad, can you give an example of things you think are overwhelmingly right, but are not facts? I'm finding it hard to grasp the thinking behind your final statement.
So...
My name is Diane: Fact.
I am an artist.: Belief, not a Fact.
I am an artist: Truth, still not a fact.
Something like that?
Vlad that was very enlightening. I'd like to challenge you on one point: You cannot even fact-check how many civilians have died in Gaza, because already the question whether someone is a combatant is interpretative
Thank you so much, Prof. Vexler talking about facts, while we all are told on multiple levels that there is no such thing called fact. ❤
@@RusssianPersonso why does Wikipedia habitually take a "progressive" slant?
This is a classically liberal point of view. The assertion of a "fact" is fundamentally a political act, a claim to some kind of decisive interpretive privilege. Minimizing the extent of the claim is seen as a way of maintaining a respectful balance of power.
But I think you need to go much further than that. If you're going to bridge the gap in contentious cases, you're going to have encourage honesty about subjective motivations for differing interpretations.
The problem we have today is that there is not enough trust among rivals to establish the factuality of anything but the most politically inert events.
'politically inert events' capacity to be a wonderful oxymoron?
@@petermelville5524 Why?
I think there are a lot of things that are uncontroversial, even in our hyperpoliticized atmosphere in the US. Like there is statistically zero percent chance that the US will reject Israeli calls for financial and military assistance. There may be some discussion about the precise amount of that aid, but nobody assigns any chance of it being denied.
Of course I'm not talking about undergrads or Breadtubers. I specified the event is "politically" inert. Anyone who is not in Congress, a party functionary or large donor lacks political agency.
My response to this is that I understand the tiers of identifying and imparting dialogues and how this creates beneficial or best effects on engagement, however I am personally informed by the thinking of the well known psychanalyist Carl Rogers. As a brief summary you may condemn actions or behaviours but you do so whilst holding the person in unconditional positive regard. You do this through a framing of attention, deep attention and listening. You become a partner through reframing the inner dialogues of shame, defensiveness and deep resistance. My problem with your treatise is that it explores and identifies first base engagement but the other factors of evaluation et al will eventually follow and we need to find a way of authentic engagement which includes the 'other'
If Rule of Law, the means by which every nation can prosper and lift themselves our of squalor seeded by the British Empire is at risk, then where are the lawyers and justice system in reminding us why we need to fight for it.
Would you classify any "why"-statement as evaluative/interpretive?
It seems very difficult to determine for oneself whether one has more or less insight/points-of-view to draw upon than your conversational partner. I guess if you bring up a competing point of view and are dismissed outright (without reason) that is one indicator?
Ngl, I had to repeat the third of the six suppositions, because I thought I missed it. 'Russia invaded Ukraine' is so banal and obvious to me I didn't realize that was the point. Learned something new again.
You are in your own bubble, i hope your viewers can see that. That big air castle you are floating on can burst pretty quickly when all your arguments are human made constructs.
I am a bit unclear about the practical implications. Is it that we need to call some things we take to be true "interpretations" and "evaluations" and that's enough, or is it something else? If vlad means the former, I am not clear what relabeling can achieve. If he means the latter, I am not sure what exactly it boils down to.
How many facts would a fact-checker check if a fact-checker could check facts?
I agree. We need to become better at finding observations we can all agree on. 100% objective observations. A fact has to be something that's not up for debate - at all.
Can you please recommend fact checking resources that are 100% right?
Around 8:00, yeah, I have that problem with Hilary Clinton too.
Yeah... Thanks for this; well said Vlad.
Minimal facts. Useful, tx.
💛💙💜💙💛 the more truth it contains, the more dangerous the lie 😕
🇺🇦 🌏 🇺🇸
I mean every believe one has about reality is on some sort of confidence spectrum. Of course they are. That does not neccessarily mean that certain interpretations do not rise to the confidence level of being able to be called a fact. Something like the earth being round is in interpretation of experimental data, but it is also a fact.
"i can be bullish about small facts"
3min later
"there are some minimal things i recommend"
interesting distinction🤔
fax
Thanks 👍😊. I still see it as a illegal terror invasion 😊.
Is it really "genocidal" to say that a country is not real? 11:00
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
marxist present!
499th!
No I am 499th, want to take it outside??
@@VladVexlerChat deal. I'll stick to southpaw to make it a fair fight 😁
@@rachelatwood9555 Tickets to that, please.
@@VladVexlerChat We can't check whether Barack Obama is a spawn of hell, but Putin is a crazy tyrant. We can't verify whether ethnic cleansing is happening in Gaza, but the Russian invasion is "brutal" with genocidal rhetoric (whatever that means). But we can check the numbers, like you said. The UN released a figure that over the past year and a half, more than 9,500 civilians have died in Ukraine; according to Amnesty International, more than 6 thousand people have already died in Gaza in a month. How long will you cowardly avoid the facts?
Real facts.
Thank you
👍
Let’s say NATO gets involved in the conflict. I don’t think any posturing would preserve the moral high ground, because I know what will be done in the name of freedom. The first step militarily would be obtaining air superiority on multiple fronts.
Do you think that's how Putin lost the moral high ground? When he invaded? Destroyed the Ukrainian air force and navy?
1:00 2+2=5
EXTREMELY INTERESTING
How should Susan, practically, socially acceptably, raise Helen to a superior level, if Helen already thinks that her own level IS superior (because she does not (will not?) UNDERSTAND that her insight ISN'T superior - though she FEELS so?)
Question based on MANY futile discussions with loved ones, that did not distinct between 'feeling strongly/being certain' and being able (or even willing) to argue their point.
Can one say ANYTHING about how much more Susan is 'likely to be correct' ? Are there any normative judgements at all that can be reasonably made from having the superior insight?
Or are there any other ways in which Susan, having the superior, double, insight can likely use it to raise the awareness/insight of Helen?
Where do I find more of this? It might solve a great deal of communicative and relational frustration for me.
Is it possible for us to disagree about whether "democracy" is the best way to characterize the various features that you view as constituting democracy, and still be part of the same node in the network of political discourse?
Well democracy has two meanings. A prosaic one - parliamensts, courts etc. And a telic one - a sense of democracy as something richer that we are moving toward. On the latter there is and should be profound pluralism.
Vlad, I wonder if you are familiar with General Semantics and the Structural Differential of Korzybski? Some of what you talk about here regarding facts echoes it and I wonder what you think about the application of Korbyski’s epistomology to today’s issues. (Perhaps for the philosophy channel)
Hey Vlad, I was thinking a lot about Israel-Palestine conflict and the so much in-group-out-group tribal opinion-war over that. I propose to not just talk about FACTS but about MORAL AXIOMS, based on 1 person vs. a (potentially criminal) government or authority. Say, we know that it is immoral to kill/inprison/harm a person without a fair trial. Yes lot of the people out there a totally OK with shooting down people and "show them a lesson". Another axiom could be how do we obtain property: in my opinion either you want to sell and someone buys it, or an authority pays you a good price and evicts for some common good. Anything else is criminality. Now if we start the conversation from this, I think that we can catch populist/extremist views in the act.
It's possible to fact check how many people in Gaza died. You could fact check how many children died, or how many women, or how many elderly people. Is there any robust way to determine how many of the people who died were civilians, given that Hamas fighters identities are often kept secret? How would you fact check that?
Hi Vlad, very thought provoking! Are scientific discoveries facts or are they normative opinions? What are we to make of Samuel Johnson’s refutation of speculative nonsense?
Thanks Vlad, so much appreciated! And yes, please go back to this room again and again.
I love the irony of making this kinds of statement on youtube. My inner cinema showed me a picture of the algorithm imploding in space after he (?) was watching this video (I use starships instead of rooms).
He do be spittin facts though
🤔 Vlad, while you state you would never say this (the point you juxtapose Tim Snyder and yourself) what do you actually believe? While I can consider and respect several points of view.. I do believe there are interpretations which are facts, period. Regardless of how minimalistic or verbose. Appreciate you always:)
I guess I am Helen. As a western Jew I see this as attack on both my identity and my culture. I do not want to live in the world Hamas wants, even if I was allowed to live there.
Vlad makes subtle statements that he considers “facts” and states them as “facts”, but really, they are just poor interpretations.
I find myself arguing with many in the West want to call this invasion of Ukraine by Russia a Civil War, it is not because Ukraine and Russia are and have been distinct states. The easiest argument to show that Ukraine is a separate state:
1. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic created a number of separate Republics (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc...) all of which were united by rule from one political party, the Communist Party.
2. Article 26 of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR allowed each republic to voluntarily leave.
3. In 1991 Ukraine asked to leave. In 1991 Russia under Yeltsin asked to leave. Russia wanted to be and asked to assume the treaty obligations of the USSR.
4. The USSR was voluntarily dissolved by the USSR in 1991.
5. No backsies ....... particularly after 30 years
The reason why some people in the west call this invasion a civil war is not because they don't have access to the facts or cannot comprehend them. It is simply because they are in favour of Russia fighting this war of aggression and they will therefore try to find the best arguments to justify it - even if those arguments cannot convince others.
Ukraine did not ask to leave, the USSR fell apart. The newly arrived government tried to keep what was left. Was there a civil war in Ukraine in 2014?
The reason some call this a civil war is because they do not respect the independence of Ukraine.
Surprise. I bet that caught you off guard.
It's not an argument that can be settled by reference to any single specific fact like a signed treaty or diplomatic recognition, etc. because Russia is contesting the legitimacy of the entire world order.
For my money, the most convincing argument is not about Ukraine's history or behavior, but rather Putin and Russia's. Even the most benign interpretation of Russia's behavior makes them out as asserting their own independence rather than respecting cooperation and dialogue. All of their arguments are premised on the illegitimacy, un-reality and insincerity of their adversaries.
On the other side, you don't hear anybody in the West saying that Russia does not exist.
So no, you can't defeat the Russian argument with logic. But you can convincingly question whether it's the kind of attitude than any sane person would want in a boss, neighbor or partner.
@@EvgeniyYakushev-m2u The Government of the Ukrainian SSR voted to leave the USSR about four months before the USSR voted to dissolve on the day after Christmas, 1991. They are the 5th Republic to do so after Lithuania, Georgia, Estonia and Latvia. They declared independence at almost the same time as the attempted coup against Gorbachov. Under the USSR constitution they had the right to do so.
@@richardhighsmith I love to gamble. What odds will you take on a bet that this fellow's reply will be to question the legitimacy of those representatives of the Ukrainian SSR or whether they had the constitutional right to secede?
This kind of thing is about an attitude and not facts or formal logic, because these people don't believe in the existence of independent facts.
Thank you again Vlad. I need your rationality very badly in this sea of noise.