Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

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I think we must be talking at cross purposes, I didn't say anything about "stupid people", or forcing people to have any particular viewpoint.

You seem to be lost in a sea of relative opinion, and of all viewpoints being equally valid/stupid. That's far from always the case.

Again, by this logic, we should never address crime because by it's very nature a court case is trying to establish what are or are not real facts about a case in the face of conflicting opinion. Are we too stupid to have courts?

If not, then we're not too stupid to evaluate reality. That doesn't mean censorship. I'm not advocating censorship. I just don't think we're on such a foundation of sand as your comments assert.

Edit: I am rate limited so can’t respond below, but I wanted to say in response - I disagree that we don’t have the ability to say some things are counterfactual, and I also disagree that admitting this implies censorship or other authoritarian action is either good or necessary. I further disagree that communication is sufficient on its own when propagation of counterfactual information costs lives. Is there another solution? I don’t know, but I do think better education has to form part of it.

Does scientific knowledge “dictate facts”? It tells us some things are wrong, while leaving open the possibility of further learning.

Thats what censorship boils down to and why it doesnt work. The answer to your initial question is being able to communicate why something doesnt work. Which apparently i am to stupid to in this case. But thats a stupidity people can work on, while censorship has fundamental issues.

edit: was an answer to the first sentence before the edit

To the rest, the problem is finding a basis solid enough for authoritarian action on such a delicate problem as speech (which requires another level then say a court case). Its not either quicksand or a rock but a minimum required level on the spectrum. If you dictate facts, you are dictating that this description encompasses all perspectives and every additional one is wrong. More then that, you dictate that those are all the implications. Its claiming you reached the end of knowledge.

You either can convince people that you are talking about facts or you cant. The problem is communication and not lack of force. As the issue here is only solvable with the former without accepting an inevitable crash in the future. You bringing up censorship is counterproductive for this reason. Somebody (not necessarily me) being able to explain that should be an example for an alternative.

Should have had a coffee first sorry

I've come back to this in light of another story that's made it to hacker news' front page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30158269

It's an interesting exploration of the problems with fact checkers and weaponised use of 'facts' in online discourse.

It's also pretty much exactly what I was talking about when I said I was not talking about censorship, which you repeatedly ignored in the above discussion.

There are other avenues to explore here, in which we can look at whether information is correct and put it in context, than just heavy handed government action or merely better presentation of one side of an argument.

> Are we too stupid to have courts?

I have a slightly different opinion from /u/ cf141q5325's. I think the problem isn't stupidity, it's hunger for power.

When you grant someone the authority to decide what other people should do, you can optimize for intelligence all you like, but the ones who will actually _struggle_ to get that position are the ones who want to be able to tell other people what to do.

Separation of powers is a partial remedy to this. You can either make the rules, or enforce the rules, but not both. (Democracy is another remedy, also partial.) We _can_ have courts because becoming a judge isn't quite as attractive as becoming a dictator.

A gigantic issue with the current 'fight against misinformation' is that it features no separation at all. When it comes from the government, it's typically designed, evaluated, and enforced by the executive branch alone. And when it comes from private entities, it's completely arbitrary and tyrannical according to whatever mood the CEO wakes up in that morning.

I dont think its an either or, nor do i disagree. I was just focusing on the one perspective for the sake of the argument. It got too long already.

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