truth as status quo
We now have the science that argues how you're supposed to go about building something that doesn't have these echo chamber problems, these fads and madnesses. We're beginning to experiment with that as a way of curing some of the ills that we see in society today. Open data from all sources, and this notion of having a fair representation of the things that people are actually choosing, in this curated mathematical framework that we know stamps out echoes and fake news.
Fads and echo chambers provide the means to break positive feedback loops (by helping us counter them with virtual positive feedback loops) and get out of bad equilibriums (by helping us cross the critical thresholds necessary to initiate change). Preventing illusion is akin to preventing progress. Every new truth starts with untruth. Future will be in conflict with today. Today’s new reality is yesterday’s false belief.
It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.
Eric Hoffer - The True Believer (Page 79)
We are constructors of our social world as well as receivers.That is why companies like Facebook should never be involved in this war against “fake news”. Truth is inherently political. Algorithms for sniffing it out will inevitably end up defending the status quo.
