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Because reality isn’t so stark as your neat examples of antivaxers and Holocaust deniers. Real issues are complex and multifaceted with room for multiple seemin

Because reality isn’t so stark as your neat examples of antivaxers and Holocaust deniers. Real issues are complex and multifaceted with room for multiple seemingly contradictory viewpoints. Allowing somebody to arbitrate truth will inevitably result in a corrupt or self-serving entity use that power for purposes not in the public interest. Having a scientific truth commission be the deciding authority about climate change, for example, is great until it gets stacked with oil industry representatives. Read up on your Orwell. Controlling “truth” is the autocrats playbook. If having some nutjobs voicing scientifically illiterate nonsense is the price to pay for liberty, then so be it. The proper response is not to ban free expression of ideas deemed “wrong”, but to provide better education, mental health, and a social safety net free of charge. Rob the anti-intellectual virus of it’s host by treating the underlying causes.

yoz-y 6y ago
> Because reality isn’t so stark as your neat examples of antivaxers and Holocaust deniers. However measures are taken only against those particular, clean-cut issues. In general I’m not fond of slippery slope arguments because the fact that even getting to arbitrate those basic facts is proof that the system is working. A few people yelling nonsense is a non issue, half of the country though, is a danger to democracy. I agree with your solution, however that is a decades long plan. We need to survive until then and also have government that could potentially pass laws to make this possible.
- garmaine 6y ago
  And then COVID happens and people want to express a legitimate concern about taking a hastily approved vaccine, but can’t. And then some politician claims ancestry from Holocaust survivors to score political points, but the details seem questionable... only you’re not allowed to question whether this person’s story is real. These issues are never, ever clear cut enough to make all discussion of truth illegal.

yoz-y 6y ago

> Because reality isn’t so stark as your neat examples of antivaxers and Holocaust deniers. However measures are taken only against those particular, clean-cut issues. In general I’m not fond of slippery slope arguments because the fact that even getting to arbitrate those basic facts is proof that the system is working. A few people yelling nonsense is a non issue, half of the country though, is a danger to democracy. I agree with your solution, however that is a decades long plan. We need to survive until then and also have government that could potentially pass laws to make this possible.

garmaine 6y ago
And then COVID happens and people want to express a legitimate concern about taking a hastily approved vaccine, but can’t. And then some politician claims ancestry from Holocaust survivors to score political points, but the details seem questionable... only you’re not allowed to question whether this person’s story is real. These issues are never, ever clear cut enough to make all discussion of truth illegal.