[war][peace] Fake News Report

[Karl]

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-business-f034a70829f3b4c53a69b09465959825

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
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