I have been critical of the theory of Official Mis- and Official Disinformation, given that they necessarily imply the existence of Official Truths (see blog/Substack).
As I have long said, the problem is not that rulers want to stifle what they label as Official Mis- and Disinformation, it is that rulers, elites, and Experts have picked known falsities as their Official Truths. Proscribing genuine falsities does little harm (with obvious allowances for discussions on why the false is false and that sort of thing). Allowing or insisting absurdities to pass as truths does great destruction. Lies passed off as truths become, as the academics we’ll meet below call, “malign influences”.
“Pregnant men” is necessarily false; if spoken in earnest, a lie. Logic students will recognize this as the “married bachelors” of our day. Such asininities ought to be addressed. But what to do about them? You cannot really expect any agency to crack down on lunatics espousing such enormities. For one, there are too many of them (both lunatics and falsities). True, most saying things like this are cowards, and would immediately recant should political winds shift. But that still leaves us with too many to handle.
Plus, policing speech in this way opens the door for tyranny, for all the obvious reasons, even though that particular proposition is one of the dumbest things one can hold. But we can police falsities in some contexts. Such as in voting.
Let’s examine the peer-reviewed comment “Misinformation poses a bigger threat to democracy than you might think” in Nature, by Ullrich Ecker, Jon Roozenbeek, Sander van der Linden, Li Qian Tay, John Cook, Naomi Oreskes & Stephan Lewandowsky. (Many of these luminaries we have met before.)
It is no coincidence they begin by saying, “Around four billion people have the opportunity to cast their votes in a series of major elections this year. However, the threat to democratic integrity posed by misinformation and disinformation looms large.”
You may be surprised to hear me say this, but I agree with them.
Just you watch this video (and any of the many others this fellow has) asking voters simple questions which they cannot answer. You will have your own favorite, but mine is when one pair of voters was asked to name three books. Struggling for some time, one eventually conjured Cat In The Hat. Which, indeed, is a book, and so cannot be strictly classified as misinformation. But I believe wrong or non answers can, such as in this video when a voter could not, even after prompting, say what country the Queen of England was from. Another voter could not name the country in which the Great Wall of China can be found.
The Nature authors do not come right out and say it, but I will. These people should not be voting in federal elections. They need to be disenfranchised, but quick. They are mis- or disinformed on a variety of matters; they are prone to propaganda, and do not have the ability to discern truth from falsehood. They will swallow, with relish, idiocies and lies told to them by those in (and out of) authority.
It’s also true at the top of scale, as it were. Anybody who believes “pregnant men” ought not to be allowed to vote. There are two possible sets of believers. The first are the inherently intellectually unequipped, the sort of people who show up in the videos above. Or they are Credentialed (“educated”), strangling in the death grip of Theory. Either set of people, by voting, do great harm to to the body politic.
Restore competency testing for eligibility to vote.
Requiring a pass/fail on simple tests, which can vary in their context for the office or matter under consideration, would be no burden. Everything is already electronic. You wouldn’t even need to ask for ID! Which, academics tell us, spouting an obvious falsity, are “racist”.
We can debate the number of questions (something small) and their content (relevance), but the idea is sound. Our academics must agree; and, indeed, they do: “classifying information as false or misleading is often warranted” they say.
The right answers can even be known in advance, so that nothing more than simple memorization is required to pass the voting test. People take the test, swear to the answers under penalty of perjury, and if they pass, they can vote. No publication of any results would be allowed, to spare feelings. And it’s really all about Feelings, isn’t it?
For instance, our Nature academics complain that some deny certain known historical facts. Very well, let’s pick one or two of real importance, such as The Resurrection (a historical event, none more important, with witnesses and massive evidence), and ask “Did the Resurrection happen?” Those saying No have it wrong, and it should count against them.
Light math is a necessity. People vote for candidate who will spend their money. The guy in the video asked people to compute 15% of 100. That’s as good a question as any.
Obviously, as our academics desire, we could require social media, and really all media, to bar Official Misinformation regarding test questions.
Questions that have answers that are not absolutely certain would be forbidden. For instance, anything related to the “covid vaccines” or “climate change”. There is no certainty here. The debate is not over. As our academics say, “The fact that veracity is often conceptualized better as a continuum than as a dichotomy, and that some claims cannot be unambiguously classified as true or false, must not detract from the reality that there are many incontrovertible historical and scientific facts.”
Agreed. We stick to the incontrovertible. Where there is uncertainty, it is true (necessarily) that there is room for disagreement. We stick to necessary truths and falsities and demonstrated facts.
So we couldn’t ask about “climate change”, but we could ask “Does the sun revolve around the earth, or the earth around the sun?” My experience is that a great many who are nervous about “climate change” get this one wrong (no joke).
Basic logic: “Do academic credentials guarantee correctness?” We do not want people voting who fall prey to the Appeal to Authority Fallacy. Our academics agree: “The promotion of opinions that go against expert consensus is often done by individuals who present themselves as heroic rebels.” Indeed. Heroic they are, especially when the Expert consensus wanders into preposterosities (you heard me) like “pregnant men”.
One last one—you will suggest others in the comments: “Should women be allowed to vote?” Only one right, obvious answer to that.
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Will today’s column be on the test?