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Then again, as suggests, instead of lamenting the #EpistemicCrisis and decrying #EpistemicVandalism, maybe we should try to appreciate the upside in the end of “epistemic monoculture”?
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The only additional key point is that arguably the deepest epistemic damage which proliferating #deepfakes will produce is not that they will enable the propagation of falsehoods, but rather that they will enable the baldfaced denial of truths.
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I don’t think it will evolve this way. This is open-loop extrapolation and people are already starting to adjust responses (cf: Covington high case). Crywolf effects. When you’re conditioned to distrust a signal source you don’t just freeze in stasis. You adapt.
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The thing is, FUD created by a bad actor goes away when the bad actor leaves the scene. But FUD created by technology agency expansion is a cry wolf story with no specific untrustworthy shepherd boy for the villagers to tag. So behaviors shift.
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Older generations circle wagons around their ingroup epistemes. Younger ones adopt new mitigating behaviors that are a mix of more conservatism (default skeptics, checking up on snopes) and operating off a smaller knowledge base (Talebian strategies).
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I don’t even think there is a real epistemic crisis yet. We’re learning that we need consensus reality only in a few critical cases like vaccination where there are material consequences (loss of herd immunity) to epistemic pluralism.
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Most of the time, you don’t need a belief monopoly to act. Just enough relevant agency, and a sort of Straussian contempt for the outgroup. “I don’t have to persuade you I’m right, I just have to make sure you can’t stop me from acting or roll back my consequences”
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I’m fascinated by the possibilities of fait accompli + irreversibility action orientation over deliberation and mutual persuasion before action. I think *this* will be biggest long-term effect. The role of mutual persuasion among adversaries in collective action will diminish.
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Yeah, and a few others, like nuclear weapons controls, global warming, pandemic response, etc. To which one might reasonably react: “Well, ok, but other than THAT, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?”
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I actually don’t think climate change or nuclear power count! Both are examples where almost all agency is with a few small groups capable of unilateral action. The key is to ask: how is agency *other than speech* distributed. Pandemic response is in between.
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