Item — HN Reader

Unfortunately we do not have a solution for countering this kind of a 'denial of service' attack on information consumption.

It is trivial to concoct believable lies as compared to the effort needed to debunk them in a way that is effective at social scale.

Perhaps the only weapon is to teach how to think for oneself. Who is going to invest in that in a scale necessary? Those who have the resources to do that do not have sufficient motivation. Often the motivation to do the opposite is stronger.

3 comments

Indeed. And with AI and video generation, it's now (or within months) literally undetectable. The closer we get to US midterms, the more we'll see how bad it really can get this time around.

And the US elections in 2028? I can barely imagine.

And the massive problem is, most people I talk to still think what they see on youtube is real. But of course, people thought the TV show Survivor was real, too. It's not a new phenomenon.

But it is at crazy levels. I like your 'denial of service' designation, because even knowing the problem, maybe you can't find real info still.

> Perhaps the only weapon is to teach how to think for oneself. Who is going to invest in that in a scale necessary?

_Most_ developed countries do invest in the education and teaching of critical thinking. It's not even that expensive.

In most countries, if a political party prefers an uneducated voter base, they don't win elections. Or if they do, there are enough working checks and balances (and parties in the opposition) to prevent serious harm.

LoL.

Political parties are very good at making elections about manufactured issues. They strategically polarize the voters by amplifying and creating fault lines within the society.

If what you say is true in your world, I would be sincerely interested to know where would that be (my guesses would be Uruguay, New Zealand). This is not sarcasm, I am genuinely interested. In my world, India, it is as untrue as it can be.

I grew up and lived mostly in Belgium. Only a year in the US and a few years in South Africa.

Belgium gets a lot of criticism for moving slowing, but it also rarely breaks crucial things. The system of >10 political parties has its flaws, but it's a lot less divisive than a 2 party system. It means compromise needs to be found, and that no 1 party has full control (slows things down but reduces corruption and critical errors imo). Purposely dumbing down the population or firing 10% of government employees in order to hide malicious acts (or make corruption easier) just aren't conceivable in Belgium.

Appreciate your reply.

The only criticism of Belgium that I have heard are the horrors of colonialism under Leopold.

Its a picturesque country.

Thanks! As always, plenty of problems there too.

The colonization of Congo was indeed horrible. Inconsequential clarification: Congo wasn't actually a Belgian colony, it was Leopold's personal colony.

Oh! I did not know that. So crazy.

> we do not have a solution for countering this kind of a 'denial of service' attack

Umm, wouldn't a simple solution be going back to linear news feed that only includes updates from people you follow rather than the algorithm deciding what content to push to you?

We have the solution.