Friday, July 11, 2014

A Republic of Lies

Last night, while looking for the primary source of one of the frequently cherry picked passages of Madison, being frustrated that Google had, clearly, been screwed to yield pages and pages of atheists misquoting it, not to mention the Wikipedia that is totally unreliable, I thought that what we really needed was a search engine that wasn't so open to being manipulated by dedicated, not to mention fanatical, ideologues.

Then, this morning I saw this piece about how the convicted criminal Dinesh D'Souza had manipulated Google single handed, to promote his lies.

There is probably no algorithm that a Google can come up with that, once its manner of operation is known, can't be manipulated by ideologues to spread lies and propaganda.  Look at how hard it is to keep hackers from finding ways to turn far more complex instructions hidden in code to their own purposes.  When a sleazy, convicted con man like D'Souza can manipulate companies like that, there's no reason to believe they'll even try.

If that's the case then the internet, itself, is a big problem for democracy, since accurate and honest information is one of the absolutely required ingredients in making democracy.  And since that's true, that kind of problem needs to always be kept in mind when using it as if it were a reliable source of information.

Given that the fact that it is being used as a vehicle for lying and propaganda, the status that Wikipedia still has when it should be a standing joke and object of ridicule, I'm not optimistic about this.   Self-government doesn't work if people believe lies are the truth and, especially, if people believe that it doesn't matter what's true and what isn't.

4 comments:

  1. Information is never "pure" and "true," and it can never be wholly trusted.

    This is why there is scholarship. While the laity (i.e., non-scholars) pooh-pooh arguments over angels and pinheads, and scholars do quibble over the smallest things (as do the laity, who will split a congregation over the decision to carpet a sanctuary, or whether the host at the eucharist is substance or symbol), the thrust of their work (as is the work of the church, be the host symbol or substance or both and a little bit of neither) is to clarify knowledge as much as possible.

    And it is very hard work.

    Before Google and Wikipedia, it was encyclopedias and lazy students. The students are still lazy, the information less reliable (Google, Wikipedia), and the effort required to get reliable information hasn't changed. We just think it easier because we think smart phones makes us smart.

    We make things go.

    Nothing will save us from ourselves, not when salvation has now become defined as "Letting me do what it want ('follow my bliss!') with no consequences except gains, and no effort required that isn't immediately repaid with pleasure." I mean, look at most websites; the most fervent effort is to confirm whatever prejudice the majority clings to, contrary evidence be damned! And any information that can't be hammered into the square peg of their expectations is simply discarded as useless!

    As useless as an electron microscope is to a chimpanzee. That's an experience I have had quite a bit lately....

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  2. "follow my bliss"

    I can't tell you how much I disliked those programs Moyers did with Joseph Campbell. It's extremely difficult to study even one tradition to the point where you can say something accurate and honest about it, Campbell thought he could do it with dozens or more. The "follow your bliss" line was incredibly bad advice, I know lots of people whose bliss involves the pain and destruction of other people, animals, entire ecosystems. I'm sure the Koch bros. have been engaged in following their bliss for decades, as have just about any other malignant person with the ability to do that. How his "follow your bliss" advice differed from the program of Ayn Rand and her zombies is something I'd like explained to me.

    Most people seem to want to have their habits served more than their rational minds. And when the habit is believing that you are the embodiment of the perfect oracle, science, the form of ignorance it imparts is truly invincible.

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  3. I too have grown to detest the "follow your bliss" advice. A year ago I ended up watching some of the Campbell series again, and it included the bliss episode. Watching it in total, it is clear out that has been taken out of context. What jumped out more to me, where the discussions about leading a life with purpose with in the context of the culture in which you exist. There were two stories in particular that stood out, one was about a father standing in Grand Central station and looking at the chaos and filth, and yet coming in every day to work through there to support his family. He was held up as someone to emulate, someone with purpose and meaning in his life (and no bliss in sight). The second was about lost young men in our society that have no purpose, and the need to find that for them and to have meaning based on serving others. Again, no real bliss there. There is plenty of the episodes to find fault with, but much less with that segment then I felt before watching it again. I think it was a case of people hearing what they wanted to hear, over what was said. I had the experience last year of also listening to someone who runs the "happiness blog" go on about how our goal in life should be to maximize our personal happiness. It was particularly hard to take knowing she was quite wealthy. Now that was "follow your bliss" in full bloom.

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    1. If there's one thing that having people comment on my writing over the past six years has shown me, it's easy for a phrase or even sentence to be misconstrued. I doubt it would have caught on with the meaning you ascribe to it. I will admit I don't remember the two examples you say were given, which shows the power of a catchy phrase to stick whereas a substantial explanation doesn't. Such is the danger of the bon mot.

      Though, it could be by that point I was annoyed with other things in the series and I wasn't receptive to what he was saying. As I love Bill Moyers work, some of the few hours I don't regret being in front of a TV, it takes a lot to get me annoyed with him.

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