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Pollution is well defined and easy to detect precisely because we have centuries of experience studying the effects of pollution on the environment. And even th

by govg 4y ago

Pollution is well defined and easy to detect precisely because we have centuries of experience studying the effects of pollution on the environment. And even then we learn new things and have to revise opinions on what we define as "pollution" and what not. See the history of Asbestos, or of CFCs for examples of things we didn't think of as "polluting" initially or assumed the tradeoffs were worth it, only to later realize that they aren't.

CWuestefeld 4y ago
We've been trying to find ways to discover truth for much much longer than we've been looking for pollution. I think consensus is that there are some things that are unprovable - e.g., the existence of a god. We know with a high degree of certainty, thanks to Kurt Godel and others, that there are things that cannot be proven.
bheadmaster 4y ago
> Pollution is well defined and easy to detect precisely because we have centuries of experience studying the effects of pollution on the environment We also have centuries (even millennia) of experience studying the truth. Yet the problem of truth is still as hard as always. I don't see how could any amount of experience solve such fundamental problems.
- fshr 4y ago
  I don't think the issue at hand is truths and lies, it's the ability to both communicate with hundreds of millions of people easily while at the same time also being able to create smaller silos of group think with no restriction on geography.
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    The initial comment's argument is comparing "misinformation" with "pollution", since misinformation can now be massively broadcast to many people through the internet, causing ill effects. The problem is differentiating between "information" and "misinformation" - which is exactly the issue of truth and lies, isn't it? Otherwise, if you ignore the truthfulness of information, and judge only by the effects, you're walking a slippery slope towards censoring truth because "it's harmful".
HPsquared 4y ago
Those examples indicate that even pollution isn't so well-defined. What about nutrient pollution? It requires a bit of philosophical nuance to conclude that nitrogen runoff, say, is a pollutant.

by govg 4y ago

CWuestefeld 4y ago

We've been trying to find ways to discover truth for much much longer than we've been looking for pollution. I think consensus is that there are some things that are unprovable - e.g., the existence of a god. We know with a high degree of certainty, thanks to Kurt Godel and others, that there are things that cannot be proven.

bheadmaster 4y ago

> Pollution is well defined and easy to detect precisely because we have centuries of experience studying the effects of pollution on the environment We also have centuries (even millennia) of experience studying the truth. Yet the problem of truth is still as hard as always. I don't see how could any amount of experience solve such fundamental problems.

fshr 4y ago
I don't think the issue at hand is truths and lies, it's the ability to both communicate with hundreds of millions of people easily while at the same time also being able to create smaller silos of group think with no restriction on geography.
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  The initial comment's argument is comparing "misinformation" with "pollution", since misinformation can now be massively broadcast to many people through the internet, causing ill effects. The problem is differentiating between "information" and "misinformation" - which is exactly the issue of truth and lies, isn't it? Otherwise, if you ignore the truthfulness of information, and judge only by the effects, you're walking a slippery slope towards censoring truth because "it's harmful".

HPsquared 4y ago

Those examples indicate that even pollution isn't so well-defined. What about nutrient pollution? It requires a bit of philosophical nuance to conclude that nitrogen runoff, say, is a pollutant.