Tag Archives: value truth. truth detector

Destroying America One Lie at a Time : Why we should value truth

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Politcal fighting is never the answer

I love a good competition, sometimes even a shouting match but the amount of lies that permeate the remains of political discourse is just disgusting.  America stands for freedom and democracy, we control our destiny.  I am proud of that to my core.

But that also depends on all of us being informed.  As we vote it is hard enough to understand different points of views and arguments to cast that vote. As an American I feel a responsibility to do my best each time a vote comes up.  To make it my choice not to be led by some sticking talking point even if I like the person its coming from.

But the pure amount of lies being generated everyday now tears the heart out of me.  Those political leaders that lie to the US public are the most despicable un-American, un-patriotic politicians. They are simply avoiding or trying to change the truth to be more successful.  Even if they thin it forwards and agenda best for us it destroys our ability as Americans to make that choice.  I am sorry if they don’t have the balls to tell us the truth.  If they feel so week that lying is necessary it is simply wrong in a democracy.

As Americans we can tell lies are happening based on the disagreement over basic facts.  I’m not trying to tell you  how to believe.  But we must expect and hold our leaders responsible for then the truth.  If we catch them in lies or don’t believe them we simply must vote them out.  We can make up our minds who are the liars and who trusts us with the truth.

In this case political boundaries don’t matter.  Our American democracy thrives under truth and falters under lies.  So there are two sides the the American side and the lias’ side, lets Throw the Liars Out!!

A Madman has spoken….

The Truth!? We don’t value the TRUTH!! : But maybe we could try….

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Avoid the Lies and clicking on RruthDo we value truth?  Do you know why  fake newsies so persistent?…   Because it quite literally pays.  News items that get clicked on the most end up getting revenue.  And the more attention the more it drives those clicks.  Fake news is simply created to capture those clicks. Different stories crafted with words, memes, images and people that cry out to click me!! And truth doesn’t drive clicks…

Though it seems like an art form there is also a lot of science behind it.  For example marketing research companies study subject lines that will cause email to more likely be read.  Studying the click behavior of many different populations.  All aimed at finding the most effective communication to reach your audience.  Unfortunately Fake News uses this science making falsehoods payoff but not caring about truth.  Can data science make truth more valuable?

I’m not sure we can get there today but it is conceivable, and here’s how.

  1. Build a “Truth Grader” that reads ahead “news articles” that appear in your browser
  2. Then the grader breaks the article into opinion vs fact, capturing the fact / opinion ratio
  3. Next the grader tests the facts against trusted sources and determines an overall fact score
  4. Finally the Truth Grader puts a code based on the strength of facts with rill over details for the reader

Technically we’re actually not as far off as it may sound.  Step 1 and 4 are relatively straight forward, Step 3 maybe possible with a Watson like interface. Though determining “trusted sources” would likely be an area of much “discussion”.  It’s step 2 that would currently be the only real blocker.  And of course this gets harder with video and pictures

Of course the real question is would knowing that some juicy sounding story was probably fake stop us from clicking on it…  I am hopeful we’d teach the web we do value truth.  But at least we’d have a way to find out.

A Madman has Spoken….