The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread Audiobook (Free)

The social dynamics of ‘alternative facts’: why everything you believe depends upon who you understand

Why should we care about having true beliefs? And why perform demonstrably false beliefs persist and spread despite implications for the people who hold them? Philosophers of technology Cailin O’Connor and Adam Weatherall argue that social elements, rather than individual mindset, are what’s essential to understanding the spread and persistence of fake belief. It could seem that there surely is an obvious reason that true beliefs matter: false beliefs will hurt you. But in the event that’s right, then why is it (apparently) irrelevant to many people whether they believe true issues or not?

In an age riven by ‘fake news,’ ‘alternative facts,’ and disputes on the validity of everything from climate change to how big is inauguration crowds, the authors argue that social factors, not really individual psychology, are what’s necessary to understanding the persistence of false belief and that we must know how those social forces function to be able to fight misinformation successfully.