Comment by skh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skh | Hacker News Reader

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Of course people are free to practice medicine on themselves. They are free to make up their own minds on what they think is right/wrong. They ought not be free, in my opinion, to unduly influence others. At least not necessarily free to spout off whatever ideas they think are correct. Of course this quickly gets into grey areas and situations where the right amount of suppression of ideas gets tricky. It’s OK for government to get involved in this too. For instance we don’t allow peddlers of snake oil to make whatever claims they desire to make. This is a good thing.

I’ll restate my point in a different way. When government is deciding what types of scientific information peddling ought to be banned or regulated it’s best for our leaders to consult the experts of that area.

> For instance we don’t allow peddlers of snake oil to make whatever claims they desire

The important word here is “peddlers”. We regulate the sale of medical products. (And advertising related to such a sale.)

But we do not regulate who may join in the argument about (say) whether stress causes ulcers, or low-fat diets prevent heart attacks. The self-proclaimed experts have at various points in time been quite sure about these things. But thankfully their self-confidence did not result in a ban on people questioning the data.

We don’t allow people selling certain homeopathic remedies to make certain medical claims while selling the product. So we do regulate speech.

> .. this quickly gets into grey areas and situations where the right amount of suppression of ideas gets tricky.

"Suppression of ideas" is a grey area? I have no words.

I should have said speech instead of ideas. I think it’s clear from what I wrote what I was getting at. All societies regulate speech. I don’t know anyone who thinks speech should never be regulated.

If speeches are regulated to this extent then it hampers society from discovering others experiences and learning from them.

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