Belief and misbelief asymmetry on the internet / Gérald Bronner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bronner, Gérald, author.

Series:

Focus series (London, England)

THEi Wiley ebooks.

Focus Series (London, England), 2051-249X

THEi Wiley ebooks

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Internet.

Information asymmetry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (149 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London, [England] ; Hoboken, New Jersey : ISTE : Wiley, 2016.

System Details:

Access using campus network via VPN at home (THEi Users Only).

Summary:

This book discusses the media, beliefs, the news, the Internet, etc. but it should not be seen as yet another critique of the media system, exploring with indignant fascination the idea of a machination against truth set up to serve a society of domination. These kinds of theories, whether they pertain to conspiracy theories or, more subtly, to a self-styled "critical" way of thinking, have always seemed to be the expression of a form of intellectual puerility. This is not to say that attempts at manipulating opinions do not occur, or that our world is free from compromised principles, or indeed corruption; far from it, but none of this is the key issue. In fact, reality can somehow be even more unsettling than those myths, however sophisticated they may be, that envisage the media system hand-in-hand with industry, science, and so forth, all in agreement so as to lead the "people" away from the truth. It is more unsettling because the processes described in this book and that allow falsehood and dubiousness to take hold of the public sphere are boosted by the development of IT, the workings of our minds, and the very nature of democracy. And finally, it is more unsettling because we are all responsible for what is going to happen to us.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Preface

Introduction: The Empire of Doubt

Chapter 1: More is Less: Mental Avarice and Mass Information

1.1. The revolution of the cognitive market

1.2. Amplification of the confirmation bias

1.3. The Seattle affair

1.3.1. The Wason experiment

About our mental avarice

1.4. The theorem of information credulity

"Personally, to make sure, I check on the Internet"

1.5. Filter bubbles

Chapter 2: Why Does the Internet Side with Dubious Ideas?

2.1. The utopia of the knowledge society and the empire of beliefs

2.2. The ditherer's problem

2.3. Competition between belief and knowledge on the Internet

2.4. Psychokinesis

2.5. The Loch Ness Monster

2.6. Aspartame

2.7. Crop circles

2.8. Astrology

2.9. Overview of results

2.10. How can we explain these results?

2.11. The Titanic syndrome

2.12. When Olson's paradox plays against knowledge

2.13. Charles Fort, his life, and his works in a few words

2.14. Fort products: argumentative mille-feuilles

2.15. The sharing of the arguments of conviction

2.16. A Fortean product in the making: Michael Jackson's fake death

2.17. When Fort reinforces Olson

2.18. Would you believe it!

2.19. It is all in the Bible, all of it

2.20. The transparency paradox

2.21. A shorter incubation period

Chapter 3: Competition Serves the Truth, Excessive Competition Harms It

3.1. Michael Jackson's son, abused by Nicolas Sarkozy

3.2. A "prisoner's dilemma" kind of situation

3.3. Presidential unfaithfulness and the burnt Koran

3.4. The IRC curve (information reliability/competition)

Chapter 4: What Can Be Done? From the Democracy of the Gullible to the Democracy of Enlightenment

4.1. The hope of the astrophysicist

4.2. The bad education.

4.3. When gullibility looks like intelligence

4.4. The sum of imperfections

4.5. Toward cognitive demagogy

4.6. How to keep the illusion scholar inside us in check

4.7. Declaration of mental independence

4.8. The fourth power

4.9. A new form of scientific communication

4.10. A new militancy

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed February 17, 2016).

ISBN:

1-119-26155-4

OCLC:

933250714