49 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2024
    1. nobody told it what to do that's that's the kind of really amazing and frightening thing about these situations when Facebook gave uh the algorithm the uh uh aim of increased user engagement the managers of Facebook did not anticipate that it will do it by spreading hatefield conspiracy theories this is something the algorithm discovered by itself the same with the capture puzzle and this is the big problem we are facing with AI

      for - AI - progress trap - example - Facebook AI algorithm - target - increase user engagement - by spreading hateful conspiracy theories - AI did this autonomously - no morality - Yuval Noah Harari story

  2. Aug 2024
    1. a criminal gang from Venezuela infiltrating the United States. Known as Tren de Aragua, the criminal organization has become a recurring bogeyman in anti-immigrant conspiracy theories circulating in Spanish-speaking diaspora communities over the past year.
  3. Dec 2023
    1. In the neoliberal era, individuals are forced to assume sole responsibility for navigating “every hardship and every difficulty—from poverty to student debt to home eviction to drug addiction.” When the pandemic exacerbated these hardships, it was an uphill battle to build solidarity and convince people to support collective solutions. After a lifetime of being told they were on their own, “a subset of the population” doubled down on individualism. It does not, now, seem surprising to Klein that they essentially said, “Fuck you: we won’t mask or jab
      • for: key insight - anti-vaxxers, key insight - conspiracy theories, key insight - maga, key insight - neoliberalism and failure at collective action

      • key insight: neoliberalism and failure of collective action

        • neoliberalism's continuous assault on society has striped use off any support system, leaving us to fend for ourselves
        • when polycrisis events occur, it provokes a distrust of any attempt at government intervention
        • this is a sign of things to come when climate chaos will accelerate social breakdown
    1. is there a way to say what that means about the actual world you're operating in uh when you're dealing with companies 00:35:01 or governments or Davos and these fancy one% Summits or as you alluded to conspiracies earlier as you know the Illuminati qinon typ they believe that there's that seven of you guys in a room and you they're deciding it for everyone 00:35:14 else uh uh for the internet also I think that I think that's wishful thinking they hope that there is somebody in charge truth is much worse it's chaos the truth is chaos
      • for: conspiracy theories - truth is much worse
    1. Will artificial intelligence create useless class of people? - Yuval Noah Harari

      1:00 "bring the latest findings of science of the public", otherwise the public space "gets filled with conspiracy theories and fake news and whatever".<br /> he fails to mention that ALL his beautiful "scientists" are financially dependent on corporations, who dictate the expected results, and who sabotage "unwanted research".<br /> for example, the pharma industry will NEVER pay money for research of natural cancer cures, or "alternative" covid cures like ivermectin / zinc / vitamin C, because these cures have no patent, so there is no profit motive, and also because the "militant pacifists" want to fix overpopulation this way.<br /> a "scientist" should be someone, who has all freedom to propose hypotheses, which then are tested in experiments (peer review), and compared to real placebo control groups. because that is science, or "the scientific method". everything else is lobbying for "shekel shekel".

  4. Sep 2023
      • for: doppleganger, conflict resolution, deep humanity, common denominators, CHD, Douglas Rushkoff, Naomi Klein, Into the Mirror World, conspiracy theory, conspiracy theories, conspiracy culture, nonduality, self-other, human interbeing, polycrisis, othering, storytelling, myth-making, social media amplifier -summary
        • This conversation was insightful on so many dimensions salient to the polycrisis humanity is moving through.
        • It makes me think of the old cliches:
          • "The more things change, the more they remain the same"
          • "What's old is new" ' "History repeats"
        • the conversation explores Naomi's latest book (as of this podcast), Into the Mirror World, in which Naomi adopts a different style of writing to explicate, articulate and give voice to
          • implicit and tacit discomforting ideas and feelings she experienced during covid and earlier, and
          • became a focal point through a personal comparative analysis with another female author and thought leader, Naomi Wolf,
            • a feminist writer who ended up being rejected by mainstream media and turned to right wing media.
        • The conversation explores the process of:
          • othering,
          • coopting and
          • abandoning
        • of ideas important for personal and social wellbeing.
        • and speaks to the need to identify what is going on and to reclaim those ideas for the sake of humanity
        • In this context, the doppleganger is the people who are mirror-like imiages of ourselves, but on the other side of polarized issues.
        • Charismatic leaders who are bad actors often are good at identifying the suffering of the masses, and coopt the ideas of good actors to serve their own ends of self-enrichment.
        • There are real world conspiracies that have caused significant societal harm, and still do,
        • however, when there ithere are phenomena which we have no direct sense experience of, the mixture of
          • a sense of helplessness,
          • anger emerging from injustice
        • a charismatic leader proposing a concrete, possible but explanatory theory
        • is a powerful story whose mythology can be reified by many people believing it
        • Another cliche springs to mind
          • A lie told a hundred times becomes a truth
          • hence the amplifying role of social media
        • When we think about where this phenomena manifests, we find it everywhere:
  5. Dec 2022
    1. The Open Society Foundations extend our condolences to the friends and family of loved ones on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. We are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of the HIV/AIDS researchers and advocates onboard traveling to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, along with all the other people who perished.
  6. Nov 2022
  7. Mar 2022
  8. Feb 2022
  9. Jan 2022
  10. Dec 2021
  11. Oct 2021
  12. Sep 2021
    1. Ben Collins on Twitter: “A quick thread: It’s hard to explain just how radicalized ivermectin and antivax Facebook groups have become in the last few weeks. They’re now telling people who get COVID to avoid the ICU and treat themselves, often by nebulizing hydrogen peroxide. So, how did we get here?” / Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved September 26, 2021, from https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1441395300002848769?s=20

  13. Jul 2021
  14. May 2021
  15. Mar 2021
  16. Feb 2021
  17. Dec 2020
    1. For those awash in anxiety and alienation, who feel that everything is spinning out of control, conspiracy theories are extremely effective emotional tools. For those in low status groups, they provide a sense of superiority: I possess important information most people do not have. For those who feel powerless, they provide agency: I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals. As Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School points out, they provide liberation: If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want.

      Underlying emotional drivers of Trump supporters, conspiracy theorists, and Republican psychology

    1. ReconfigBehSci {@SciBeh} (2020) sadly squares with my own impression of social media 'debate' - as someone who works on both argumentation and belief formation across social networks, this strikes me as every bit as big a problem as the spread of conspiracy. Twitter. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1308341816333340672

  18. Oct 2020
    1. The result is that we are living through a period of chaos. Symptoms include conspiracy theories, information bubbles, cancel culture, President Trump’s tweets, and widespread institutional decay and dysfunction.

      Symptoms of this chaotic, gossip run world are: conspiracy theories, information bubbles, cancel culture, Trump's tweets and decay of institutions as well as dysfunction.

  19. Aug 2020
    1. Obviously not every group chat counts as a “conspiracy”. But it makes the question of how society coheres, who is associated with whom, into a matter of speculation – something that involves a trace of conspiracy theory. In that sense, WhatsApp is not just a channel for the circulation of conspiracy theories, but offers content for them as well. The medium is the message.
  20. Jul 2020
  21. May 2020
  22. Mar 2018
    1. Neither the “Jews cause all my problems” claim nor the “racial/gender oppression is everywhere” claim is a literal conspiracy theory. Most people who buy into them don’t think Jews or white men (respectively) secretly meet in smoke-filled rooms and devise sophisticated strategies for dominating the world. Instead, these theories resemble traditional conspiracy theories in sealing themselves off from any possible counterevidence.

      Audacious...

  23. May 2017
  24. Nov 2016
    1. This is a modern update to a classic confidence game—find a risky scenario with limited possibilities, bet on every single combination, and then hide your failures.

      Today, all possible outcomes can be posted to any website that allows accounts to be set to private, or that isn't likely to be noticed. After the fact, the incorrect results can be deleted before making the account public.

      This post points out that this trick could be used to "predict" election results, making it appear that they were fixed ahead of time. So it's potentially very dangerous.

  25. Oct 2016
  26. Feb 2015
    1. The researchers examined social media patterns for 1.2 million Facebook users and found that nearly 92 percent of those who engage with Italian conspiracy theory pages interact almost exclusively with conspiracy theory pages.

      Oh, no. No. Noooooo.