Well, assuming that the article in the NYT belongs to the 10% of information that is true, you might be right.

I admire the way you simplify reality to a point where blog-commenters are able to argue about it.

webgrunt, it's better to be misinformed because then at least you have a scapegoat.

So you start out by making comments about the US and free speech, go into how being dyslexic means you have x-ray vision and adamantium claws, and tried not to think about the fact that most of the other 90% might agree with you but you could have misunderstood them.



This gets me to thinking, what if the greatest mind in the universe had a reserve form of dyslexia: he can read and listen fine, but everything he says or writes comes out wrong.

I'll second or third the opinion that Scott's described Modern American Society pretty succinctly. While I'm not sure that 90% of the information is deliberately misleading, I'm pretty *darn* sure that at least 90% of the people believe a number of things that are of dubious veracity. Beliefs, like everything else, follow Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.

Well, here's the thing. Your premise is logically inconsistent. For 90% of everything to be purposely misleading, those providing the misleading statements must know what the truth is. If they didn't, then they couldn't purposely mislead anyone. Any misleading in that case would be, by definition, unintentional.

That means that if they knew it to be untrue, then they'd have to be so blatantly obvious about it that it wouldn't take a Mensa member to figure it out. One would simply have to look around at what was happening, find inconsistencies, begin to question, and then (since they had free speech), begin to promulgate the truth. Look at the Internet. There are so many sources of information that you can usually get to the truth of an issue (just don't take what Wikipedia says without checking other sources). That's concerning an issue of fact, of course, not of opinion. As I've quoted before, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

If you look at the history of totalitarian states, who attempt to restrict free speech and manage the news, the people usually find some way to the truth. Just the fact that no opposing opinion is allowed to be spoken will clue even the densest among the citizenry to disbelieve what they're being fed. It has been said that one of the reasons the Soviet Union fell was because they didn't allow Xerox machines to be generally available, for fear they could be used to publish underground anti-Soviet information. The resulting inability to rapidly promulgate information needed to run their country made their inefficient system even more inefficient.

So in general, the freer the speech, the less managed it can be. You're welcome.

Doonesbury is lampooning political lies this week

Is it some "Two for Tuesday" blog special where you take a pair of mildly amusing and clever blogs and duct-tape them together into one semi-incoherent post?

If the lies are random lies, some people will be able to sort it all out and these "champions" will squelch the !$%*!$%* to a smaller percentage -- like maybe 40%. If the lies seem to fit together into some kind of coherent framework, it might be harder. We could call that second scenario religion, and we don't have to speculate about how awful it is.

Is it just me? Or does everyone find the megalomaniacal rantings of a narcisstic egoist really, really amusing?!!

Scott,

First I didn't understand the post. Now I don't understand the comments either. This whole page can be in mongolian and it would still make the same sense to my dyslexic perception.

Four options to understand the post and become a millionaire:

A. Tunnel Vision: Scott is speaking about the unseen advantages of a medical condition.

B. Peripheral Vision: Scott is using that as an indicator of a larger picture.

C. Blind Man's Vision (!): Scott is describing an absurdity in an absurd manner.

D. My Vision: Duh

.

Just read that NYT article you linked. Geez, only somebody with some kind of reading problem could read that and think dyslexia is a super power.

Scott -
Did you just ask us where all us Zombies came from...?
-Agnello

Got to love a good tautology.
In order to KNOW anything you have to BELIEVE something. Most proofs are in the end very large circles starting at something true by definition and ending there as well. I can prove the existence of God, if we assume a god exists. I can prove the absence of god, if we assume no god can exist.
The scientific method is great but still relies on some underlying assumptions we forget to mention. It also has a big part based on observation, which is still highly susceptible to perceptual error problems.
In the end the best we can hope for is a consistent set of assumptions and rules of logic. I might be wrong, but my conclusions are consistent.

The only thing that would make your hypothetical country worse is if it was set up such that citizens percieved that they had the ability to choose their leaders, but they could really only chose from among a half dozen deeply flawed candidates.

I think it was Epimenides, the famous ancient cartoonist, who reportedly stated that "Cartoonists are always liars."

The absurdity of truth Is only absurd when the majority belives the truth to be absurd.

Our brains have an extraordinary finite capacity. We can only remember so much, and what we can remember is usually distorted one way or the other, by our conditioned beliefs and biases.

We live in a illusion of memories....

Finding truth is hard work, and not for the weak minded.

Truth has consequences that many are not willing to take.

For example; Jesus spoke and searched for truth, and look what happend to him.

He was killed.

The freedom of speech is the most valuable conceptual tool ever, it allows us to seek truth.

Ofcoarse it dosent mean people will seek truth.

Finding truth is not for the weak minded

You might like to read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance

Hmmm . . . I once read that people who are depressed actually are perceiving the world much more like it really is than those who aren't. Sort of suggests dropping the anti-depressants out of your diet might improve your vision, eh?

I actually read the title as "Perceptual Super Bowl"... I don't think I have dyslexia, I just think that the 90% of my surroundings got my "lying detector" overheated...