[Fis] FW: The Age of Discord. The Foundations of DIS-information Science

Mon Nov 25 18:55:08 CET 2019

I applaud Joseph's identification of what I consider the most serious
threat to modern civilization.
As an organization that takes as its primary aim to be an understanding of
information in its most complete sense,
what could be more valuable than for us to focus the goal of finding ways
to mitigate the influence of IT-based disinformation.
This is far from a trivial issue, and it requires a full scientific
conceptualization of information to succeed;
i.e. one that takes the referential (meaningful) and normative (pragmatic)
aspects of information seriously.
Rather than bickering over our differing theoretical perspectives, we could
spend our efforts exploring what each might contribute to this critical
need.
We can add to these challenges the need to also counter the rapid
development of surveillance technologies and AI-based manipulation of
opinion and behavior.
In other words, there is so much that we collectively have to offer if we
can just focus on what matters.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 7:38 AM Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>
wrote:

> Dear Pedro and All,
>
>
>
> Disinformation is produced and disseminated in four major domains:
> politics, science, communications and the operation of the current social
> system.
>
>
>
>    1. Politics
>    2. Science
>    3. Communications
>    4. The Social System; Hypocrisy
>
>
>
> The reason I refer to disinformation as a science is not to ennoble it,
> but to emphasize that combating it requires close attention to its
> scientific and philosophical properties and dynamics. Let us use the term
> narrative to refer to a ‘unit’ of the discourse in the domains, and I give
> just a few examples here.
>
>
>
>    1. Politics
>
> Left-wing and right-wing politicians are equally bad. This doctrine pushed
> by the *left-*wing publicist Ralph Nader during his run for the U.S.
> Presidency in 2000 led to his gaining enough Democratic voters to result in
> the victory of the Republican Bush and the Iraq war. Despite the Obama
> interlude, it set the pre-conditions for the subsequent emergence of Trump.
>
>
>
>    1. Science
>
> Driven by fundamentalist dogma, disinformation about the risks *vs. *the
> necessity of vaccination is increasingly common. Similarly, the number of
> people who believe (or claim to believe, see below) that the Earth is flat
> is increasing compared to the last Century. Many Americans still believe
> that global warming is a hoax, propagated by ‘Communists’, interested in
> destroying our economic system (see 4).
>
>
>
>    1. Communications
>
> Disinformation about the Internet leads to resistance to control in the
> name of ‘Free Speech’. I defy anyone who has seen recent interviews of
> Zuckerberg on TV to claim that he does not deserve criminal prosecution.
>
>
>
>    1. The Social System; Hypocrisy
>
> If people are forced to pretend publicly that they believe the
> disinformation they receive (to keep their jobs, *etc.*), hypocrisy
> becomes institutionalized and endemic. It is then possible to ask whether
> the current neo-capitalist system in fact depends on disinformation for its
> continued existence.
>
>
>
> Finally, it is very easy, IMHO, to distinguish between disinformation and
> misinformation, without becoming too ‘technical’: the latter is essentially
> accidental, although its consequences may be disastrous in individual
> cases. The former is intentional, and its consequences are becoming
> increasingly disastrous. Theories of Information Science that neglect or
> occult the role of intentionality in the transfer of information, that is,
> communications, leave the door open to further disinformation.
>
>
>
> I welcome both agreements and disagreements with the above, as well as
> possible themes for *FIS *and *FDS *discussion.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Joseph
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Pedro C.
> Marijuan
> *Sent:* lundi, 25 novembre 2019 14:22
> *To:* fis at listas.unizar.es
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] FW: The Age of Discord
>
>
>
> Dear List,
>
>
>
> Am responding to Joseph and to Diego.
>
>
>
> To the former, I agree on the quantitative mirage when trying to formalize
> history. Perhaps the best contents in Turchin's books refer to qualitative
> aspects, for instance the development of "frontier" countries he discusses
> (the cases of Russia, Spain, and US and others). The main point on the
> emergence of those long term trends of progression/regression or
> oscillations is very intriguing and I think we cannot substantiate it
> easily. The organization of an ad hoc discussion session would be quite
> interesting (can someone help on that possibility?). The relationship with
> the historical acceleration an the emergence of new of information flows
> would also be intriguing. As I comment below, it can be a fertile new field
> and a necessity to be covered by information philosophy. We badly need to
> put the most relevant aspects in an integrative view.
>
>
>
> To Diego, my focus was not only in the Latin American countries. If we
> contemplate recent months/years, we see many other mass explosions
> (Algeria, Tunisia, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Ukraine, Jordania...)
> and I had already included other Arab countries, plus Spain, France, and
> other movements: Trumpism, Brexiterism, and also we could include Metooism,
> indignados, and all kinds of offendidisms & populisms... Everywhere there
> are deep causes around for mass-mobilization, some are different, some may
> be common. But it is not just the arrival of "conquistadores" scapegoat. By
> the way, they parted away two centuries ago, and some of those countries
> were not in bad shape 50-60 years ago (Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay,
> Cuba.... The case of Argentina is amazing: after WWI she was the fourth
> richest country of the world. Venezuela's case, unfortunately, is more
> dramatic). Coincidentally, in discussions with Islamic-inclined parties, I
> was surprised to find another scapegoat widely argumented: the Crusades.
> Islamic societies failed to make the different modern transitions due to
> the cultural-political crisis brought forth by the crusades (seven-eight
> centuries ago!). Well, to escape from traditional cliches or from political
> preferences I think Acemoglu's views are quite balanced about these themes,
> particularly in his 2012 book, *Why Nations Fail
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail>*. Our colleague Howard
> Bloom has also written penetrating analyses on the historical evolution of
> Islamic societies versus the Western world.
>
>
>
> Summing up, that the new media are one of those deep causes contributing
> to irritated socio-political and cultural climates is an idea that can be
> found in quite a few analyses today. Coincidentally I could read this
> weekend an international analyst with very similar opinions to my own on
> the e-destabilization in the mentioned world regions. Widespread
> mass-additions to e-life are a fact: data on use of screens are outrageous.
> Adults in the US spend on average more that ten hours daily watching,
> reading, listening to or simply interacting with media. US adolescents
> spend an average of 9 hours daily in front of their cell phones screens. In
> parallel, a growing epidemics of adolescent medicalization and prescription
> of opioids and drug abuse is taking shape. That means a brave new style of
> life and a brave new mode of thinking are on the advance...
>
>
>
> Best regards
>
> --Pedro
>
>
>
> El 22/11/2019 a las 12:54, Joseph Brenner escribió:
>
> Dear Pedro and All,
>
>
>
> I agree in general with Pedro on the importance of Turchin’s
> transdisciplinary approach, but feel that something is missing in his
> attempted synthesis in *Cliodynamics. *I say attempted for two reasons:
> for me, he overemphasizes the role of mathematics – historical databases
> and such, and the title of his journal is *Quantitative History and
> Cultural Evolution. *This is not to say that mathematical methods do not
> have a role, but if the objective is that history become an analytical,
> predictive science like others so described, I see the potential loss of
> its essential *qualitative* aspects. The statement that Trump is worse
> than Nixon is not analytical.
>
>
>
> The (clio)dynamics of Pedro’s 5 points are also non-analytical and
> non-mathematizable. However, he uses two, related terms that I think should
> be unpacked: 1) low progress 2) secular oscillation. I see decades-long
> trends of *re-*gress, such that only if the sinusoidal oscillation can
> also move backwards is it fair to call it an oscillation*.*
>
>
>
> If it is a fundamental *irrationality* that is underlying current
> cultural evolution –or perhaps better *de*volution, then the practice of
> Information Science and Philosophy must take this into account to be
> meaningful.
>
>
>
> I am not arguing for the sake of arguing, but the repetition of only the
> most commonly accepted usages of terms is not going to help.
>
>
>
> Thank you and best wishes,
>
>
>
> Joseph
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es
> <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>] *On Behalf Of *Pedro C. Marijuan
> *Sent:* vendredi, 22 novembre 2019 12:14
> *To:* 'fis'
> *Subject:* [Fis] The Age of Discord
>
>
>
> Dear FIS & IS4SI Colleagues,
>
> "The Age of Discord" was the title of a lecture that the historian and
> sociologist Peter Turchin, founder of the Cliodynamics approach, gave
> recently in the Netherlands. The slides can be easily obtained in the web
> (in his blog). The content was mainly referring to a decades-long trend of
> low progress and rise of inequality, and as a consequence growing social
> unrest. It would form part of a secular oscillation in history... But I
> think there is a new potent factor: the hyperconnectivity we talked weeks
> ago.
>
> These days we are watching violent demonstrations in numerous countries:
> Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Iran, Irak, Lebanon... plus
> Hongkong, Spain (Barcelona), France (gilets jaunes), and the rising
> polarization from Trumpism and Brexit. There is a contagion effect in some
> cases. But a common factor is the influence of social networks. In several
> aspects:
>
> --How easy is to organize demonstrations and activist concentrations.
>
> --How easy is to disseminate information that efficiently counteracts
> governments' efforts to maintain social order.
>
> --How easyly anger and hatred are shared among the masses, generating a
> collective climate of insults, physical violence, highest irritation.
>
> --How easily outright lies, disinformation, vitriolic attacks are jumping
> from screen to screen to the eyeballs of hypnotized watchers.
>
> --The proportion of "negative" to "positive" (say of emotional responses)
> has become the highest in the history of communication.
>
> My opinion is that the new media and new modalities of hyperconnection,
> still deprived of constraining cultural patterns, are the genuine movers of
> this "Age of Discord", without rejecting the other factors implied in
> Turchin secular views. This time there is something really new agitating
> history and the masses (like printing press, steam engines...). Is there
> hope that collective intelligence will domesticate this artificial
> information flow soon? Of course, without a loss of individual freedoms.
>
> Best wishes
>
> --Pedro
>
>
>
> --
>
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> Pedro C. Marijuán
>
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>
>
>
> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
>
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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>
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>
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>
>
> --
>
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> Pedro C. Marijuán
>
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>
>
>
> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
>
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>
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>
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> siguiente enlace:
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-- 
Professor Terrence W. Deacon
University of California, Berkeley
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