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386 points z991 | 5 comments | | HN request time: 0.002s | source
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drjolly ◴[] No.44361936[source]
I think this is pretty consistent with the old school 1950s views of the current administration. Companies can prioritize profits over people again. Yeah, dump in the rivers, dump in the woods, just drive around in circles dumping in an empty lot. You don’t need masks- give everyone cancer and blow some shit up, maybe get some acid burns. Super-fund sites? When was the last one we had anyway- we need more of ‘em- lots more! Let’s let the kids eat the lead paint and complain of the smells wafting into their cars from the chemical, paper, etc. plants on road trips, just like the olden days!
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nerdsniper ◴[] No.44362062[source]
I wrote elsewhere:

> Please note that the CSB is not an enforcement agency - they don’t assign fault or levee fines or bring any charges or write any regulation.

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rectang ◴[] No.44362122[source]
CSB investigations still represent an objective source of truth which competes with the PR that companies put out absolving themselves of blame in the event of any mishap. Removing the CSB frees up companies to "self-regulate" and blast out bogus framings.
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monkeyelite ◴[] No.44362209[source]
> an objective source of truth

An alternative source with different incentives and culture, not an objective one.

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ordu ◴[] No.44362413[source]
Going this way we should ban the word "objective", because no knowledge can be objective, because you need a thinking subject to process raw data to create knowledge.

Going this way we'll risk to end up in a world, where there is no truth and no falsehoods. All we'll have is something in between. It would take just one small step to say that any two opinions are equal in their utility.

You know, it is like Kremlin propaganda targets idea of "independent media", pointing out that any media is not truly independent, it depends on someone or something. It gets its funding from somewhere, it is subject of some laws and of abuses of law. It needs to take into an account interests of sponsors and from those who wield power. The core message for Russians is: Kremlin propaganda can be bad, but no worse than anything else. Or it can be reworded as: anything is propaganda. Therefore you can relax and just watch news of state television, because you'll never know the truth no matter how hard you tried.

It seems to me, that you are going in the same rough direction by rejecting objectiveness.

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esseph ◴[] No.44362458[source]
We are living in a post-truth world, and more specifically, a post truth country in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/informed-societies/post...

https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=14214

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1. ordu ◴[] No.44362585[source]
Oh, it is all about dumb people who cannot navigate the current informational landscape. Or about people who relies on informational processing disabilities of others. It doesn't mean that smart people should reject the notions of truth and false.
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2. esseph ◴[] No.44362959[source]
Brilliant people make absolutely stupid decisions all the time - thinking you're not going to is the trap. It's not possible you could get caught in bullshit you _want_ to believe and _know_ is right, yeah?

You and everybody else buddy.

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3. monkeyelite ◴[] No.44363011[source]
I didn’t say anything about truth not existing. I said all organizations are presenting a perspective. It may contain truth, but it’s not an objective view.
4. ordu ◴[] No.44370469[source]
I'm going to explain my views on this in a full. It is a lot of text, but I hope it is ok.

People don't have an innate ability to distinguish truths from lies, they need to learn this skill. Before Internet and LLMs they were relying on authorities to dictate what was truth and what was falsehoods. Those authorities included newspapers and other media, but there were also courts, government officials, politicians and others. There were no easy way to spread misinformation wide, so people were shielded from them. The system worked to some extent.

Now, however, people are swimming in an ocean of lies. They haven't magically acquired skills needed to navigate in this environment. Their own judgments about truthfulness are no better then coin flips. The results are obvious: people experience learned helplessness[1], they avoid making judgments altogether. People instead are picking some "authority" and stick to it. In USA politics, for example, there are two authorities Democrats and Republicans, so it comes to choosing your side. It allows people to avoid psychological burden of making a judgement (they are afraid of failing again). Consequently, people never feel that they were mistaken, because even if they are, it is not their fault, but the fault of an authority. At the same time they see other people who firmly believe in opposite views. Here comes "post truth world". Truth is no longer universal, you can choose any "truth" you like.

However, it is possible to avoid learned helplessness, all you need is to be better than a coin flip at predicting in advance which statements are true and which are false. You need an ability to avoid traps at least in cases when you make an effort. I make an effort when I feel it is important. Moreover in the most cases I do not need to make an effort, because all previous efforts trained my skills that works by themselves. I just see symptoms and guess, and my guessed are often correct.

I think, I need to add one more important ability to have: one needs to get rid of an irresistible urge to have an opinion. It is ok to have no opinion on some topic, to keep yourself in undecided state. Moreover it is a preferred state, if you are not 100% sure or if the topic is not important enough to you to invest time to do some research and to keep an eye on it.

In light of this I do not see the world to be "post truth". I see the most of people seeing the world as a "post truth world", but it is just their rough approximation of the world, their model of it. My model-approximation is not the real thing either, I don't know a lot of truths and keep myself undecided. Yes, I make mistaken judgements also. But the probability of my mistake goes down when I make an effort to avoid it. I feel myself in control. I don't experience learned helplessness. I know that the Truth exists and oftentimes I could reach it, if I wanted to.

So your sarcastic tone is misplaced. I know my limitations and I strive to know them more.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

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5. esseph ◴[] No.44383924{3}[source]
"Your overconfidence will be your undoing."