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Are there any government whose narrative you trust? It seems to me that never trusting anything a governments because they have once [0] lied is a little extrem

Are there any government whose narrative you trust? It seems to me that never trusting anything a governments because they have once [0] lied is a little extreme. In fact, I'm not sure I can name a country whose government hasn't lied in recent times. This would then extend to academia as well, since most research is in some way funded by the state. [0]: I know they have lied more than once. I'm not sure what a more appropriate word would have been.

alasdair_ 7y ago
I would trust the CDC’s numbers because I know of no incentive for them to lie and their numbers have generally been truthful in the past. In addition, any doctor at the CDC is free to say “these numbers are fraudulent” publicly without worrying they will be arrested. I would not trust a political party’s economy numbers without external verification, however, because a party has an incentive to lie.
- TheNorthman 7y ago
  > because I know of no incentive for them to lie Their incentive to lie seems obvious to me. The US benefits from what hurts China. Besides, the CDC have been caught accepting millions of dollars from commercial interests ("Big pharma"), which obviously also plays a role in fear mongering.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    So it is the US Gov bribing the CDC to "hurt" China? No. While the CDC is tarnished by the events surrounding the 2015 scandals, and the US is in opposition to many Chinese initiatives, these things are not related. Hurting China via misinformation about a legitimate contagion hurts the world. There are levels of trust and Chinese officials are about as reliable as US candidates running for office (ie I have 0 trust).
stale2002 7y ago
> because they have once [0] lied is a little extreme But it is not that they have once lied that it is a problem. It is instead, that just right now, a couple weeks ago, china was arresting journalists for this stuff. If you want to say that we should ignore bad behavior from 20 years ago, because it is no longer relevant, thats fine. But we are not talking about stuff from 20 years ago. We are instead talking about behavior that china does all the time, right now.
himinlomax 7y ago
> Are there any government whose narrative you trust? I can only speak for my country (France), but the precedent of the AIDS epidemic and particularly that of contaminated blood transfusion makes it pretty clear that any government official caught having lied in such a situation would be in deep trouble. And I'm pretty sure they're all keenly aware of that.
mnm1 7y ago
The reason people don't trust governments is because of a constant, never-ending stream of lies. They didn't lie once. They hardly ever not lie. This applies to China, the US, and other governments. A more appropriate phrase is "continually lying" rather than "once lied." The difference is huge enough that you don't even have an argument to stand on. And for the record, I wouldn't trust then even if they did literally only lie once. And neither would most people as most people value trust. One lie or a million, either way the trust is broken. The insane thing is that so many people trust governments even when they continuously prove over and over and over again that they can't be trusted. Lying continuously is only one of many ways they do that. Trusting governments is illogical, unreasonable, and frankly bordering on insane. What other person or entity that constantly lies and breaks trust would be trusted?

alasdair_ 7y ago

I would trust the CDC’s numbers because I know of no incentive for them to lie and their numbers have generally been truthful in the past. In addition, any doctor at the CDC is free to say “these numbers are fraudulent” publicly without worrying they will be arrested. I would not trust a political party’s economy numbers without external verification, however, because a party has an incentive to lie.

TheNorthman 7y ago
> because I know of no incentive for them to lie Their incentive to lie seems obvious to me. The US benefits from what hurts China. Besides, the CDC have been caught accepting millions of dollars from commercial interests ("Big pharma"), which obviously also plays a role in fear mongering.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  So it is the US Gov bribing the CDC to "hurt" China? No. While the CDC is tarnished by the events surrounding the 2015 scandals, and the US is in opposition to many Chinese initiatives, these things are not related. Hurting China via misinformation about a legitimate contagion hurts the world. There are levels of trust and Chinese officials are about as reliable as US candidates running for office (ie I have 0 trust).

stale2002 7y ago

> because they have once [0] lied is a little extreme But it is not that they have once lied that it is a problem. It is instead, that just right now, a couple weeks ago, china was arresting journalists for this stuff. If you want to say that we should ignore bad behavior from 20 years ago, because it is no longer relevant, thats fine. But we are not talking about stuff from 20 years ago. We are instead talking about behavior that china does all the time, right now.

himinlomax 7y ago

> Are there any government whose narrative you trust? I can only speak for my country (France), but the precedent of the AIDS epidemic and particularly that of contaminated blood transfusion makes it pretty clear that any government official caught having lied in such a situation would be in deep trouble. And I'm pretty sure they're all keenly aware of that.

mnm1 7y ago

The reason people don't trust governments is because of a constant, never-ending stream of lies. They didn't lie once. They hardly ever not lie. This applies to China, the US, and other governments. A more appropriate phrase is "continually lying" rather than "once lied." The difference is huge enough that you don't even have an argument to stand on. And for the record, I wouldn't trust then even if they did literally only lie once. And neither would most people as most people value trust. One lie or a million, either way the trust is broken. The insane thing is that so many people trust governments even when they continuously prove over and over and over again that they can't be trusted. Lying continuously is only one of many ways they do that. Trusting governments is illogical, unreasonable, and frankly bordering on insane. What other person or entity that constantly lies and breaks trust would be trusted?