5 ms·

Any other suggestion for fixing the problem of „fake truths“ in politics? The underlying problem of lying in politics exists. Banning it is one approach, what

Any other suggestion for fixing the problem of „fake truths“ in politics? The underlying problem of lying in politics exists. Banning it is one approach, what about education so that the average voter can recognise lies? Personally banning things isn’t my cup of tea yet societal it seems to be the easiest, cheapest and laziest solution to most problems.

coldtea 2y ago
>Any other suggestion for fixing the problem of „fake truths“ in politics? There's no problem of "fake truths" in politics. It's a recently made-up "problem", used to justify controlling. Politics is the very process of working out disagreements on what is the truth and what needs to be done. You can't agree on truth in advance.
- viraptor 2y ago
  That works for people interested in working out disagreements. There's a large number interested in just shouting their lies again every time they're debated. The concept of posting something slightly incorrect to get people to disagree with you, just so you can grow the number of your followers (who don't care) has really only became a thing since Twitter and it's definitely used for political reasons.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - coldtea 2y ago
      Or the mountain of lies rightists and centrists around the world used to justify imperialism, capitalism, seggregation - all the way to colonialism and slavery.
      - rayiner 2y ago
        Singapore, QED.
    - viraptor 2y ago
      It's really not clear what timescale you're talking about here. Specifically - do you mean today's tankies (in which case it's new), or people at the time of the Soviet union (in which case, where were they posting these incorrect opinion in order to generate outrage that gets them more popular with the algorithm)?
- g-b-r 2y ago
  There's every problem in fake truths, and the recent phenomenon is people so entrenched in troll farm lies to come to believe that truth is impossible. Politics is the process of lying so well that you can get things your way.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
constantcrying 2y ago
>Any other suggestion for fixing the problem of „fake truths“ in politics? The problem is as old as large scale human societies. There are hundreds upon hundreds of ways those groups have dealt with this problem. Banning lies is the same as criminalizing the opposition, as politics is also a conflict about truth. Do you believe that a political situation should be allowed to exist where your staunchest political opponents control the definition of truth and gets to prosecute based on that definition? Of course not, it is something so horrifying that it seems reasonable to use violence to prevent it.
- Towaway69 2y ago
  Why do you assume the opposition lies more than those in power? Both sides lie when it suits them. How does banning lies criminalise the opposition? Because those in power will claim they lied? That’s why there are courts of law for both parties to state their case. Defamation cases abound, these being classic examples of people lying about others. It only seems fair to extend that to politics and partly remove the immunity enjoyed by politicians.
  - cauch 2y ago
    Exactly, I really don't understand the logic of people saying that it will allow to arrest the opposition. Surely, if the people in power have such power that they can force the judicial system concludes that an opponent has lied when there is no proof, then they can already arrest their opponents using a ton of already existing laws. They just need to say "they killed an old lady", and it is done.
    - constantcrying 2y ago
      >Exactly, I really don't understand the logic of people saying that it will allow to arrest the opposition. Because politics is about finding facts. It is the process of reconciling different viewpoints. The winner in politics has won on fact finding, the looser lost. By definition the opposition are liars in the political conflict.
  - 2y ago
jerf 2y ago
There is no solution, because there is no oracle of truth that we all can and do completely trust. Thus, banning "lies" is just a backdoor way of centralizing political power into the entity that gets to decide what is "truth" for legal reasons. The real problem here is the idea that a political entity can determine "truth". People on average have a huge cognitive blind spot around labels and have a hard time processing the idea that a label can be placed on something and the label can be just... wrong. It sounds great to have a political body label things as "truth" and then punish "lies"... but there is no more connection between the "truth" label they would hand out and the actual truth than exists currently. You're just asking to be told more soothing and subtle lies rather than disturbing and blatent lies, and while that may feel better that's not actually progress. To be honest, you can see that even today in our culture. As near as I can see there's still a lot of people, even yea verily here on Hacker News, that have not deeply processed the fact that just because something is labelled "misinformation" that means nothing whatsoever as to its truth value. It's nothing more than a particularly successful way for some politicians to label what other politicians say as lies, which they've done since time immemorial, but this one still slips past people's cognitive defenses for some reason, even now. I expect we're past the halfway mark on that one being used up, though.

coldtea 2y ago

>Any other suggestion for fixing the problem of „fake truths“ in politics? There's no problem of "fake truths" in politics. It's a recently made-up "problem", used to justify controlling. Politics is the very process of working out disagreements on what is the truth and what needs to be done. You can't agree on truth in advance.

viraptor 2y ago
That works for people interested in working out disagreements. There's a large number interested in just shouting their lies again every time they're debated. The concept of posting something slightly incorrect to get people to disagree with you, just so you can grow the number of your followers (who don't care) has really only became a thing since Twitter and it's definitely used for political reasons.
- rayiner 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - coldtea 2y ago
    Or the mountain of lies rightists and centrists around the world used to justify imperialism, capitalism, seggregation - all the way to colonialism and slavery.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      Singapore, QED.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    It's really not clear what timescale you're talking about here. Specifically - do you mean today's tankies (in which case it's new), or people at the time of the Soviet union (in which case, where were they posting these incorrect opinion in order to generate outrage that gets them more popular with the algorithm)?
g-b-r 2y ago
There's every problem in fake truths, and the recent phenomenon is people so entrenched in troll farm lies to come to believe that truth is impossible. Politics is the process of lying so well that you can get things your way.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

constantcrying 2y ago

>Any other suggestion for fixing the problem of „fake truths“ in politics? The problem is as old as large scale human societies. There are hundreds upon hundreds of ways those groups have dealt with this problem. Banning lies is the same as criminalizing the opposition, as politics is also a conflict about truth. Do you believe that a political situation should be allowed to exist where your staunchest political opponents control the definition of truth and gets to prosecute based on that definition? Of course not, it is something so horrifying that it seems reasonable to use violence to prevent it.

Towaway69 2y ago
Why do you assume the opposition lies more than those in power? Both sides lie when it suits them. How does banning lies criminalise the opposition? Because those in power will claim they lied? That’s why there are courts of law for both parties to state their case. Defamation cases abound, these being classic examples of people lying about others. It only seems fair to extend that to politics and partly remove the immunity enjoyed by politicians.
- cauch 2y ago
  Exactly, I really don't understand the logic of people saying that it will allow to arrest the opposition. Surely, if the people in power have such power that they can force the judicial system concludes that an opponent has lied when there is no proof, then they can already arrest their opponents using a ton of already existing laws. They just need to say "they killed an old lady", and it is done.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    >Exactly, I really don't understand the logic of people saying that it will allow to arrest the opposition. Because politics is about finding facts. It is the process of reconciling different viewpoints. The winner in politics has won on fact finding, the looser lost. By definition the opposition are liars in the political conflict.
- 2y ago

jerf 2y ago

There is no solution, because there is no oracle of truth that we all can and do completely trust. Thus, banning "lies" is just a backdoor way of centralizing political power into the entity that gets to decide what is "truth" for legal reasons. The real problem here is the idea that a political entity can determine "truth". People on average have a huge cognitive blind spot around labels and have a hard time processing the idea that a label can be placed on something and the label can be just... wrong. It sounds great to have a political body label things as "truth" and then punish "lies"... but there is no more connection between the "truth" label they would hand out and the actual truth than exists currently. You're just asking to be told more soothing and subtle lies rather than disturbing and blatent lies, and while that may feel better that's not actually progress. To be honest, you can see that even today in our culture. As near as I can see there's still a lot of people, even yea verily here on Hacker News, that have not deeply processed the fact that just because something is labelled "misinformation" that means nothing whatsoever as to its truth value. It's nothing more than a particularly successful way for some politicians to label what other politicians say as lies, which they've done since time immemorial, but this one still slips past people's cognitive defenses for some reason, even now. I expect we're past the halfway mark on that one being used up, though.