I suppose I never thought deeply enough to conclude the torture and murder of Jamal Khashoggi is a manifestation of a systematic problem.
If nation states (even democratic in some instances) are willing to kill those who share the truth, is this something we should accept?
I wonder to what extent we are entitled to truth, and why there is a war against it.
I think the seeds of many of our problems today are found in the birth of modern marketing and and the manufacture of "needs" to create a consumer society. And also, I think that the very idea of "intellectual property" is at odds with a commitment to truth and a truly open society. This combined with the fact that the primary beneficiaries of these two concepts also hold most of the economic power in our world create the fundamental distortion that has led to where we are today.
The thing that needs to be protected is the pursuit of truth and I think this looks a lot like freedom of the press and freedom of civic speech.
You know the "X says Y is true and Y can be objectively checked because there is a definition for what Y is". I think that the US had a corrosive atmosphere even before Trump already, think about the whole "candidate X is socialist/fascist". Not to take a political stance, but there are definitions for those terms and checking if something is untrue is just a matter if the reality of what candidate X says or does fits that definition.
This is what media was supposed to do and this is what public discourse was meant to be before parties became tribes, before the footballification of politics.
Media has no incentive to do this nowadays, as they have to fight about your brain time with much nicer and more exciting media products.
What seems to have broken down is trust.
In the many cases where you rightly point out the truth is discoverable, who do we trust to tell it to us?
It's a hard, long-term problem. If people have lost faith in priests, scientists, politicians and the media, where to go from there?
Any program to restore some ground truth to common discourse will have to operate by building (or rebuilding) broad societal trust in one or more public institutions. Ideally institutions which act in good faith and are in fact trustworthy.
It is very hard (in a democracy) to make true progress on societal issues without some way to achieve broad consensus that they are real.
The problem is those who hold power like to label other preferences as wrong and often try to suppress them.
I'm not sure truth is protectable in most political contexts. What does truth mean when we're dealing with conversions involving subjective preferences?
As long as we have it, we're able to share different points of view and discuss them. Then we can draw our own conclusions.
That's the closest we can get to the "truth".
'Truth' is one of those lofty aspirations that we like to pretend to reach for, but very few of us (if any) are yet fit to grok. Gotta walk before you can run.
It would be unwise to consider everything reasonable people observe or agree upon facts.
That said, law isn’t the only framework to understand rights. I think it’s reasonable to say that we’re morally entitled to access to the truth. It doesn’t have the same force as law, but it doesn’t carry the same risks either.
All of that said, since you’re new to the realization that truth telling is a mortal risk... welcome. It’s not warm here, but it’s important to know. For what it’s worth, there’s a long ugly history of persecution of truth. It’s present in the history of major religion and major political strains.
I have many misgivings referencing this particular news outlet generally, but if you want to learn more about the dangers faced by journalists, Democracy Now is a great resource for that.
Other than that, truth can't be a basic human right in the sense that, say, water or shelter can be, because what does that even mean? How would you go about providing truth to someone?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights spells out rights that cover journalists doing their job.
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Saudi Arabia is not a signatory of the Declaration.
Having a right, from whatever source or authority, does not protect anyone from someone abusing or ignoring that right.
Hot headed aggression will always overcome truth, and find a way to abuse knowledge and win wars. We must tell our truths often and early if we are to progress diplomatically.
Basically I want a moral model that prevents grandmas from having secret family recipes that could enrich the world supply of cookies
And in reference to your last point, what are you getting at there? Is there something you’re observing in the world that justifies forceful extraction of truth being the focal point of your comment?
The last point is in reference to your use of the word "entitled." English is not my first language, so I might interpret this wrong, but when one says "I'm entitled to X" it is heavily implied that "someone else should give me X when I ask," and I disagree with that in general, except in settings where those are the terms agreed (I suppose public service would be one).
I suppose it’s hard to categorise what forms of truth would be a right. And in some cases it could directly oppose privacy.
The degree of truth that is within that information needs to be delineated by the individual... Not prescribed by an authority as truth
No, we should not accept journalists being killed it is their job to find the truth when people of countries etc does not want you to know the truth.
Why is the truth important? It is a democratic cornerstone, the people we have elected are working for us and shall report to us just as basic as that. When you don't get access to the truth or get misinformation you are taken away your democracy as you see in countries like in example Russia, China and USA.
With Jamal aside, would you consider addressing the more general question of truth as a right?
So no, truth is not a human right.
If I know a zero day in your product you have no right to that knowledge.
You have no right to access newspapers for free.
You have no right to the truth. Certainly not a basic human right.
If your question is really the right to not be lied to, have fun with all the religions you'd have to restrict, except the correct one. Plus you'd have to kill Santa.
How do you suppose we determine what basic human rights are? Or is the question too vague?
Keeping the same spirit of your comment, but applying it to food:
You don’t have a right to my food. You have no right to food for free.
Both these statements seem quite true in today’s world. Can we go further and say food/water isn’t a human right?
I hope this isn’t interpreted as putting words in your mouth. I’m just curious where you stand with regard to more ‘mainstream’ human rights.
> You have no right to food for free.
If it's a basic human right then I think you do.
> You don’t have a right to my food.
This I also think is true so you hit a contradiction.
In practice it's making sure people have enough to eat the best you can.
The practical application of what I think you want is freedom of speech and low censorship. But it will include falsehoods. It also avoids the discussion of what is truth, which is impossible.
Not that he deserved what happened or that Saudi Arabia isn't terrible for killing him but I wouldn't put him on some alter as a journalistic martyr.
Where? What are the stats?
> I suppose I never thought deeply enough to conclude the torture and murder of Jamal Khashoggi is a manifestation of a systematic problem.
It's not. And common sense says he was killed because he was a spy/political actor, not a "journalist". What "truth" was he killed for, if he was killed. Why was he targeted and not 1000000 other journalists around the world. If it was systematic, there would be a lot less journalists. If it was systematic how come there hasn't been another khashoggi incident? There would be journalists being killed in every consulate around the world. No?
> If nation states (even democratic in some instances) are willing to kill those who share the truth, is this something we should accept?
Of course not. But then again, they shouldn't be killed for lying either.
> I wonder to what extent we are entitled to truth, and why there is a war against it.
Ask the CNN, WaPo, NYTimes, Foxnews, etc why they are engaging in a war against "truth". There is a war against "truth" because political/financial interests are at stake.
An introductory class in philosophy would do wonders for you. "Truth" you will find is a very complex topic. But beyond the philosophical issues with "truth", your problem is that your started with a false premise : "Journalists give us truth". They do not. Truth doesn't come from journalists. Truth is independent of journalists.
You sneakily confused "right to free speech" with "right to truth via journalists". That's journalist type of behavior. You see this all of HN and social media because of the amount of journalists wasting time on social media instead of doing actual work.
I believe in right to free speech. I believe journalists have the right to lie outright, spin facts, tell truth, etc without physical harm. Just like any american has the same constitutional rights. Unfortunately, it's the journalists who are waging a war to censor americans so it's hard to sympathize with these people. But certainly nobody should be killed for expressing their opinions.
Even for something that has received such a wide coverage as that, what do we actually know for a fact about it? You hear pundits and journalists claiming things for fact, but what are the sources, and what is the actual evidence. The only evidence is "everybody knows", or the U.S. intelligence community being "certain" of his fate. They were "certain" of a lot of things. If something that has received as wide a coverage as that event has had, imagine all the things we'll never hear about.
>If nation states (even democratic in some instances) are willing to kill those who share the truth, is this something we should accept?
It's amusing that I'm writing these lines near a street named "Richelieu" in Algiers. We'll have to go back to Cardinal de Richelieu for whom the "raison d'État"[0] was a cornerstone.
I'd recommend the book "Diplomacy" by Henry Kissinger.
Is this a serious comment? The Saudi Arabian government has already admitted to murdering Khashoggi (but denied that MBS had anything to do with it)[0]. There was plenty of reviewed evidence, including CCTV footage, audio recordings, etc, not just "everybody knows".
[0] "After repeatedly shifting its account of what happened to Khashoggi in the days following the killing, the Saudi government admitted that Khashoggi had been killed in a premeditated murder"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashog...
Have you seen the footage and listened to the audio recordings? I've followed the events, and read the articles as they came out. One after the other talked about details, bone saws, audio recordings of phone calls, of the deed itself, video footage. The ones I may have watched were not of that event.
The link points to the Wikipedia page of the "Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi". Do you have a link to the Saudi Arabian government admitting to murdering Khashoggi?
"Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Fox News "the murder" had been a "tremendous mistake" and denied the powerful crown prince had ordered it.
Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Saudis, under intense pressure to explain Khashoggi's whereabouts, have offered conflicting accounts.
They initially said he had left the consulate on 2 October - but on Friday admitted for the first time he was dead, saying he had been killed in a fight. This claim met widespread scepticism."[0]
He does not say that in the video. The translation is wrong, and the title is wrong. He literally says "It is a horrible incident" ("هو حادث بشع"). There is no 'heinous crime' in there.
That is the problem. In article after article, and video after video I have seen about this, people stretched things, did not call things by their name, talked about evidence, translated wrongly.
I am not saying that they did not do it. I am saying that this was a mess, and my initial point was that if something like this, with news organizations involvement world wide, a scandal that involved multiple governments, people still make a mess and a version that is absolutely fact based is still not there, then there is little hope for the things we don't hear about.
You may be mistaken thinking I'm defending a government and you seem to think you're producing evidence. I'm just telling you that what you think evidence is may not be. If you or I were ever accused of something, I bet we'd want the concept of evidence to be much more than the Times mentioning phone calls and video footage and people saying "but bonesaws.. footage.. dismembered.. operative". The same way we'd like wars not to be waged because someone dangles "evidence" in a vial addressing the United Nations.
What I stated earlier is correct. "Everybody knows" because "everybody knows"[1].
- [0]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/saudi-arabia-now-admits-k...
This is sometimes called an "isolated demand for rigour"[0]. There is worldwide governmental consensus that Khashoggi was murdered. The Saudi Arabian government admits to it using purposely euphemistic language. They even had a (closed) trial and sentenced five people to death in relation to this "horrible incident."
But then, you respond, have you actually seen video footage of the murder taking place? Well, then it's settled. We truly cannot know if Khashoggi was "murdered," and since no body was recovered, for all we know he's vacationing in the Seychelles, or deep in a Turkish prison. How is this different than the "weapons of mass destruction" that got us into the Iraq War?
> You may be mistaken thinking I'm defending a government and you seem to think you're producing evidence.
This passive-aggressive nonsense is ridiculous. You seem to clinging to some fiction that SA has not literally and materially admitted to wrongdoing. You operate in a worldview where everything that doesn't meet your arbitrary standard of truth is not "evidence-based," and therefore wrong. What you present as some sort of epistemic skepticism is just garden variety solipsism.
[0]https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...
>Is this a serious comment? The Saudi Arabian government has already admitted to murdering Khashoggi (but denied that MBS had anything to do with it)[0]. There was plenty of reviewed evidence, including CCTV footage, audio recordings, etc, not just "everybody knows".
If there were evidence, that shift would never have happened. We wouldn't be talking about worldwide governmental consensus.
This is not an isolated demand of rigor. You cited the evidence. I asked if you had examined the evidence you cited. Now we're about worldwide governmental concensus and demand of rigor.
>This passive-aggressive nonsense is ridiculous. You seem to clinging to some fiction that the SA has not literally and materially admitted to wrongdoing.
One of my points was that news outlets have mentioned evidence in the form of audio recordings and video footage, detail that the body was dismembered, mentioning the tools, quoting phone conversations of alleged operatives, and leading the public to talk about audio recordings and video footage mentioning details of how the body was dismembered with neither the former producing/publishing them, nor the latter having examined them.
"The only evidence is "everybody knows", or the U.S. intelligence community being "certain" of his fate."
This is obviously a silly statement. There is a ton of evidence, some more damning (CCTV screenshots, audio transcripts) than others (claims from Turkish officials that aren't backed up in the reviewed audio). Never did I state that I had access to non-public evidence, just that it was reviewed (by multiple independent agencies, I might add). But it is very much a fact that there is also public evidence that you yourself can review.
But I understand you conspiracy-types. What if it's a false flag op? We never saw footage of Khashoggi getting sawed in half. We all know that intelligence agencies are run by the "DEEP STATE," taking orders from a cabal of lizardmen. If your burden of evidence was actually met, obviously the evidence was forged.
But this is the dumbest form of conspiracy. "Admission of Guilt" is a form of evidence in US law, and Saudi Arabia has very much admitted to the fact that Khashoggi died while in the consulate, as well as to the premeditated nature of his death.