this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
5 points (56.8% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26909 readers
2838 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 3 points 3 hours ago

certainly none. its like learning things wrong is horrible as its way harder to correct yourself than learn it the first time. Similarly the more you lie or spread mistruth the harder it will be to discern truth yourself.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 6 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

to give misinformation

In Texas, this is called lying.. when did we stop using common sense nomenclature?

[–] Meltrax@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Kinda feel like leadership of Texas is pioneering the effort to see how far away from that nomenclature your actions can get.

[–] Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

If you lie, you loose people trust. It’s extremely difficult to gain that trust back (maybe even impossible sometimes)

[–] DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world 13 points 9 hours ago

Let me rephrase that: Is it better to lie or say nothing at all?

[–] Free_Opinions@feddit.uk 14 points 10 hours ago

If you know it's false, it's called disinformation.

[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 6 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

You can state the information you believe to be correct with a disclaimer, that it may be incorrect.

[–] weeeeum@lemmy.world -1 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Won't stop AI from scraping it and stating it as fact

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 8 hours ago

Nothing will stop that, not even an explicit statement that something is intended as a joke.

[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I have no incentive to curate my content for a corporation that pirates my content without my consent or providing compensation.

[–] Free_Opinions@feddit.uk 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Like it now does based on false claims made by humans

[–] Tazerface@sh.itjust.works 25 points 14 hours ago

Nothing wrong with saying "I don't know".

[–] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

lying is fun, you can say whatever you want! i recommend you all try it out in moderation

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 6 hours ago

Reason: Rule 1

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 26 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

It is always better to admit when you don't know something, than to make up bullshit. Always.

[–] EndOfLine@lemmy.world 27 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

None.

When a man lies he murders some part of the world.

-- Merlin (Excalibur, 1981)

If you know something to be false and try to pass it off as truth, that is lying. It doesn't matter how you phrase it or try to hide behind symantics like "I'm just asking questions" or "it's just a hypothetical".

That being said, it does not mean that you cannot contribute to a conversations if you are not an authority on a subject. If you are not sure or cannot recall a credible source for your information you can preface your comment with something like "I never confirmed the validity of this, so I may be completely wrong, but...".

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Or just ask questions instead of trying to chime in. If you're unfamiliar with a subject then you should be listening, not talking.

[–] EndOfLine@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

So true. If you are lacking knowledge on a topic, asking questions is always the best approach.

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 3 points 11 hours ago

That is situational. Preferably people don't lie. However, nuance can make it inevitable.

I once watched an anime called Usagi Drop. In it, the oldest member in an enormous family, who was in his eighties, ends up, ahem, "going around", and he dies having fathered a girl, who, in the big picture of the family's family tree, is the great aunt of several of the characters who are well into adulthood. Japan is a nation that considers such matters highly controversial and stigmatized, and this was a major plot point in the show. The young adult characters decide it's best to "adopt" her and not reveal her origins as a form of protection. Would totally recommend the anime nevertheless.

Can you imagine if the Allies were fighting the Axis powers, and while making the ghost army, the Allies were like "yeah, those tanks are inflatables, it's Normandy we'll be going after"?

[–] greedytacothief@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

Oh man I feel this when people ask for directions. Because I know how to get somewhere, but I also forget a lot of steps along the way.

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I think speculation and guesswork is perfectly fine. It's part of a path towards an answer. However, that speculation and guesswork needs to have its uncertainty clearly indicated.

I'll give an example using football.As "analytics" have emerged, everyone has their own model to give a guideline on decisions. This is done using things like "win probability" of all the possible choices and outcomes. You can do out the math, using a model, to say something like "going for it gives you a 35% chance to win, and kicking the field goal gives you a 33% chance".

And that sounds great. But, all the numbers that go into that math are incredibly noisy, with very small sample sizes. A great kicker has a better chance of making a field goal than a bad kicker, and they can account for that, to a point. But they can't really account for that, plus the specific weather conditions, plus the kicker is a little sore today, ...

And the chances of a stop, and of scoring if you're successful, etc, are even worse, because it's specific to how your offense matches up to that defense, plus the context of the game, the context in the game/moment, etc.

It's perfectly fine, and reasonable, to use a model as the best indicator you have and make a decision aided by that model. But the correct way to present statistical models is provide some guidance on how uncertain it is, in addition to the raw number. If you phrase that "35% +/- 10% if you go for it, 33% +/- 10% if you kick", you realize that there's a significant range where a better model might tell you to make the opposite decision, and it's a lot closer to a toss up.

But despite the inherent uncertainty due to the limited sample sizes used to create the models, you see "analytics experts" all over the place calling coaches morons for decisions that are pretty ambiguous because their specific model gives one decision a small edge and it didn't work out. If they had explicitly evaluated and acknowledged the uncertainty of their model given the factors it can't account for, they would have a much clearer picture of what the decision actually was.

Make guesses. Speculate. But make it clear (to others, and yourself) what you're doing so the guesses aren't given more weight than they deserve.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 5 points 14 hours ago

May I ask for some context to that question?

I mean, the answer should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of (self)respect: stay shut if you know... you don't know. But maybe you were thinking about some very specific situation?

[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

No information is the best option. How bad the misinformation is depends on intent. Is the misinformation a lie intentionally told to conceal a truth? Or is it bullshit, information intended to persuade regardless of truth?

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

From Harry Frankfurt's essay On Bullshit

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Depends.
Your fellows? None at all.
The State? Misinformation

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 8 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

The State? Misinformation

And that's how you get Republicans saying that Haitians are eating pets in Ohio.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 16 hours ago

The Republicans who spread that rumor didn't care whether it was true, and was looking for choice rumors to spread.

It's blood libel for the 21st century.

[–] Grogon@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

Yeah it was the pets eating ohioans but they failed to fix that news

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 16 hours ago

I think the state in this case needs to be divided into adversarial and non-adversarial departments (or subdepartments). It's better to tell (for example) the water department you don't know whether the pipes are lead if that's the case, rather than forcing them to unearth copper pipes or letting them leave lead pipes.

But it is absolutely appropriate (assuming you believe in strong rights to privacy) to insert NSA keywords into benign communications, so that NSA wastes time on your false positives, but that's because NSA isn't supposed to be doing mass surveillance of the public, rather is supposed to be helping develop communication security that is impervious to surveillance.

If your local precinct actually works with the community, doesn't harass minorities and doesn't rob civilians via asset forfeiture, it might be worth giving them sound information (including saying you don't know what you don't know.) On the other hand if it behaves typically for law enforcement in the US, leading them to chase geese will save everyone else trouble.