# The war over reality / fake news **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 16, 2024, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871 "2024-10-16T14:43:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2024, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/21 "2024-10-17T06:16:02Z")
Or they have gotten a lot better at it. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2024, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/22 "2024-10-17T12:06:13Z")
I considered starting a similar thread when I discovered that rage-bait was a thing. Forget about AI, _this_ is what will bring about the collapse of civilization. The compulsive need to create fake outrage and stir hositlity towards various out-groups in order to get cheap short-term rewards. Our basest instincts, not the singularity, will be our downfall. I’m rather pessimistic that this war can be won. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2024, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/23 "2024-10-17T13:21:55Z")
Well it’s not either-or with AI. Believing lies, just like hate and mistrust of out groups, has always been an issue for humans. Heck, one of the hypotheses for how humans got so smart so fast was because there was an arms race between other minds; a need to be smart enough to not be tricked by those around you. However the tools of trickery are far more sophisticated than before, and though I wish we could get past this to some golden age of skeptical and objective reasoning, early signs are really not good. As we speak meteorologists and FEMA workers have come under threat because of memes about hurricanes being man-made. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/24 "2024-10-18T06:32:56Z")
True, but what I meant is that there has been a lot of talk about “AI taking over” in the past few years. I don’t think that it’s an immediate issue. The most pressing danger is our own irrationality. AI is only a tool to make things even worse. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/25 "2024-10-18T09:19:59Z")
Ah I see. Yes I agree completely ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/26 "2024-10-18T11:52:59Z")
PT Barnum (Or was it Twain?) didn’t exactly say it, but the whole reason to try to fool most of the people most of the time is profit; glorious lucrative _profit!_. As long as you can make money selling fake news, the force of the money to be made will overcome the collective force of any / all enforcement (or other inducement) against. See also “War on Drugs”. Human nature ensures both a demand for fake news and a willing supplier, if only they can deliver it cheap enough to profit. Modern tech has solved the “cheap enough” part of that equation in spades. And is only getting started. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/27 "2024-10-18T16:53:02Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I don’t think the issue of lies, fake news and gaslighting gets taken seriously enough. No spit take from me. I agree will every bit of your post 100%. > [@pirviii](#): > > What the penalty should be is what the govt should be doing to ensure lies, propaganda and BS aren’t spread among their constituents to blunt the ability for liars, grifters and foreign actors to take advantage. So we should have some sort of ministry of Truth. 😉 Actually, despite my cheeky emoticon that is my concern about this suggestion. In the normal times of a decade ago, something like this might have worked, but now the lunatics are an coin-flip election away from over the asylum, and if they win they would be the ones who decide what is or is not “truth”. I think that the best we can do is do what we can is to call out the lies and the liars as best we can and hope that the fact that our narrative is more in conjunction with what people see with their “lying eyes” puts enough of a thumb on the scales in our direction. The Pollyanna side of me thinks that long term (assuming we last that long) we will come out of this. The fake news environment is like a new virus for which our population has not yet developed antibodies. As a generation grows up in the fake news environment they will evolve to discern the difference between facts and propaganda and not be so gullible as to believe the next shiny thing put before them. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/28 "2024-10-18T17:12:29Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > As long as you can make money selling fake news, the force of the money to be made will overcome the collective force of any / all enforcement (or other inducement) against. See also “War on Drugs”. I would see it more like the war on corruption / bribery. No country can claim to have eliminated it, but some places do a much, much better job of it than others. And we can measure the success of e.g. whistleblower policies. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Human nature ensures both a demand for fake news and a willing supplier, if only they can deliver it cheap enough to profit. Modern tech has solved the “cheap enough” part of that equation in spades. And is only getting started. Right, which is why we shouldn’t pre-emptively give up. I’ve asked up thread a couple of times, whether rules on “I am X and I approve this message” stifle free speech. No-one has bit the bullet and claimed that it does. So what’s the issue with also preventing things like the two examples below of trying to fake a mailer as coming from Kamala? Is allowing this kind of deliberate deception crucial to the free exchange of ideas and opinions? [https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/10/pro-trump-dark-money-network-tied-to-elon-musk-behind-fake-pro-harris-campaign-scheme/](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/10/pro-trump-dark-money-network-tied-to-elon-musk-behind-fake-pro-harris-campaign-scheme/) [https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/pro-trump-super-pac-baits-arizona-seniors-with-fake-kamala-harris-medicare-cancelations/ar-AA1soeM2/](https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/pro-trump-super-pac-baits-arizona-seniors-with-fake-kamala-harris-medicare-cancelations/ar-AA1soeM2/) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/29 "2024-10-18T20:24:57Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Because firstly, no country on earth gives citizens the right to speak any words without fear of legal consequences – it’s always necessary to separate what needs to be protected from what does not. Yes, every Right has some exceptions. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > PT Barnum (Or was it Twain?) didn’t exactly say it, but the whole reason to try to fool most of the people most of the time is profit; glorious lucrative _profit!_. Oddly, I can not find who said that first- Google and many others say Lincoln, but apparently not- > **[The Real Story Behind Abraham Lincoln’s ‘You Can Fool All the People’ Quote](https://time.com/4231031/fool-all-the-people-lincoln-quote/)** > > A fascinating story can now be told about the quip, thanks to digitized databases ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/30 "2024-10-18T20:36:28Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > The Pollyanna side of me thinks that long term (assuming we last that long) we will come out of this. The fake news environment is like a new virus for which our population has not yet developed antibodies. As a generation grows up in the fake news environment they will evolve to discern the difference between facts and propaganda and not be so gullible as to believe the next shiny thing put before them. Or the generation will grow up believing nothing they are told by anyone and we’ll be in an even more vicious war over what is real and what are lies. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2024, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/31 "2024-10-23T18:11:22Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > For the record, the famous quote about the “reality based community” is now twenty years old. I also think there’s a fundamental difference here. If you look at the quote: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” I always thought it was more about “acting” vs. “studying”. It wasn’t about just making shit up out of whole cloth. So some Poindexter type is studying something like tax policy, and is debating if a tax should be higher, or lower, and carefully worrying about every little ramification. Then the Emperor comes along, and says, “The tax is 10%, deal with it!” While the Poindexter is still reeling from that, the Emperor says, “No, screw that, it’s 20%”. When you’re the Emperor, you can just impose your will like that, ideal tax policy be damned. But today, we don’t see that. We see Trump claiming the tax is Elephant percent, and blaming that on the cat-eating immigrants needing all that money to transgender your kids while they’re in prison. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2024, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/32 "2024-10-23T19:20:06Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > I always thought it was more about “acting” vs. “studying”. It wasn’t about just making shit up out of whole cloth. See also post #12 of this thread. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871/33 "2024-10-24T19:21:31Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” > > I always thought it was more about “acting” vs. “studying”. It wasn’t about just making shit up out of whole cloth. I think that’s what they _thought_ they were saying, but they were actually just making things up while _telling_ themselves they weren’t. Which is why all those “we define reality” imperial actions turned into disasters in one way or another; they weren’t based on reality, which they did not in fact get to define however much they wanted to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-over-reality-fake-news/1008871.md?page=1)