Truth Decay

Over the last couple of years, the RAND Corporation has been doing a deep dive into the political-social phenomenon they call truth decay. The study is part of an effort to "restore the role of facts and analysis in public life."

That sounds much like the anti-biasing anti-ideology, pragmatic rationalism, ideology that is advocated here at B&B. Two of the four core moral values that pragmatic rationalism is built on are (i) fidelity to trying to see objective facts and truths, to the extent they can be objectively based, with less bias and distortion, and (ii) fidelity to trying to apply less biased conscious reason (roughly, logic) to the facts one thinks one sees.

RAND's 326 page 2018 book, Truth Decay, can be downloaded for free here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2314.html [1]

In a summary post, RAND comments:

There are four trends that characterize Truth Decay:
1. increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data
2. a blurring of the line between opinion and fact
3. the increasing relative volume and resulting influence of opinion and personal experience over fact
4. declining trust in formerly respected sources of facts.

Most of these trends are not unprecedented in American history. But today's level of disagreement over objective facts is a new phenomenon.

RAND's findings so far point to the main drivers of truth decay as being (i) cognitive biases, (ii) the rise of social media and other changes to the information environment, (iii) demands on the educational system that limit its ability to keep up with changes in the information ecosystem, and (iv) political and social polarization. Political and social polarization can reasonably be seen as political and social tribalism that tends to be significantly fact- and logic-destroying or distorting for most people (~95% ?) most of the time.

A prior B&B discussion about a survey of experts of President Trump noted that he was ranked as the most polarizing President in US history, significantly out ranking Abe Lincoln, who came in a fairly distant second. Both RAND's sources of truth decay and its drivers seem be generally in accord with the political reality of at least the last 15 years or so, maybe the last 30 years or so.

An existential threat?: Over at his blog, Neurologica, Steven Novella posited RAND's truth decay observations as possibly constituting an existential threat, presumably at least to modern civilization, and maybe to the human species itself. Novella writes:

What is the greatest threat facing human civilization? This question is obviously meant to be provocative, and is probably inherently unanswerable. But I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that perhaps the greatest threat is the deterioration of fact-based political and social discussion. The argument is that this is a meta-problem that keeps us from effectively addressing all other problems.

But of course we don’t want to assume anything, which would ironically be part of the very problem itself. We first need to ask – are these trends actually happening or are they just illusion and confirmation bias? Also, can we put these trends into historical context? RAND recently conducted a study looking at item #3 – the relative volume of opinion vs fact-based reporting in the media over the last 28 years.

They identified several trends, which may contribute to Truth Decay. The first is that prior to 2000 broadcast news tended to be more academic and fact-based. After 2000 the news became more narrative based – presented more as simplistic stories, with less complexity and nuance.

Over this same time there was a shift in viewership from broadcast to cable networks. The cable networks contained much more opinion-based reporting, and far less fact-based reporting. They were more likely to have people discussing the news rather than giving a prepared factual report of the news. So essentially we went from watching Walter Cronkite to The View.

In print they saw a similar pattern. Print newspapers have changed the least, but also have shifted toward a more narrative style (just not as much). Meanwhile there was a shift to digital print news, which is more personal and anecdote-based.

All of these trends verify the concern that the overall volume of information being consumed by Americans has shifted from fact-based reporting to personal stories, narratives, discussions and opinions. We are no longer content to have a talking head give us a prepared digested form of “Just the facts, Ma’am” (which is, ironically, itself a bit of false reporting). We want to be entertained with a story, we want our emotional buttons pressed.

The short chain of moral logic: Cognitive and social science both strongly argue that the human mind is inherently susceptible to truth decay or dark free speech such as lies, deceit, and unwarranted emotional manipulation, especially fomented negative emotions such as fear, anger, hate, distrust, intolerance and bigotry or racism, all of which are usually intentionally associated with a person's tribal identity. Use of truth decay to deceive and manipulate the public is common among people with low or essentially no decent moral values because it works. The purveyors of truth decay either don't care about the morality if it, or they believe the usually immoral proposition that the ends justify the means and is thus moral, at least when they do it (but it's not when the other side does it).

The limited grasp of history I have says that social and international conflicts are usually (≥ ~95% of the time?) seeded by shrewd purveyors of truth decay to whip an up antagonistic us vs. them social mentality. That appears to be so common that one can argues there is a chain of logic with two necessary links in it. The first link is heavy seeding of the social milieu with vast quantities of truth decay or dark free speech. That seeding of the public with lies, deceit and irrational emotion is the necessary prelude to unnecessary violent conflict, at least by aggressors.

If that logic is sound, then from a moral point of view, one can argue that use of truth decay to deceive, mislead and foment the negative emotions needed for social acceptance of violence is the moral equivalent of the actual violence itself. One could even see truth decay as a form of violence because it relies on coerces minds into false and/or irrational beliefs.

When viewed in that way, fidelity to objective facts and truths, to the extent they can be ascertained (and they often cannot be fully ascertained, leaving some degree of ambiguity), can bee seen as one of the highest, most important moral values a human can hold. The same applies to the moral value of trying to be less biased in one's conscious reasoning about the facts and truths one thinks one sees.

So, the question is this: Is using truth decay or dark free speech to deceive and emotionally poison minds as immoral as actual unwarranted violence?

Footnote:
1. The first paragraph and a half of the book says this: "Much has been written about the growing disregard for facts, data, and analysis in political and civil discourse in the United States. Increasingly, it seems that important policy debates, both within the federal government and across the electorate, are as likely to hinge on opinion or anecdote as they are on objective facts or rigorous analysis. However, policy decisions made primarily on the basis of opinion or anecdote can have deleterious effects on American democracy and might impose significant costs on the public.

The current discourse about the diminishing role of, trust in, and respect for facts, data, and analysis is often hamstrung by the use of conflicting language and unclear or undefined terms. Without a common language with which to discuss the problem—which we are calling Truth Decay—the search for solutions becomes more difficult. This report seeks to address this gap by offering a clear definition of Truth Decay and an examination of its drivers and consequences—all with the aim of creating a foundation for more-meaningful discussion of the challenges to U.S. political and civil discourse."

Some Observations On propaganda

These quotes are from Hannah Arendt's 1951 book, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Her observations came from her research into the nature and origins of murderous 20th century totalitarianism in its savage 19th century anti-Semitic and imperialist roots. These sentiments remain generally relevant to American politics today.

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”

“Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.”

“One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.”

“True goal of totalitarian propaganda is not persuasion, but organization of the polity. ... What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part.”

The Power of Irrational Emotion to Make People Irrational

An article in the Independent says this about the power of hate and bigotry to lead people into irrational beliefs.

Seventy-two per cent of Republicans oppose Western world's standard numeric system, according to research designed to 'tease out prejudice among those who didn't understand the question'.

Fifty-six per cent of people say the numerals should not part of the curriculum for US pupils, according to research designed to explore the bias and prejudice of poll respondents.

The digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 are referred to as Arabic numerals.

The system was first developed by Indian mathematicians before spreading through the Arab world to Europe and becoming popularised around the globe.

A survey by Civic Science, an American market research company, asked 3,624 respondents: “Should schools in America teach Arabic numerals as part of their curriculum?” The poll did not explain what the term “Arabic numerals” meant.

Some 2,020 people answered “no”. Twenty-nine per cent of respondents said the numerals should be taught in US schools, and 15 per cent had no opinion.

John Dick, chief executive of Civic Science, said the results were “the saddest and funniest testament to American bigotry we’ve ever seen in our data”.

That shows the power of irrational bigotry and hate to shut down logical thinking. This is why ideologues, demagogues and tyrants routinely resort to dark free speech (lies, deceit, unwarranted opacity to hide truths, unwarranted emotional manipulation to foment negative emotions, especially fear, anger, hate, intolerance, bigotry, racism, distrust, etc.). By fomenting an irrational, emotion-dominated mindset, ideologues, demagogues and tyrants can better create false realities as they make their run for ideological dominance, power and wealth.

Does that mean such people are stupid? No. It does mean they have been deceived and used in service to the agenda of others who don't care about adverse consequences to the deceived and used people. That is what divisive dark free speech-driven politics is doing to American society today. We all know who is doing this to us.

Do we need to rename Arabic numerals as American numerals?

Pragmatic Rationalism: An Anti-Biasing, Anti-Ideology Ideology

Cognitive and social science research shows that political and other ideologies often foster distortion of perceptions of reality and truths and conscious reasoning about what is perceived, true, false or ambiguous. That can and often does generate irrational politics and policy. The problem is generally more pronounced for hard core ideologues and authoritarians, neither of which can tolerate the cognitive dissonance between what unbiased reality, truth and reason lead to compared to what the ideology or authoritarian mind needs these things to be. For most of those people, fact, truth and reason fall to ideological beliefs and authoritarian goals when they are at odds.

Living in a society that is awash in lies, deceit and irrational emotional manipulation makes matters worse, but that cannot be avoided in a liberal democracy. That often makes what is false and irrational seem real and acceptable. That reflects the mental workings that evolution conferred on the human species. We can't help being what we are. The best that can be done is to acknowledge our 'flawed' biological traits and try to deal with them as rationally as our minds allow.

The other pragmatic rationalisms: At least two pragmatic rationalism (PR) ideologies appear to exist. One is posited as a general theory of the human world that is grounded in (i) physics; (ii) mathematics; (iii) philosophy; and (iv) the algorithmic part of human knowledge, which could be computerised, whatever that means. The author describes his all-encompassing theory of everything in abstract terms. It doesn't seem to have much to do with mass politics.

The other PR looks to be much more relevant to mass politics. That one is posited as an inquiry into understanding how scientific knowledge variably influences formulating and implementing political policies depending on the policy at issue. That PR is getting close to the PR this discussion is focused on.

This pragmatic rationalism: The PR political ideology posited here is intended to work as an anti-bias, anti-ideology ideology. It is built on is built on four, easy to understand, core or highest moral political values. The moral values are (1) fidelity to try to see relevant objective facts and truths, to the extent they can be ascertained (they are often not fully ascertainable) with less bias, (2) application of less biased conscious reasoning (roughly, logic) to the facts and truths, (3) applying the facts and reasoning in service to the public interest, and (4) willingness to engage in reasonable compromises in view of political, social and other relevant factors. Service to the public interest is envisioned to constitute a transparent competition of fact- and reason-based ideas.

This PR attempts to account for sources of bias and irrationality in politics by (i) forcing a larger role for more objective, less biased, less distorted fact, truth and logic in politics, (ii) ignoring standard ideologies, making them of secondary importance, (iii) induce some power and influence to flow from powerful special interests to the public interest, and (iv) forcing compromise onto the process as a bulwark against the rise of both single party rule and authoritarianism.

This variant of PR is thus an ideology that is more constrained by facts, truths and logic than all other ideologies, which tend to promote distortion of facts, truths and logic to fit the needs of the ideology. This amounts to an effort to build a mindset open to politics based more on objectivity, to the extent it can be ascertained, and less on subjective factors such as personal morals and identification with irrational tribalism.

Whether nations or whole societies can accept and/or adopt such a PR mindset is an open question. It asks a lot of people to set aside their prejudices and sacred beliefs when they are at odds with objective reality and reason. Maybe the human species cannot rise to a higher level of mental performance because the cognitive load is just too high. It is an experiment that needs to be tried to know if it would lead to more rational and efficient, but less conflict-prone politics and outcomes.

Are Rural Areas In Unavoidable Economic Decline?

In 2103, the New York Times published an article, The Russia Left Behind: A journey through a heartland on the slow road to ruin. The article noted that there were hundreds of towns shrinking into villages and villages decaying into forest. That was intentional Soviet Union policy. The Soviets cut off support during efficiency drives in the 1960s and ’70s. Towns and villages were categorized as “promising” or “unpromising.” The unpromising ones were cut off from support and left to shrink or revert to primeval forests with roving packs of wolves.

In 2017, the New York Times published a related article, Russia’s Villages, and Their Way of Life, Are ‘Melting Away’, indicating that Russia's population is declining. Many small towns and villages are simply going extinct in terms of people living there. After restrictions on movement relaxed after the fall of the Soviet Union, many young people fled resource-starved parts of the countryside for big cities. Researchers estimated that out of 8,300 area villages in 1910, 2,000 no longer have permanent residents.

In 2016, the National Review published an article by Kevin Williamson that ferociously attacked the allegedly self-inflicted misery, immorality and self-deceit about life in rural areas slowly dying from lack of economic activity. Williamson's article pointed to the immorality of belief in Trump's campaign promises because it masked reality:

It is immoral because it perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces. It hasn’t. The white middle class may like the idea of Trump as a giant pulsing humanoid middle finger held up in the face of the Cathedral, they may sing hymns to Trump the destroyer and whisper darkly about “globalists” and — odious, stupid term — “the Establishment,” but nobody did this to them. They failed themselves.

If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy — which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog — you will come to an awful realization. It wasn’t Beijing. It wasn’t even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn’t immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn’t any of that.

Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster. There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence — and the incomprehensible malice — of poor white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt ain’t what it used to be. There is more to life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the factories down.

The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.

If you want to live, get out of Garbutt.

In 2018, the New York Times published an article, The Hard Truths of Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy, that asked if economic rural decline is inevitable. The NYT wrote: "There are 60 million people, almost one in five Americans, living on farms, in hamlets and in small towns across the landscape. For the last quarter century the story of these places has been one of relentless economic decline. ... the United States has grown by 75 million people since 1990, but this has mostly occurred in cities and suburbs. Rural areas have lost some 3 million people. Since the 1990s, problems such as crime and opioid abuse, once associated with urban areas, are increasingly rural phenomena."

It may be that unfavorable economic trends make it impossible to sustain many rural populations in the US and elsewhere. Rural decline is underway in Canada. Agriculture continues to automate, so that is probably not a major source of rural job growth.

The political ramifications aren't clear. Rural population loss suggests there could be a decline in republican party affiliation as urban areas tend to be more democratic and independent than rural areas. How to deal with economic decline is not clear either. Some evidence shows that urban areas tend to subsidize rural areas, although most conservatives vigorously dispute that. Regardless, rural economic decline seems to be real and it seems to be a major source of social and political antagonism. This problem just might not be fixable by anyone. Economic trends have a way of going where economic forces make them go, politics and ideology be damned.

Evidence of Trump's Obstruction in the Mueller Report

Writing for Lawfare blog, Quinta Jurecic published a great analysis of evidence of President Trump's obstruction of justice in the Mueller report. The analysis looks to be sufficient to support at least indictment of Trump for obstruction of justice on four different occasions. Since impeachment is a political process, not a legal process, the level of evidence needed is possibly lower. Here's Jurecic's analysis, which shows four instances of obstruction of justice:




Ms. Jurecic writes on Trump's effort to fire Mueller, item E in the table above: Obstructive act (p. 87): Former White House Counsel Don McGahn is a “credible witness” in providing evidence that Trump indeed attempted to fire Mueller. This “would qualify as an obstructive act” if the firing “would naturally obstruct the investigation and any grand jury proceedings that might flow from the inquiry.”

Nexus (p. 89): “Substantial evidence” indicates that, at this point, Trump was aware that “his conduct was under investigation by a federal prosecutor who could present any evidence of federal crimes to a grand jury.”

Intent (p. 89): “Substantial evidence indicates that the President’s attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel’s oversight of investigations that involved the President’s conduct[.]”

She also points to a similar analysis by another expert another legal expert, Richard Hoeg, which shows five instances of obstruction of justice.




Since impeachment is a political process and not a legal one, the standards of evidence that apply can be different. The House can decide that there was enough evidence of impeachable obstruction on more than five occasions, each of which constituting a separate impeachable offense. Given the evidence in Mueller's report, if the House decides to start impeachment proceedings on the grounds of obstruction, they would choose whatever evidence in the report they wish. The House could also decide there was an illegal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but the evidence for that may be less solid.

If these analyses are reasonably reliable, the evidence shows that Trump actually tried to obstruct justice more than once. Only the adults in the room, e.g., his counsel Don McGahn, kept him from stopping Mueller's investigation.