Podcast appearances and mentions of Lee C Mcintyre

The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by: Peter Zeihan The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by: David Deutsch Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by: Anne Applebaum Post-Truth by: Lee C. McIntyre Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be by: Steven Pressfield  A Reader's Companion to Infinite Jest by: Robert Bell and William Dowling The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by: Agatha Christie Dauntless: Lost Fleet, Book 1 by: Jack Campbell Fearless: Lost Fleet, Book 2 by: Jack Campbell Courageous: Lost Fleet, Book 3 by: Jack Campbell Outland by: Dennis E. Taylor

My guest is Dr. Carlos Perez, Chair of the Psychology and counseling department here at LCU. We are discussing Lee C. McIntyre's book Post Truth. https://www.amazon.com/Post-Truth-MIT-Press-Essential-Knowledge/dp/0262535041 The concept of post truth is close to what we have been discussing for the entire series - how can we be sure of what is true? Carlos explains many of the cognitive mechanisms at play here.

Post-Truth Post-truth is the political subordination of reality. It is not a failing of knowledge, but one of politics. Authoritarians use post-truth to corrupt our faith in the truth. The end goal is not to make citizens believe lies, but to make them so cynical and uncertain, they think they can never know the truth. Once this control over the information stream is achieved, leaders begin to have direct control over the populace. Post-truth marks the beginning of the descent into fascism for this reason. Fake News Fake news is intentionally false news. It’s a key tool in the pursuit of post-truth because it muddies the waters of reality. Once misinformation is in the public sphere, it is impossible to remove. The more fake news saturates the information market, the more jaded the target population becomes. Authoritarians can further confuse people by labeling the truth as fake news; they deny facts and demonstrate their control over their country’s information stream. Propaganda Propaganda is the most potent weapon in a post-truth leader’s arsenal. It is not designed to simply fool a population. Instead, it exists to demonstrate the government’s command of truth and that the truth is subordinate to the will of the leader. It shows the government’s ability to lie with impunity. Even if the population doesn’t believe the lie, it overwhelms their defenses, making them easier to rule. Find out more: Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School. Formerly Executive Director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, he has also served as a policy advisor to the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard and as Associate Editor in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. McIntyre is the author of several books, including Post-Truth and Respecting Truth: Willful Ignorance in the Internet Age. Other work has appeared in such popular venues as the New York Times, Newsweek, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New Statesman, the Times Higher Education Supplement, and The Humanist. You can follow Lee on Twitter @LeeCMcIntyre.

Scientific findings are under increasing attack from pseudoscientific views. Why does this persist and what can be done to address this issue? On this episode, Lee C. McIntyre discussed the scientific attitude.

"Post-truth doesn't mean that no one cares about truth, it doesn't mean that there isn't any such thing as truth, it just means that there's a critical mass of people who no longer think that they have to form their beliefs based on what's true," says philosopher Lee McIntyre. This is not new; it probably goes back to Galileo and science denial. But today post-truth is more virulent than ever, from Trump to Brexit. What can we do about it?

"Post-truth doesn't mean that no one cares about truth, it doesn't mean that there isn't any such thing as truth, it just means that there's a critical mass of people who no longer think that they have to form their beliefs based on what's true," says philosopher Lee McIntyre. This is not new; it probably goes back to Galileo and science denial. But today post-truth is more virulent than ever, from Trump to Brexit. What can we do about it?