Jul 15, 2022

How to combat misinformation

Our current path is not working.

Hey everyone,

Today, I’m on my way to Las Vegas for an event called Freedom Fest. I'll be taking the stage tomorrow to debate whether the 2020 election was stolen or not (as you may gather from my writing, I'll be arguing that it was not a stolen election). The debate will be live streamed on Fox Nation at 11 a.m. local time. If you are at Freedom Fest in Vegas and want to link up, shoot me an email.

Since this is a travel day for me, I'm sharing a piece that I recently published in the newsletter Persuasion. I’m a big fan of the work they are doing there and wanted to thank them for letting me share this piece with my readers and also suggest you check them out and subscribe if you like what you see.

This piece is a little different from the typical Tangle voice, but it was fun to write it for Persuasion and I’m excited to share it with you.

Thanks for supporting us.

Best,

Isaac


Many of the things that you believe right now—in this very moment—are utterly wrong.

I can't tell you precisely what those things are, of course, but I can say with near certainty that this statement is true. To understand this uncomfortable reality, all you need is some basic knowledge of history.

At various times throughout the history of humankind, our most brilliant scientists and philosophers believed many things most eight-year-olds now know to be false: the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, smoking cigarettes was good for digestion, humans were not related to apes, the planet was 75,000 years old, or left-handed people were unclean.

Around 100 years ago, doctors still thought bloodletting (that is, using leeches to address infections) was useful in curing a patient. Women were still fighting for the right to vote, deemed too emotional and uneducated to participate in democracy, while people with darker skin were widely considered subhuman. The idea that the universe was bigger than the Milky Way was unfathomable, and the fact the earth had tectonic plates that moved beneath our feet was yet to be discovered.

Even much of what we believed 20 years ago is no longer true. We thought, for instance, that diets low in fat and high in carbs were much preferable to diets high in fat and low in carbs. Scientists still thought that different areas of the tongue tasted different things. As a public, we thought mass prescribing opioids for chronic pain was safe and that switching from paper bags to plastic bags in grocery stores would save trees (and thus, the environment).

It is challenging to accept the fact that much of what we believe right now will, in 20, 100, 500, or 1,000 years, seem as absurd as some of the ideas above. But it would take a great deal of arrogance to believe anything else.