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Unfortunately looks to me that if you do not have a Ministry of Truth, you end up with a society where private actors pump people with soma[1]. Personally, I am

Unfortunately looks to me that if you do not have a Ministry of Truth, you end up with a society where private actors pump people with soma[1]. Personally, I am willing to accept a restricted version of Ministry of Truth to avoid that outcome. [1]See Huxley, Brave new world.

ohithereyou 7y ago
>Unfortunately looks to me that if you do not have a Ministry of Truth, you end up with a society where private actors pump people with soma This is not a new phenomenon. There have always been snake oil salesmen, con men, liars, and thieves. Societies that have very strict control over what people can and cannot say (think the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea, where you could be jailed for counter-revolutionary speech or misleading the people) still had lots of problems with snake oil salesmen, con men, liars, and thieves, but they also had a problem with people going to jail (or worse) for saying "the state is the cause of this famine", "the state killed a bunch of innocent protesters", "I disagree with the current economic system", "I am angry that the state took my land from me and gave it to someone else", "the rent is too damn high", "maybe we shouldn't build so many nuclear weapons", and "I don't support Chairman Mao/Uncle Joe". I will assume that any Ministry of Truth that you would support would set out to be expressly non-political at its inception, but giving any one organization the power to restrain the expression of ideas is openly inviting those with an agenda to attempt to co-opt it into suppressing opinions and arguments critical of their agenda. This is an inherent drawback to giving anything power - it inherently becomes political even if the original intent is for it to not be political. I would rather live in a society where snake oil salesmen, con men, liars, and thieves are punished after they commit their crimes than have a single person's freedom to say "fuck the government" suppressed because they misquoted a statistic.
navigatesol 7y ago
>Personally, I am willing to accept a restricted version of Ministry of Truth to avoid that outcome. Every loves this idea right up until the point they realize that their own and the Ministry's opinions do not align.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tomp 7y ago
How would that work in practice? The Mainstream Media is obviously partisan and serves to protect the strong (e.g. Iraq WMD, Epstein). The government (and associated institutions, e.g. jails, court, FBI, NSA.) as well (e.g. Epstein, Snowden, Assange). Who would you "trust" to pick and choose the information you're allowed to see?
clarkmoody 7y ago
The Ministry of Truth has coercive power. They can arrest you, jail you, torture you, or kill you -- legally -- for the content of your thought and speech. Private sector actors cannot do that.
- beefield 7y ago
  Sorry, not answering all comments, but we do already have this kind of restricted Ministry of Truth. For example, there are libel laws and you may end up in jail for the content of your speech. And that is in my humble opinion a good thing. (With the painfully obvious disclaimer that I guess needs to anyhow be added in these kind of discussions, no, not all restriction of speech is good, there are really murky waters there when you want to draw the line, And that is why we have a thing called Democracy.)
  - ohithereyou 7y ago
    We do not have a Ministry of Truth that restricts and punishes people before for what the have not yet said. We have the rule of law that gets involved after the fact.
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
It's a scylla and charibdis problem to be sure - though personally, I'd prefer we err on the side the Soma. But what's wrong with what we do now, private actors who try to build reputations as having possession of truth and we muddle along with those who sound most plausible to us? Sure, some people choose the wrong sources, but that seems a smaller risk than Everyone choosing the wrong source.
prepend 7y ago
In BNW it was the government that established the system with soma for workers. It wasn’t a function of private industry.
Izkata 7y ago
IIRC, Soma was voluntary, a recreational drug akin to marijuana. So I'd err significantly on that side.

ohithereyou 7y ago

>Unfortunately looks to me that if you do not have a Ministry of Truth, you end up with a society where private actors pump people with soma This is not a new phenomenon. There have always been snake oil salesmen, con men, liars, and thieves. Societies that have very strict control over what people can and cannot say (think the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea, where you could be jailed for counter-revolutionary speech or misleading the people) still had lots of problems with snake oil salesmen, con men, liars, and thieves, but they also had a problem with people going to jail (or worse) for saying "the state is the cause of this famine", "the state killed a bunch of innocent protesters", "I disagree with the current economic system", "I am angry that the state took my land from me and gave it to someone else", "the rent is too damn high", "maybe we shouldn't build so many nuclear weapons", and "I don't support Chairman Mao/Uncle Joe". I will assume that any Ministry of Truth that you would support would set out to be expressly non-political at its inception, but giving any one organization the power to restrain the expression of ideas is openly inviting those with an agenda to attempt to co-opt it into suppressing opinions and arguments critical of their agenda. This is an inherent drawback to giving anything power - it inherently becomes political even if the original intent is for it to not be political. I would rather live in a society where snake oil salesmen, con men, liars, and thieves are punished after they commit their crimes than have a single person's freedom to say "fuck the government" suppressed because they misquoted a statistic.

navigatesol 7y ago

>Personally, I am willing to accept a restricted version of Ministry of Truth to avoid that outcome. Every loves this idea right up until the point they realize that their own and the Ministry's opinions do not align.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tomp 7y ago

How would that work in practice? The Mainstream Media is obviously partisan and serves to protect the strong (e.g. Iraq WMD, Epstein). The government (and associated institutions, e.g. jails, court, FBI, NSA.) as well (e.g. Epstein, Snowden, Assange). Who would you "trust" to pick and choose the information you're allowed to see?

clarkmoody 7y ago

The Ministry of Truth has coercive power. They can arrest you, jail you, torture you, or kill you -- legally -- for the content of your thought and speech. Private sector actors cannot do that.

beefield 7y ago
Sorry, not answering all comments, but we do already have this kind of restricted Ministry of Truth. For example, there are libel laws and you may end up in jail for the content of your speech. And that is in my humble opinion a good thing. (With the painfully obvious disclaimer that I guess needs to anyhow be added in these kind of discussions, no, not all restriction of speech is good, there are really murky waters there when you want to draw the line, And that is why we have a thing called Democracy.)
- ohithereyou 7y ago
  We do not have a Ministry of Truth that restricts and punishes people before for what the have not yet said. We have the rule of law that gets involved after the fact.

SuoDuanDao 7y ago

It's a scylla and charibdis problem to be sure - though personally, I'd prefer we err on the side the Soma. But what's wrong with what we do now, private actors who try to build reputations as having possession of truth and we muddle along with those who sound most plausible to us? Sure, some people choose the wrong sources, but that seems a smaller risk than Everyone choosing the wrong source.

prepend 7y ago

In BNW it was the government that established the system with soma for workers. It wasn’t a function of private industry.

Izkata 7y ago

IIRC, Soma was voluntary, a recreational drug akin to marijuana. So I'd err significantly on that side.