Philipp Markolin, PhD Profile picture
Mar 21, 2023 11 tweets 10 min read Read on X
WARNING:
There are new pathogens in our midst.

My latest article about media #manipulators, velocity #hacking, and the latest Covid origin #controversy.

Maybe some #mainstream journalists & influencers take a good look in the mirror.

Read:
protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-… Image
How much should we think about the role of information in society?

In this article, I use the recent media coverage surrounding #lableak versus #zoonosis to point toward a new threat we have not yet wrapped our heads around:

Information pathogens with high #velocity. Image
#Velocity is a metric for the transmission efficacy of information given a particular content payload, its viral packaging, and its host environment.

Basically the R0 of information, a measure of #contagiousness.

Info pathogens with high velocity outcompetes good information. Image
In the attention economy, velocity #hacking is the true business model of information merchants (e.g marketers, influencers, even independent journalists, news outlets, or organizations)

There are legitimate and #toxic ways to do it.
Guess which we see most?

I list 6 #tactics: Image
Next, I talk a bit about information #cascades.

This is a concept I find useful to talk about both information #diffusion and how our collective decisions to engage with content is shaped by our social environment.

Information cascades also #restructure our social connections. Image
This makes information cascades very potent when combined with information pathogens.

While velocity hackers reap in #profits from riding on information cascades, our social structure changes, and information pathogens can #evolve to overwhelm our defenses, and infect our minds. Image
Barack Obama famously said:

“The more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves.”

So why is democracy in decline? Image
With the rise of the broadband #internet and #social media, many hoped that with the power of a #democratic information sphere came the power of a democratic society.

What went wrong?

I think we have been sold a false promise by #tech companies about the information age. Image
#Democracy presupposes an equality of influence.

Yet today, even before our voices are drowned out by the #noise on social media, or #overwritten by velocity hacking information combatants, we lose our #agency and decision #autonomy to systems we don’t fully understand. Image
Where do we go from here?

Well, I certainly think we need a software upgrade for the information age.

We have to tackle our current #vulnerabilities and safeguard a democratic information sphere from undue #influence.

Here is a friend's link to medium:
protagonist-science.medium.com/the-rise-of-in…
Also, somebody has been sleeping on my content @ArthurCDent @C_Kavanagh 😉 Image

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More from @PhilippMarkolin

Aug 14
Listen to @PeterHotez; he points out 3 strategies of the anti-science movement to shift blame now that their actions killed so many people:

1) blame the vaccines for the deaths
2) blame the scientists for creating COVID
3) blame public health for bad communication

All false
1/
The anti-vaccine movement became a juggernaut during COVID-19 by exploiting people's anxieties & profiting from their fears

Because emotional manipulation is politically valuable, republicans soon merged with the ideology

Unfortunately, that caused over 200k Americans to die
2/
... just during the delta wave alone.

Given estimates of 1,4 million excess deaths since 2020, half of it after vaccines became available, the odds are that vaccine-preventable death toll was even higher.

A huge political liability for Republicans if voters woke up to that.
3/
Read 10 tweets
Jun 9
I don't know, but I feel like the cool kids don't get sucked into magical worldviews and waste their time live-action roleplaying as "investigators" in trite conspiracy myths.

Which makes all of those in the media who fall for them, over and over again, kinda embarassing? Image
There is no version of the lab leak idea that does not assume conspiratorial elements, given the evidence we have today.

There is no lab leak "theory" in the first place, just innuendo and magical thinking with mutual contradictory ideas that can not explain available evidence
Given the overwhelming evidence for a zoonotic origin, the scientific case is long clear.

What remains of the lab leak is a zombie idea, a myth kept alive by, sorry to say, mostly science deniers, activists, media manipulators and too many suckers that keep amplifying it.
Read 6 tweets
Jun 1
🚨 Public service announcment 🚨

During the election season, discourse manipulators and influence campaigns work overtime to mislead citizens about scientific topics.

Here are 18 common tactics explained, why it works, and why you should guard yourself against it.

A 🧵

1/

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First up are the merchants of doubt

They use an array of manipulation techniques to denounce experts with various smear tactics, deny a scientific consensus exists, and deceive the public with irrelevant stories.

Full story with case examples here:


2/protagonist-science.com/p/denounce-den…
Next are the merchants of ambiguity

They distort scientific arguments by turning them into partisan fights, discredit proponents of an evidence-based worldview & dismiss the scientific method with appeals to intuition

Full story & case examples here:


3/protagonist-science.com/p/distort-disc…
Read 5 tweets
May 27
Conspiracy theorists are shocked to learn that a science blogger writing about the bat origins of SARS-CoV-2 visits field sampling expeditions to interview bat researchers 😅

Good journalistic practice must be a nefarious plot 🤣

A niche 🧵 about conspiratorial ideation

1/ Image
Yesterday, I posted the above fotos to explain that my writing is based on expert interviews, personal research experience, scientific analysis and of course legwork.

Conspiracy theorists have claimed since 2022 that I must be a "paid" shill; from China, Biden, Fauci or EHA

2/

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For them, the idea that somebody could keep speaking up for science and scientists because he believes it is the right thing (& despite their hardest efforts to bully me out of the conversation with harassments), is unthinkable.

"He must be paid to do so." became their credo

3/
Read 22 tweets
May 22
🚨Important facts 🚨

SARS-CoV-2 is a natural virus that has nothing to do with gain-of-function research.

While a complex topic, there is zero scientific doubt behind this today.

--> Full story:

Here are 5 key highlights why we know this:
A short🧵

1/protagonist-science.com/p/treacherous-…
I) SARS-CoV-2 has a mosaic genome that could only have come about through viral #recombination with other bat viruses in the wild.

No laboratory procedure or experiment can create, fake, or simulate this natural process.

Design is out of the question
It was once a bat virus

2/ Image
II) #Recombination does not have the granularity to exclude all genetic tinkering approaches, such as single AA mutations in the RBD to make it better bind human cells

Turns out, hACE2 affinity in SARS-CoV-2 was not designed either, but 100% natural

Bats have it exactly

3/ Image
Read 10 tweets
May 15
Decent article from @benjmueller at NYT about the administration's political decision to defund EHA.

He ends on a curious note 🔽

"Why now, 3 years after all the banalities the HHS cites to justify the farce were already known?"

I have some thoughts

1/
nytimes.com/2024/05/15/hea…
Image
It is a critically important election year, so the Biden WH can not afford to have this emotional issue with large visibility be a differentiator between the parties.

They have to act as the ones driving accountability so the Republicans can not weaponize it against them

2/ Image
No party or politician gives a hoot about Ecohealth Alliance, it is a small non-profit with no political weight or power

Cutting off its funding makes politicians look good; they can pretend to hold "bad people" accountable in a bi-partisan fashion & not ruffle many feathers

3/ Image
Read 8 tweets

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