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Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst, joins Sarah and Steve to discuss our information overload, ...

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Martin Gurri, a former CIA analyst, joins Sarah and Steve to discuss our information overload, the loss of trust in institutions and figures of authority, and the role of tech platforms.


Show Notes:

–Gurri’s book The Revolt of The Public

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ckirk

    I am reading/listening to "The Revolt of the Public", it is like hearing something you knew but, didn't know you knew. It seems accurate to the facts of our information overloaded complex society. It would be great for The Dispatch to interact in some more ways with more of his ideas.

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    Kevin Johnson

    Really great! What a wise man, full of insight and willingness to be clear about what he doesn’t know. Worth bringing back, perhaps on the Remnant with a broader agenda. Thanks a lot.

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    Ethan Cordray

    I don't know much about Cuban food. What was the dish Mr. Gurri mentioned at the end? It sounded like maybe "pan con frita"?

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    Patrick O'Rouke

    Really appreciate y’all getting Gurri on. I’ve been reading his stuff for several years now and he’s amazingly clarifying about some really confusing things. His philosophy has been one of the reasons why I was happy to subscribe to The Dispatch. The failings of these institutions ultimately falls on those of us who support them.

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    Theirn Scott

    Thank you. This was refreshing and give me some optimism that we can wiggle our way through a fraught future. But many, many people need to get comfortable with the phrase "I don't know."

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    John Bowling

    This adds some support to my theory that we will benefit from the trust disruptions that will soon come about via widespread accessibility of deepfake audio and video technology.

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    Tracie

    Mr. Gurri (who autocorrect tried to change to Mr. Guerilla) well articulated the time suck and the sense of throwing a stone into void we all experience in unregulated forums. Credentials aren't everything, but as our President proves every day, they matter. Free commentary is like free advice. Take it for what it's worth.

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  8. Joe Curtis

    This was excellent in all respects. How do you make good decisions in the face of incomplete or conflicting information? I suggest you continue this subject by inviting Annie Duke, the author of Thinking in Bets, on the podcast. Thanks for a thoughtful discussion.

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    WKDawson

    This was worth the time to listen to, as I have been grappling with this as an intellectual. I also appreciated the (I assume) spontaneous questions Steve asked. I would have to read the book to digest the point of this material more adequately. A couple of things though ...

    Gurri is correct, the amount of information out there is just overwhelming and growing geometrically every day. Working in the sciences, it really is impossible to be fully informed on a topic because there is just so much material even in rather narrow disciplines. So to understand any topic, even a Ph.D. level of research would only give you a general perspective on a narrow aspect of a culture, or a particular topic. On the other hand, a Ph.D. does make you more aware of how little you know, so it tends to lead to a little more humility.

    On Science:

    I think one thing the general public doesn't understand is that people like Fauci are basically saying "this is what I know and these are the best recommendations I have at the moment". At least as a trained scientist, I recognize that models trying to estimate events where we don't have all the information will get things wrong. So what? Do you want nothing, or do you want to get __some__ idea of what is happening with the best models we have? If you don't understand geometric growth, well, SARS-CoV-2 is a good lesson. If you don't understand how frightening it could be, try modeling this kind of stuff for your own self! You are getting the digested information of someone who has been working on this stuff for years, and the inaccuracies, be them as they may, are just a reality. Well digested knowledge is still a lot better than listening to someone snake-oil salesman tell us to drink bleach -- even if drinking bleach ultimately does turn out to be the right answer after much study (which I most certainly doubt).

    I think part of the problem is that we have taught science in undergraduate courses as a collection of facts. I do recall that undergraduate physics and chemistry was filled with "we know, we know, we know". The master's degree was "we basically know, we basically know", and the PhD was, "we don't know a darn thing except for a couple of puny islands of knowledge, and even that we don't fully understand". Few people get that far, so they get out with the "we know" nonsense, and they find later than it can be shot full of holes.

    On Alternatives:

    I grant that we scientists don't always get it right. Evidently, this is where the pseudo-experts have seized the moment (pseudo-experts: people who know some of the language and have read a limited foundation of the literature but do not have the kind of discipline that comes from really having to do science all their life and research a topic at some of the deepest levels). They don't say "I don't know". They have "THEeeeeeeeee answer". ... and since they don't have any reputation to lose, if they fail, they go on to the next answer.

    When you do science for a living, you come to appreciate some general consistencies and patterns that occur that are helpful signposts. Any particular solution to any specific problem will details that we can get wrong, but the over-arching features will not be wrong and when the details become available (in a year or two from now with SARS-CoV-2), those facts will become properly refined.

    Summary then ...

    I see that Steve (and Sarah) are asking some of the right questions. One notable goal of The Dispatch is that there is some effort in the short term (1 week - 2 weeks) to digest information and provide an intelligent summary. That is, I think, an important goal of journalism, is it not? Not merely to whittle out snippets of news, but to contextualize it within a framework and to try to get the different perspectives. Gurri does point out that you need to listen to views left and right and understand them. It does pass through your conservative filters, but that is like passing things through my scientific filters. There are liberal filters, but it is important for liberals to also understand what conservatives think. I don't think I can go all the way to listening to alt-right or communists, but right- or left-leaning is something everyone can do. As more of a liberal than a conservative, I'd say that whereas I don't always agree with Steve, or Jonah, or David, or Sarah, at least I can listen to them. The extremes of the right and the left get a bit intellectually dishonest and I can only listen to it for a short time before I have to turn it off.

    At any rate, I think the goal is right, in this time of information overload, to provide some level of digested information that helps people gain some bearing. I do hope that it will finally slow down a little bit because I feel pulled in all different directions without any sense of bearing presently.


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      Angie

      Well written and I agree with all of it

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      Tracie


      Regarding:
      "So to understand any topic, even a Ph.D. level of research would only give you a general perspective on a narrow aspect of a culture, or a particular topic."

      As those of us who've taken to epidemiologists on Twitter can attest. Fortunately, my "Master of Science" in an allied Healthcare field taught me how to navigate the sections of a study. I volunteered to mostly furlough in early March cuz I knew we couldn't keep our patients safe, and nobody had enough information +authority to stop the spread in the vulnerable population I serve. We were being discouraged, at the time, from wearing masks with all patients, but I knew enough to be in terror every time I opened my mouth (cuz talk, spit, asymptomatic spread.) Ignorance keeps no one safe.

      Regarding:
      "I don't think I can go all the way to listening to alt-right or communists, but right- or left-leaning is something everyone can do. As more of a liberal than a conservative, I'd say that whereas I don't always agree with Steve, or Jonah, or David, or Sarah, at least I can listen to them."

      They great thing about the MAGAs is they've siphoned off most of the racists and/or grievance-driven white identity types. It makes what's, at this time, remaining of the Republican party a terrifying cult of personality, but it has opened up a space to talk ideas with people we normally wouldn't.

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        WKDawson

        Thank you for your comments. to be honest, I had not realized that viral particles could spread via conversation until this pandemic. I should have, but surely they would _never_ make use of such an impenitent means of transmission .

        I greatly appreciate that it is possible to interact with some of the people here. It's kind of fitting with Gurri's point that we can come to see that our points of view are more similar than different.

        In fact, before 2016, I was more inclined to think that big government could do a lot more, so it was difficult for me to appreciate Ronald Reagan's comment "... the last thing you want to here is 'hi, I'm from the government and I want to help you'". I realize that we come to that conclusion for different reasons, but now I understand why this can be a problem. Whereas I recognize that politicians are egoists, up to now, we have been largely blessed with leadership that _tended_ to put statecraft ahead of their own egos. We may have disagreed with their decisions and some of them were quite wrong (in my opinion), but, in spite of some embarrassments (we know who), they largely were committed to the nation as they saw it. Add to that all the other issues of implementation and so forth, and it doesn't work. So, I am in flux on how I see things now, but at least we begin to agree on that.

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    John Russell

    I do not recall reading or hearing the term "mediated reality" before. As he intended, I found it to be useful in grasping Martin Gurri's analysis. I anticipate that it will add perspective to my own.

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