Post-Truth: Why Facts Don't Matter Anymore 

Are you implying that we've ever lived in a time when propaganda and other false information wasn't overly present? If so, you're uninformed, ironically.

Your problem was you massively overestimated the intelligence of the average person and underestimated their apathy to actually learn things they don't want to hear.

Oh man, a teacher's POV, even with a room full of students paying attention, is kind of super stressful. Love seeing it in action though; I never had a professor step up into the rows during a lecture, which is disarming in the best way after introducing a topic that may send some students down a swift internal tangent.

I'm watching this 5 years after it was made and I am amazed how much of the lecture has been proved accurate and even gotten worse.

"It's easier to fool the masses, than to convince them they've been fooled"

Theory: People (on average) value immediate pleasure more than Truth / long-term pleasure. Thinking is hard. Righteous Indignation feels good. That's all it takes to get what you see.

I had this similar conversation several years ago with a friend and colleague. I asked him if “belief” is more powerful than “truth.” Part of the problem is as touched upon is that once people have established a belief that they perceive to be truthful it’s harder to be open to new information to change their minds.

incredible how it's been 5 years this is still relevant yet still many don't take it to heart.

Unsubscribed. You make me sick. Same for minutephysics, stick to science guys. Don't ever touch politics. It is not objective as science, so you will always polarize people.

You came close, and then fell short of your answer. You went all the way to algorithms, and then stopped there for some reason. The algorithms are written by people. Why? To get people to click. Why? TO MAKE MONEY. Anyone who is primarily interested in feeding things to people to get them to click is not truly interested in whether or not these things are true--they are only interested in how many people actually will click them. You noticed that early on, the Internet had promise ... and then the internet became heavily monetized. Suddenly, fake news and clickbait everywhere. Follow the money.

I'm watching this way after it has been posted but thought I'd add something here. When discussing the topic of decisions people make it comes down to behavior patterns, culture, and psychology. Especially in politics, you see people holding onto their "pieces of paper" because they have melded the piece of paper with their own personal being. The paper is no longer an opinion, but part of who they are. It's easy to dismiss an opinion, especially if the opinion is wrong, but it is exceptionally more difficult to abandon something that has become who you are. Thus, you should be especially careful about how closely you hold opinions and the manner in which you debate or argue a point to remove this sort of heuristic bias.

This reminds me of something I tell a lot of people when they are surprised for something they though is actually wrong: "You though it was truth, but you never bothered to check if what you though is actually true or not".

Are you arguing that people used to care about facts more? I'm 25 and I've noticed that my parents' generation likes to share spam email. To them anything shared by their friends is truthful. EDIT: I know you weren't arguing about a generational gap but how do you prove that facts mattered more to people when they argued in the past?

The problem with this idea of filtering the truth is power. whomever gets to decide the truth has a lot of power, and power corrupts always.

I don't think an algorithm for the truth can really exist, and it just makes the creators of the algorithm the arbiters of truth. Instead, I think we need the algorithm to work to pierce the filter bubbles by showing people a greater variety of information instead of just what they think the person wants to see. There will always be 10-20% that will never change their minds regardless of anything. Try not to focus on them, let's just work to give everyone access to all the information, not just what they think they will like to push an ad.

I am working towards a PhD in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is used to recommend videos to people (we call them recommender systems). I think the solution to this problem is very complex , but it can start with a few things ( ordered from easiest to hardest) : 1. Educate users on how their habits impact and effect the recommendations system. For example, commenting hate on one video will just recommend more videos just like that one. Another one is that the algorithm recommends to you stuff that it thinks other people in your community like. This works great in something like E-commerce , if I want red shoes and you want blue shoes it’s fine we get recommended different products. But when it comes to opinions online, they can promote drastic differences . 2. Transparency from RU-vid about what their recommendation system is , what it prioritizes and how it does that. And I mean every detail so as a community we can work to figure out what is being recommended and why. Public release will also encourage those who are willing to educate themselves how to do better for the algorithm. Transparency to users as to why certain content is being recommended to them on the home page would also help. 3. Policy intervention : RU-vid will likely not be to keen on (2) for a variety of reasons. If we force all social media platforms to do (2) through policy we will have a checks and balances system in place, so that regardless of what is being recommended, someone always has knows why. 4. Outright Changing the algorithm to promote educational content more , or provide incentives towards educational content ( this one is what people want usually when they talk about this topic, but the hardest to do , because it’s very subjective, which is why no progress has been made).

we must oppose dishonesty, even when it's in favor of what we agree with.

What's needed is not algorithms to sort news but people need to learn critical thinking skills. They need to learn about fallacies. They need to learn about confirmation bias. They need to learn about the subject they are involved in having opinions about. They need to learn to have perspective. They need to learn to have patience with people who have different opinions than them. They need to not be so quick to judge or label others. They need to be intelligent, civil, human beings. Unfortunately people would rather shut down discussion and divide themselves against those who they disagree with instead of having debate and being willing to either come to some sort of compromise or position where it's actually ok to admit that the 'truth' isn't always absolutely discernible either.

When one of the guys said "when you use facebook you treat them as close friends", I think that's almost the opposite of what has happened. Like during covid people would most commonly remove friends based on what they said on social media. Just outright remove them from their lives. Also shoutouts to the student who wore a christmas hat, and another with xkcd science shirt.

"If you don't read a newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.", said by Mark Twain. Have things really changed that much?

Video uploaded - 12 mins ago Video length - 19 mins Why are people disliking already?

We're in the age of expression, not the age of information. Everyone wants to express their ideas, regardless if they're true or not.

Oh this is one you recently changed the thumbnail on to get the algorithm to pick it up. Thank you for doing that. I'm sitting here like, how did he make this 4 years ago with such righteous ideas and I'm just now hearing them

I'm involved in science communication and wanted to say first - love your channel! So, thank you for that! It seems to me that part of the problem is the merging of social media and news/science media. And as we speak of polarization - another part becomes evident: pretty much all social media has one distinctive tool - likes and dislikes, which we now also find even more in other types of media. Isn't there a way for an algorithm without those two, or with more options than just Like/Dislike?

He assumes that truth is everything he agrees with.

We live in The Information Age, not The Age of Wisdom.

These kids are coming up with points that you would expect from "College Kids" and that's good but would you consider doing the same speech to a group of "OLD CARPENTERS" or "YOUNG FACTORY WORKERS IN THE THIRD WORLD" ?? ! THE new context is important because the internet goes everywhere and those opinions need to be mixed in to this conversation ! New Point; Arguing makes it worse if both sides refuse to learn and discover new evidence that the other side did not know. In discussion the most important thing is "Enlightening" the other party - if neither party is capable of "Enlightening" the other then the discussion spirals into strong emotions and political stubbornness !

I was not this wise in college, these kids impressed me a lot.

This deserves a part 2. How have your views evolved in the last 4 years?

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." Confucius

I really enjoyed this video and it just popped up in my feed today nearly 5 years later. I have come to the conclusion that people are less concerned about facts today because they only look for facts that drive their own narrative. Putting it simply, the majority of people aren't interested in being proven wrong and we have given them a platform to solidify their unproven beliefs and ideologies. I've also noticed that this has become more prevalent the more accessible we make this platform available to the general public.

Loved it! Please consider making a series of classes/videos like this :) ty

Fact digging is strenuous and hard. People have a tendency to incline towards sensationalism which feeds on their prejudices.

If you're reading this, have a Great day! 😄😄😄

So true ... sometime people surprise me when they have same amount of information as I might have but still their interpretation of fact so different and if I can say wrong!

Seeing this 5 years later but adding my 2 cents: I think you answered your question in the last thought you postulated at the end of the video. I do not find it unusual that even though information is at our fingertips, individuals fall into one camp or the other based on what is convenient to them. People have formed their opinions upfront and will oppose in their own minds any change regardless of the evidence that's presented, and I'm sure it has been like that long before the information technology age.

Terrible video. 100% political. Very annoying how every RU-vid channel has to talk about this. You have a whole room talking about how much better their opinions are and how their opinions are facts

Legends say that the last guy who raised his hand is still waiting for his turn in that hall..

Good job in presenting this and great to hear some of the discussion. My response is to support debate, so I am leaving out examples, to hopefully remove personal bias, but expect it may still come through. Simply put social media algorithms are upside down. Social media looks to find ALL the influencers and give them power to drive revenue. However, just being an influencers is not an indicator of someone that can build broad consensus, but often just someone that can polarize people to an idea, whether common good or divisive extreme. The algorithm should promote indicators of "broad consensus", not divergence. We should still have influencers, but it should be those that can build broad consensus, not polarized sound bites. The algorithm we should strive for should apply 'quality of argument' to the content and amplify converging not diverging positions. Machine Learning can already identify facts over fiction. Elevate comments with higher quality of argument. If people see strong quality argument vs just fact-less retorts we would likely see better debate and greater consensus, not 100%, but better than now. External echo chambers are a huge factor, but I won't go there. Another key consideration is power. Consolidated power from a large mob of users or power from someone that has influence over the person dilutes the value of the response, not necessarily the credibility or factuality. One person says X and 100 people pile on, doesn't mean that X is valid or valuable. Like buttons are over simplified, there should be many ways to promote and demote comments. Imagine if you could demote comments like you promote comments. Social media platforms learn the personality type of users from their content and likes. Each personality type is influenced differently, so people that tend to go with their gut, instinct or emotion, especially fear, are much more likely to be influenced by social media. Social media often leverage this knowledge to drive revenue, not support. We know the current algorithms are escalating the problem, not suppressing it. They are not promoting truth, rather suppressing it, intentional or not. They should be promoting fact based majority consensus, not suppressing it. Without seeing the algorithm, it's hard to know what factors are in play. That being said, it's a computer program and it's not hard to change the formula and test out theories. It's not about being hard, it's about being counter profit.

Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow speaks to “why do people not care about the truth?” Tying a couple concepts from that book together, we’re evolutionarily drawn to align behind things that we like (eg. More prone to agree with people were attracted to) for which there’s no strong reason to think there’s a relationship between what is true and what we like. Plus, our instincts address questions to harder problems with more immediately available answers to simpler questions. So we often answer the question “is it true?” with the answer to the question “do I like it?” So our default is to believe what we like and stop thinking about it, and it takes conscious effort and therefore deliberate decision making to go beyond “do I like it?” to actually considering “is it true?”

After a night's sleep and thinking about what I wrote last night, I realized that this reply to @Veritasium is more accusatory of him specifically, or could be taken that way, than I had intended. I do not mean to accuse Veritasium of all the wrongs committed by the Democratic Party of the United States, or of Liberals in general. When I use the word, "you" in the context of a group of people, I am not referring to Veritasium specifically, and maybe not even generally. I poured out my collected grievances from deep inside me that I've accumulated over the months and maybe even years. I would like to note that I enjoy Veritasium's science videos. You face a problem that a lot of Liberal thinkers face. You believe that you are enlightened, you believe that you are open to other points of view, but then you are shocked to find that there are other points of view. You believe that the correct answer can be determined by objective testing in all cases, rejecting the notion that some answers are not reducible to scientific testing. I could write a few books on the errors that you have revealed in your thinking in this video, but I'll keep this short by answering your final question. "Why don't people seem to care what's true?" By "people," you, of course, mean Conservative Republicans, especially Trump supporters, not you enlightened Liberal intellectuals who were backing Hillary Clinton. The answer is, "Because we are sick of your garbage!" You Leftists, you Liberals, came into office on false pretenses and have done nothing for decades but assault our values. With your Nobel Prize-winning messiah leading the charge, you have corrupted our moral values and made this world a more dangerous place, then baldly lied to us about it. Now, you come crying, "Why do people believe fake news?" Everything the Democrats, Liberals and Leftists have been pushing for the last eight years *is* fake! However, you are too in love with yourselves to see it. You think that we should have a marketplace of ideas, using reason to arrive at the truth, but, in reality, you are lying to yourselves. Let me give you a brief example. I am 100% anti-same-sex marriage. I am opposed to the acceptance of homosexuality or LGBTQAI rights. So, when the issue comes up in a newspaper or public forum, I rationally voice my objections... and I'm immediately banned. I've been banned from "The Atlantic," "Dallas Morning News" and other forums when I've brought up this issue. You Progressive, Liberal, intellectual thinkers decided that challenging your world view on this issue is so offensive that you have to silence dissent. That's your idea of open-mindedness. Now, you come crying, "Why don't people listen to us?" I got into an argument on Facebook with some LGBT advocates. At various points last Saturday, I denounced them as cowards. When Sunday evening rolled around, Facebook began the online discipline process, restricting my access for increasingly longer periods of time. I was put on a 24-hour ban over Monday. Soon after that expired, Facebook's system put me on a three-day ban for something that I had written several days earlier. Even though I can't post anything, I'm still facing increasingly longer bans based on what I wrote several days ago. Eventually, I will reach the maximum ban, and my account will be deleted. At this point, it's virtually automatic, all based on what I wrote last Saturday. I know that by next week, my Facebook account, that I've had for most of a decade, will be deleted. It's just taking time for Facebook's disciplinary system to catch up on all the punishment that I have to receive before that happens. So, no, you are not the enlightened, noble people you think you are. You don't have the answers. You silence dissent so you can pretend you have the answers. Ronald Reagan [edit: JFK] famously said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." You Liberals, you Leftists, are obsessed with forcing people to accept your point of view!

Can everyone stop being so damn defensive? The ideas he is talking about exist in both liberal and conservative online communities. He is talking about how people use the internet to bolster their own ideas instead of being objective. I'm guilty of it too. The election just pulled the curtain back on what was actually happening.

I think people don't care about facts because it's more convenient for them to remain unchanged than to change their ways when their beliefs become wrong or untrue.

I love the discussion and you're right, we do need a solution. It's impossible to fact check everything. My physics teacher in high school did an experiment where we all took a question home and the next day debated in pairs who was right. Then pairs would merge and debate, then those groups would merge, until we were left with 1 answer we all agreed was right. This answer came from the person with the highest charisma

Practically nobody is paying for news anymore because we kind of assumed news media should rely solely on ad revenues. So it's not really surprising they are giving the readers exactly what they want to read; clickbait content of questionable quality.

Is this political? Asking before watching the video.

I want an App tha will analyze credibility of a statement, of an article, it's sources, the research behind it, who did it and how and bring me all the data in one place, like sample size etc. All automatically. I want it now.

If you're interested in this subject, I for one found "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters" by Tom Nichols a well researched, and thought out book. Covers what's discussed here and much more in obviously deeper depth.

If you're reading this, have a terrible day! :( :(

An intellectual will always try to prove themself wrong.

5 years ago? Dude, man brother.. I love your show not only for the content, but , I confess, I enjoy the way you deliver the messages and I empathize with the obvious pain that you have to undergo whenever things change for the, not so good, and it's not rare for you tube to throw their weight around and take full advantage of it's newness and manipulate the terms and the like, to ensure their power is sure and secure for as long as possible.. obvious stuff. We should talk, from one truth seeker to another, thinking about this stuff has a potent end result often time's and we know, or at least I know you know , sincerity and genuinity is translatable from my end. And the power of impact we as, ' learned accomplishments scribes,' so to speak, brother, we need to talk ... You could and should be doing the most insane groundbreaking Truth slam dunks and cause some .. seriously, when you find competition rare to none and virtually non existent,. It's time , time to believe and know , me. It's paramount we draw only from the living water and say goodbye to the whole world. As is . Shedding 90 plus % of the population in a fortnight can be exilerating. Got the Truth, the real Truth, and nothing but...and just wait till you get an earload of it... You do have ears to hear, and that's going to be priceless. So we should talk. Before tolls are taken and the worthless is Replaced

Possibly, the answer to this is two-fold. #1- You have to look at it from a psychological perspective. That opens the floodgates. #2- If you think of the internet as a new society or, better yet, a new civilization, you are living through the veritable maturation of the internet world. First, it was a baby, then a young innocent entity, then it started to get into trouble, then...the teenage years. Right now, I am willing to bet we are in the college years stage, becoming smarter while still acting like an idiot and wanting to hold onto our youth by getting into trouble, and having revolutionistic ideologies and protesting everything, "so that we can be heard". Hopefully, there will be a tipping point where we figure out what to do with ourselves and start being productive and intellectual.

What I took from the video: 1) "Social media algorithms make the most polarising opinions/news stories viral" 2) "These news stories are not always factual, and this dishonesty causes dissent/division" 3) "By identifying the issue we can tackle it, and make the internet more objective and harmonious" This isn't political, he's simply highlighting an issue. A scientist's role is to uncover objective/immutable truths about the world, of course a Scientist will be concerned with 'Fake news' and 'facts not mattering anymore'!

"The unlimited access to info leads to the absence of truth", is just a paradoxes similar to, "the unlimited ability to socialize leads to isolation".

My good man, that was inspired, and shooting a video at the same time! Long live truth and tolerance.

I don't see this happening in a million years - but for me regulation could force backtracking on the overuse of algorithmic confirmation bias. It'd be a huge upset, but if you could not serve content to individuals based on how you've profiled them at all, it'd help to expose all posts to a broader spectrum. It wouldn't force it all to be impersonal - look at early days of social media, you can still do what was done there. Users have said who their friends are, they've said what topics and organisations they are interested in. These are explicit choices that can be used to feed content. However, we currently use engagement metrics heavily which sadly do always push towards extremes, and worse it happens without conscious engagement from the user. It'd still have a bunch of silo'd groups, but with people having to choose to put themselves into the extreme groups. On the up side it doesn't require any "is this true" calculation or similar which I think will not be workable. It will still probably be dominated by clickbait, but if the clickbait is getting shared across a broader spectrum, it will hopefully visibly attract broader scrutiny, making it less impactful than when all viewers think it is unarguable truth - and it'd possibly mean for example the fact-checking responses to utter lies would be more likely to hit the same demographic as the original piece rather than only being visible to those of the opposite viewpoint. This isn't just for social media though, it'd be applicable to advertising and probably a bunch of other areas. This would make it wildly unpopular with some very interested parties. edit: I guess engagement metrics would still be a thing, so maybe ignore that section of the post. Tricky problem! :/

Confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance

Regardless of political views, the ideas brought up in this lecture are very true. Veritasium is clearly a liberal. I am definitely not. Not accepting the points brought up in the lecture because Veritasium is a liberal is exactly what he was speaking against. This is a problem on both sides of the aisle (and up or down, Nolan chart fans). Articles I have seen on both sides of the aisle have disgusted me. Veritasium did a perfectly reasonable job not favoring one side of the political spectrum and this message deserves to be listened to. Thank you for sharing this lecture! (Although I will admit that facebook is not going to handle this issue well. Facebook used to be unbiased but now has a clear leftist agenda. They will block only a few of the liberal fake news sites while mainly focusing on blocking conservative ones)

13:45 Cue to Tom Scott's talk: "There's No algorithm for truth". It's up to everyone to come up with it.

Your discussion of the process of evolution applied to ideas is exactly the conclusion implied by Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." Would be fantastic further reading for anyone interested in that concept.

I feel the same way as VE mentions in the beginning. As someone born in 1989, I grew up with the early available internet and have always been so pro technology and information, and even work in software. But with everything going on with fake or wrong information, it's kind of heart breaking to see where it's gone.

1) The wave of truth leads to confrontations because there are inclinations where truth is not always welcome. 2) Rather than declaring post fact in defeat, there is value in potent confrontation of obtuseness, not just righteous shaking of heads while the barking dogs convince themselves they have won.

we (humans) changed so much in how we interact , im autistic and have always had my own ways of dealing with people (wont go into that as it has nothin to do with the point im wanting to make) i do not go out in the world, no i mean really i stay at home, i have not left my house in 20 years (and veen before that i rarely ventured out) this disability enabled me to really observe the incredible change as i would only now and then see "outsiders" (lets call them that, to make clear they were not common in my home) i find it shocking how much has changed, i have been inviting ppl in more as im seeking a new partner , and the way they seem to fiind things normal to say, or do ..to me (stuck in older times) is super interesting where i am still thinking "freedom of speech" is a great thing to have, i still very clearly see the (apparently old) boundaries , you think before you speak, do not offend others, you do not make a harsh statement only to make the other feel lesser than, ect ect ect but now,.. we created this amazing society where, anyone at anytime can say the darnedest things, and get recognition for it, regardless of the consequences dont get me wrong, im not saying this is perse a bad thing, however, it does come with a lot of sad side effects , one being "just say the most outrageous thing and score followers" and that lead to some ppl becoming rich online just by likes/folowers .. wich does not exactly tickle our brains for any self thought, just sit, laugh, like, and on to the next .. it has been extraordinary to see how we evolved just the past 20 (ish) years

The internet first and foremost makes it far easier to find people and content that validates your own ego, values and worldview. It's only a tool for finding knowledge and challenging ideas if you already consciously seek those things out.

I think the big issue is that people care more about winning an argument than being right for example, say someones opinion is that "dogs are better than cats" (the argument with no right side) they will continue to argue that dogs are better, and if a fact shows up that undeniably proves the opposite, they are going to ignore it. cause accepting means they are wrong and should change their opinion which means you have lost the argument. people dont like to lose and people dont like to be wrong. if something shows up that proves they are wrong then they are likely to ignore it cause society has a tendency to shame people who are wrong.

For as long as there's been communication, there's been spreading of misinformation, and advances in communication accessibility and speed only make that easier. But you have to take the bad with the good. Because we will never achieve a perfectly reliable system in which only truth can be heard. If only because, as you said, some people just won't hear it. All we can do is make sure that all the information (objectively and subjectively true or not) is available. People who don't care to research will think whatever they're fed, and their opinions will continue to not actually matter to the rest of the world. People who do care enough to research will be the ones who actually get things done. That side of people will never be the majority though, because that's just not how humans work. I think though, that the idea of filtering what people can find, to remove the 'fake news' and only let real facts through, is a terrible, dangerous, insidious idea. Because the moment something exists that controls the information that people are allowed to see, and tells them what is true and what isn't, is the moment you've created exactly what you're trying to avoid. Because then one person, one organization, is suddenly in charge of what's considered truth. It's far, far too easy an avenue for censorship and suppression of free speech and manipulative control over the thinking of the population. It sounds lovely to think of some verification algorithms, having fact checkers on everything. In fact, I recall a book about something similar, in which the protagonist was responsible for fact checking and editing news articles to be given to the people, under the Ministry of Truth. But, I'm sure you'll agree that George Orwell's "1984" is not exactly the best model for building a society. Humans will never be perfectly reliable. Even an honest man, one who does nothing but good his whole life, and uses his power for the betterment of mankind, will eventually die and be replaced by someone who just wants control. Power inevitably corrupts, and the power over information is one of the biggest powers imaginable.

Hi love your channel although i am new to it its sparking and helping me with a lot question i have. Thankyou for you effort all round. This video immediately made me think of resonances theory! this explains why information gets polarised. So how do you manage the framework so the resonance is more random? IMO the popularity algorithms need to be removed so promoting instead the least viewed objects/discussion points. In a simple form create and discussion board set an algorithm to play devils advocate! This should be easy to replicate on your channel with your available resources and audience.. food for thought he he i wonder how this comments gets presented to others on here! many thanks Si

The problem isn't the internet, its the fact that the internet shows you what you want to see.

The reason this RU-vid channel works is the same reason we’re so divisive nowadays. People can find their niche and self segregate. Also, fear is our most sensitive emotion. We’ll always collect around it when presented the option.

We need to teach people how to search for facts and tell the difference.

Some disagreements lead to wars… especially very sensitive topics that lead to biased groups. That’ll be a bit long. I honestly have my personal opinions about all the cultures I meet. I’m an Arab alright. Lots what I believe in can be opposite to my Culture but not my Religion and to be honest with you, my Culture as an Arab person conflicts with what my Religion believes in. I believe in it because I commit to it. The religion itself tells me to meditate and think for myself while people tell me to follow this Sheikh and follow this Sheikh which is absolutely opposite to what I believe in. My religion as a Muslim tells me to seek the most peaceful way of solving an issue which is what I also personally believe in regardless of religion since a peaceful solution works in the vast majority of cases except things that is an absolute disrespect to humans like Pedophilia and Nercophilia and forced actions (which people mistake all religions especially Islam to be about while the Religion could expressively tell us not force anything or hurt anyone) I am Muslim and I know there is nothing wrong with having people from various beliefs including Atheism. It is our Duty to respect and help those who believe in God or Allah and also those who don’t believe because that is what makes a True Muslim (and a True human being if not Muslim) but yet the Culture has roots from where Oppression of Women, the ignorant and the weak minded and the physically weak were a huge part to a point avoid shame where someone could rape your Daughter would mean burying a new born daughter… thankfully that stopped when Islam was in it’s early days. The Pagans in these regions were heartless as that’s how they perceived a “Man” A Man protects, a Man provides, a Man Commits to what he claims to believe in to the last breath… not bury his daughter fearing Shame. But still, regardless to what Islam believed in, regardless to what Good can be derived from the belief as a personal habit. There were the people who Manipulated Islam just like any religion. The Facts were no more enough since words can be twisted… By the way, Islam doesn’t accept Homosexuality or defending it *as long as you are a believer of the Religion* yet, we are not allowed to hurt Homosexuals, we are not allowed to hurt anyone for no reason what so ever except in War.. and we hurt only those armed to fight, if they are not armed they’re Civilians just like any civilian. The Thing about Homosexuals is Complicated and I would rather not speak about it often to not offend anyone except with someone willing to understand why wouldn’t accept what they do in our religion. Those who don’t believe in the same faith can do whatever they would imagine and want to do as long as it isn’t suggested on us or influenced by someone. So basically… believe in what you want to believe, do what you want to do, think what you want to think whither you’re Muslim or not since open and direct Judgement is no one’s right. We believe in One God that will Judge us all fairly and no way better to give choice than mutual respect and respecting your tongue by not hurting anyone, that’s why Secrets exist, somethings can be hurtful when said and many don’t realise that. I would say the openness of speaking about one’s sexual experiences and sex life in general is a bad idea, just like Gambling, just like doing drugs. It brings in the bad type of Mental Conflict where we are not making a fruitful argument but literally fighting who has sex with who and what. I don’t really see something worth valuing in sexual orientation as it’s about the few moments of Euphoria that you can have a 1000 ways differently than having sex. With all due respect to the activists but that’s my opinion as a person who sees more value in Knowledge and understanding the unknown whither scientific or Logical or social or Historical or even financial. I hope I stated my opinion respectfully. Also, Love your videos Derek! Love from Egypt❤️

You are correct that arguing will more likely entrench someone in their beliefs. In the occasions that someone did actually change their mind, it was not caused by the argument, that was just the catalyst for change. The cause was that the person was already flirting with the idea that they may be wrong and need an alternate theory. If they are not in that space, no facts can change their mind. The more one finds themselves in that space, they become more receptive to it. Having had to admit they were wrong and change frequently, increases the chances that they may feel that what they believe now may not be the end product. I believe that this is a trait that can be cultivated throughout childhood development through the use of games that are designed to make kids remain sceptical about what they know, and to reward trading old ideas for more credible ones when they are revealed. The algorithms changing wouldn't change much, just limit the spread and damage of fake news. The big change has to be a psychological revolution. If we don't cultivate a self discipline that is greater than the allure of technology, then we are not using technology, technology is using us.

Don't youtubers' hands hurt constantly holding up the camera for so long?

Jun 2020 - This is more relevant than ever

I'm watching this 5ish years after it was posted, and I keep thinking of Game Theory, the economic approach to understanding decision making. The people using the internet to find reliable information, and the people using the internet to promote popularization of ideas, are surely playing two different games. Monetization is part of that, because people must be compensated some how for pushing their information out, and they'll produce or promote something just for direct compensation. Politics is another factor. Some people will push political views even if they are not monetarily compensated, because they are compensated emotionally (or some similar way) for producing or promoting their preferred content. In neither case is accuracy a necessary factor, but accuracy is what is being sought by the first group. I think this is part of the "why" that is being asked in the video.

Great video. I disagree with confirmation bios. The is more simple explanation, which is stability = security = save life. It's an instinct, if you have a baby , you will understand above statement very easy. I can continue, step 2, new information = more brain energy = less comfort. Step 3, less education = less confident = more fear. Etc. Add all negative impacts = explanation "why?".

"Deep down each one of us is based on confirmation bias--we naturally go out into our world and agree with what we think rather than looking for things that disagree with what we think." I agree. Maybe that's why I clicked on this video, liked, commented, and subscribed.

I think a lot of things were missing from this video. The ability for something controversial to be considered "fake news," but still be true, such as your emissions story, makes an algorithm like this very hard. What if it only interprets widely accepted "facts" as news, everything else is "fake news?" Even if those facts have good research to back them up, they can still be wrong. Know what this sounds like to me? The end of science. A lot of science has been, in the past, laughed at. You've provided many examples yourself about famous scientists questioning ideas for those ideas to later be proven correct. Those few scientists have been shunned and attacked in the scientific community for daring to think differently. The future where an algorithm determines what is fake or not sounds extremely dangerous. Dissenting opinionsdon't necessarily count as fake news. The controversial page on reddit may well be a melting pot of radicalism and untruth, but something like this is *required* in society. The norm must be challenged. Without that, there is no progress. Then there's the problem of statistics. Statistics can be true (i.e. not fake news) but _still_ misleading. "There's lies, damned lies and statistics." You could say "half the emissions from a car are from the manufacturing process" and everyone would assume the rest is from the use of the car. What about the recycling or scrapping of the car? It could turn out that only 10% are from the use of the car (I highly doubt this, just using it to illustrate the point!) An algorithm isn't going to detect these because they are, in effect, actually true. The way information is presented, even if it's true, can lead to a lot of problems. And whether the information is complete or not will lead to one's own biases filling in the gaps. So is the answer only to have _complete_ news? Nobody is going to read or watch it. There's also the problem of the creation of the algorithm. Contrary to what you may be thinking, an algorithm isn't a non-biased fact seeker. Somebody has to make the algorithm. Most likely corporations like Google, Microsoft or Facebook. They will control how it operates, even if very slightly. Their motives are not "pure." They will use it to make people believe what they want. To bring the world together, perhaps, but under a flag of dogma and dishonesty. But the other option is some sort of governing body who presides over it? Then their biases are going to be incorporated into it. Both options are bad. The one thing that I think will really help is to teach children _critical thinking_. Not to have some automated process by which information is filtered, but for people to learn how to filter that information themselves. Most people just don't know how. They read something on Facebook or hear it from a streamer and, bam, it's true. They don't think to question the narrative. I think somebody you completely missed in your video as well is the kind of viscous circle or feedback loop of internet communities. The constant positive feedback makes them entrench themselves in their ideas. Outside influences are shunned. The entrenched community's influencers then often come up with more and more extreme viewpoints which then diffuse back into the wider community. However, how do you choose which groups of entrenched communities are bad? Just hate groups? What about religions groups you don't agree with? What about the gun control vs gun freedom communities? Which will the algorithm decide is the best route for humanity? /rant

It's because we ALL place more importance on being RIGHT in an argument, than on being CORRECT!

As someone who grew up in the age of the internet and knows very little about what it was like before, it seemed like those who came before actually understood the true nature of the internet better than those who grew up with it!

It's interesting that people in the comment section refuse to watch if it MAY be a political video. What does that say about the openness of your mind? That view just reinforces the point Derek is trying to make

This comment section quite strongly angers me because it so perfectly describes what is in the video. The comments building a strawman argument ("CNN is biased stop being leftist propaganda!") are just everywhere. He acknowledges *in the video* that CNN is a poor news source but half the comments are complaining just because he also mentioned Breitbart was worse. At no point was the argument made that CNN is not biased, it was simply a comparison, but in their minds this is distorted to be pro-CNN simply because he insulted that outlet slightly less than the one on their 'camp'. People just do not want to accept facts or allow their world view to change. If you agree with 90%+ of left or right ideas, you're far from a free thinker and probably suffer from this bias to a significant degree. I don't know what the solution is because that's the vast majority of people.

This has a whole new light after the pandemic. I know it was more focused on political issues at the time of the talk. But it stands right know by latest turmoil over Covid, measures taken, etc... Very interesting

Very well done! The problem today is that EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN OPINION, and is able to convey this on the Internet. CHAOS is the new norm.

Do not buy a car at all, just walk.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” ― Socrates

Thanks for your videos we can see truth and most of your videos are productive for us!

This deserves to have a full documentary about the topics presented!!!!!

Who is the arbiter of truth in your assessment?

Perhaps, as a species, we need a little "humility"? Humility individually applied so that the collective can be more objective and less prideful.

Can you share link or more information about the evolution of ideas? Thanks in advance

Amazing video, especially in light of the recent Blackbird wind cart contoversies.

I think such an algorithm will eventually rule over everyone's trains of thoughts while articulating "My logic in undeniable."

My man straight up walked into the audience like he was a singer at a concert

At 19:01 - I thought Derek was going to say "The Internet was organized by Al Gore." LOL

"The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right and everybody else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards unity, and unity is necessary if we would reach truth, for truth is one." A.A.

3.5 years later, still dealing with this problem.

You already mentioned one word, confirmation bias, which came to mind when I started the video, but there's another word that plays a role in that bias, and one you also are familiar with. Cognitive ease. Even with fake news, algorithms, etc., in the age of information, ignorance is a choice, as it is usually quoted. To be uninformed or misinformed is a choice. Cognitive ease plays a role in that it is easier to accept the crap so long as it agrees with your initial bias than it is to deliberately research and form an opinion based on a collection of information. Essentially it boils down to lazy thinking, probably in part caused by information overload, and it's something that I think can also effect intellectuals just as much as the common person. I know I've gotten trapped in the clickbait. Deliberate thinking ain't easy.

The amount of stress is felt through my phone. However, good points were made. In essence: the Internet is going to s**t.

Man this trail of thought is exactly what haunts me daily. We as human beings need to understand that the truth is often not what we expect or hope it to be. Like the good old saying, "Facts don't care about your feelings". I wonder how we as a race can't recognize the need of scientific minded people coming together in a globally recognized organization to provide the best answers that are possible today, even if the best answer is just some very educated guesses. Then, not only find what makes most sense, but also tear apart and shame people that utter their lazy sheep bahhhs for self satisfaction. But, even as I read my own words back to myself I can see the fundamental issue. True critical thinking, logic, and everything the scientific method represents is in severely short supply for how little of an excuse people have nowadays. Especially in religious communities. And it seems so intentionally done. There is no reason why a person can't believe in something beyond our ability to detect AND still have a scientific/reasonable mind when examining things.