[tenaciousDaniel]

The ability to use subtle psychological tricks to influence the citizenry of a foreign adversary is perhaps the most surprising new feature of a world connected by the internet. I have no idea how a nation as large, diverse, and fragmented the USA (where I live) is going to combat it.

[Frost1x]

An educated and critically thinking populace who can question and analyze information independently and don't always require authoritive sources, that's how you combat this. People need to be able to identify and defend against the 'grenades' of the 21st century. It doesn't even run counter to democratic principles, I'd say educating people against misinformation/disinformation and providing them with independent analysis capability provides strong legs for democracy.

The problem we run into is that a lot of current leadership in this country seem to rely on an easily manipulated population through misinformstion/disinformation. Leadership who utilize this need to be willing to abandon this to strengthen our democracy even if it may be the undoing of their own source of power. I'm not certain we're going to see that happen.

What I instead think we'll see is a shouting match of disinformation/misinformation between foreign adversaries and questionable leadership we already have which may hopefully undermine misplaced trust for many put in the free flowing mis/disinformation we have today. We could also end up with direction dictated by whoever can shout the loudest and most convincingly.

[wyager]

> An educated and critically thinking populace who can question and analyze information independently

To whatever extent this skill exists, it certainly can’t be acquired by going through the university system.

I suspect the most relevant characteristic here is the tradeoff between socially motivated consensus (where people believe whatever beliefs are minimally socially costly) versus observationally motivated beliefs. People’s position in this tradeoff space has little if anything to do with formal education; it’s probably heritable or trained through some social process we don’t understand. It might not be feasible at all to meaningfully push the population towards observational beliefs.

[evgen]

> An educated and critically thinking populace who can question and analyze information independently and don't always require authoritive sources

This is quite inaccurate, almost delusionally so. It is the sort of thing well-educated people tell themselves as a way of trying to distinguish themselves from the 'common rubes' who fall victim to obvious propaganda and influence. If we have learned anything over the past five to ten years is is that the educated critical thinking population is just as likely to crawl up their own backside in self-assured certainty that they are right and the so-called authoritative sources are wrong when in fact they are nothing more than Dunning-Kruger replicators. I don't have any answers to offer, but the oft-quoted idea that the solution to misinformation and bad speech is more speech is the biggest lie repeated on HN, and one that continues to have tragic consequences.

[skulk]

From the CW project:

> In an era where memory is outsourced to Google, GPS, calendar alerts and calculators, it will necessarily produce a generalised loss of knowledge that is not just memory, but rather motor memory. In other words, a long-term process of disabling connections in your brain is ongoing. It will present both vulnerabilities and opportunities.

The CW project seems to think we're headed for Wall-E, but mentally instead of physically. I'm extremely curious to see how this actually plays out.

[ldehaan]

I am a huge fan of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saager, no lies to make a profit. Independent news.

[afarrell]

How on earth would a US citizen independently analyse information about (for example) Hunter Biden's interactions with Ukraine? It costs hundreds of dollars and most of a workweek to fly from the US to Ukraine and then at least 6 years of education+experience to competently practice independent investigative journalism.

Almost nobody has time to learn to do that, conn a ship, or butcher a hog. People spend most of their time on their their friends, family, and employer. We need have to have thoughtful and attentive sources we can trust.

[hoseja]

That populace also doesn't toe either party line.

[mc32]

It seems country by country, governments will begin putting up "Great National Firewalls' prompted by two things, disinformation as well as wanting to control what content is permissible and not (whether it's copyright, or privacy or other laws regulating content) and to have jurisdiction over that information.

[anticodon]

> I have no idea how a nation as large, diverse, and fragmented the USA (where I live) is going to combat it.

USA is a pioneer in this battle. It also owns all the tools and media necessary for the combat and uses it for its advantage for years (Google Search, Google YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Netflix, etc).

It's everyone else that is losing this battle.

[sumnole]

fortunately there's also a lot of work being done in the USA towards decentralized platforms. it's not a silver bullet but a step in the right direction imho.

[creamytaco]

I find this comically out of touch with reality. To think that the most powerful information replicators of our age can be under the control of some mythical centralized entity (USA) so that “everyone else is losing this battle” is to be so ignorant about the way technology operates (non-linearity, meta-level control) as to completely and utterly miss the point.

[closeparen]

I don't think that's surprising. One of the main drivers of official support for a free and open internet is to promote a universal culture. To turn scary and unknown foreigners into just-like-us peaceful and prosperous trading partners. That's obviously a two way street - we can export our memes to them, but they can also export their memes to us.