5 ms·

New responder. First off: I am NOT a free speech libertarian. I've reluctantly come to consider that lies that are believed by 40% of population are de facto fa

by patcon 6y ago

New responder. First off: I am NOT a free speech libertarian. I've reluctantly come to consider that lies that are believed by 40% of population are de facto facts. We can't so easily just take them off the menu because we "in our wisdom" recognize them for what they are. It will make them more sought after and forbidden. And because we can't ACTUALLY remove them like we used to be able to -- now that we've invented uncensorable internets -- we need new approaches. I for one set my hopes on tools that augment empathy across wider digital chasms. After all, empathy is the biological "technology" that conscious networks already invented/evolved to stabilize the network. The pattern has been proven a success by virtue of the fact that... civilization worked up til now. We just need to bolt on some things that allow it to work just as well online as it does in meatspace All imho, of course :) And very kindly stated, with willingness to be wrong

jacquesm 6y ago
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree if we can not begin to start out from something as axiomatic as what a fact is. A fact is something that is observably true, and no matter how many people believe something that isn't true doesn't make it a fact. It just makes it a wide-spread falsehood. Democratic institutions and free speech are both great goods and very fragile. They also both have the core capability of destroying the other, which presents us with some considerable difficulties that I do not think will be resolved in my lifetime or that of my children, simply because I do not believe humanity to be mature enough yet to recognize that the powers that divide us are endemic and would need serious attention first if we are to overcome this particular barrier.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Bill Gates really did want to inject poison into people as part of an agenda to bring about a 'new world order'. Obviously he would work very hard to conceal these intentions, so this would not be "observably" true or false by simply reading the newspaper to see whether he has or has not done it yet. You'd be left to draw conclusions from the publicly available facts. Some facts which one might view as supporting the proposition would be a close association with a convicted pedophile sex trafficker who professed eugenic beliefs, a publicly stated desire to reduce the population, or a history of distributing vaccines which caused actual and significant harm in at least one instance. Now, the fact that all these do apply to Bill Gates does not mean the proposition is necessarily true, but I don't see how you can say it's "observably" anything.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    This comment exactly illustrates why I don't expect this to be resolved in my lifetime. It is intellectual masturbation around something that should not require any debate at all. Like that lots of bits get spewed every day that ostensibly are some kind of elevated discussion about fine moral points but which in fact just add noise and no signal. There are very few arguments about observable facts that start with 'for the sake of argument' and then postulate something utterly ridiculous, to engage such an argument would require one to shift ones worldview into the realm of the insane and that just isn't productive. If you want to postulate that argument you are going to have to come up with some proof, the burden for any kind of argument that is so far out there lies with the one making that argument, it does not lie with the people addressed to dispel it other than out of hand until there is even a whiff of support. That a ridiculous proposition would require other ridiculous things to be true as well is not support, it is lack of support.
    - AndrewBissell 6y ago
      So, sounds like you're simply convinced it's impossible that it would be true, and therefore no further consideration of any facts is needed. I'd say we've established it's not "observation" at work here. Now I'm curious what your take is on "There is a pedophile ring run by democratic operatives who shield each other" because there's even more smoke around that fire (although of course it's not limited to Democrats). A more illustrative example than "asbestos causes cancer" from your list would be "asbestos manufacturers are hiding the fact that their product causes cancer." There was a point in time where the conspiracy to conceal asbestos's cancer-causing properties was in a liminal state of knowledge: you couldn't read about it in the New York Times or even initially in scientific journals, but now it's simply a matter of the established record. It's certainly an "insane" idea (company executives explicitly deciding to kill thousands of people rather than endanger their profits), even when contemplated in retrospect. How would this idea have avoided a preemptive dismissal as "disinfo"? > That a ridiculous proposition would require other ridiculous things to be true as well is not support, it is lack of support. Those other things I pointed out w.r.t. Gates may seem ridiculous, but they are actually true.
- patcon 6y ago
  First off, I appreciate your comment. As a mild defense, I'm just worried that the internet (and emerging distributed web) might make for a landscape where facts no longer are predisposed to win, as they were in the very carefully calibrated prior social systems. There are no chokepoints as there have been through all prior history, where power could exert control, be that through kings, politicians, media, capital, overton window, or whatever. The tactics of persisting signals in a sea of liquid and a sea of air are different. Maybe we're in a different phase. I'm willing (though not welcoming) toward the idea of this being a phase change, after which it's not particularly helpful to focus on the "rightfulness" of factual information. I'm not saying there is no role for facts, I'm saying we might have to start thinking differently about how we expect the larger systems to integrate them EDIT: For example, removing Trump (the liar in chief) from Twitter has UNDOUBTEDLY improved public discourse imho. I wish we'd done it sooner. But we're actively building a world where that will be less and less possible. And while removing his lying megaphone improved things for a bit, we sure as heck haven't figured out the right way to deal with a Trump anomaly without that lever. What will we do in a digital regime where the mathematical guarantees and data structures at their core prevent us from silencing him? To what authority will we negotiate about "truth"?
  - asah 6y ago
    For most of human history, facts were not "predisposed to win." AFAICT, it was the invention of the camera, microphone and development of crime scene evidence that gave us about 100 golden years where facts were harder to fake than verify.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Not everyone agrees that a fact must be observably true. How about: 8) God is the One True God and Jesus Christ is His Son. Depending on the year you use to measure, ~65% of Americans believe this. It is a "fact" in the GP's sense of the word. So much so, that we have actual laws that derive from the chain of conclusions that stem from it. These laws arose under the normal processes of democratic institutions and free speech. When something is believed by the majority of people, it becomes a de facto fact.
  - hddh7373 6y ago
    Your example is not a “fact” in the sense of Christian cannon / dogma. What you are referring to is an article of faith. Faith is belief in something that cannot observed or proven to be true. The distinction between faith and fact is an important tenet of Christianity.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    And that's exactly the problem right there. Islamists and Christians will disagree on this because they feel that 'their set of facts' is the one true set. But the fact is: both of these positions have very poor support, which is why theology is not a branch of science. That a lot of people believe this and that those people can subvert democracy to give their 'alternative realities' preferential treatment is one of the major reasons most forms of government try hard to keep religion out of government. This usually doesn't succeed 100% but at least they recognize that there is something not ok about this.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Islamists and Christians Islamist:Islam::Dominionist: Christianity not Islamist:Islam::Christian::Christianity
    - carapace 6y ago
      Hey, did you ever read Robert Anton Wilson's "Quantum Psychology"? I could be off-base but I think you'd really like it.

by patcon 6y ago

jacquesm 6y ago

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree if we can not begin to start out from something as axiomatic as what a fact is. A fact is something that is observably true, and no matter how many people believe something that isn't true doesn't make it a fact. It just makes it a wide-spread falsehood. Democratic institutions and free speech are both great goods and very fragile. They also both have the core capability of destroying the other, which presents us with some considerable difficulties that I do not think will be resolved in my lifetime or that of my children, simply because I do not believe humanity to be mature enough yet to recognize that the powers that divide us are endemic and would need serious attention first if we are to overcome this particular barrier.

AndrewBissell 6y ago
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Bill Gates really did want to inject poison into people as part of an agenda to bring about a 'new world order'. Obviously he would work very hard to conceal these intentions, so this would not be "observably" true or false by simply reading the newspaper to see whether he has or has not done it yet. You'd be left to draw conclusions from the publicly available facts. Some facts which one might view as supporting the proposition would be a close association with a convicted pedophile sex trafficker who professed eugenic beliefs, a publicly stated desire to reduce the population, or a history of distributing vaccines which caused actual and significant harm in at least one instance. Now, the fact that all these do apply to Bill Gates does not mean the proposition is necessarily true, but I don't see how you can say it's "observably" anything.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  This comment exactly illustrates why I don't expect this to be resolved in my lifetime. It is intellectual masturbation around something that should not require any debate at all. Like that lots of bits get spewed every day that ostensibly are some kind of elevated discussion about fine moral points but which in fact just add noise and no signal. There are very few arguments about observable facts that start with 'for the sake of argument' and then postulate something utterly ridiculous, to engage such an argument would require one to shift ones worldview into the realm of the insane and that just isn't productive. If you want to postulate that argument you are going to have to come up with some proof, the burden for any kind of argument that is so far out there lies with the one making that argument, it does not lie with the people addressed to dispel it other than out of hand until there is even a whiff of support. That a ridiculous proposition would require other ridiculous things to be true as well is not support, it is lack of support.
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    So, sounds like you're simply convinced it's impossible that it would be true, and therefore no further consideration of any facts is needed. I'd say we've established it's not "observation" at work here. Now I'm curious what your take is on "There is a pedophile ring run by democratic operatives who shield each other" because there's even more smoke around that fire (although of course it's not limited to Democrats). A more illustrative example than "asbestos causes cancer" from your list would be "asbestos manufacturers are hiding the fact that their product causes cancer." There was a point in time where the conspiracy to conceal asbestos's cancer-causing properties was in a liminal state of knowledge: you couldn't read about it in the New York Times or even initially in scientific journals, but now it's simply a matter of the established record. It's certainly an "insane" idea (company executives explicitly deciding to kill thousands of people rather than endanger their profits), even when contemplated in retrospect. How would this idea have avoided a preemptive dismissal as "disinfo"? > That a ridiculous proposition would require other ridiculous things to be true as well is not support, it is lack of support. Those other things I pointed out w.r.t. Gates may seem ridiculous, but they are actually true.
patcon 6y ago
First off, I appreciate your comment. As a mild defense, I'm just worried that the internet (and emerging distributed web) might make for a landscape where facts no longer are predisposed to win, as they were in the very carefully calibrated prior social systems. There are no chokepoints as there have been through all prior history, where power could exert control, be that through kings, politicians, media, capital, overton window, or whatever. The tactics of persisting signals in a sea of liquid and a sea of air are different. Maybe we're in a different phase. I'm willing (though not welcoming) toward the idea of this being a phase change, after which it's not particularly helpful to focus on the "rightfulness" of factual information. I'm not saying there is no role for facts, I'm saying we might have to start thinking differently about how we expect the larger systems to integrate them EDIT: For example, removing Trump (the liar in chief) from Twitter has UNDOUBTEDLY improved public discourse imho. I wish we'd done it sooner. But we're actively building a world where that will be less and less possible. And while removing his lying megaphone improved things for a bit, we sure as heck haven't figured out the right way to deal with a Trump anomaly without that lever. What will we do in a digital regime where the mathematical guarantees and data structures at their core prevent us from silencing him? To what authority will we negotiate about "truth"?
- asah 6y ago
  For most of human history, facts were not "predisposed to win." AFAICT, it was the invention of the camera, microphone and development of crime scene evidence that gave us about 100 golden years where facts were harder to fake than verify.
ryandrake 6y ago
Not everyone agrees that a fact must be observably true. How about: 8) God is the One True God and Jesus Christ is His Son. Depending on the year you use to measure, ~65% of Americans believe this. It is a "fact" in the GP's sense of the word. So much so, that we have actual laws that derive from the chain of conclusions that stem from it. These laws arose under the normal processes of democratic institutions and free speech. When something is believed by the majority of people, it becomes a de facto fact.
- hddh7373 6y ago
  Your example is not a “fact” in the sense of Christian cannon / dogma. What you are referring to is an article of faith. Faith is belief in something that cannot observed or proven to be true. The distinction between faith and fact is an important tenet of Christianity.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  And that's exactly the problem right there. Islamists and Christians will disagree on this because they feel that 'their set of facts' is the one true set. But the fact is: both of these positions have very poor support, which is why theology is not a branch of science. That a lot of people believe this and that those people can subvert democracy to give their 'alternative realities' preferential treatment is one of the major reasons most forms of government try hard to keep religion out of government. This usually doesn't succeed 100% but at least they recognize that there is something not ok about this.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Islamists and Christians Islamist:Islam::Dominionist: Christianity not Islamist:Islam::Christian::Christianity
  - carapace 6y ago
    Hey, did you ever read Robert Anton Wilson's "Quantum Psychology"? I could be off-base but I think you'd really like it.