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Can't I believe both things? I believe that Free Speech is one of the most important rights we have, but I also believe that people utilize their free speech to

Can't I believe both things? I believe that Free Speech is one of the most important rights we have, but I also believe that people utilize their free speech to mislead and do harm. While it would be nice to believe that "the solution is simple more free speech", and that the truth will win out in the end, is not fully backed up by the evidence. Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, to mislead people into believing them... the truth is limited, because it has to be true. So what do we do? I am not able to read the article, but it sounds like they are arguing for some limits on free speech. I share the concerns that people on here, like yourself, have about that. So what techniques can we use to stop misinformation that don't rely on limiting free speech? We can't just sit back and hope the truth will come through, we have too many examples in history to know that doesn't always happen. If we just sit back and wait for the truth to win out, we might end up in a world where the people using free speech to mislead grab enough power to stop people from using the truth to fight their misinformation.

mdale 6y ago
I think this sums up our predicament: "Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, to mislead people into believing them... the truth is limited, because it has to be true."
dcolkitt 6y ago
> Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, Well, sure. But the problem is the censors are also human. If crafty lies can deceive the average person, why do we believe that the authorities are any less immune? I feel like so many times anti-libertarian arguments follow this formula. "Regular people keep making this mistake. So let's just have the government, helpfully stop them from making the mistake. Except of wait... the government is also made up of people who make mistakes." In other words, who watches the watchmen? Even in a world filled with crafty lies, open speech is the obvious solution. It's much harder to deceive 300 million people than it is to deceive a small agency responsible for "arbitrating truth". Yeah, a lot of people will still screw up and get the wrong answer. But when millions have access to open information, it's virtually guaranteed that at least some non-neglible subset will figure out the truth. A world with centrally managed opinion is not very robust, and likely to see truths die out completely.
- cortesoft 6y ago
  I never said that the government should be the one to do something... I meant society needs to figure something out, because the evidence seems to be showing that a growing percentage of the population is being influenced by falsehoods. I agree that a world with a centrally managed opinion is not robust and would see truth die out... my fear is that if we DONT do something about the current propaganda, our government will be taken over by people who don't believe in free speech. I want to do something, within the confines of preserving absolute free speech, to help combat that propaganda. It isn't enough for some non-negligible percentage of the population knows the truth. Even if almost half the people can see through the lies, the other half could gain control and shut down the people who see through the lies.
- kelnos 6y ago
  > It's much harder to deceive 300 million people than it is to deceive a small agency responsible for "arbitrating truth". In the US, you don't need to deceive 300M people. You just need to deceive enough people (voters, really) to get 270 electoral votes. In 2016, that turned out to be around 63M people. I'm not arguing with your central point; I do agree that we don't want some central authority deciding what's true and what isn't. But 2016 showed that it was possible to deceive enough people with lies to elect someone who has not really delivered on any of his promises, and has actively hurt most of the people who voted for him. (I won't even get into the toxicity of his political platform as it's not necessary to do so.) How do we actually combat this? "The solution to bad free speech is more free speech" did not work. I agree that "some non-negligible subset will figure out the truth"; in 2016 that was more than 65M people, but that was not enough. What other options do we have, that don't involve central fact-checking authorities, or, worse, active censorship? I really want to know what they are, because I agree that truth-arbiters and censors are unacceptable.
- ardy42 6y ago
  >> Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, > Well, sure. But the problem is the censors are also human. If crafty lies can deceive the average person, why do we believe that the authorities are any less immune? > I feel like so many times anti-libertarian arguments follow this formula. "Regular people keep making this mistake. So let's just have the government, helpfully stop them from making the mistake. Except of wait... the government is also made up of people who make mistakes." In other words, who watches the watchmen? If you can't design and build an iPhone from scratch, yourself, then why can Apple? If you personally can't write code that's nearly bug-free, then how can NASA? Institutions are made up of people that make the same mistakes as the rest of us, but they can also have institutional practices that compensate and correct those mistakes. It's never perfect, but it's something an individual can't really do. Society needs institutions whose job is to figure out what the truth is, and information dissemination channels that filter out lies and disinformation. Otherwise it'll be blinded. This work can't be mainly put on the shoulders of each individual, because they just don't have the bandwidth. > But when millions have access to open information, it's virtually guaranteed that at least some non-neglible subset will figure out the truth. That may not matter when the millions are robustly deceived by the lies. The truth will probably win out, in the end, but the end might be one, ten, or a hundred years from now. If we're talking about election-influencing disinformation, that's too little, too late.
erichocean 6y ago
> people utilize their free speech to mislead and do harm Trust the government, comrades, and fear the people! It's the people that mislead and do harm. Seems legit.

mdale 6y ago

I think this sums up our predicament: "Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, to mislead people into believing them... the truth is limited, because it has to be true."

dcolkitt 6y ago

> Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, Well, sure. But the problem is the censors are also human. If crafty lies can deceive the average person, why do we believe that the authorities are any less immune? I feel like so many times anti-libertarian arguments follow this formula. "Regular people keep making this mistake. So let's just have the government, helpfully stop them from making the mistake. Except of wait... the government is also made up of people who make mistakes." In other words, who watches the watchmen? Even in a world filled with crafty lies, open speech is the obvious solution. It's much harder to deceive 300 million people than it is to deceive a small agency responsible for "arbitrating truth". Yeah, a lot of people will still screw up and get the wrong answer. But when millions have access to open information, it's virtually guaranteed that at least some non-neglible subset will figure out the truth. A world with centrally managed opinion is not very robust, and likely to see truths die out completely.

cortesoft 6y ago
I never said that the government should be the one to do something... I meant society needs to figure something out, because the evidence seems to be showing that a growing percentage of the population is being influenced by falsehoods. I agree that a world with a centrally managed opinion is not robust and would see truth die out... my fear is that if we DONT do something about the current propaganda, our government will be taken over by people who don't believe in free speech. I want to do something, within the confines of preserving absolute free speech, to help combat that propaganda. It isn't enough for some non-negligible percentage of the population knows the truth. Even if almost half the people can see through the lies, the other half could gain control and shut down the people who see through the lies.
kelnos 6y ago
> It's much harder to deceive 300 million people than it is to deceive a small agency responsible for "arbitrating truth". In the US, you don't need to deceive 300M people. You just need to deceive enough people (voters, really) to get 270 electoral votes. In 2016, that turned out to be around 63M people. I'm not arguing with your central point; I do agree that we don't want some central authority deciding what's true and what isn't. But 2016 showed that it was possible to deceive enough people with lies to elect someone who has not really delivered on any of his promises, and has actively hurt most of the people who voted for him. (I won't even get into the toxicity of his political platform as it's not necessary to do so.) How do we actually combat this? "The solution to bad free speech is more free speech" did not work. I agree that "some non-negligible subset will figure out the truth"; in 2016 that was more than 65M people, but that was not enough. What other options do we have, that don't involve central fact-checking authorities, or, worse, active censorship? I really want to know what they are, because I agree that truth-arbiters and censors are unacceptable.
ardy42 6y ago
>> Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, > Well, sure. But the problem is the censors are also human. If crafty lies can deceive the average person, why do we believe that the authorities are any less immune? > I feel like so many times anti-libertarian arguments follow this formula. "Regular people keep making this mistake. So let's just have the government, helpfully stop them from making the mistake. Except of wait... the government is also made up of people who make mistakes." In other words, who watches the watchmen? If you can't design and build an iPhone from scratch, yourself, then why can Apple? If you personally can't write code that's nearly bug-free, then how can NASA? Institutions are made up of people that make the same mistakes as the rest of us, but they can also have institutional practices that compensate and correct those mistakes. It's never perfect, but it's something an individual can't really do. Society needs institutions whose job is to figure out what the truth is, and information dissemination channels that filter out lies and disinformation. Otherwise it'll be blinded. This work can't be mainly put on the shoulders of each individual, because they just don't have the bandwidth. > But when millions have access to open information, it's virtually guaranteed that at least some non-neglible subset will figure out the truth. That may not matter when the millions are robustly deceived by the lies. The truth will probably win out, in the end, but the end might be one, ten, or a hundred years from now. If we're talking about election-influencing disinformation, that's too little, too late.

erichocean 6y ago

> people utilize their free speech to mislead and do harm Trust the government, comrades, and fear the people! It's the people that mislead and do harm. Seems legit.