Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

I think part of All-In's success is that it has the vibe of a group of friends sitting around and shooting the breeze. It's way less academic than something like the Ezra Klein Show, but that's the point. Is there bloviating involved? All the time, especially from Chamath. Are there bad takes? Certainly. But it's entertaining.

Being confidently wrong about matters of public policy in front of a large audience is more than just an incidental bad take. It pollutes the public well of information and thereby does a disservice to society. You do not have a right to entertain yourself with something that damages the ability of society to make decisions and govern itself.

People in this “large audience” are listening voluntarily to a bunch of guys talking about similar interest points. Some of those points they will have credibility others no; and that’s the beauty of to live in an almost free information society.

The problem with the “something that damages the ability of society to make decisions” it’s with who establishes that and what’s the self correct mechanism those institutions that establishes that has.

Problem is, the legacy media is confidently wrong about all kinds of matters too, all the time.

Why would they have the right to broadcast misinformation, and popular podcasters not?

The answer to this isn't censorship. It's in education and teaching people to think critically.

In Germany the alienation of the public founded broadcast midia were so deep that more than 70% of the people believed that the VPOTUS would win the election.

Most of the people that I know that consumes a blend between MSm, independent media, and citizen journalism would not expect the victory of the former POTUS.

It tells a lot about the level of alienation and narrative entertainment that our public media became.

> The problem with the “something that damages the ability of society to make decisions” it’s with who establishes that and what’s the self correct mechanism those institutions that establishes that has.

You seem to imply that this is some metaphysical discussion on the nature of "truth" itself or who gets to be the arbiter of that - but I feel this is a dishonest digression here. Yes, truth can never be truly established - but both you and I know that Chamath's take on All-In for this particular claim was clearly false.

I agree with the poster you replied to. I guess you have a point in that there is no law that can tell Chamath to shut up and only open his mouth when he is talking about something with high confidence - but when you are speaking to a large audience on matters of economic policy with some implications as to what people believe then YES - you have a responsibility! The punishment to which breaking it should be (for people with a huge outreach like Chamath) being shamed online for it. People should learn the fact that Chamath is a man who chronically opines constantly about things he has no basis for having an opinion on. He is a chronic borderline liar.

> I think part of All-In's success is that it has the vibe of a group of friends sitting around and shooting the breeze.

imho that's the dangerous part, same with Rogan, it's mostly for entertainment but they slowly lost that part and somehow gained authority. Now you have stuff like Musk saying absurd shit such as: animal farming has 0 impact on the greenhouse effect "because you can't measure it" even though you very well can measure it. It's like getting stoned with your bros on a friday night and discussing the world and politics but they have XX millions of view

You do have the right for better or worse.

They didn't start off with a large audience and they weren't granted one by having something like a channel reserved on the airwaves. They gathered a large audience organically because people just wanted to watch. They have no obligation to be PBS.

You actually do have a right to that, and to suggest otherwise is a much worse stance on public policy than someone incorrectly describing a quarter's GDP growth.

Freedom (such as free speech) has always been limited by harm caused to others. Or do you suggest that we somehow impose a Pigouvian tax on letting people lie to you for "entertainment"?

Let's also be clear: the people crying "it's entertainment stop taking it so seriously!" are probably just unwilling to admit that they didn't realize they were being lied to. This is a common phenomenon.

If you are being lied to, then the liars are at fault. If you know that you are being lied to and keep on listening without at least increasing your level of skepticism, then you are a collaborator and an enabler and a public-information-well-poisoner.

I maintain that you should not get a free pass to consume bullshit just because you personally find it entertaining, regardless of whether it comes from CNN or a podcast or a Tiktok account.

Libertarians might recognize this as the "harm principle" that they so often like to talk about, and then conveniently ignore when it doesn't turn out to align with the political right wing.

I am not saying anything about what we as a society should do about it. I have no idea what we should do about it. Attempting to censor all liars sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen, for example.

> (free speech) has always been limited by harm caused to others

No it hasn't, except for specific enumerated circumstances

> Attempting to censor all liars sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen, for example.

This is the whole point of libertarianism. No one thinks lying is morally good.

You say you don't say anything about what we as a society should do about it, but it's definitely implied... or can be seen as such. Especially because it's quite a colored opinion - do you need a list of hoaxes and lies disseminated by the political left in the last 4 years?

Point is, everyone has biases, and everyone makes mistakes. We're only human. I think we should judge an information channel by the way they self-correct for those mistakes. That tells a lot about character and values, and whether or not to trust the source. So I believe we desperately need a meta layer on the Internet, much like X introduced with community notes, but on a larger scale. Open source, fully auditable, immutable (append-only and decentralized, so probably on a blockchain cause of the Byzantine Generals problem) - but I'll admit, that's just the tech geek in me trying to find a practical tech solution to a complex social problem.