Lab leak theory needs to be reevaluated

[How to be wise]

Evidence is piling up!

 

[How to be wise]

4 minutes ago, Epikur said:

That is the reason guys like Jimmy Dore get followers. People do not like being lied and called conspiracy theorist when they are right.

The point is, if the evidence isn’t there yet, don’t be acting like it is. There’s nothing wrong with saying “it’s possible”, but people like Jimmy dore were saying “it’s definitely true”, when there was little evidence, and even worse “they are lying to you!”.

[Epikur]

Just now, How to be wise said:

The point is, if the evidence isn’t there yet, don’t be acting like it is. There’s nothing wrong with saying “it’s possible”, but people like Jimmy dore were saying “it’s definitely true”, when there was little evidence, and even worse “they are lying to you!”.

So Jimmy Dore and the authorities are lying. At least with Jimmy Dore they get another perspective. With Jimmy they can pressure the authorities to lie less.

[Epikur]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This reminds me of when Joe Rogan says that Alex Jones is right about a lot of things.

Lol

Reminds me of Rittenhouse, Nick Sandmann, Jussie Smolett

[Danioover9000]

@Epikur

1 hour ago, Epikur said:

Reminds me of Rittenhouse, Nick Sandmann, Jussie Smolett

   Reminds me of the Destiny and Mr. Girl drama.

[zurew]

1 hour ago, Raze said:

While misinformation can be harmful, it can always be countered with more speech

That countering can only work with reasonable people who haven't made up their minds yet + we are often times talking about conspiracy theories that are unfalsifiable and so vague and broad that its impossible to counter them (they are so vague , that they can always fit their biases inside those conspiracies) but at the same time, they are damaging given the current political environment and given how regular people are engaging with information.

Most people don't engage with politics and with news in a way ,where they individually dissect and research things and where they individually evaluate the given information, but they always place those news in an already built up large worldview and or ideology.  So when there is a critique , that critique almost always comes from a larger baggage of ideas and wordview and almost never only aiming at that particular news or idea but aimed at whole set of other things that are projected behind it. - This is not exclusive to conspiracy theorists, this includes people who blindly follow any party or any political ideology. Given all those things, sharing information on platforms have to be done knowing that most people will see and project ghosts to places where there are none and that is often times very damaging depending on what the topic is.

If you would ask these people how many of them are actually open and are willing to change their minds on the matter the % would be super low and most of these people can't answer this question: "what evidence or what would it take to change your mind on this particular matter?"

1 hour ago, Raze said:

While misinformation can be harmful, it can always be countered with more speech, there isn’t even good evidence social media censorship works as intended, plenty of viral memes about covid they banned still had attained huge audiences. 

Banning is usually effective if it is done by multiple large social media companies, because most people unfortunately only consume information from youtube, twitter, tiktok ,facebook and some other social media companies (and never read any articles or studies). so if you ban certain things on some of those websites,then most people won't even encounter those ideas.

You are saying that banning is not effective, but at the same time implying that countering misinformation with more speech is effective or more effective, but I haven't seen any evidence that actually countering misinformation with more speech is more effective given today's political. information consuming environment.

Open platforms are almost never used to actually debate and to challenge ideas, they are used to virtue signal (in this case that we are not sheep and we never follow the mainstream), to shit on people and to share ideas that we are agreeing with or triggered by.

I almost never see people changing their beliefs and or ideas on social media platforms, but I always see triggered people sharing links and posts thinking they have found some truth, when in reality - they are sharing some kind of misinformation and they don't even watch the video they share or god forbid do a  5 minutes research on it and or read about the thing they are so rapidly sharing and posting on their page.

1 hour ago, Raze said:

No one will trust social media regulations or fact checks if they can’t even meet the minimum standard of not labeling something misinformation until it’s confirmed misinformation.

I think this critique is fair.

[Epikur]

 

[Tanz]

Even if they do not find any evidence, there needs to be something done to prevent leaks from happening in the future because, for humanity a possible leak can be more fatal than the issue of global warming.

Nature can be cruel but man can be crueler.  

[Epikur]

 

[Epikur]

Vaush does gain of research on the racist lableak conspiracy theory

 

 

[Devin]

Did you intentionally forget this one?

 

[Leo Gura]

Talking Points is so annoying with their bashing of mainstream media.

Edited March 10, 2023 by Leo Gura

[mr_engineer]

On 3/1/2023 at 5:49 PM, Leo Gura said:

My question to you is very simple: If you were personally responsible for ensuring the health of our epistemic ecosystem, how would you prevent bad faith actors and devils from hijacking social media platforms to spread poisonous ideas which might result in the deaths of tens of thousands of people?

The problems with the epistemic ecosystem are not a bug, they're a feature. It's because people are fundamentally dogmatic. And, the reason for that, is the way the education-system works. Where you get points for regurgitating an official narrative. 

Your interpretation does not matter to the system. Even though, ultimately, what you do is based on your interpretation. 

On 3/1/2023 at 6:26 PM, Leo Gura said:

The problem is people who spread these conspiracy theories have very low epistemic standards and will engage in all sorts of wild speculation but state it as fact and tie it in with their political agenda and biases. So it becomes a giant pool of shit.

This is not a bug of the system, it's a feature. No one at Tier-1 is immune to this. 

15 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Talking Points is so annoying with their bashing of mainstream media.

Given the way the education-system conditions people into being dogmatic and fundamentalist (do keep in mind that the origin of it was religious indoctrination-camps), it only makes sense that the media is able to position itself as a 'credible source of information' when it's funded by the same people who fund the government, who is responsible for the education-system. 

Yes, they farm the people to become dogmatic first, then use the media to take advantage of people's epistemic weakness/lack of thinking-skills to rile them up and do their bidding. 

[ChadT]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Talking Points is so annoying with their bashing of mainstream media.

Totally agree.  I quit listening to them, mainly because of this.  They can be a bit overly dramatic too. 

I really like Robert Wright's Nonzero podcast.  

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by ChadT

[Danioover9000]

@mr_engineer

43 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

The problems with the epistemic ecosystem are not a bug, they're a feature. It's because people are fundamentally dogmatic. And, the reason for that, is the way the education-system works. Where you get points for regurgitating an official narrative. 

Your interpretation does not matter to the system. Even though, ultimately, what you do is based on your interpretation. 

This is not a bug of the system, it's a feature. No one at Tier-1 is immune to this. 

Given the way the education-system conditions people into being dogmatic and fundamentalist (do keep in mind that the origin of it was religious indoctrination-camps), it only makes sense that the media is able to position itself as a 'credible source of information' when it's funded by the same people who fund the government, who is responsible for the education-system. 

Yes, they farm the people to become dogmatic first, then use the media to take advantage of people's epistemic weakness/lack of thinking-skills to rile them up and do their bidding. 

   But it's annoying that they paint the mainstream like it's evil. Hello? We live in a society? we have normative standards yes? Being normal is evil?

   Such entitlement when facing a global conflict, sorry, but millions of lives were lost to the V, and a million more from misinformation, and bad common sense when a person is ill.

[mr_engineer]

On 3/1/2023 at 1:00 PM, Leo Gura said:

Fringe theories which have the potential to be weaponized in partisan and political manner and harm millions of people with paranoia should not be mainstreamed and legitimized by government or big media. Those theories can surface on their own once they gather sufficient credibility through overwhelming accumulation of evidence.

On the one hand, you think that people are very stupid and you don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt. And, on the other hand, you think that they should be able to epistemically beat the big corporations who don't want stuff like this to come out. 

The truth will come out, one way or another. It's for you to decide which side of it you're going to be on. And how conscious you're going to be about it. And, never ever make the mistake of believing that it's the truth just because mainstream sources say so. 

[mr_engineer]

6 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

@mr_engineer

   But it's annoying that they paint the mainstream like it's evil. Hello? We live in a society? we have normative standards yes? Being normal is evil?

   Such entitlement when facing a global conflict, sorry, but millions of lives were lost to the V, and a million more from misinformation, and bad common sense when a person is ill.

Yes, those normative standards are evil. They've always been. It's just that we're able to talk about it now, because the manifestation of this evil is happening now. 

Tell me what's not evil about a system that conditions people into being dogmatic and that then uses this dogmatism to manipulate people into doing their bidding. Keep in mind that dogmatic people side with whoever has money and power, because they want some of it themselves. Because they're running in a rat-race. 

If you consider wage-slavery as evil (which it clearly is, because it makes people disconnected to and unconscious about what they do and this results in selfishness and blind pursuit of their best-interest), that's a normative standard. And, this wage-slavery is the product of this system. 

[Epikur]

5 hours ago, Devin said:

Did you intentionally forget this one?

 

No I did not forget about this

 

[Joel3102]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Talking Points is so annoying with their bashing of mainstream media.

They were literally simping for Russell Brand’s rant on Bill Maher the other day where he was arguing how Fox is no worse than MSNBC etc . So dumb 

[Leo Gura]

16 hours ago, Joel3102 said:

They were literally simping for Russell Brand’s rant on Bill Maher the other day where he was arguing how Fox is no worse than MSNBC etc . So dumb 

Russell Brand has lost it. He is so toxic. For all the bashing that happens of CNN, channels like Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, Jimmy Dore, etc are way worse than CNN in terms of how badly they misinform and bias their audience.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Leo Gura