[ExI] he said what????

[Samantha Atkins]

Stuart LaForge wrote:
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
> <The governments of the world, including in the US, have been putting out
> fake news for decades.  Pretending it is a big new deal now and especially
> suggesting that government be empowered to "fix" it is absurd.   Nothing
> will replace a discerning pan-critical mind.   Governments want power over
> media as always but especially over this internet thing that they see as
> hard to control.  Beware.  What they are really after is far worse than
> "fake news".>
>
> Welcome back Samantha. :-) Yes, I see this as a pretty big problem. Best I
> can suggest for the time being is digital media file formats that have
> built-in alteration-sensitive watermarks and maybe laws extending the
> crime of forgery to include forging someone's digital likeness for
> personal gain or political goals.

How will that help?  What if if the source is a fabrication?  The 
trouble also would be that such media would also likely identify the 
host machine environment and location and thus be dangerous to users who 
are saying anything the powers that be don't like.  I don't think the 
problem is document tampering.  Or even complete digital creation out of 
whole cloth.  The problem seems to be more one of gullibility and 
polarization.

It is exacerbated by people acting as if they do not believe than any 
process of reasoning or appeal to reality or argumentation is a valid 
way of showing or finding what is so or more likely to be so.  Perhaps 
all those years of postmodern picking apart of all narratives have run 
their course.  Some versions of communist theory had it that the classes 
could never see beyond their class worldview and were hopelessly biased 
so only revolution would work.  Now it is like the common stance is that 
those outside one's memetic tribe are inherently flawed and dishonest.  
This is very dangerous.

And of course there is the problem that most people do not think.  
Whether this is by bad training, inability or unwillingness I can't 
say.  But mostly they pick up their opinions and attitudes by cultural 
osmosis.  Madison Avenue has known this for decades.  Propagandists know 
this.  Put thoughts and opinions in millions of heads that go right past 
whatever reason they are capable [in theory] of.  After a  while only 
the freaks [some intellectuals mostly and some neuro-atypicals] even 
notice.

- samantha
> Stuart LaForge
>
>