Notice: Hello our dear listeners! Special news here: our podcast schedule is moved to “every other Monday” (starting two weeks ago, sorry about the late notice here).
In this latest episode, K Sera asks about the truth. Phillip brings in metaphysics and conservative arguments, and Micah proves Phillip cannot tell what the truth is from a car chase story!
Show notes:
A nifty chart for Truthy news sources:
Uber drivers pay rates between men and women
K Sera’s after thoughts:
In the middle of February, 2022, there is currently an ongoing and large controversy with Joe Rogan’s podcast spreading covid misinformation (among other troubling view points), and many people are boycotting Rogan and Spotify because of it.
I’m not precisely sure where I stand on this. I am pro free speech, but I also think there is a level of responsibility celebrities and world leaders must own when wielding their exceptional social and political power. When you have a certain threshold of influence, you are no longer considered a common person and the rules need to be a little different. “Just asking questions” is ok, when you are a common person seeking answers for personal reasons, but when you are someone wielding a powerful platform, there needs to be a greater level of care and consideration for the potential fallout of your actions and words.
A person with a stick isn’t as dangerous as a person wielding a sword, isn’t as dangerous as a person wielding a gun, isn’t as dangerous as a person wielding a grenade, a missle, etc… The level of potential damage a weapon can inflict changes the rules that govern its use. Why isn’t this the same for media platforms? No one cares, really, if you are waving a stick around. If you wack someone with it, there are consequences - assuming you’re caught and held accountable for hurting someone. We do, however, care when someone is waving a gun or something more devastating around. The response is vastly different and the consequences are generally far more serious.
There is a real problem with information dissemination and interpretation. Micah says better education would help mitigate this somewhat, which is something, at least, but I’m not convinced that we can solely rely on that. Police officers, health providers and legal counsel all need (arguably better) oversight and actual consequences for abusing the power and influence they wield. Why is this any different for news providers and celebrities? There needs to be real consequences to misusing social influence proportionate to the damage caused for any position of authority and influence.
But therein lies the question: who is responsible for dealing out those consequences and deciding what they are? Right now, people are demanding ‘direct superiors’ to take responsibility, because that’s the only recourse available. In the case of Spotify and Joe Rogan, Spotify owns the platform and has the power to execute consequences but no incentive. My suggestion is to give the FCC the power to fine media platforms (proportionate to the content creator’s influence and revenue) for damages caused by irresponsible speech. Then, maybe, there would be actions taken to protect people from, say, drinking bleach or urine because some idiot influencer with a convincing voice said it could cure their illness.
Phil’s after thoughts:
-The more I think about it, the more I feel that people really don’t want to hear the truth; they just want to hear what they want to hear. And the more I think about that, the more I think that I also fall into this trap too. We need a way to separate truth from personal identity, so that challenging a personal truth does not feel so personal to them (and us). For example, if we got into a low-speed car accident, how many of us would accept the truth that we are 100% to blame? Almost always we blame everything but ourselves (weather, other driver, distractions, etc.). I don’t know where I’m going with this, but basically we lie to ourselves so that we can feel good, and so we want to hear lies (from the news) for the very same reason. The truthy problem with news is that there is a large demand for less-than-truthful news, and honestly I think it is because we take things too personally. We need to substitute personal news with business news, because business news is beyond boring.
-And also we ought to not take things personally, if the universe taught me anything: it is never personal, it’s just business.