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>countering scientific consensus with harmful conspiracy theories You mean "harmful conspiracy theories" such as previous suggestions that COVID might have acc
by helloworld11 4y ago
>countering scientific consensus with harmful conspiracy theories
You mean "harmful conspiracy theories" such as previous suggestions that COVID might have accidentally come from a lab accident? or that the vaccines didn't work as wonderfully as first advertised, or that they may just cause harm to some people? How about others that also later proved to have some truth to them. All of these things would have been perfect candidates for using your supposedly moderate "harm reducing" stance on free speech to snuff out worthy debate even if some of it is colored with tones of irrational conspiracy thinking.
And that is exactly why free speech moderation is so dangerously stupid. It allows reasonable sounding people to crush attacks on reasonable sounding ideas, right up until both these reasonable ideas and the people supporting them become unreasonably authoritarian, and attack even wider ranges of open expression.
- i0null 4y agoThis seems to have taken one sentence from my comment out of context in order to widely exaggerate and attack it. All, if not most conspiracy theories have some element of truth to them. That's what makes them so compelling - In a similar fashion to fiction writing. Philosophers like Nietzsche would say “there are no facts, only interpretations”. Rather than debate semantics. What I was referring to in context was the festering of dangerous conspiracy theories such as 1930's anti-semitism, and yes, hoaxes about inoculation. Being wrong is acceptable. Purposely seeking to undermine scientific evidence on the bases of small instances which are not sufficient to draw conclusions about the wider point is intentional.