Epistemic Immune System

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The day after the election, he blastsd out through conservative media, talk radio, cable news, through the white house. He files multiple frivolous lawsuits based on conspiracy theories that the courts basically throw out instantly because they're nutty. And what it shows us is that america is like a victim of covid who's never been exposed before and is very vulnerable. We don't have defences socially against this kind of disinformation because we've never needed them. This is now trilling or politics going forward. Epistemic immune system.

Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood.

In episode 190, Michael Shermer speaks with Jonathan Rauch as he reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the “Constitution of Knowledge” — our social system for turning disagreement into truth. His book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone.