It's 2021 and our news outlets are still claiming to everyone that everything they have been told is true, and that things that aren't reported didn't happen. What's changed, is that people are trying to talk about it. A bunch of rebellious news organisations have sprung up, making it incredibly clear that their news is also totally ridiculous, and that people are believing it in droves. The mainstream media finally noticed. They're embarrassed that smaller, faker, even more "mainstream" media outlets, have gotten so much better and more grandious at spreading fake news than they are. They have coping skills they use when this happens. They publish news articles. https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-europe-coronavirus-pandemic-science... It's the same old thing helping people get back to reality by pretending that fake news is meritless. It's certainly upsetting and false, if not merciless. It likely makes for a great way to cover anything up. Publish fake news on something similar. The mainstream media will make sure nobody believes it. Meanwhile, computers can out-write us by leagues, and most smart software devs can think of how to build a world-saving or world-dominating AGI by now, and are thinking about how best to use their old age for their values. It is very easy to have a computer write a news article for you now, and nobody knows what is true. We need rational, clear, noncontroversial, helpful information like water in a desert. I'll try to translate a little of the apnews weekly update. A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts: Karl's comment: - "We can totally say this stuff is untrue. Nobody hurts us when we do. It is totally safe to say this stuff is untrue. You should tell your friends how safe this." - "The things spreading on social media are not true. Come to mainstream news outlets to learn what is true. We can discern what is true and false so long as the powers that get angry from it have enemies with a lot of money." Posts mislead on delta variant data - "We can say these posts are misleading. Nobody hurts us when we do. Some day we may even be able to say that our own news reporting is misleading, too." CLAIM: Data from the U.K.’s public health agency confirms that those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 are anywhere from two times to six times more likely to die from the delta variant than the unvaccinated. - "Although this may be mathematically true in a very limited context, people think it means that vaccination can make you sick, or that it indicates in any way that getting vaccinated could harm you. Maybe vaccinations do harm people sometimes, but this study does not indicate that at all, and I could be fired for saying that. Whoever posted this stuff is obviously trying to get everyone to contract covid-19, and we need to do something about that." - "I'm going to repeatedly state that these incredibly dangerous posts are false because all you guys seem to understand is that you should get passionately upset by what you read." THE FACTS: Public Health England’s report did not show evidence that those who are - "Here I am, stating clearly that the dangerous claims are false. You're already primed by the very fake news I'm debunking, to be ready to be upset at false stuff!" vaccinated are more susceptible to dying from the coronavirus delta variant. Rather, the data, - "It is obviously false that this would be the case, but the study did show that there is a weird set involving very elderly people where it is a little true, even though it was blindingly false everywhere else. I'll have to make sure to use weasel words less than the fake news people do, so that you believe me." which was published June 18, shows the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are highly effective against hospitalization from the variant. An - "This is the most important thing for people at risk of going to a hospital to know. We need to say this first, and it was criminal for the outlets that are better at distributing fake news than our investors are, to not make this clear up front. These fake news outlets are directly responsible for millions of people dying." Instagram post falsely claimed the health - "false! You need to understand how false this is!" agency’s data showed vaccinated people were twice as likely to die from the delta variant than unvaccinated people. Another falsely claimed - "The people who wrote the fake news didn't know the difference between numbers they put together creatively, and statistical measurements of what is actually likely. It's an incredibly common thing to do." vaccinated people were “six times more likely to die from a circulating ‘variant’ like ‘Delta’ than are unvaccinated people.” One post used a table from the report to share the false claim, but the post misrepresented the table’s data. While the table does address delta variant deaths, it shows that among 60,624 confirmed cases of the variant between Feb. 1 and June 14, recorded deaths included 37 vaccinated people and 34 unvaccinated. Furthermore, the - "My job is to debunk this. The posters did not understand this table. I do not understand this table either. None of my readers understand this table. But I can ask somebody who does understand the table, what I might say to convince people." - "These numbers are tiny. Does that matter? Does it matter if numbers are big or small?" table does not state the age group of those who died and whether they suffered from any additional illnesses. Experts say that means - "The expert said the study was about a different thing than the posts said it was, and that made it clear the posts were ridiculous. How is that related? Should I include the table? Most wouldn't want to get fired for accidentally showing statistics that aren't in support of major corporations, but I can figure this out." --- That's it for me. I'll believe somebody who can say that opposing views have truth and form conclusions from that, but stick by what they care about, and clearly that's not many professional writers who can write things that reach me. I'm not even sure it's myself anymore. Still, this AP news stuff seems cool. Found them on the web. Below is the rest of the attempt to bring people closer to reality that they made: conclusions cannot be drawn about the role of vaccines in those deaths. “Unless you account for these differences in age and population, you really can’t make the argument that vaccination confers a higher risk of death,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, an infectious disease physician at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health. The report notes that follow up is needed when examining the data on delta variant deaths because “it is too early to provide a formal assessment of the case fatality of delta, stratified by age, compared to other variants.” The public health agency issued another report on June 25 that showed that no deaths had been recorded of patients under 50 who were infected with the delta variant and had received both doses of vaccine. The data from the agency shows that two doses of the vaccines made by Pfizer or AstraZeneca are highly effective against hospitalization from the delta