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Maybe it is healthy for society in the long run to have pockets of divergent belief. Most of the time it is groundless and fades away. Every so often it gains t

Maybe it is healthy for society in the long run to have pockets of divergent belief. Most of the time it is groundless and fades away. Every so often it gains traction. If it is based in reality, we gain a better understanding. If it is misleading, it vitalizes a competing and more correct understanding. The more interesting phenomenon is that we are able to agree on anything at all, it's not exactly our strongest instinct. Reading through HN, for example, the longest comment chains are a series of disagreements. But we build resources like Wikipedia and science journals, which also use disagreement as an engine for generating a more correct understanding. Its a strange and hopeful aspect of human societies.

MBCook 24d ago
How could it be healthy to not even agree on the most basic facts of history like whether hundreds of years actually happened or the shape of the earth?
- macintux 24d ago
  That’s why I’ve lost much of my optimism regarding U.S. politics. It’s fine, and healthy, to disagree on how best to deal with the world as it exists, but if we can’t agree on reality itself, compromise and progress are so much more challenging.
- edgyquant 24d ago
  Does this stuff really matter when you get down to it? How much does it being true or false change the average persons daily life?
  - j4yav 23d ago
    Eventually the misinformed mob gets together and elects an RFK jr type.
  - libertine 23d ago
    Oh boy... I think you will find the answer in George Orwell's Animal Farm. But to help you understand, rewriting the past to sustain power is the type of thing that degenerates into genocide for example. In the short term it might look innocuous, but if corrupting truth and suspend basic moral and ethic values on something as basic as History, what other basic human values are you willing to suspend because you don't like how something feels? This is the breeding ground for racial supremacists, ethnophobia, etc. Terrible stuff. And you don't need to go into the past to see the consequences, Ukraine is fighting for their existence because a group of people in Russia don't want to acknowledge that a ethnic group they deem inferior can have better chances at thriving than them, to the point of denying Ukrainians existence all together.
- doginasuit 23d ago
  I don't think these particular fringe beliefs are directly useful, and they have a real cost in terms of confusion. I also don't expect them to last since they are easy to disprove. But they belong to a bigger trend which questions the value of experts and institutional knowledge. This could either send us into a dark age, or challenge a better class of experts and institutional knowledge. My money is on the latter. Few things improve without some kind of challenge.
gmerc 24d ago
One look at what’s happening with vaccines and you’re disabused of healthy. It’s not. it’s insanity
- mc32 24d ago
  It's a shame people are drifting from vaccines but the unwillingness of the WHO, etc., to backtrack on claims that turned out false with respect to Covid, does not help the cause. The sausage-making history that's coming out from Covid is also making people suspicious and one cannot blame them. Additionally, they've redefined that a pandemic is (removing severity from the definition), additionally it's expanding way from its traditional geopolitical framework and also what were recommendations are now becoming legally binding mandates that supersede sovereignty. So, yes, people are overreacting but the WHO and people who suppressed truthful but contrarian claims during the pandemic, share some of the blame.
  - AlexCoventry 24d ago
    > Additionally, they've redefined that a pandemic is (removing severity from the definition) Over a million Americans died, but OK, that's not a severe problem...
    - hnedeotes 23d ago
      [flagged]
      - hnedeotes 23d ago
        Why the downvotes but no argument? Aren't those reasonable questions? I didn't even mention the medical guidelines that came out during that period? All I wrote is verifiable (or was)
        smackeyacky 23d ago
        It’s well documented that the handling of dead bodies at the time was relegated to temporary facilities due to the increased volume.
dualvariable 23d ago
No, it is literally a russian propaganda method. Spread flat earth theories, get influencers to question if sunscreen is actually harmful, etc. Spread enough contradictory information so that gradually, people don't have any idea what to believe, and then they become susceptible to political misinformation, or just become completely politically disengaged. It is not a sign of a healthy society at all, it is a disease.
- otabdeveloper4 23d ago
  [flagged]
  - Tuna-Fish 23d ago
    People have been pointing out that various european fringe groups got funded by Russia for a long time. Like, they have actually been caught at it. I always thought it was a weird theory, why would they even bother? That was until the morning after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Because that morning, a huge proportion of the most popular european conspiracy, anti-vaxxer and alt-right twitter accounts started pushing the same 5 kremlin talking points. It was way too crudely done to be organic, they had clearly received their marching orders.
    - kelipso 23d ago
      “Talking points” for one man is simply the truth for another man. When you look at everything through a conspiracy lens, eventually the truth can become “talking points” and you end up in an island of delusion (I hope everyone still remembers the “vibecession” we had…, the inflation is not real actually, etc etc). We seriously need to evaluate this “talking points” accusation lol. Propaganda accusations in general, they’re mindless and kills actual discussion.
      - Tuna-Fish 23d ago
        No I mean literally a specific set of iirc 5 points, that none of them had ever used before, that they all did with very little variation, at the same time, one morning. They didn't all just independently end up with the same subjects they needed to talk about at the same time. It made lots of people who had previously believed in their bullshit wake up and take notice.

MBCook 24d ago

How could it be healthy to not even agree on the most basic facts of history like whether hundreds of years actually happened or the shape of the earth?

macintux 24d ago
That’s why I’ve lost much of my optimism regarding U.S. politics. It’s fine, and healthy, to disagree on how best to deal with the world as it exists, but if we can’t agree on reality itself, compromise and progress are so much more challenging.
edgyquant 24d ago
Does this stuff really matter when you get down to it? How much does it being true or false change the average persons daily life?
- j4yav 23d ago
  Eventually the misinformed mob gets together and elects an RFK jr type.
- libertine 23d ago
  Oh boy... I think you will find the answer in George Orwell's Animal Farm. But to help you understand, rewriting the past to sustain power is the type of thing that degenerates into genocide for example. In the short term it might look innocuous, but if corrupting truth and suspend basic moral and ethic values on something as basic as History, what other basic human values are you willing to suspend because you don't like how something feels? This is the breeding ground for racial supremacists, ethnophobia, etc. Terrible stuff. And you don't need to go into the past to see the consequences, Ukraine is fighting for their existence because a group of people in Russia don't want to acknowledge that a ethnic group they deem inferior can have better chances at thriving than them, to the point of denying Ukrainians existence all together.
doginasuit 23d ago
I don't think these particular fringe beliefs are directly useful, and they have a real cost in terms of confusion. I also don't expect them to last since they are easy to disprove. But they belong to a bigger trend which questions the value of experts and institutional knowledge. This could either send us into a dark age, or challenge a better class of experts and institutional knowledge. My money is on the latter. Few things improve without some kind of challenge.

gmerc 24d ago

One look at what’s happening with vaccines and you’re disabused of healthy. It’s not. it’s insanity

mc32 24d ago
It's a shame people are drifting from vaccines but the unwillingness of the WHO, etc., to backtrack on claims that turned out false with respect to Covid, does not help the cause. The sausage-making history that's coming out from Covid is also making people suspicious and one cannot blame them. Additionally, they've redefined that a pandemic is (removing severity from the definition), additionally it's expanding way from its traditional geopolitical framework and also what were recommendations are now becoming legally binding mandates that supersede sovereignty. So, yes, people are overreacting but the WHO and people who suppressed truthful but contrarian claims during the pandemic, share some of the blame.
- AlexCoventry 24d ago
  > Additionally, they've redefined that a pandemic is (removing severity from the definition) Over a million Americans died, but OK, that's not a severe problem...
  - hnedeotes 23d ago
    [flagged]
    - hnedeotes 23d ago
      Why the downvotes but no argument? Aren't those reasonable questions? I didn't even mention the medical guidelines that came out during that period? All I wrote is verifiable (or was)
      - smackeyacky 23d ago
        It’s well documented that the handling of dead bodies at the time was relegated to temporary facilities due to the increased volume.

dualvariable 23d ago

No, it is literally a russian propaganda method. Spread flat earth theories, get influencers to question if sunscreen is actually harmful, etc. Spread enough contradictory information so that gradually, people don't have any idea what to believe, and then they become susceptible to political misinformation, or just become completely politically disengaged. It is not a sign of a healthy society at all, it is a disease.

otabdeveloper4 23d ago
[flagged]
- Tuna-Fish 23d ago
  People have been pointing out that various european fringe groups got funded by Russia for a long time. Like, they have actually been caught at it. I always thought it was a weird theory, why would they even bother? That was until the morning after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Because that morning, a huge proportion of the most popular european conspiracy, anti-vaxxer and alt-right twitter accounts started pushing the same 5 kremlin talking points. It was way too crudely done to be organic, they had clearly received their marching orders.
  - kelipso 23d ago
    “Talking points” for one man is simply the truth for another man. When you look at everything through a conspiracy lens, eventually the truth can become “talking points” and you end up in an island of delusion (I hope everyone still remembers the “vibecession” we had…, the inflation is not real actually, etc etc). We seriously need to evaluate this “talking points” accusation lol. Propaganda accusations in general, they’re mindless and kills actual discussion.
    - Tuna-Fish 23d ago
      No I mean literally a specific set of iirc 5 points, that none of them had ever used before, that they all did with very little variation, at the same time, one morning. They didn't all just independently end up with the same subjects they needed to talk about at the same time. It made lots of people who had previously believed in their bullshit wake up and take notice.