Truth and post-Truth

I work for a national statistical institute which uses as its mission statement “voor wat feitelijk gebeurt” (see e.g. https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/over-ons) which becomes something like “for what factually happens” if I translate it word-for-word. Because of that association, I do occasionally reflect upon the role of this institution in Dutch society and my own modest contributions to its work. Something I see in various media, especially in recent years, is the statement “we live in a post-truth world”. Usually, this latter statement is a lament, voiced or written when some statement is claimed as being a ‘fact’ and ‘true’, when actually it is trivially false or has been falsified already. As a second, even worse, stage, sometimes the one responsible for positing a false statement, when it is exposed as false, rather than changing their position evidently feels that their opinion is just as good as the truth determined using scientifically validated methods. This notion, that there is no distinction between the concept ‘fact’ and the concept ‘opinion’, I find objectionable. I understand that there are several distinct philosophical schools of thought on the existence of an objective truth. As a pragmatist I will settle for a common consensus built on accepted methods of scientific scrutiny. I will not accept that opinions can trump facts.

the scientific method

I have been trained mostly in the tradition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper) of Popper; the scientific method involves building a logical argument which allows for falsification, achieved through a controlled experiment, or a sequence of such experiments. This is generally an arduous process since the logical argument by itself can already be quite hard to formulate: it may have many steps, some of which might possibly verified already and other steps verifiable or provable but still to do. Building controlled experiments and accounting for all extraneous factors takes a lot of effort too. In some settings the concept of ‘control’ has to be abandoned and the best one can do is to observe the outside world (society, nature, the universe, etc.) as comprehensively as one can, so that one might have the possibility of correcting for effects that one cannot control for. Part of this process is also that the entire argument and all the controlled experiments or extended observations must be reported on with sufficient clarity and transparency so that they can be reproduced by other independent scientists. Such a process may appear to be adversarial, with scientists clashing over every detail, but in a sense it is nevertheless a collaborative effort in order to decide the common ground of what we as (scientific) community hold to be true. It is important to note that such a critical examination among scientists is not a random process of disagreeing with everything and anything all at once; it must always be specific and targeted to some step in that process. This is one of the ways to distinguish scientific criticism by someone educated and trained to do so, from the type of critique by someone who feels that having ingested a handful of online videos and webpages of uncertain origin is sufficient qualification.

This does not mean that there is no place at all for opinions. I personally do not question that people are entitled to hold and express opinions, and that such opinions need not align with my own. I also acknowledge that I have specialised in merely some few branches of science. Within those domains I have sufficient expertise to enable me to distinguish facts from opinions, whereas in other branches I should tread cautiously. What I might think is a fact or truth may well not be, if nothing else because of advancement and new insights in those fields, of which I am not aware, have invalidated previously held views. It seems to me that the time is long past that any single person has comprehensive knowledge of all human scientific endeavour. Therefore, everyone has scientific domains beyond their main expertise, where what they think they know is closer to an opinion than to a fact. It is unfortunate that sometimes academics who have become authorities in one particular field are insufficiently self-aware to realise that outside of that field they ought to moderate their tone and attitude considerably.

Also, opinions have a quite distinct role when discussing, not how the world or society is (i.e. fact or truth), but what the voicer of the opinion feels that society (or the world) ought to be like: an ideal that the voicer wants to strive for. This is why, to me, there is a danger for the activist scientist, who knows certain things on the basis of their expertise and (as a consequence) holds certain opinions on how society ought to change, and sometimes takes action in protests, for instance. The distinction between that which is factual and that which is opinion, such as the outcome of the behavioural changes in society that they advocate, have an unfortunate tendency to get blurred or confused. Even if not intending to, the activist scientist may contribute to that confusion, which can become counterproductive as well as causing reputational damage to science and the scientific method.

Opinions and facts thus each have their own value but are distinct and should therefore be identified for what they are. Part of the transparency required for being able to verify which is fact or truth, and which is opinion is knowing the identity of the source. After all, if one can see what expertise a voice (in any kind of medium) does and does not possess, this can help to decide whether any given statement is an opinion being voiced or a fact being stated. Also, I would personally give less weight to an opinion were I to know that the voicer is paid by someone else to repeat that opinion. This covers such things as commercial activity to boost the sale of products or services, or brigades of bots being hired for pennies to echo something online for the purposes of propaganda.

opinions and freedom of speech

In voicing opinions, often reference is made to the principles of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech can be taken to mean the freedom to state either fact or opinion without fear of repercussion. The presence of this ‘possibility of repercussion’ implies that the source of the opinion or fact is known: the implicit assumption is that the ‘voicer’ is not anonymous. I do not think that anonymity is an essential enabler of freedom of speech. Rather the contrary; anonymity is a coping mechanism to deal with (violent) repression and, like any coping mechanism, ultimately harmful. All things considered, in public discourse it is actually very rare genuinely to have a need for something akin to witness protection.

This is also the root of a problem that I have with many modern, and also some not-so-modern, (social) media. The widespread use of ‘personae’ and pseudonyms which hide the identity of the voicer is not an expression of freedom of speech, despite the recent insistence of various oligarch platform-peddling owners. That paltry substitute which they ardently defend, expresses instead their own desire and support for absence of accountability; accountability for anything at all including also opinions (of their users but primarily their own). To me, freedom of speech is only truly that, if there is full transparency and clarity of the identity of the voicer. Rights and privileges come with, and are balanced by, responsibilities and accountability.

As a consequence of this inextricable link between freedom of speech and the true identity of the voicer, I find it worrisome that it is also becoming increasingly easy to fake identities or impersonate others, using the various technical tools commonly referred to as belonging in AI. The quality of artificially generated videos, images, and voices, is becoming such that those who would benefit from such falsehoods get better and better at deceiving even the suspicious, let alone the unsuspecting. I see a fair amount of debate on the real or imagined dangers of future AI capable of autonomy equalling or surpassing human autonomous intelligence. I am sceptical of this, but in the immediate future the danger I do see is the more mundane weaponisation of that technology, being used by malign and self-interested actors.

It is a truism that there is a very fine line between fact-checking on the one hand and censorship on the other. I understand the desire to create safe spaces online, free from misinformation, hate or discrimination, but given that the online world is a reflection of the real one, I would consider that to remain an unattainable utopia. This does not mean that I have already abandoned all hope, but it may be true that we are in a regime of strongly diminished returns for the money and effort spent on this. However, as a means of enforcing law and regulations, put in place by democratically elected governments, I would argue that moderation of all social media must stay in place, and even be strengthened rather than abandoned as some platforms now do. One route towards this is for instance the EU digital services act (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj/eng). Another is our own responsibility to not feed online trolls and algorithms aimed at monetization by focussing on the most contentious content.

A new era of populism

This in turn may also have a return impact on liberal democracies and elections. I am not sure whether there is strong evidence for a causal link between the increased use of online social media platforms, and a rise of political populism. Certainly populism as a political flavour predates the internet. A number of elections internationally did have results which were either quite polarizing or resulted in a very fragmented political landscape. Investigation by some international organisations point towards a trend https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2022/global-expansion-authoritarian-rule suggesting that liberal democratic governments are becoming less the norm. It seems that here and there in the world, duly (re-)elected government leaders have now graduated from mob rule to mobster rule.

While politicians ought to represent their electorate, even if as a group they are rarely representative of the population as a whole, I would argue that their electorates are not best served by promises of quick gratification. The roughly half a million (https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2024/42/nieuwe-armoedemeting-540-duizend-mensen-arm-in-2023) people in the Netherlands who live in poverty in the run-up to the recent elections may well have felt justified in thinking that the Dutch political establishment had not done anything for them. Beyond that, the recent Dutch election results show that there are more disgruntled groups in society holding the belief that populist parties genuinely will come through on their promises, and also believe that their proposed ‘quick fixes’ work. I am personally yet to witness any affinity with facts and truth, or an understanding of complexity, in the current coalition government. In their place we have seen rather a lot of muddled governance and internecine squabbles, as old as populism itself, from the newly elected Dutch government.

As an electorate we ourselves should probably try to wean ourselves off from our addiction to politician’s sound bites and one-liners and make the effort to understand the complexity of society and its governance. This is one of the reasons I also got involved in the process of accreditation of a new (https://www.uva.nl/en/programmes/masters/complex-systems-and-policy/complex-systems-and-policy-kopie.html) Master’s programme at the UvA.

I fully agree that not everyone needs to have an academic education nor a Master’s degree. As a society we continue to need, and ought to appreciate and value more, a very broad range of skills. As an educator I am hopeful, however, that even the less academically inclined will recover a curiosity about and an interest in reality and society, rather than in reality shows and socialites.

For democracy’s sake.