Michael HOct 8, 2025

@DecaturNature That's the thing. How do we break through the endless lies?

Truth against lies doesn't seem to work with most folks.

Logically, I don't know if we counter lies with better lies, but something has to just pierce the bullshit that is accepted as truth.

Show threadVladimirOct 8
@michael @DecaturNature I'm not sure what the answer is but I think there needs to be a digital component, and it should be run locally by people who have a personal interest in outcomes of the discourse rather than a global corporation seeking eyeballs and ad sales.
Show threadDecaturNatureOct 9
@Vladimir @michael I sometimes feel like we need some sort of mass organization dedicated to the truth -- with standards of conduct and membership rosters so that at least we can work together to share reliable information. But I immediately draw back from that idea, knowing how such organizations require immense resources to organize, tend to be coopted and/or subject of conspiracy theories once they become influential,. So we're left with informal reputation networks, which get overwhelmed by propaganda and slop once they extend beyond small groups.
Show threadVladimirOct 9

@DecaturNature @michael I was mostly joking that more people should join us at Michael's theatl.social.

But I agree with you that something more structured would be needed for that result. Wikipedia's a marvel of mass information collection and communication, but even it's not trying to contain everything. The risks of flawed organizers having influence on a message is unavoidable, just gotta e.g. read https://austinlouisray.com/how-id-fix-atlanta until it stops being good and then find something else.

I do think it'd be healthier if we could e.g. rewind, save google reader, and have an online culture of reading fewer longer blog posts from consistent sources, make even fewer blog length responses. Instead of so many posts coming from feeds written by who knows who/what. The sheer volume is overwhelming even if every actor online had good faith.

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Show threadMichael H

@Vladimir @DecaturNature Throwing in my two cents: the political orgs (of which I'm a part of) trying to speak truth typically have a three-tiered comms strategy:

1) fact-based appeals to formal authority
2) fact-based appeals to other allied orgs for solidarity
3) fact-based appeals to the print/TV media to get the attention of "normies"

The bad folks' comm strategy:

1) generate mountains of lies and deliver them to normies through postal mail, email, FB posts, etc.
2) utilize AI as a force multiplier for the above

We try to carefully leverage power and authority to bend towards our direction, while the other side creates a mob that bends authority with intimidation and threats.

I mean, I can't begin to count all the petitions and letters that "we" send to electeds, to almost always no effect.

Civic virtue has left the building, and what's left is, well, a wasteland of bullshit and AI-generated media that's indistinguishable from reality.

So, we might as well fight on the same terms as the bad folks, and stop pretending that people are paying attention to reasoned and logic arguments - because they are simply not.

Oct 9 at 12:53pmWeb