5 ms·

The problem comes from deciding what's true. It's factually true to say that a higher percentage of black people than white people are convicted felons. It's al

The problem comes from deciding what's true. It's factually true to say that a higher percentage of black people than white people are convicted felons. It's also grossly negligent to describe that as a cause ("black people have higher tendencies to become criminals") than as an effect ("centuries of systemic racism held higher numbers of black people in poverty, and poverty highly correlates to the kind of criminal behavior that gets you arrested, and also lower quality legal representation, which makes it more likely that the next generation will also be poor; lather, rise, repeat"). Is it a lie to say "black people are more likely to be felons"? No, but if that's all you have to say on the subject, then you're probably a jerk and shouldn't be talking about it at all. TL;DR I'm weary of people saying things that are factually true on the face of them, but that utterly distort the conversation. See also: "scientists don't know how old the universe is" (but have a broad consensus of a narrow band of values), "vaccines can harm you" (so can water), "it's getting cooler in some places" (global climate change doesn't add X degrees to every location uniformly), etc. etc. etc.

baggy_trough 2y ago
True things which make you a jerk (to some) shouldn't be censored to avoid "distorting the conversation". Respondents can explain the context.
- jandrese 2y ago
  The flipslide is trolls will spew out the lies faster than you can rebut them. Much faster. Orders of magnitude faster. The lie is short, pithy, and requires little thought. The truth require context and effort. After a lie has been rebutted several times there is little value in allowing it to be repeated constantly. Eventually the truth tellers get worn down and the lie is allowed to live on in perpetuity, allowing more and more people to believe it over time.
  - baggy_trough 2y ago
    That is a view which is entirely opposed to my own. I have no faith that there is some authoritative entity that could objectively determine what is a lie and what is the truth.
    - perlgeek 2y ago
      If you don't act against disinformation, you get a world that is spammed with so many statements that it's impossible for the average consumer to assess the truth of any of them. Is that what you want? If yes, why? If not, what's your approach?
      - baggy_trough 2y ago
        I already stated my approach. Let speech be met by more speech in return. Consumers can assess the credibility of each.
        triceratops 2y ago
        > Consumers can assess the credibility of each. I ain't doing all that work. I'm picking whatever I already believe in. /s but only kind of. That's how most people think. They aren't enlightened like you.
        jandrese 2y ago
        But your approach results in someone who can't even conceive of the truth being identifiable. It doesn't seem like a great way to run a society.
        baggy_trough 2y ago
        I am unable to connect your sentence to what I said.
        jandrese 2y ago
        > I have no faith that there is some authoritative entity that could objectively determine what is a lie and what is the truth. I read this as "it is impossible to determine truth". If there exists a well resourced entity who's entire purpose in life is to determine objective truth and they are unable to do so what chance do I have?
  - themaninthedark 2y ago
    So who gets to be arbiter of truth? and what is the recourse if they are wrong?
    - cocacola1 2y ago
      No one, and nothing.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  I agree that the government should not censor statements that don't violated specific laws. I am strongly convinced that any person or organization has the right to moderate content flowing through the systems they host. If you want to say "I don't believe the Holocaust happened", that should be your legal right. It should be my legal right to tell you, "go get your own soapbox to spout that nonsense. You're not doing it on my dime."
- e_y_ 2y ago
  I would generally agree, but in many cases 1) people don't read the comments/replies, 2) interesting responses get drowned out by low-quality responses, 3) the criteria by which useful responses get highlighted can be skewed by a variety of factors, including vote brigading and algorithmic bias or sometimes just a bias towards the earliest comments (which get upvotes, which then get more views, which get more upvotes).
Vegenoid 2y ago
To expound, "black people are more likely to be felons" is only true (in the truest sense of the word "true") given a clear definition of what "likely" means, and the conditions under which the statement is true. The statement could easily be interpreted as either: - when selecting a random black person and a random white person out of the current American population, there is a statistically higher chance that the black person is a felon than the white person - black people are more inclined towards committing felonies than white people, and will continue to do so at a higher rate These have very different meanings, but are both fair and natural interpretations of the information-deficient statement "black people are more likely to be felons". Given that, the statement will likely cause more confusion and argument than clarity, and so is a bad statement.
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
There's a term for lying with carefully selected truths: Paltering. > Paltering is when a communicator says truthful things and in the process knowingly leads the listener to a false conclusion. It has the same effect as lying, but it allows the communicator to say truthful things and, some of our studies suggest, feel like they're not being as deceptive as liars.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  It also lets the liar try to trap rebuttals with gotchas. In this case, “so you’re saying there aren’t a higher percentage of black people in prison? A-ha! Facts, not feelings!”, or something stupid like that. Then you have to waste time with that, to which they’ll reply, “so you admit they’re more likely, a-ha!” I’ve found it more effective to just say “you’re wrong” and move on. The end result of the argument is the same, and it gets them all riled up, which is generally what they’d hoped to inflict on others.

baggy_trough 2y ago

True things which make you a jerk (to some) shouldn't be censored to avoid "distorting the conversation". Respondents can explain the context.

jandrese 2y ago
The flipslide is trolls will spew out the lies faster than you can rebut them. Much faster. Orders of magnitude faster. The lie is short, pithy, and requires little thought. The truth require context and effort. After a lie has been rebutted several times there is little value in allowing it to be repeated constantly. Eventually the truth tellers get worn down and the lie is allowed to live on in perpetuity, allowing more and more people to believe it over time.
- baggy_trough 2y ago
  That is a view which is entirely opposed to my own. I have no faith that there is some authoritative entity that could objectively determine what is a lie and what is the truth.
  - perlgeek 2y ago
    If you don't act against disinformation, you get a world that is spammed with so many statements that it's impossible for the average consumer to assess the truth of any of them. Is that what you want? If yes, why? If not, what's your approach?
    - baggy_trough 2y ago
      I already stated my approach. Let speech be met by more speech in return. Consumers can assess the credibility of each.
      - triceratops 2y ago
        > Consumers can assess the credibility of each. I ain't doing all that work. I'm picking whatever I already believe in. /s but only kind of. That's how most people think. They aren't enlightened like you.
      - jandrese 2y ago
        But your approach results in someone who can't even conceive of the truth being identifiable. It doesn't seem like a great way to run a society.
        baggy_trough 2y ago
        I am unable to connect your sentence to what I said.
        jandrese 2y ago
        > I have no faith that there is some authoritative entity that could objectively determine what is a lie and what is the truth. I read this as "it is impossible to determine truth". If there exists a well resourced entity who's entire purpose in life is to determine objective truth and they are unable to do so what chance do I have?
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  So who gets to be arbiter of truth? and what is the recourse if they are wrong?
  - cocacola1 2y ago
    No one, and nothing.
kstrauser 2y ago
I agree that the government should not censor statements that don't violated specific laws. I am strongly convinced that any person or organization has the right to moderate content flowing through the systems they host. If you want to say "I don't believe the Holocaust happened", that should be your legal right. It should be my legal right to tell you, "go get your own soapbox to spout that nonsense. You're not doing it on my dime."
e_y_ 2y ago
I would generally agree, but in many cases 1) people don't read the comments/replies, 2) interesting responses get drowned out by low-quality responses, 3) the criteria by which useful responses get highlighted can be skewed by a variety of factors, including vote brigading and algorithmic bias or sometimes just a bias towards the earliest comments (which get upvotes, which then get more views, which get more upvotes).

Vegenoid 2y ago

To expound, "black people are more likely to be felons" is only true (in the truest sense of the word "true") given a clear definition of what "likely" means, and the conditions under which the statement is true. The statement could easily be interpreted as either: - when selecting a random black person and a random white person out of the current American population, there is a statistically higher chance that the black person is a felon than the white person - black people are more inclined towards committing felonies than white people, and will continue to do so at a higher rate These have very different meanings, but are both fair and natural interpretations of the information-deficient statement "black people are more likely to be felons". Given that, the statement will likely cause more confusion and argument than clarity, and so is a bad statement.

ZeroGravitas 2y ago

There's a term for lying with carefully selected truths: Paltering. > Paltering is when a communicator says truthful things and in the process knowingly leads the listener to a false conclusion. It has the same effect as lying, but it allows the communicator to say truthful things and, some of our studies suggest, feel like they're not being as deceptive as liars.

kstrauser 2y ago
It also lets the liar try to trap rebuttals with gotchas. In this case, “so you’re saying there aren’t a higher percentage of black people in prison? A-ha! Facts, not feelings!”, or something stupid like that. Then you have to waste time with that, to which they’ll reply, “so you admit they’re more likely, a-ha!” I’ve found it more effective to just say “you’re wrong” and move on. The end result of the argument is the same, and it gets them all riled up, which is generally what they’d hoped to inflict on others.