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Eric Schmidt Says Google News Will 'Engineer' Russian Propaganda Out of the Feed (vice.com)
Justin Ling, writing for Motherboard: Eric Schmidt, Executive Chariman of Alphabet, says the company is working to ferret out Russian propaganda from Google News after facing criticism that Kremlin-owned media sites had been given plum placement on the search giant's news and advertising platforms. "We're well aware of this one, and we're working on detecting this kind of scenario you're describing and deranking those kinds of sites," Schmidt said, after being asked why the world's largest search company continued to classify the Russian sites as news. Schmidt, in an interview at the Halifax International Security Forum over the weekend, name-checked two state-owned enterprises. "It's basically RT and Sputnik," Schmidt added. "We're well aware and we're trying to engineer the systems to prevent it."
If anyone is going to be upset about this, I would expect it to be Trump. Russia basically got him elected.
Leftist, not liberal.
There is nothing to "engineer" - this is just censorship.
The new and improved Google News sucks. That should be Eric Schmidt's first order of business.
It'd be nice if Google could also do something to certain other kinds of propaganda as well. Ones that promote racial and gender discrimination. James Damore did some research they can use.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Those are also state owned networks primarily geared towards propaganda.
"Engineer" means some automated way because we can't bother to curate the BS we are spewing out as it would cut into our money counting time.
Any serious Russian effort in future will be run through American proxies, leaving Google only one option - filter by opinion.
The only way to really beat this domestically is education, so people aren't so easily influenced. Of course, you can back that up with counter-attacks and advise the foreign governments that so long as they're detected meddling in your affairs, you'll continue meddling in theirs.
Ultimately the best you can hope for is that the cyber version of MAD evolves and the whole thing becomes a smaller problem as both sides generally choose not to inflame the situation in fear of having to deal with reprisals.
Yay, corporate censorship! Down the memory hole! We're saved from the evil Russians.
But how will this 'engineering' be held democratically accountable? Who has effective oversight? We're further handing the basis of our democracy, i.e. access to information, over the a tiny minority of billionaires who can manipulate it and therefore us in any way they choose. Oh hang on, haven't I just described the mainstream media?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
The best books are those that tell you what you already know.
I have to return some videotapes...
Russian propaganda is easily recognized because it's written in Cyrillic !
... How is Fox still in?
Do I know that is biased in favor of Russia ? Sure I do. Just like the other media are biased in favor of their own country.
However , I have noticed that RT reports some news that are simply ignored or minimized by western media : quite helpful to try get a more complete picture.
Goolag : diversity everywhere, except when it comes to diversity of thought.
Why not dump all propaganda? Why just block the Russian propaganda?
Or UK propoganda? or Chinese propoganda? Or Republican propoganda?
What is the difference between any of these and "Russian propoganda"?
Russian citizens seem to be able to figure out when their own government is propogandizing them, why can't Americans?
Ruskys are stirring up dissent. They have been shown to have spent their money/influence pretty evenly on right and left.
They clearly expected Clinton to win. Why else would they have bought her off?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Russia doesn't block Facebook.
Isn't it about time that they also block the largest driver of propaganda? The U.S.! American news site publish so much false news that favours the U.S., that they are much worse than the Russians. Apply the rules equally to all.
"We're going to block news that HR and our Chief Diversity Officer find offensive."
Clinton was elected by the Russian hacking efforts and is going to prison for collusion with Putin? You Drumpftard. See you at the impeachment / indictment moron! :D
Or as the Russian's would say... ! (at least that is what Google tells me the translation is)
I'll get my information elsewhere, I actually already do on plethora of discussion forums (including reddig) where I can check on see posts of different proponents and filter out the truth myself Example of censorship: guess why there's little coverage of Syria war now that islamists and isis are loosing? That's right , they re loosing thanks to Russians and Iranians beating the crap out of them. Silence about that is pure censorship. Guess what, already new moves are on the table - saudi arabia partnering with Israel to start a war in Lebanon, where pro-iranian militia (Hezbollah) is rooted. But you don't really hear about that in the news.
RT and sputnik are biased, but are showing another side of the shiny coin, one that isn't pro western only and not giving any news not liked by the government agenda.
And god fobid that someone who isn't from establishment can win elections? Trump isn't good material for potus, but he did win. He got the votes like it or not. One reason is many people voted against a corrupt candidate. The whole fuss about russians isn't about inventing fake news, it's about uncovered the dirty laundry on democratic party. But I guess "they" don't want such influence, "they" prefer the truth to remain hidden because that favors a more suitable presidential candidate.
It's machine learning algorithms being put to use here to filter and rank content.
Eventually, such automated analysis should be based on general algorithms that use principles of:
- epistemology - is there sound logical or plausible probabilistic support for the propositions in the content
- utterance theory - analysis of the sources (direct and indirect) of the information, their goals, their communication strategies, the purpose behind each utterance in terms of opinion influence or action influence.
- Detection of the level of "disinterest" that the utterer has in the content of the utterance and the opinions it will reinforce. The more disinterest (or counter-interest), the more credible is the utterance. "They said this even though it may hurt their interests" implies more likely true.
- detection of systemic bias (in the utterance and more generally by the source)
- detection of use of rhetorical tricks such as ad hominem attacks and many others.
- social psychology theories (deeper into understanding use of techniques of opinion amplification, meme formation, influence principles used by advertisers etc)
- Consistency with scientifically well-accepted facts and inferences, and with basic mathematics as applied to the content.
The key is that with sufficient abstraction of rule creation, it should be possible to make all of this independent of censoring a particular country or political faction's content. The "good stuff" or "objectively more plausible and less biased stuff" should get through.
If biased or less credible or "weaponized words" stuff is let through, it should be automatically commented on by the algorithms, which should point out the reasons for the assessment as not very reliable content.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Not that hard, actually.
Just impacts their excessive profit, that's all.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
What they wanted was Trump. The last minute email leak will go down as one of the greatest foreign ops in history. It's only flaw was that it was a bit too obvious, but it had the desired effect and if anything the subsequent investigation is only making it an even greater victory.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They didn't buy her off. They got Trump for free.
Wikileak's Assange has repeatedly said the source of the leaks wasn't the Russians.
I'd rather Google just dumbly indexed news sites and didn't try to do editorial control. The problem with labelling sites propaganda and de-indexing them is where would it end. You can actually make a case for de-indexing most news sites
teleSUR - communist state funded propaganda paid for by Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia
RT, Sputnik - Russian state channels, paid for by Kremlin. Knowingly pushes lies if they suit it
BBC, Guardian - Knowingly push lies if they suit London SJWs. Very biased on BREXIT.
CNN, NYT, Huffington Post - Knowingly push lies if they suit the US Democratic party. Very biased on Trump.
Fox - Knowingly pushes lies if it supports US Republican Party
Breitbart - Used to be an US Republican mouthpiece, was later described by Ben Shapiro as 'Trump's Pravda', now pushes Bannon's odd agenda of 'Trumpism without Trump'. Currently in a quixotic quest to save Roy Moore who Bannon backed but Trump failed to endorse from allegations of paedophilia which most people have concluded are probably not completely baseless. Increasingly hated by establishment Republicans for backing a flawed, unelectable outsider candidate against their man, Luther Strange who was also endorsed by Trump. Hate by all Democrats, who would probably shut it and Fox down if they could.
I.e. pretty much any news site you can find some story they've covered in a very biased way and ended up making fools of themselves. And the Tech Journalism sites are even worse than the normal news ones - everyone knows the people who write for them are bloggers who care even less about journalism than the people who write for 'proper' news sites.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Even if it was the Ruskys, they did the world a _huge_ favor.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You don't ask Eric Schmidt. There's bad people on all sides.
And yet no proof. So if you mean faking people into believing something happened that didn't, then yeah you're right.
What about Youtube, a notorious cesspool of belly crawling shitposters with a distinct odor of vodka, who regularly mob the comments section of videos that are even faintly critical of Trump or favorable to Trump's opponents.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
What was not the propaganda on RT?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I switched to bing/news some time ago. Also sucks in various ways, but does not suck nearly as hard as google/news, which is just plain user-offensive.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Frankly, political views can and should be expressed by anyone, and read by anyone willing to listen.
There's no way Google can engineer propaganda out. Propaganda is a subjective term.
Literally this is the government trying to censor by proxy.
This is bad as Google is a defacto monopoly. If the government does this it would be a violation of the constitution, and to proxy it to a defacto monopoly, that's not covered by the constitution, it leaves American citizens without recourse.
I don't need Google to do this, I don't wish for anyone to tell me what I should or should not be reading. They are telling everyone that they are stupid and incapable of understanding the good and bad behind any given assertion.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
When? They've been looking and looking and looking. Year and half now. Still nothing.
Your rock called, says you need to get back under it.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If they're combating Russian propagandists attempts to game the ranking system. You do realize that folks going to Google for news aren't actually there for the Russian propaganda, they're there for news.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Quick, to the Pizzagate truthers shield, BorisMan! It's gonna be a long night!
No time for subtlety, we have to fall back on the absolutely no evidence ever level! And don't forget to mark me as a troll, have to earn your rubles, ya know.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Either candidate could have won, just as long as half the population doubted the veracity of the result.
Google could make a better news service if they add an AI based "Check for Facts" option button to their News service. After a reader select this option: "Check for Facts", every sentence of the article is clearly underlined and color -marked as speculation(yellow), fact (green) or lie (red)... In this way, a reader could select their personal way to read and understand their news. This more balanced and fair than outright censorship. Now, figure this new and scary scenario: CNN post an article and the algorithm underline all sentences as truth (green underline), then someone in RT copy the same article, make a few insignificant changes (like adding dates and full names) and this same algorithm underlines the whole article as a lie (red underline)...
Remember some years ago when Rick Santorum was running for the Republican nomination, and he got Google-bombed?
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/e...
https://www.npr.org/2016/02/25...
The lib-left thought it was hilarious, and guffawed a lot. When Rick Santorum complained, Google essentially said "not our problem".
When it turns out that Google-fixing might have hurt Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency, things are totally different. The lib-left goes full-feminist "That's not funny". Google doesn't consider this to be "not our problem"; they're all over it like flies over shit.
I guess it depends on who's ox is being gored. Guess which party Silicon Valley supports.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
I like alternate views. I need to find an unbiased, uncensored search engine.
When? They've been looking and looking and looking. Year and half now. Still nothing.
Your rock called, says you need to get back under it.
I just crawled out from under my rock.
Please show me the charges that have been filed against Donald Trump and the evidence to be presented. Also, when's the first hearing?
Oh? What's that? Complete silence when pressed for facts?
Exactly. Xians and Republicans are so stupid that they let Russians that speak poor English tell them how to vote. They did what Putin told them to do.
What's an Xian? Is that a Chinese Immigrant from a particular region of China like Cantonese or Mandarin? It looks like a Chinese surname.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
If the algorithm cannot follow broadly defined principles to filter out propaganda to include Russia propaganda, and needs intervention to specifically single out such a narrow domain for human tweaking, then you are broadcasting to the world not only that you're willing to depart from broad principles, but that the algorithm is lackluster as well.
I can kind of predict what the excuse will be -- that this is an emergency situation, time is of the essence, and circumstances force us to depart from building a broadly principled anti-propaganda system in order to intervene specifically against Russia.
Of course, US is assailed every day by propaganda efforts from many adversaries, and the lack of similar publicly announced targeted efforts against Xinhua or PressTV for example, makes one wonder if they are volunteering as the retaliatory arm of the nation or of a particular defeated political party.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
No, Trump was elected by Clinton.
The media have always been biassed, but not to the point of fabricating news stories based on outright lies, like they are now.
What especially worries me is when big public information sources like Google, that should be very carefully apolitical, get involved too. Its analogous to your local library burning any books that doesn't agree with the librarian's political party's interpretation of a "politically correct" social agenda, which by the way is EXACTLY what happened in 1930's Nazi Germany.
Its analogous to your local library burning any books that doesn't agree with the librarian's political party's interpretation of a "politically correct" social agenda, which by the way is EXACTLY what happened in 1930's Nazi Germany.
Claiming news was fake is EXACTLY what happened in 1930s Nazi Germany.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They just heavily dox anyone who doesn't keep with the party line.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
An edgy atheist way to say 'Christian'. Think of X-Mas for Christmas. Usually used by teenagers discovering atheism for the first time or adults who never got over growing up Christian and hold a grudge.
How about turning back on the feature which allows to exclude news sources from the feed? That would do it right away. RT is propaganda? What about Iranian "Press TV"? Or even BBC? I wouldn't trust BBC news on any British colony which stopped being a colony in the 20th century. The Brits never got over the losses. So if you read BBC, India and Israel are still 3rd-world countries. Simply excluding news sources with a "-source:" used to work on the news site the same way that "-site:" worked on the web search site. They stopped it to avoid "confirmation bias", also known as "filtering the bs you don't care about".
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
There is "bias" and there is calling groups of people half of whose membership is Jewish "nazis". The left has gotten unapologetically absurd.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
BBC is a government news site, payed for by British tax dollars.
Technically speaking, the problem here is when the emails were released.
If they for example had it before the primaries, they could had released it before Clinton was the dems presidential candidate, stopping her from getting the spot and allowing someone that could defeat trump to defeat trump (as in pretty much anyone else).
Or anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders for that matter...
Doubt this will lead to anything other than any Google-owned services becoming left-wing echo chambers, causing everyone on these services who isn't comfortable with the echo chamber they've become to leave for competing services which then turn into right wing or center-right echo chambers (if they weren't that to begin with).
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
Claiming news was fake is EXACTLY what happened in 1930s Nazi Germany.
And you should read some of the media from the time. The media was exactly that, they were yellow press, sometimes muckracker levels of publication quality. The situation is similar because right now, actual investigative journalists are nowhere to be found. Politico, ABC, NBC, CBS? Nope they're not chasing real stories, they're crying over fish food dumped in a pond, and the president of the US taking a drink of water. The trust of the media is so damned low, and it's a creation of their own. They'd rather be hyper-partisan, chase that sweet-sweet-clickbait then anything else.
Om, nomnomnom...
The definition of what is "Russian Propaganda" is pretty flexible, as has been sufficiently demonstrated e.g. in some controversies around the last US-election.
But surely Google engineers will know exactly where to draw the line.
And since "Don't be evil" is their motto they can't go wrong, can they?
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
The trust of the media is so damned low, and it's a creation of their own. They'd rather be hyper-partisan, chase that sweet-sweet-clickbait then anything else.
I'd rather they be hyper-partisan. As shit as the Democrats are, the Republicans are ten times more shit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
One word: Ruper Murdoch
Fake news/biased news whatever it is isn't new, has been tricking people for years.
Now google 'dont be evil' is in a position where it can 'do no good'. What happens if RT reports as they did correctly that 'moderate rebels' were getting medical treatment from Israel which is now verified that they probably just were ISIS?
Whats been lost to stop a few Putin Trolls and alt right bigots is democratic press freedom
There's a lot of 'should' to make this thread more tactful. TBH, I don't expect much from A. cowards. I said my opinion. Sue me. t('.'t)
The US is good, Russia is bad.
The US 'frees', Russia 'manipulates'.
Therefore, US 'information campaigns' are allowed, Russian 'propaganda' is not, even if it's news.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
I'd rather they be hyper-partisan. As shit as the Democrats are, the Republicans are ten times more shit.
Really? Guess that's why they drove the neocons out of their party and those same neocons then went and nested inside the democrats and are happily wanting more wars right?
Om, nomnomnom...
your sources of information need to be diversified. This is why letting so few companies control what media we have is a bad idea.
One person can effectively make a decision that will determine what information you have access to. That persons personal beliefs -will- play a part in that decision making process. This is how you manipulate folks.
See Fox News ( Republican propaganda ) vs CNN ( Democrat Propaganda ) for extreme examples of this in action. You think the parent companies of either of these don't influence the information they provide ? :|
Ignore the " Russian " part of this story. It is irrelevant. Today they're considering censoring what they claim is " Russian Propaganda ", who knows what it will be tomorrow.
The bottom line is I prefer to have all the information available to me in raw form and I will make up my own damn mind as to what is relevant or not.
I don't need Google to do it for me.
Wait... you actually don't believe that the Jewish people don't have an agenda to control everyone else? Dude why do you think they already totally control Hollywood and most of the media? not to mention a significant proportion of the banking system....
Furthermore if you think I'm pro-left you're way-off.
Why would you expect a reply when you didn't even comprehend the words you were replying to? Find a newspaper, dummy.
Oh, right, you can't understand that there is a process, or what step we're on. In your world, murder can never even happen because if you only have a dead body and no conviction, there is no reason to suspect a crime. You just keep asking if there was a conviction, and if not, no crime happened!
If it turns out that there is a formal investigation after all, and it is still in progress, are you going to apologize to oh_my_* and eat your hat? No, of course not! You'll never remember it if you're wrong and events prove it.
Which should we understand: that in your perfect world charges would be filed before an investigation, or that you just don't fucking comprehend a very simple multi-step process? I'm thinking, both.
Furthermore if you think I'm pro-left you're way-off.
I was making a general comment about where the conversation has moved by now. Since you seemed to be commenting on this as well, it seem appropriate. It may enforce your point in some respects and undermine it in others.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Why would you expect a reply when you didn't even comprehend the words you were replying to? Find a newspaper, dummy.
Oh, right, you can't understand that there is a process, or what step we're on. In your world, murder can never even happen because if you only have a dead body and no conviction, there is no reason to suspect a crime. You just keep asking if there was a conviction, and if not, no crime happened!
If it turns out that there is a formal investigation after all, and it is still in progress, are you going to apologize to oh_my_* and eat your hat? No, of course not! You'll never remember it if you're wrong and events prove it.
Which should we understand: that in your perfect world charges would be filed before an investigation, or that you just don't fucking comprehend a very simple multi-step process? I'm thinking, both.
I was responding to a post that insinuated that another user, who had questioned the lack of evidence for these allegations, had been living under a rock.
Saying someone has been "living under a rock" is an idiom that means the obviousness, oldness, or pervasiveness of some fact, trend, or event is so extreme that a person would have to have been far removed from society to not know about it.
I'll repeat my prior request:
Please show me the charges that have been filed against Donald Trump and the evidence to be presented. Also, when's the first hearing?
If you cannot provide such things, then they are not obvious, old, or pervasive. In fact, they likely do not exist. Thus Ol Olsoc, who insinuated that oh_my_080980980 had been living under a rock, is a fucking retard. As are you, for not understanding the situation.
In your world, murder can never even happen because if you only have a dead body and no conviction, there is no reason to suspect a crime. You just keep asking if there was a conviction, and if not, no crime happened!
in your perfect world charges would be filed before an investigation
Please show me the charges that have been filed against Donald Trump and the evidence to be presented.
You fucking moron, you didn't even read what I said. You can't even comprehend that when I give you a sequence of steps, 1, 2, 3, that step 3 comes at the end, long after step 1.
So some foreign government would never think to use some US company or US person? They have in the past.
Besides, how would they ever differentiate it from a Democratic advertisement.
Amazing. You still don't get it. The post by Ol Olsoc (in response to the post by oh_my_080980980) was implying that things had already happened.
oh_my_080980980's post, referring to the ongoing mission to dig up any dirt on Trump regarding Russia:
When? They've been looking and looking and looking. Year and half now. Still nothing.
Ol Olsoc's response:
Your rock called, says you need to get back under it.
oh_my_080980980 is correctly pointing out that despite Hillary and the DNC and the media bending over backwards for a year and a half to find any shred of evidence directly linking Trump to some illegal dealings with Russia, nothing has been found.
Ol Olsoc made a post insinuating that the evidence/proof was obvious or old news and that one would have to have been living under a rock to not see it.
Yet he can't point to any evidence. Not one shred. Nor can you. All you can do is scream that it's obvious and that we're all fools for not seeing it. There's no procedure here because they've been on step 0 for a year and a half (as oh_my_080980980 pointed out). Procedures must proceed.
They have no evidence of anything yet the way your ilk talks Trump's impeachment is right around the corner.
You can go back to rocking yourself in the fetal position now. Would you like a pacifier, or are you fine sucking on your thumb?
>> There is no "they". Jews don't act as a group.
Wow. Good luck with that whole choosing to live in denial thing.
You have no evidence other than correlation. And correlation does not imply causation.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Are you also one of those dudes that will not believe that humans are causing any climate change, because there is no completely irrefutable evidence?
You're just going in a circle like a moron. Why don't you go find somebody you trust to read the thread and explain it to you?
You didn't understand what was said. I'll repeat myself.
Oh, right, you can't understand that there is a process, or what step we're on. In your world, murder can never even happen because if you only have a dead body and no conviction, there is no reason to suspect a crime. You just keep asking if there was a conviction, and if not, no crime happened!
Don't be a fucking moron and ask for a conviction before there are charges. It is really stupid, and doesn't make the point you're thinking it made. Maybe stop talking for a fucking minute and read the words?
Without stating my position on AGW, you do realize that the claim is not that we should believe it because it looks like it, but because the science is supposed to be settled? The claim that the science is settled requires quite a bit more than correlation.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
My analogy is one of refusing to apply the brakes until obtaining a degree of proof only available after actually driving over the upcoming edge of the proverbial cliff. Early application of the brakes may ultimately prove to have been unnecessary and consequently expose you to embarrassment, but would have definitely left you still alive.
My analogy is one of refusing to apply the brakes until obtaining a degree of proof only available after actually driving over the upcoming edge of the proverbial cliff.
That's a Pascal's wager argument and it's only applicable in justifying faith. Which, in itself, means that you don't believe you have enough evidence to justify your gut feeling. If you need Pascal's wager to justify acting to curb AGW, then this would mean that the science is not settled. Pascal's wager is the last resort before a rigorous logical chain of reasoning fall by the wayside into rationalizing one's beliefs. This argument is always a logical fallacy because it always ignores the cost of accepting the desired point of view (that potential harm in nonbelief exists and must be guarded against).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
My analogy is one of refusing to apply the brakes until obtaining a degree of proof only available after actually driving over the upcoming edge of the proverbial cliff.
That's a Pascal's wager argument and it's only applicable in justifying faith.
Not entirely. Making any decision usually involves assigning some probability to the two sides and also assigning a magnitude to the importance of the outcomes. Pascal's wager assumes an infinite (or at least really-really-big) importance to the outcome (eternal damnation/eternal bliss) that basically overwhelms any non-zero probability of the bet "paying out".
Once can certainly rationally decide that the magnitude of the negative for AGW is large enough to justify responses while still feeling that AGW was "unlikely", without being in the "Pascal wager" regime where the "infinite good"/"infinite bad" render the actual odds moot. For example, a 20% chance of AGW being accurate might be large enough to take action, due to the large negative consequences, whereas for lesser stakes one might not feel taking action is worthwhile. Of course if one feels that the costs of action are similar in magnitude to the costs of AGW being accurate, then the calculations would be different.
Not at all. I have seen more than enough evidence to convince me personally to believe in anthropogenic climate change. No I wont fall into your mistake of using AGW acronym to describe whats happening, as the W part is at best contentious, and often used to purposely sidetrack the whole argument. For me, Whether the effect of human caused damage is warmth or something else seems totally irrelevant to the real point which is that we should stop causing the damage in the first place.
My analogy is intended to apply to those who refuse to believe in AGW until they have totally irrefutable proof, which will inevitably never come both because the system we are trying to understand is so complex that they will always find some loophole to wriggle out of facing the fact that they are in fact wrong. THis is human nature. Even under the most obvious evidence, some people can literally never allow themselves to admit they were ever wrong. This holds true even if the cost is death of the entire planet, vs a relative very trivial cost of having to do something that possibly hurts the economy.
Personally I'd rather we affirmative take action now, be poorer if necessary, and even possibly proved wrong later, than leave it too late while waiting for ultimate proof that will never come because it is an impossibly complex system to fully quantify.
I'm sure those people that live in denial of AGW actually won't die happy knowing they saved the richest few people a few more bucks.
It literally boggles my mind why others can't see it that too.
>> I'm sure those people that live in denial of AGW
dammit you've got me doing it now. I meant ACC.
Pascal's wager assumes an infinite (or at least really-really-big) importance to the outcome (eternal damnation/eternal bliss) that basically overwhelms any non-zero probability of the bet "paying out".
A convinced atheist would see it otherwise. The importance of treating one's life as important (because it's all there is) would outweigh any fear mongering by the other "what if" would-be distractors.
For example, a 20% chance of AGW being accurate might be large enough to take action, due to the large negative consequences, whereas for lesser stakes one might not feel taking action is worthwhile.
Really? What if there is a 20% chance of 20% of civilization getting destroyed? And what if the only measure to combat the potential 20% destruction is to sacrifice 80% of the advances of the modern civilization? Will the turmoil which results be worth it? You are guilty of exactly what I said you would be guilty of if you were to buy into Pascal's-Wager-type argument. You fail to consider the significant cost of action.
In general there are 4 weights to consider and 2 probabilities. And then there will be 2 "expected values" of the outcomes based on whether the event occurs or not. The fallacy is to consider one of the 4 weights to be significantly larger than the other 3. When, in fact, 2 out of 4 weights are large. And the result skews the expected outcome significantly.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I'm sure those people that live in denial of AGW actually won't die happy knowing they saved the richest few people a few more bucks.
That's really, really not the argument. The argument is that we should not dismantle the civilization we have today in order to prevent some of it from falling apart 100 years from today. The numbers make all the difference. Forcing 20%-30% of humanity to suffer 100 years from today is horrible, but forcing 80% of humanity to suffer today (and suffer far greater -- war and famine) is worse. And the whole idea that the rich consume most resources is a myth. Most of their money only gives them control over economic activity. Someone with billions of dollars does not have billions of dollars of personal luxury. They control (ie, direct) companies (work activities) of many other individuals. The quality of life difference between the richest and the poorest (in the West) is very unlikely to be more than 2 orders of magnitude apart (even though "wealth" differences are as much as 9 order of magnitude apart). I could use multiple examples of how technology is equalizing (and how destroying it to reduce potential future harm would exacerbate the differences), but they will all sound like platitudes because everyone has heard them many times over.
But let's not forget how we got here. You accused (and that's the correct verb) the Jews of nefarious group action at the expense of other groups. The only evidence you can claim for it is correlation between success and being Jewish. But if you are careless and don't consider the cost of taking your argument at its faith value, you risk accusing millions of nefarious activities which they not only do not actively participate in, but which they actively oppose. This callous "God will sort them out" attitude is what brings me to the point of risking invoking Godwin's law.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
For example, a 20% chance of AGW being accurate might be large enough to take action, due to the large negative consequences, whereas for lesser stakes one might not feel taking action is worthwhile.
Really? What if there is a 20% chance of 20% of civilization getting destroyed? And what if the only measure to combat the potential 20% destruction is to sacrifice 80% of the advances of the modern civilization? Will the turmoil which results be worth it? You are guilty of exactly what I said you would be guilty of if you were to buy into Pascal's-Wager-type argument. You fail to consider the significant cost of action.
In general there are 4 weights to consider and 2 probabilities. And then there will be 2 "expected values" of the outcomes based on whether the event occurs or not. The fallacy is to consider one of the 4 weights to be significantly larger than the other 3. When, in fact, 2 out of 4 weights are large. And the result skews the expected outcome significantly.
I fail to consider the significant cost of action? The very next sentence that you failed to quote read "Of course if one feels that the costs of action are similar in magnitude to the costs of AGW being accurate, then the calculations would be different."
I don't think you and I are really disagreeing on how one can rationally look at these types of arguments. There are a variety of costs to consider and a variety of probabilities. You dismissed someone's argument as being crap and disparaged it by comparing them to Pascal. I was merely pointing out that not all such arguments can not be so easily dismissed, for the very reasons you site above. In my mind, a better critique of someone making these types of arguments is to explicitly address the perceived inaccuracies of their "4 weights".
I did not explain the 4 weights as clearly as I should have (or as you did), or what I might think are reasonable values for them - I could have been clearer.
There are some interesting questions of how to deal with existential threats with various likelihoods. If we get away from the complications of things like AGW, pollution, population, and other "self-harm" issues and just think about something external that has less emotional baggage like a huge asteroid strike (60 miles should wipe out everything). If the asteroid had a +99% chance of hitting, I think most would agree that we should probably do a lot to try to mitigate it, and that if the odds were one in a billion it probably is not worthwhile to "spend" a lot of resources on it compared to other problems to be addressed. Figuring out rational responses for values between those extremes is not very easy.
Neil Stephenson explored some of these things in Seveneves which has the destruction of the moon causing the world to confront some of these issues. I thought it was a worthwhile read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You dismissed someone's argument as being crap and disparaged it by comparing them to Pascal.
Yes, I did. They were trying to gin up hysteria over perceived overaccomplishment of Jews by trying to portray it as a result of a highly-probable neferious plot and likening such plot to highly-probable AGW. There is little doubt that they were trying to capitalize on hysteria over AGW (and demands for over-the-board actions to curtail it) in order to promote their pet-peeve view that suppression of equality of Jews in society is a survival imperative. This mode of erroneous thinking about dealing with threats (thought to be existential) is what allows for these types of whacky overreactions to seem normal.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
You dismissed someone's argument as being crap and disparaged it by comparing them to Pascal.
Yes, I did. They were trying to gin up hysteria over perceived overaccomplishment of Jews by trying to portray it as a result of a highly-probable neferious plot and likening such plot to highly-probable AGW.
My error - I failed to recognize the start of this. Now that I look at the thread I have less interest in exploring the philosophy of existential threats. Congrats on speaking up for reason against racial hysteria - I seldom have the patience.
>> The only evidence you can claim for it is correlation between success and being Jewish.
Not true at all and you know it. And please stop putting your words in my mouth.