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For years, I've been replying to idiotic officewide forwarded emails about made up drama. To me, it's instantly obvious that it's rubbish, but to supply proof I simply Google the email subject and snopes.com or another site has an explanation, which I send back around the office as proof.
Nowadays,
most of this misinformation is spread through social media, so I propose an app that you can paste your post into and it will search to see if that particular piece of information has been marked as false.
The app could also work on posts that you read, marking them with some appropriate icon.
The more I think about it, this could just be a browser extension that scans all text and matches it to a bullshit database. I wish I had the cash to buy the necessary server farm to bake this.
[link]
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As a first approximation, just assume it's bullshit. It's like predicting that tomorrow's weather will be the same as today's. You'll be right more often than you're wrong. |
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You shouldn't need a server farm, just a client app,
and an updatable list of short checksums that can be
used to identify text in a browser. On finding a
match, the browser extension could wrap it inside a
big red css < div> section and apply some suitably
rude background graphic extolling the reader to
consider the content with an appropriate level of
skepticism. |
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This idea relies on the premise that it is possible to prove anything. How do you know that "this myth is a falsehood" isn't itself a myth? |
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I take it on faith that most forwards are b.s. |
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"But how do we know that snopes hasn't been infiltrated by the MIB's?" |
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My first advice would be to not reply to fowarded emails. This is true. One cannot believe things people say to your face let alone those emails. I believe they are for amusement purposes mostly. |
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The halfbakery community is not a normal sample
of the human population. I know that most of you
filter stuff in your subconscious, it just gets
scrolled past. But to improve the quality of the
general internet, there should be something to
help the less fortunate/jaded. |
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I agree that there may not be a perfect source, in
the same way that Google (hehe, Chrome shows
google as a spelling mistake, but not Google)
cannot guarantee that the search results are
perfect, but any source claiming (and judged by
the likes of us) to be authoritative would be
better than nothing. |
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I give you the argument of "teachers shouldn't
have to teach kids that can't learn on their own". |
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Marklar, marklar. Marklar! You need to move past the truth or falsity of these statements, and to the reasons they are relished and forwarded. Myths are mythic because of the human psyche and their representation of ageless archetypes. . It is the telling, the communal thinking, the stories that reinforce values and beliefs. Once we had campfires and perhaps gentle bongolike drums with which to accompany these tales. Later, water coolers. Now there is the internet. It is all part of the cosmic unconsciousness. |
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Rather than deflate, I propose you improve. Rather than find links to disprove, find links that are in the same general spirit, but that are true on at least not disprovably untrue. When you are included on an effort to make fire, bring wood not water! |
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//this could just be a browser extension...//
Perhaps you're not aware of the recent court case?
Genuity (one of the major providers of internet
infrastructure) won in their bid to *suppress* tools
to filter out spam and limit its circulation. They
claimed that their revenues would be considerably
reduced by the decrease in traffic that this would
cause. |
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As is the always the case with stuff that moves
around: there are people who make money when
it moves one way; and people who make money
when it moves the other way; but the smart
people just make money when it moves. This
applies to data as much as to anything else. |
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[bungston] Are you perhaps, as I am, a little
inebriated? |
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[MaxwellBuchanan] Revenue generating spam is one
thing, random scaremongering about 'razors in candy'
and 'how close Mars will be next month' is something
else entirely and has nothing to do with my penis
size. |
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Inspector clouseau: "But I don't want to catch any
myths!" |
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"google" is a spelling mistake. The correct spelling is
googol. |
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//teachers shouldn't have to teach kids that can't learn on their own |
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All my child students seemed to learn quite well, despite my teaching. Can't be helped. Anyway who says there isn't a correlation between [redacted] size and the proximity of Mars, not to mention Uranus. |
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"Reversing the Enlightenment one step at a time" shall be my motto from now on. |
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Yes if everything shrinks by exactly the same amount, then Mars will be closer and your weeer will be weeer. |
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I wish you luck, but the task is too large and it grows. |
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These myths feed off basic human needs to astound, to be important, and that "I know something you don't know." chant from childhood. |
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One of the most clever ideas I've ever seen on the
Halfbakery. |
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The idea of a publicly accessible and freely available
bullshit
database seems laudable, but is doomed to fail. |
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One story along the lines of "the bullshit database is a tool
of
{your choice of evildoer} and {they} have editorial control
over everything" is all it takes to bring the whole thing
down,
by calling its veracity into question in a way that cannot be
absolutely refuted. |
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Rather, lets implement the model used here at the
halfbakery, by allowing users to award buns or bones, with
the more highly regarded and respected contributors'
awards having more weight. Of course each user would be
able to allocate his own weightings to the views of his
peers. But wait... don't we all do that subconsciously to
every snippet of information we come across? I'm more
ready to believe something I hear on the BBC than
something arriving unsolicited in my email. |
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Not sure I'm really understanding your post Tulaine,
but I believe you're saying any rendering of
judgement of veracity from this app is subjective and
therefore suspect? Even if that's not what you're
saying that's still a point worth addressing. |
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At some point we reach consensus on things. We did
land on the Moon... No? That's doubted by some? Ok,
we at least sent a big rocket the size of a skyscraper
into the sky... No? That was mass hypnosis or camera
tricks? Ok, there IS a Moon, can we at least agree on
that? Ok, good, that's a starting point. |
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I believe this idea would be to hip people to
generally agreed upon, verified busted myths, like
the guy with the JATO pack on his car. That was a
myth, it's verified, there's absolutely no record of
that and there would absolutely be lots of police
reports, eye witnesses, pictures, family telling the
story of their dead wacky uncle etc. This app would
scan for words like "JATO", "car" "killed" etc. and I'm
picturing a B.S. meter or other indicator popping up
with "NOTE: The urban legend of the man strapping a
JATO to his car is a myth." You could click the popup
if you wanted more details. |
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That's patentable mark. Get a patent and get
funding. You have a very clever idea here. You can
start by spending a hundred bucks for a provisional
patent while you try to get your real patent going
and funding from some venture capital firm. You now
have until March 18 2016 to do so before this idea
becomes public domain since you've published it. |
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Tic tock mark, tic tock. If somebody makes a million
bucks with your idea you'll be sad and blue. |
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'This One Weird Idea Promises to Change the Internet
Forever...' |
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[doctorremulac3] I never post anything on here I want to
retain ownership of. I'm surprised it hasn't been done
already in the last 30 months. I'm sure someone who knows
the Google API reasonably well could knock out a Chrome
extension relatively quickly. I wish I were in a position with
a couple of minions to work on it. Perhaps in a few more
years I will be. |
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Kickstarter project perhaps? |
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