I’ve been ad-free for long enough at this point that I feel physically assaulted when I see one (at a friend’s house or whatever). It’s insane that we ever thought that was ok, and it’s become worse.

At this point, adblock is a survival measure. Piracy is self-defense. The first presidential candidate who campaigns on legalizing graffiti on billboards and mandating their eventual removal gets my vote. Burn it all.

I already talked you through it in the linked comment, and honestly if you don’t get it I don’t think I can make it any simpler.

In any case, I’m not taking homework from you. I know how I arrived at this conclusion, and you’re free to believe me or not. Have a good night.

But how does including sources make that world? How does it move from point A to point B?

I addressed that very objection at the beginning of the conversation.

You haven’t thought of that at all. You’re applying reasoning to positions you hold, not reasoning to reach positions.

That’s particularly hilarious since the comment I’m talking about was from fifteen hours ago.

I’ve been thinking about media literacy for decades at this point. I’m not naive enough to be certain that this is some foolproof magic bullet, but I think it’ll help, and it’s definitely not going to hurt public discourse.

Mastodon has definitely improved, but more to the point, there’s really nothing else. Particularly not anything that anyone is using. Unless you widen your definition to include Bluesky.

Honestly, I’d say that Mastodon’s perceived complexity in the past was kind of an illusion anyway. The problem of choosing a server was really made out to be this huge hurdle, when in fact it was no big deal at all; I was a member of several different servers over time, and I didn’t feel like my experience was substantially different on any of them. Just join one that seems interesting or is near you or whatever, and you’ll be fine. After that, it operates pretty much the same as Twitter did. Following people on other servers can be a little bit trickier on web, but in the app it’s pretty seamless.

You’re contending that sharing sources online won’t accomplish anything because people are resistant to changing their opinions. Yes, that’s currently true; and while I see a benefit in the current world to sharing sources, why not also imagine a world in which it actually does change opinions? There’s no physiological or psychological law that makes opinion change impossible. People can change because people do change, so why don’t we do what we can to make that more common?

People behave like this now for a lot of complicated reasons. For one, changing opinions hurts us (physiologically), so our brain tries to prevent it; that’s something that can be eased with exposure. Also, rich people and foreign interests have a vested interest in keeping people susceptible to misinformation, and greater media literacy is really the only tactic that can combat it.

But more importantly, the world we live in now isn’t the only world we ever have to live in. It’s going to change one way or another; why not take steps to make it change into something more like what we want to live in?

No, I’m absolutely not saying that. I’m saying we should normalize having sources and not just blindly repeating a thing we heard.

You’re talking about a current reality. I’m talking about normalizing a different future.

No. I’m not running on a fantasy. I’m trying to bring into existence a world that doesn’t yet exist. I know that people aren’t rational, but if my mind can be changed by facts, they have to have some value.

Yeah, definitely. But:

1. It’s a lot easier to answer the disinformation if you know where it’s coming from. Part of the thing that makes my head spin about the GOP news cycle is how even I (a chronically-online, fairly well-informed person) will have absolutely no idea where some people come up with the nonsense they come up with. Is it from their own mind? Is there some fringe community on Facebook doling out steaming dog piles of AI-generated anti-vax nonsense? Is it a legitimate outlet, and they’re just massively misunderstanding it? Knowing where it comes from can really help in combating it; even if you can’t stop the current fake news, you might be able to head the next one off before it takes root.

2. Sometimes just the process of needing to find a source can make people look twice. It works for me, even: if I want to write something I’m pretty sure about, and then go looking for a source, sometimes I’ll find out that that source isn’t reliable, or that it was retracted. Sometimes I’ll even find out that what I remembered was true, but it’s way better or worse. I become more media literate sourcing my facts.

And he represents just one of hundreds of deadly misinformation campaigns in the last thirty years alone.

This. As soon as we treat them as “only monsters,” we start to think that “regular humans” aren’t capable of monstrous things.

Because misinformation and disinformation are way more dangerous than anyone takes seriously; in my opinion, it could legitimately cause the end of our species. I think that being forced to at least have sources to support your assertion can help.

And I’m saying it should be normalized, especially for high-emotion and controversial topics. It shouldn’t just be for academic or professional work, but for casual conversation, too. I don’t think people should necessarily be forced to post sources every time, but they should definitely be encouraged to do so when asked.

Misinformation and disinformation are an extinction-level threat for our species. I’m not exaggerating. And I think that being forced to at least have a source can help.

Just because it doesn’t work doesn’t mean we shouldn’t normalize it.

Just because nobody cares doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to normalize them.

It was for me about ten years ago, but because of that brief dalliance, when Microsoft really finally started running toward this particular cliff last year, I was already familiar enough with Linux to be comfortable diving in completely; I don’t have a single Windows install in my house anymore. So it’s not always for nothing.

I’m probably going to be allowing most of my streaming subscriptions to lapse over the next year or two. Gonna stick with Dropout and PBS, but that might be all.

Interesting. Some of them are just dip switches, too. I hadn’t heard about needing a cable, that’s an interesting wrinkle.

I don’t have any specific recommendations for you, but I will say that

• pretty much every modern Chromebook will be able to have Linux installed over ChromeOS. You might have to open it up and remove a write-protect screw.

• Linux is a surprisingly good platform for games these days, actually. Steam has done a lot of work to get it there.

• If you’re wanting lightweight specs, you’re probably going to find the best bang for your buck in an old Chromebook; however, I don’t know if you’ll see as many of those coming on the market, and you’ll want to watch out for old school devices. Those things get worked over pretty hard.