6 ms·

Most of those ideas didn't die out because one day people found out about them, and then we put an end to them. Most of them _everyone_ knew about for thousand

Most of those ideas didn't die out because one day people found out about them, and then we put an end to them. Most of them _everyone_ knew about for thousands, or even tens of thousands of years, why didn't this "sunlight" disinfect them?

zozbot234 6y ago
Because "sunlight" includes the norms of a free and intellectually-open society, which didn't develop until well after those thousands of years. Censorship itself is not even that bad merely due to how it might deal with the YouTube fruitcake du jour; it's really, really bad because it's openly destructive of these hard-gained shared norms, in so many ways.
- quazeekotl 6y ago
  Maybe, but the argument is that mere public existence of an idea effectively promotes correct ideas and demotes incorrect ideas. That is absolutely not in evidence.
  - aantthony 6y ago
    My comment wasn't about whether people knew these practices were occurring. People knew they were occurring. The mere public existence of an idea (like in some dusty old book that nobody reads) is not sufficient to change majority option, no.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Sure it is. All kinds of ideas died when information became readily available, even when the authorities tried to suppress them. For example, the idea of a nobility class.
    - james-mcelwain 6y ago
      Past results do not guarantee future performance.
      - tomhoward 6y ago
        This is a pretty low effort comment, but more importantly is conceding the several upthread assertions that freedom of speech has historically been effective at correcting bad ideas. If your claim is that we shouldn't expect this to continue in the future, that's a whole new claim that you need to support.
        james-mcelwain 6y ago
        I mean, a teleological view of history and ethics is just so absurd that it disturbs me that professed "rational" scientifically minded people believe it. There's no basis for believing just because things "tend" to get better that is in itself a causative argument about some intrinsic nature of humanity. I mean, even the example used ("the noble class") is preposterous on face because: 1. The Russian Revolution? Germany 1849? Even the American Revolution? None of these are about ideas, or "shining the light on ignorance" -- they're about putting the nobility up against the wall. If there's some kind of teleology at play here, it's not that we thought about it in the marketplace of ideas long enough and decided to do away with the concept. 2. Nobility still exists! At best, this just means we live in a secular society, where we no longer believe the Word of God justifies massive inequality.
        WalterBright 6y ago
        > Nobility still exists! Only as formality in some countries. In America, there are some people who call the Kennedys "America's aristocracy", call JFK's white house "Camelot", and make references to members of the Kennedy family being "entitled" to office, but there's no legal basis for it. Apartheid in South Africa is also gone.
        tomhoward 6y ago
        All the events you list happened in the wake of the enlightenment, the period when ideas challenging the validity of the dominance of the monarchies, nobles and the church were disseminated and popularised in large part due to the invention of the printing press - i.e., an instrument of free speech.
    - zimpenfish 6y ago
      > All kinds of ideas died when information became readily available > For example, the idea of a nobility class. America literally has a nobility class right now. The UK isn't far off.
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        > America literally has a nobility class right now. Literally nope. For example, there is no law that says the word of one group of people is worth more in court than another group. There are no laws saying only certain people can be in power based on their ancestors. There is no law enshrining divine right.
        zimpenfish 6y ago
        > For example, there is no law that says the word of one group of people is worth more in court And yet. > There are no laws saying only certain people can be in power based on their ancestors. And yet. Just because there are no explicit written laws does not mean this doesn't happen every single day in multiple ways.
        WalterBright 6y ago
        Common people with nobody parents routinely wind up as Presidents, Senators, Representatives, and SC Justices.
        zimpenfish 6y ago
        I think "routinely" is overstating it. These days, "infrequently" is probably more accurate. US politics is very much of the monied, for the monied. Without a huge warchest, barring odd circumstances[1], you've got little chance of making it through the various filters. [1] e.g an extremely unpopular incumbent against a popular challenger with excellent ground game.
        tomhoward 6y ago
aantthony 6y ago
Why has the goalpost moved from an idea dying out, to dying out within one day? And who is "we"? > Most of them _everyone_ knew about for thousands, or even tens of thousands of years That's not true. People didn't know about it. When the sunlight came, people changed their beliefs relatively quickly compared to how long the false beliefs were held. Sometimes within a few years, but generally within a generation.
- quazeekotl 6y ago
  Do you really think people at large didn't know about hanging, slavery, human sacrifice, and ideas about a flat earth in societies where these ideas were applicable?
  - aantthony 6y ago
    I meant they didn't know the truth about them. They obviously knew that slavery was occurring.
    - knzhou 6y ago
      So you're arguing that once the public knows the truth... then the public will know the truth? Does sound like a rather weak claim, doesn't it?
      - aantthony 6y ago
        No. stevebmark said "I've never seen a bad or immoral or harmful idea die out when more people learn about it and scrutinize it" So I gave examples of some ideas that did in fact die out when people learned about them and scrutinized them. My argument was that it's naive to think censoring ideas this time will be on the right side of history.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      Not only that, the truth as it's taught in history books was relatively short-lived. Prior to mercantilism and the industrial revolution, slavery and serfdom were basically equivalent. There was a lord and you worked for them in exchange for room and board and protection. You might not love it, but there wasn't really anywhere else to go for anybody who couldn't raise a military force and become a lord themselves. Then suddenly there were factories who would hire anybody who showed up and pay them real money and plantation workers started running off to work in the factories left and right. It was no longer that people stayed because they had no better option, they were then being forced to stay against their will. The dynamic changed. Chains and beatings entered the scene to keep slaves from running off. They did anyway, so their replacements had to be forcefully kidnapped because there were no longer any volunteers. The whole thing collapsed and was dismantled in a relatively short period of time after that.
tomhoward 6y ago
> Most of them _everyone_ knew about for thousands, or even tens of thousands of years This is false. For most of the past several thousand years of history, "knowledge" has been imposed and speech has been restricted by religious and/or political decree. Freedom of speech, along with the value of the individual, are enlightenment values - i.e., they have only been around for a couple of hundred years, and even then only in a few parts of the world, and even then they have continued to be suppressed and assaulted at every opportunity. But those of us who have been lucky enough to grow up in societies that have relatively high levels of freedom of speech and freedom of the individual can easily take these freedoms for granted. But if you look at all the positive societal changes that are espoused by people who believe in liberal values: workers' rights, women's rights (to vote, work, refuse or leave marriage, own property, drive), equality and rights for racial/religious minorities, immigrants, the disabled, gay people, etc; these changes have happened first where there has been the greatest freedom of speech. Yes I know it's unpleasant to hear speech that feels uncomfortable or dangerous, but be assured it is immeasurably better than the alternative. Edit: For what it's worth, I've been paying attention to the David Icke story since he first appeared on London Real a few weeks ago, and I'm a financial supporter of an investigative reporter who has gone deep researching and revealing the possibility that this whole thing looks like a financial scam by London Real. It looks every bit like The Streisand Effect is at work here, and that YouTube's ban of Icke is only serving to amplify his signal, increase his following and generate huge amounts of money for London Real (and possibly Icke too). So it's the Hydra myth playing out yet again. Be careful what you wish for.

zozbot234 6y ago

Because "sunlight" includes the norms of a free and intellectually-open society, which didn't develop until well after those thousands of years. Censorship itself is not even that bad merely due to how it might deal with the YouTube fruitcake du jour; it's really, really bad because it's openly destructive of these hard-gained shared norms, in so many ways.

quazeekotl 6y ago
Maybe, but the argument is that mere public existence of an idea effectively promotes correct ideas and demotes incorrect ideas. That is absolutely not in evidence.
- aantthony 6y ago
  My comment wasn't about whether people knew these practices were occurring. People knew they were occurring. The mere public existence of an idea (like in some dusty old book that nobody reads) is not sufficient to change majority option, no.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Sure it is. All kinds of ideas died when information became readily available, even when the authorities tried to suppress them. For example, the idea of a nobility class.
  - james-mcelwain 6y ago
    Past results do not guarantee future performance.
    - tomhoward 6y ago
      This is a pretty low effort comment, but more importantly is conceding the several upthread assertions that freedom of speech has historically been effective at correcting bad ideas. If your claim is that we shouldn't expect this to continue in the future, that's a whole new claim that you need to support.
      - james-mcelwain 6y ago
        I mean, a teleological view of history and ethics is just so absurd that it disturbs me that professed "rational" scientifically minded people believe it. There's no basis for believing just because things "tend" to get better that is in itself a causative argument about some intrinsic nature of humanity. I mean, even the example used ("the noble class") is preposterous on face because: 1. The Russian Revolution? Germany 1849? Even the American Revolution? None of these are about ideas, or "shining the light on ignorance" -- they're about putting the nobility up against the wall. If there's some kind of teleology at play here, it's not that we thought about it in the marketplace of ideas long enough and decided to do away with the concept. 2. Nobility still exists! At best, this just means we live in a secular society, where we no longer believe the Word of God justifies massive inequality.
        WalterBright 6y ago
        > Nobility still exists! Only as formality in some countries. In America, there are some people who call the Kennedys "America's aristocracy", call JFK's white house "Camelot", and make references to members of the Kennedy family being "entitled" to office, but there's no legal basis for it. Apartheid in South Africa is also gone.
        tomhoward 6y ago
        All the events you list happened in the wake of the enlightenment, the period when ideas challenging the validity of the dominance of the monarchies, nobles and the church were disseminated and popularised in large part due to the invention of the printing press - i.e., an instrument of free speech.
  - zimpenfish 6y ago
    > All kinds of ideas died when information became readily available > For example, the idea of a nobility class. America literally has a nobility class right now. The UK isn't far off.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      > America literally has a nobility class right now. Literally nope. For example, there is no law that says the word of one group of people is worth more in court than another group. There are no laws saying only certain people can be in power based on their ancestors. There is no law enshrining divine right.
      - zimpenfish 6y ago
        > For example, there is no law that says the word of one group of people is worth more in court And yet. > There are no laws saying only certain people can be in power based on their ancestors. And yet. Just because there are no explicit written laws does not mean this doesn't happen every single day in multiple ways.
        WalterBright 6y ago
        Common people with nobody parents routinely wind up as Presidents, Senators, Representatives, and SC Justices.
        zimpenfish 6y ago
        I think "routinely" is overstating it. These days, "infrequently" is probably more accurate. US politics is very much of the monied, for the monied. Without a huge warchest, barring odd circumstances[1], you've got little chance of making it through the various filters. [1] e.g an extremely unpopular incumbent against a popular challenger with excellent ground game.
        tomhoward 6y ago

aantthony 6y ago

Why has the goalpost moved from an idea dying out, to dying out within one day? And who is "we"? > Most of them _everyone_ knew about for thousands, or even tens of thousands of years That's not true. People didn't know about it. When the sunlight came, people changed their beliefs relatively quickly compared to how long the false beliefs were held. Sometimes within a few years, but generally within a generation.

quazeekotl 6y ago
Do you really think people at large didn't know about hanging, slavery, human sacrifice, and ideas about a flat earth in societies where these ideas were applicable?
- aantthony 6y ago
  I meant they didn't know the truth about them. They obviously knew that slavery was occurring.
  - knzhou 6y ago
    So you're arguing that once the public knows the truth... then the public will know the truth? Does sound like a rather weak claim, doesn't it?
    - aantthony 6y ago
      No. stevebmark said "I've never seen a bad or immoral or harmful idea die out when more people learn about it and scrutinize it" So I gave examples of some ideas that did in fact die out when people learned about them and scrutinized them. My argument was that it's naive to think censoring ideas this time will be on the right side of history.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    Not only that, the truth as it's taught in history books was relatively short-lived. Prior to mercantilism and the industrial revolution, slavery and serfdom were basically equivalent. There was a lord and you worked for them in exchange for room and board and protection. You might not love it, but there wasn't really anywhere else to go for anybody who couldn't raise a military force and become a lord themselves. Then suddenly there were factories who would hire anybody who showed up and pay them real money and plantation workers started running off to work in the factories left and right. It was no longer that people stayed because they had no better option, they were then being forced to stay against their will. The dynamic changed. Chains and beatings entered the scene to keep slaves from running off. They did anyway, so their replacements had to be forcefully kidnapped because there were no longer any volunteers. The whole thing collapsed and was dismantled in a relatively short period of time after that.

tomhoward 6y ago

> Most of them _everyone_ knew about for thousands, or even tens of thousands of years This is false. For most of the past several thousand years of history, "knowledge" has been imposed and speech has been restricted by religious and/or political decree. Freedom of speech, along with the value of the individual, are enlightenment values - i.e., they have only been around for a couple of hundred years, and even then only in a few parts of the world, and even then they have continued to be suppressed and assaulted at every opportunity. But those of us who have been lucky enough to grow up in societies that have relatively high levels of freedom of speech and freedom of the individual can easily take these freedoms for granted. But if you look at all the positive societal changes that are espoused by people who believe in liberal values: workers' rights, women's rights (to vote, work, refuse or leave marriage, own property, drive), equality and rights for racial/religious minorities, immigrants, the disabled, gay people, etc; these changes have happened first where there has been the greatest freedom of speech. Yes I know it's unpleasant to hear speech that feels uncomfortable or dangerous, but be assured it is immeasurably better than the alternative. Edit: For what it's worth, I've been paying attention to the David Icke story since he first appeared on London Real a few weeks ago, and I'm a financial supporter of an investigative reporter who has gone deep researching and revealing the possibility that this whole thing looks like a financial scam by London Real. It looks every bit like The Streisand Effect is at work here, and that YouTube's ban of Icke is only serving to amplify his signal, increase his following and generate huge amounts of money for London Real (and possibly Icke too). So it's the Hydra myth playing out yet again. Be careful what you wish for.