Misinformation – Who’s Responsible?
Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), USN, JAG Corps. “Did you order the code Red?”
Colonel Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicholson), USMC: “You want answers?”
Lt. Kaffee: “I think I’m entitled to answers.”
Col. Jessup” “You want answers?”
Lt Kaffee: “I want the truth.”
Col. Jessup: “You can’t handle the truth.”
I can’t help it. Whenever I hear the words misinformation or disinformation I think of that scene near the end and the climax of “A Few Good Men.”
The Col. Jessups of the country are convinced that you and I – and all the common folk – can’t handle the truth. Therefore, those Col. Jessups will decide what is truth and what is otherwise. In addition, they will shield us from whatever they decide isn’t the truth so that “we” don’t make the mistake of believing a half-truth or a lie.
You will recall earlier this year after Elon Musk indicated he would buy Twitter. Almost immediately President Biden had Homeland Security establish a new “Ministry of Truth “with a Nina Jankowicz at the helm. Longer story short, after a loud public outcry, DHS withdrew its Ministry of Truth plan and it died.
But that public outcry was deemed unbased in seriousness and we still have the “truth” vendors hard at work.
For example, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation (9/30/22) that allows the state medical board to discipline physicians and surgeons who spread misinformation about COVID-19 during patient care. Misinformation is defined in that legislation as “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”
There’s that oxymoron phrase again: “scientific consensus.”
Science is not consensus. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant in science is reproducible results. Consensus is not unimpeachable fact. Consensus is the business of politics.
Merriam-Webster defines misinformation as: “incorrect or misleading information.” This is different than ‘disinformation’ because disinformation involves a deliberate attempt to deceive while misinformation does not carry the same motivation. It may be incorrect, but the purveyor of misinformation may believe the information is correct when talking or writing about it.
Until recent years I have no recollection of attempts by government and/or corporation to dictate, decide that something is misinformation and not only shut it down but ‘punish’ the source?
Wise climatologists — and scientists in any field, really — should take note. Just because you or I don’t jump on a bandwagon of “consensus” on many scientific theories doesn’t make us “science deniers.” Galileo was excommunicated for suggesting earth was round, despite his scientific analysis and calculations. He suggested something not in line with consensus.
Biochemistry scientist and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov once said that scientific discovery does not start with someone running down the hall shouting “Eureka!” Rather, he said, advances go more like someone saying to himself, “Hmm, that’s odd.” Scientific revolutions, on the other hand, involve someone saying to himself, “Gee, I don’t think it really works that way.” That scientist, if he or she is challenging the conventional wisdom, is often ignored and sometimes vilified.
Excuse the digression. Back to misinformation.
There’s nothing in our Constitution or any law legitimately passed by elected officials that suggests it’s anyone’s or any entity’s responsibility to interpret what is seen and heard – or deny us what we might see or hear.
Frankly, this bent on controlling “misinformation” sounds an awful lot like the Chinese Communist Party’s control of that country’s media. The populace doesn’t see or hear anything the Party doesn’t want people to know about. Issues are invariably censored in China. Dissent of any kind is snubbed with an iron hand. The Chinese government uses the censorship of ‘misinformation’ as an excuse to control all information.
We don’t care as much if the private sector tries to control information sharing and ‘canceling’ those it considers non-compliant.
We do care a lot when the government tries to censor information and people. Doing so is clearly unconstitutional, limits free speech and other rights guaranteed US citizens.
We’re supposed to believe media fact-checkers are nonpartisan, unbiased, and unfailingly factual in their assessments. When they issue a “ruling” of true, half-true, false, pants-on-fire or whatever else, you and I are supposed to consider that ruling tantamount to absolute truth.
And because so many people are to simply assume the “fact-checkers” are operating in accordance with such lofty standards, their pronouncements are indeed given the weight of unassailable truth, authority, and accuracy.
We don’t even want to think about going down that “somebody check on that and tell me what’s true” road, much less embrace it.
Save us from the fact checkers and all ‘ministries of truth’ – and those who would have us succumb to such freedom-ending folly.
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation#Identification_and_correction
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/did-california-just-ban-medical-misinformation-what-we-know
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misinformation
https://www.insidescience.org/news/scientific-consensus-almost-never-wrong-%e2%80%94-almost
SPIDER Bites
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Leave it to Elon Musk. The Boring Company, which he started/owns, has a contract to build 29 miles of tunnel under Las Vegas – with 55 stops, including the airport, convention center and the new stadium. Transport will be provided by Tesla electric cars initially, 12 passenger electric vehicles in the future.
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As if there isn’t enough saber rattling going on, Saudi Arabia apparently shared intelligence with the US that Iran has plans to attack the oil-rich kingdom. The bad scenarios are many. So, we stand by our middle east ally while at the same time punishing it for a reduction in oil production.
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There are numerous theories on why mosquitos are more attracted to some people over others. A recent study at Rochester U. confirmed that some people attract more bites than others but couldn’t find the ‘secret’ as to why.
The blue check mark on your twitter account means Twitter has verified you are who you say you are and makes attempts to use your account by imposters more difficult. Not having the blue check means your identity has not been verified and should be a disincentive for users setting up multiple identities on Twitter. You will recall before the sale to Musk, the company estimated between 5% and 15% of the users of Twitter were fake.
Truth checkers. Researchers behind what’s called the Inoculation Science Project compare it to a vaccine: by giving people a “micro-dose” of misinformation in advance, it helps prevent them falling for it in future — an idea based on what social psychologist’s call “inoculation theory.”
