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Why do these words even exist?
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Misinformation, disinformation, mistruths, untruths?
What's wrong with simply calling a spade a spade? Let's not be mealy-mouthed; these things are simply:
Lies.
The above has a certain potent currency atm, but IMO it seems part of a wider infection of verbal cowardice. Another of my top hates is:She / he / they passed / passed on.
No, she / he / they did not pass / pass on. They died. It's as simple as that. We're human, it's what we do: pushed or cut out, struggle for a bit, then cark it. It's not complicated, it's not obscure, so why do so many people make it so. Why the infantile cowardly obfuscation?
Lies & death. Not hard. Simple.
♀ 🇦🇺
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@Steffie So, perhaps I can help.
Lies are untruths with intent. Not merely untrue, but meant to be untrue for the purpose of deception.
Misinformation is a system of lies, with or without intent.
Disinformation is a system of lies with the intent of molding opinion, and with the further intent that the opinions formed by the recipient will be actively harmful to the recipient. It's an intelligence term.
Untruth is something that is not true, with or without intent. A person may state an untruth, believing it to be true, in which case the intent to lie is absent.
When, as in the case of a certain chief executive of a certain "democratic" nation, statements are knowingly untrue and intended to weaken opposition, they are both lies and disinformation.
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@Ayespy In a strictly independent definitional sense i am unable to disagree with you. I had, in fact, a non-independent quite-specific trigger & target in mind when i wrote this, but then decided to be, ahem, "shy" about that & hence obfuscate behind generality... albeit believing that some readers would still easily see behind my curtain as i'd intended. For my intended target, none of the definitional reality applies... all instead are simply lies.
Walking narrow forum T&C lines is fun but exhausting!
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I did have one question about that recently... can you call something misinformation if neither you nor the speaker actually know whether something is true? Watching the election coverage we all know the President made remarks without knowing (or even being able to know) at that time whether they were accurate. As we can't say those statements are untrue, is it fair to call them misinformation or are they merely premature?
(I didn't see whatever statements he made recently; I'm only talking about Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. They were awful quick to call it misinformation even if they couldn't be sure he was wrong.)
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@Steffie said in Why do these words even exist?:
What's wrong with simply calling a spade a spade? Let's not be mealy-mouthed; these things are simply:
Lies.@Ayespy wrote most of what I was going to say. But even if the different words didn't have substantially different denotations, having them gives speakers & writers the ability to create colorful language, especially important when not using prose though still important then as well.
Often two synonyms with exactly the same denotations will have different connotations. Two words might simply mean dark, but connotations could carry an additional sense of evil/malice, or alternatively a sense of stupidity/lack of intelligence, or hidden/out of sight, or sad/depressing. Often these nuances actually become secondary denotations.
So with the use of a single word, the author can convey more than just the most basic common definition, increasing clarity of thought and efficiency of communication.
All of that said, your point is not lost in me. The use of synonyms of lies can be used in a disinformation campaign, to deflect responsibility, minimize condemnation, or otherwise perpetrate a fraud. And in such cases, some of the best of its will call a spade a spade. Some others among the best of us will use these same tools against those who employ them with malice.
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@sgunhouse If such statements were not yet true (and most of them were not) then they were not true. "I have won" when the game is in the 6th inning is an untrue statement. "My percentages are so high they cannot be overcome" is untrue, whether the speaker knows it or not. "I can't see how I could lose from where I stand right now" could be a completely true statement, as it only references the mind of the speaker. But to state "We cannot be hit by an asteroid" just because one is not here yet, is an untruth and therefore misinformation. The speaker does not have to KNOW a statement is untrue in order for it to be untrue. And to engage in a pattern of stating untrue things that you believe is still a system of misinformation. The people who hear and believe you are still misinformed.
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@sgunhouse said in Why do these words even exist?:
(...They were awful quick to call it misinformation even if they couldn't be sure he was wrong.)
He kept stating he had won. That cannot be true as no one has won until the last vote is counted. He also stated he could not be caught, and everyone already knew that was untrue. So, factually, it was not possible for him to be telling the truth - and this was visible to people who can count.
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Ah, so now it seems my careful generalist tightrope balancing behind a drawn curtain, was unnecessarily obfuscatory...
:face_with_stuck-out_tongue_winking_eye:
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@Steffie , I do not think that the Inca telluric hermeneutics overturns the anotretic peripatetic of Aristotelian philosophy by the factual iniquity of non-dogmatic Socratic dialogues.
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@Ayespy Technically speaking, the actual vote has already been cast. Hence there is already in fact a winner, even if we do not know which one it is. It could be Biden - I believe it is - but they could not actually say so at that time.
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@sgunhouse As it happens, Biden has now been declared president-elect.
But the failure to use the conditional case "I MAY have" versus the declarative case "I HAVE" means that the speaker is declaring as true, something which at that moment in time cannot be true, and hence lying. In democracy, the state of the game is reliant on the counting of votes, not their casting. In the instant case, Biden is relying on the count being accepted, while, to this moment, Trump is relying on invalidating the count. The casting is not the determinative factor. The count is. Just ask Putin.
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Hi,
Related to the OffTopic.There are many reports related to a Fraud on the Mailing Votes.
Actually it's a Scandal.
Ask by PM if any interested."You cannot know the meaning of your life until you are connected to the power that created you" · Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
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@Zalex108
As a moderator you should know better than posting links to far-right sites known for publishing falsehoods, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories.Links removed
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@Zalex108 Not so much. A manufactured scandal, yes. An actual scandal, no. If the voting and counting structure of the various states is actually understood, it is also clear that the "counted" vote is so close in reality to the "legally cast" vote as to actually make no difference.
What the United States has experienced in this election cycle is the highest turnout of registered voters in about 100 years. As a result, the winning candidate has received more votes than any person running for elected office in the nation, ever. Further, there is a popular-vote margin of over four million votes which, as the count completes over the next few weeks, will only grow. The "scandal" being promoted is one purely for the use of the electoral opposition, to question the legitimacy of future legislative efforts.
It has been the case for decades that the United States Electoral College is able to elect a winner supported by a minority of the citizens. It has done so more than once. Further, the structure of the Unites States Senate is such that a minority of the country is capable of controlling legislative policy (as is the case at present). It may be argued that the opinion of the minority is more virtuous, more moral than that of the majority, but it cannot be argued that the United States, the "beacon" of democracy to the world, is a democracy.
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@Pathduck said in Why do these words even exist?:
@Zalex108 As a moderator you should know better than posting links to far-right sites known for publishing falsehoods, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories.
"The problem here is:"
Who determines what is Hoax and what is Leggit?
Event 201
"You cannot know the meaning of your life until you are connected to the power that created you" · Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
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The Spanish Fraud is unknown for most of the citizen.
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@Zalex108 what does "event 201" have to do with the current topic? This whole thread seems to be veering of course a lot, maybe it's best not to introduce new stuff into the mix
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@LonM said in Why do these words even exist?:
@Zalex108 what does "event 201" have to do with the current topic? This whole thread seems to be veering of course a lot, maybe it's best not to introduce new stuff into the mix
Hi,
Was just for those interested and about the "Conspiracy" meaning as fundamented documentation exposing:
@Ayespy said in Why do these words even exist?:
@Steffie So, perhaps I can help.
Lies are untruths with intent. Not merely untrue, but meant to be untrue for the purpose of deception.
Misinformation is a system of lies, with or without intent.
Disinformation is a system of lies with the intent of molding opinion, and with the further intent that the opinions formed by the recipient will be actively harmful to the recipient. It's an intelligence term.
Untruth is something that is not true, with or without intent. A person may state an untruth, believing it to be true, in which case the intent to lie is absent.
When, as in the case of a certain chief executive of a certain "democratic" nation, statements are knowingly untrue and intended to weaken opposition, they are both lies and disinformation.
All this,
Pushes the persecution and prosecution of those who reveal the truth. -
@Pathduck said in Why do these words even exist?:
@Zalex108 As a moderator you should know better than posting links to far-right sites known for publishing falsehoods, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories.
Just edited,
If any interested, ask it.
