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Freedom of speech doesn't rely on the belief that humans are rational, it relies on the belief that there's no fundamental difference between some enlightened,

Freedom of speech doesn't rely on the belief that humans are rational, it relies on the belief that there's no fundamental difference between some enlightened, rational circle of censors and the irrational masses. WTF does this question have to do with the paradox of intolerance? There's nothing intolerant about the claim that the Bidens are corrupt. > It's quite a stretch to call any of that "news". So I don't see how allegations of censorship even apply. Freedom of speech isn't restricted to news and the idea that you can censor anything which doesn't fall into a narrowly defined category such as "news", with the censor deciding what counts as news and not, would completely kill the point of freedom of speech. > The founders had the notion that democracy requires an informed populace. I often see this claim but I'm not aware of any evidence that either the founders believed this, nor for the belief itself. It's also often used to argue for voting restrictions. It's kind of parallel to the idea that freedom of speech requires that people are rational, where again my question is: What's the alternative? What is the rational informed group that we should entrust restrictions to? In your view some elite group should decide that NY Post, Fox News and OAnn are anti-informing people, not serving democracy. Well if we trust that elite group, why bother with democracy in the first place?

specialist 6y ago
"... it relies on the belief that there's no fundamental difference between some enlightened, rational circle of censors and the irrational masses." This is a very excellent point. While bingeing on HOPWAG, it finally occurred to me that our current food fight (fake news, cancel culture, censoring, trolling) might be due to very different ideas of What Is Truth. If we can't even agree that the universe is knowable and someone somewhere probably has the correct answer, then the whole fight is pointless. "In your view some elite group should decide..." That's the exact opposite of my view. We'll always have more falsehoods than truth. Even when we're trying to find the truth. The challenge of mitigating the replication crisis (in science) is proof of that. Plus, I no longer care what the truth is. Because my opponents don't care. So further debate is pointless. At this point I only want two things. #1 Unplug the outrage machine. #2 To be left alone. I'd like to go ONE FULL DAY without having to think about this stuff. I shouldn't have to completely unplug from the world and actively defend my filter bubble just to do normal people stuff. "...have to do with the paradox of intolerance? There's nothing intolerant about the claim that the Bidens are corrupt." Honestly, I'm not quite sure yet. It certainly seems "flood the zone with bullshit" strategy is related to triggering identity and radicalization.

specialist 6y ago

"... it relies on the belief that there's no fundamental difference between some enlightened, rational circle of censors and the irrational masses." This is a very excellent point. While bingeing on HOPWAG, it finally occurred to me that our current food fight (fake news, cancel culture, censoring, trolling) might be due to very different ideas of What Is Truth. If we can't even agree that the universe is knowable and someone somewhere probably has the correct answer, then the whole fight is pointless. "In your view some elite group should decide..." That's the exact opposite of my view. We'll always have more falsehoods than truth. Even when we're trying to find the truth. The challenge of mitigating the replication crisis (in science) is proof of that. Plus, I no longer care what the truth is. Because my opponents don't care. So further debate is pointless. At this point I only want two things. #1 Unplug the outrage machine. #2 To be left alone. I'd like to go ONE FULL DAY without having to think about this stuff. I shouldn't have to completely unplug from the world and actively defend my filter bubble just to do normal people stuff. "...have to do with the paradox of intolerance? There's nothing intolerant about the claim that the Bidens are corrupt." Honestly, I'm not quite sure yet. It certainly seems "flood the zone with bullshit" strategy is related to triggering identity and radicalization.