Therapeutics and Vaccines 4.0 Discuss

[Res Ipsa]

More later, but good stuff. Two things:

After discussing memes and meme culture with my kids, I realize that saying all memes are arguments is an overgeneralization. RI's meme model addresses a subset of memes. I think it applies to the meme we're discussing, but not other memes that I think are something else.

Second: In Binger's model, I would describe the intent of the tweet to cause the viewer to read the article.

I feel busted.

Yes. The intent must include getting clicks/views/readers. Even with snark or triggering words, that is an obvious intent.

No busting intended. Inferring intent is tricky, especially when it comes to headlines. Moreso when it comes to memes.

[Binger]

I feel busted.

Yes. The intent must include getting clicks/views/readers. Even with snark or triggering words, that is an obvious intent.

No busting intended. Inferring intent is tricky, especially when it comes to headlines. Moreso when it comes to memes.

I think there is a double-entendre here, and there, and everywhere. Memes are like Roy Kent.

[Res Ipsa]

Great example for discussion. I think about most memes as an argument, starting from a premise out premises and using logic to reach a conclusion. But the target of the argument is not reason; it is emotion. That allows the meme to be effective in terms of persuading the viewer despite the weakness off the logic. Let’s call that RI’s meme model and test it out on the meme.

In this case, the premises are the two tweets. If I understand correctly, you reached the conclusion: the Washington Post appears extremely confused. Had I seen the meme in isolation, I would have described the meme’s conclusion as: DeSantis is right about the Pandemic and the Washington Post is wrong. Trust DeSantis and not the Post. Memes rarely explicitly state the creator’s intended conclusion.

So, we start out with with:

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say P1 DeSantis’ claim is misleading.
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C: The WP appears extremely confused.

That chain of reasoning looks incomplete. Nothing explains how we get from the three premises to the conclusion. That’s not necessarily bad: it just means the logic part of the argument is implicit rather than explicit. It’s up to us to fill in the steps that get us from the Ps to the Cs. Unless we do that, we don’t have any basis to evaluate the strength of the argument.

Does this approach sound reasonable? If so, what could we add to make the meme’s argument complete?

That approach sounds totally reasonable to me. Hell yes, it sounds reasonable. So does this.

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say DeSantis’ claim in P1 is misleading. (DeSantis is a damn liar)
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C1: The WP appears extremely confused.
C2: Information changes, choose accordingly.

I would agree that this meme, like others, is meant to get a reaction. Here is what is interesting to me about this image in particular - the original tweets from the Washington Post, were also meant to get a reaction. They were meant to imply that the governor in Florida is blaming rather than taking responsibility or dealing with facts. It also is suggesting he is wrong, based on these so-called experts, who know that he is wrong.

Without even getting into the facts of the situation we immediately have a situation where blame is being assigned and wrongness is being assigned and rightness is being assigned. A headline about the possibility of seasonality being addressed by the Florida governor could have been written without the same provocation, which may not have gotten a big giant reaction.

The second version of the meme is doing the same thing as the original tweet - stirring the crap to get a reaction. And it did. I used it. I posted it. It obviously worked. Triggers get reactions, that is the point.

I think this is where your model's use of ordinary terms as terms of art (which I don't think is necessarily good or bad, right or wrong) ends up biting us in the ass. I'd like to use your model at some point in this discussion, so I'd like to suggest continuing the convention of bolding words when they are being used as defined in your model? In other words, in your post, we would use the commonly understood definitions of reaction and response which, in this context, are synonymous. Agree?

I'm guessing we agree that any communication could potentially be intended to make several different arguments. If so, then determining the argument or arguments that are being made is functionally a choice or choices we make among alternatives. To keep things simple, I'd like to just talk about arguments made by the meme, as opposed to arguments made by the headlines contained in the meme. Hypothesis: we can determine the validity of the meme's argument without considering any arguments intended or made by each tweet.

So, taking the argument as you outlined it, I think we should put aside for now the "DeSantis is a damn liar," as I don't think the meme makes that assertion. The same with the emphasis on the word "blame" That leaves us with:

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say DeSantis’ claim in P1 is misleading.
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C 1.2: Information changes, choose accordingly.

That leaves the main difference in the forms we've suggested the wording of the conclusions. As a communication can make multiple arguments, I think we can do this:

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say DeSantis’ claim in P1 is misleading.
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C1: The WP appears extremely confused.
C2: Information changes
C3: choose accordingly.

I changed the wording in a couple of places, but only because I think it made the language more clear. So, now we have three premises and three conclusions. But we're still missing the connective tissue between the premises and the conclusions. That connective tissue is still implicit.

But first, let's take a look at the the conclusions. If I understand correctly, you and I disagree about the truth of C1.

You and I agree about the truth of C2. Put another way, I accept the truth of the assertion that "information changes" without requiring any evidence or argument. So, maybe it would be better to identify it as an Axiom.

I don't know what C3 means. Specifically, I find the word "accordingly" as vague and/or ambiguous in this context. So, I need to ask what you mean by "accordingly" in this context.

I'm also thinking that we can simplify the argument by removing DeSantis from the premises, as I don't think the fact that he is the source of the statement is relevant to the argument as currently stated. I also think that testing C1 requires us to include the WP's role in the premises. So, here's my suggested revision:

A1: Information changes
P1: The WP reported that blaming Florida's COVID surge on "COVID season" is misleading.
P2: The WP reported that a new study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C1: The WP appears extremely confused.
C2: Choose accordingly.
C3: When choosing what to believe about COVID, you should not trust the WP.

I also added a new conclusion because I think the meme's argument includes a judgment about trustworthiness. I'm getting that from your earlier sentence: "I it if fine to not trust anyone if they have been wrong for years about important stuff, intentionally or not." It might be even better to replace C3 with this sentence.

Anyway, what do you think about my revisions? And do you have any suggestions about how to add the explicit steps that move us from the Ps to the Cs?

[canpakes]

Great example for discussion. I think about most memes as an argument, starting from a premise out premises and using logic to reach a conclusion. But the target of the argument is not reason; it is emotion. That allows the meme to be effective in terms of persuading the viewer despite the weakness off the logic. Let’s call that RI’s meme model and test it out on the meme.

In this case, the premises are the two tweets. If I understand correctly, you reached the conclusion: the Washington Post appears extremely confused. Had I seen the meme in isolation, I would have described the meme’s conclusion as: DeSantis is right about the Pandemic and the Washington Post is wrong. Trust DeSantis and not the Post. Memes rarely explicitly state the creator’s intended conclusion.

So, we start out with with:

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say P1 DeSantis’ claim is misleading.
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C: The WP appears extremely confused.

That chain of reasoning looks incomplete. Nothing explains how we get from the three premises to the conclusion. That’s not necessarily bad: it just means the logic part of the argument is implicit rather than explicit. It’s up to us to fill in the steps that get us from the Ps to the Cs. Unless we do that, we don’t have any basis to evaluate the strength of the argument.

Does this approach sound reasonable? If so, what could we add to make the meme’s argument complete?

That approach sounds totally reasonable to me. Hell yes, it sounds reasonable. So does this.

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say P1 DeSantis’ claim is misleading. (DeSantis is a damn liar)
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C 1.2: Information changes, choose accordingly.

I would agree that this meme, like others, is meant to get a reaction. Here is what is interesting to me about this image in particular - the original tweets from the Washington Post, were also meant to get a reaction. They were meant to imply that the governor in Florida is blaming rather than taking responsibility or dealing with facts. It also is suggesting he is wrong, based on these so-called experts, who know that he is wrong.

Blue bolding mine.

There are some important differences between the components of the meme, and the meme itself, that are worth noting.

The Washington Post tweet a form of advertising for their product. One must subscribe to the advertisement stream to see it.

Memes proliferate via a vastly larger variety of methods, to a wider audience, with a less subtle indication as to what is being promoted, and by whom.

The original Washington Post tweet includes a link to an article authored and hosted at their site. I note that the bolded assumption above could have been avoided by reading the article at the link supplied by Washington Post in that same tweet, given that the article states that seasonality indeed affects infection rates, but that it’s one of multiple factors in the face of the Governor choosing to focus solely on seasonality. Hence, ‘misleading’ isn’t the same as ‘wrong’.

A meme rarely provides that sort of back check. In fact, the meme here removes that back check.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... id-season/

The meme is constructed in such a way as to taint the components with a certain conclusion that the recipient may be predisposed to believe, even if that conclusion isn’t actually presented by the components. The meme becomes recursive.

Memes like this are created by a source that knows they’re generating disinformation, and the meme is then propagated by folks who will eschew due diligence in favor of satisfying their need for confirmation bias.

Cool example.

[Binger]

That approach sounds totally reasonable to me. Hell yes, it sounds reasonable. So does this.

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say P1 DeSantis’ claim is misleading. (DeSantis is a damn liar)
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C 1.2: Information changes, choose accordingly.

I would agree that this meme, like others, is meant to get a reaction. Here is what is interesting to me about this image in particular - the original tweets from the Washington Post, were also meant to get a reaction. They were meant to imply that the governor in Florida is blaming rather than taking responsibility or dealing with facts. It also is suggesting he is wrong, based on these so-called experts, who know that he is wrong.

Blue bolding mine.

There are some important differences between the components of the meme, and the meme itself, that are worth noting.

The Washington Post tweet a form of advertising for their product. One must subscribe to the advertisement stream to see it.

Memes proliferate via a vastly larger variety of methods, to a wider audience, with a less subtle indication as to what is being promoted, and by whom.

The original Washington Post tweet includes a link to an article authored and hosted at their site. I note that the bolded assumption above could have been avoided by reading the article at the link supplied by Washington Post in that same tweet, given that the article states that seasonality indeed affects infection rates, but that it’s one of multiple factors in the face of the Governor choosing to focus solely on seasonality. Hence, ‘misleading’ isn’t the same as ‘wrong’.

A meme rarely provides that sort of back check. In fact, the meme here removes that back check.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... id-season/

The meme is constructed in such a way as to taint the components with a certain conclusion that the recipient may be predisposed to believe, even if that conclusion isn’t actually presented by the components. The meme becomes recursive.

Memes like this are created by a source that knows they’re generating disinformation, and the meme is then propagated by folks who will eschew due diligence in favor of satisfying their need for confirmation bias.

Cool example.

Great points. Great contribution.

Why do you consider confirmation bias to be a need? That seems odd. I think we have a confirmation bias, especially when we are seeking validation of our feelings and of our choices. However, I think we would be a let better off if we shelved it for lots of time.

[Binger]

I think this is where your model's use of ordinary terms as terms of art (which I don't think is necessarily good or bad, right or wrong) ends up biting us in the ass. I'd like to use your model at some point in this discussion, so I'd like to suggest continuing the convention of bolding words when they are being used as defined in your model? In other words, in your post, we would use the commonly understood definitions of reaction and response which, in this context, are synonymous. Agree?

Sure. That works. I will do that.

I'm guessing we agree that any communication could potentially be intended to make several different arguments. If so, then determining the argument or arguments that are being made is functionally a choice or choices we make among alternatives. To keep things simple, I'd like to just talk about arguments made by the meme, as opposed to arguments made by the headlines contained in the meme. Hypothesis: we can determine the validity of the meme's argument without considering any arguments intended or made by each tweet.

So, taking the argument as you outlined it, I think we should put aside for now the "DeSantis is a damn liar," as I don't think the meme makes that assertion. The same with the emphasis on the word "blame" That leaves us with:

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say DeSantis’ claim in P1 is misleading.
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C 1.2: Information changes, choose accordingly.

That leaves the main difference in the forms we've suggested the wording of the conclusions. As a communication can make multiple arguments, I think we can do this:

P1: DeSantis blames COVID surge on COVID season.
P2: Experts say DeSantis’ claim in P1 is misleading.
P3: New study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C1: The WP appears extremely confused.
C2: Information changes
C3: choose accordingly.

I changed the wording in a couple of places, but only because I think it made the language more clear. So, now we have three premises and three conclusions. But we're still missing the connective tissue between the premises and the conclusions. That connective tissue is still implicit.

But first, let's take a look at the the conclusions. If I understand correctly, you and I disagree about the truth of C1.

It is a stretch to conclude that the WP appears confused. The meme is trying to say that they are not consistent or that after several months, there is a contradiction. But it is a stretch, at best to say that the Washington Post is confused.

You and I agree about the truth of C2. Put another way, I accept the truth of the assertion that "information changes" without requiring any evidence or argument. So, maybe it would be better to identify it as an Axiom.

I don't know what C3 means. Specifically, I find the word "accordingly" as vague and/or ambiguous in this context. So, I need to ask what you mean by "accordingly" in this context.

I think "choose accordingly" still applies. The choice that I am considering is not which conclusion about the Washington Post is correct, nor which conclusion about the meme is correct. My intent was to say - Yo, hey, look, the information we get from leaders and the press and experts has contradictions and changes over time, make your choices in your personal life accordingly. My mind, of what choices are to be made, was going way beyond a tweet, a headline or a meme.

Just typing that out feels kind of icky on my part. Not because it is illogical, but because in my mind, there were several steps going on, none of them were even remotely indicated or suggested with two words - choose accordingly. So that happened.

I'm also thinking that we can simplify the argument by removing DeSantis from the premises, as I don't think the fact that he is the source of the statement is relevant to the argument as currently stated. I also think that testing C1 requires us to include the WP's role in the premises. So, here's my suggested revision:

A1: Information changes
P1: The WP reported that blaming Florida's COVID surge on "COVID season" is misleading.
P2: The WP reported that a new study suggests COVID-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes that appear at different times and different locations.
C1: The WP appears extremely confused.
C2: Choose accordingly.
C3: When choosing what to believe about COVID, you should not trust the WP.

I also added a new conclusion because I think the meme's argument includes a judgment about trustworthiness. I'm getting that from your earlier sentence: "I it if fine to not trust anyone if they have been wrong for years about important stuff, intentionally or not." It might be even better to replace C3 with this sentence.

Anyway, what do you think about my revisions? And do you have any suggestions about how to add the explicit steps that move us from the Ps to the Cs?

Trustworthiness and credibility are put in play here. Agreed.

I would still revise C1. Maybe this, C1: Washington Post reports made in January may conflict with reports made in August.
C3: When choosing what to believe about COVID, you may have to weigh conflicting reports.

Hell, I don't know.

[canpakes]

Why do you consider confirmation bias to be a need? That seems odd. I think we have a confirmation bias, especially when we are seeking validation of our feelings and of our choices. However, I think we would be a let better off if we shelved it for lots of time.

Because you asked (but being mindful of derailing so I'll limit it to this): It would be impossible to quantify how much and to exactly who that confirmation bias is 'a need', but confirmation bias is certainly something that some folks actively seek (supplying a need), in the same way that some folks see a cup of coffee as needed to start their morning.

https://pages.ucsd.edu/~mckenzie/nicker ... onBias.pdf
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 3X18799274