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> when content gets expurgated because of blatant misinformation, it is taken as a sure sign of that source’s truthfulness. The difficulty is that it can mean

> when content gets expurgated because of blatant misinformation, it is taken as a sure sign of that source’s truthfulness. The difficulty is that it can mean either it's true and the authorities don't want you to know it, or it's false and they don't want you to believe it. Judging information either way based only on it being censored leads to error of two different types. Neither is correct thinking but plenty of people make the opposite mistake of trusting authorities and I think we need both types if we're going to have either. A country full of conformist sheep of any sort would be at risk of some sort of totalitarianism or other political disaster.

peteretep 5y ago
> but plenty of people make the opposite mistake of trusting authorities In almost 40 years, my heuristic of trusting the government and ignoring anything being sold to me as “THEY don’t want you to know this!!” has worked out really well for me.
- nomoreplease 5y ago
  And as FOIA and declassifications have shown, trusting the government doesn’t work out well for the country. Ignorance is bliss
  - mahemm 5y ago
    Who do you think declassifies and releases information? Who do you think passed and enforces the Freedom of Information Act?
- exporectomy 5y ago
  It might work if your government is trustworthy, but perhaps it's trustworthy because so many people challenge it so openly. Plenty of governments cover up embarrassing parts of their history, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre. Remember when the US government advised people not to wear masks for Covid and social media sites enforced restricting people from talking about it? Remember when the US invaded Iraq because they saw a chemical weapons site with some kind of decontamination truck circling the yard? Remember Edward Snowden showing that some spying that conspiracy theorists had believed turned out to be true? Remember the Glomar Explorer? Did you trust everything Trump said in his role as president when it conflicted with public opinion that said he was trying to hide something?
deleted 5y ago
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peteretep 5y ago

> but plenty of people make the opposite mistake of trusting authorities In almost 40 years, my heuristic of trusting the government and ignoring anything being sold to me as “THEY don’t want you to know this!!” has worked out really well for me.

nomoreplease 5y ago
And as FOIA and declassifications have shown, trusting the government doesn’t work out well for the country. Ignorance is bliss
- mahemm 5y ago
  Who do you think declassifies and releases information? Who do you think passed and enforces the Freedom of Information Act?
exporectomy 5y ago
It might work if your government is trustworthy, but perhaps it's trustworthy because so many people challenge it so openly. Plenty of governments cover up embarrassing parts of their history, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre. Remember when the US government advised people not to wear masks for Covid and social media sites enforced restricting people from talking about it? Remember when the US invaded Iraq because they saw a chemical weapons site with some kind of decontamination truck circling the yard? Remember Edward Snowden showing that some spying that conspiracy theorists had believed turned out to be true? Remember the Glomar Explorer? Did you trust everything Trump said in his role as president when it conflicted with public opinion that said he was trying to hide something?

deleted 5y ago

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