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Comment by throwaway115 | Hacker News Reader

So then you need to come to terms with people rejecting what you want them to believe. Some people won't believe you no matter what. Does that mean you get to reach for another tool, like force, or censorship? No, it means you need to accept that you don't control people.

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> it means you need to accept that you don't control people.

This is absolutely the correct take, but also an idea that is unconscionable to the majority of people in government and other institutions involved in setting policies today.

There are tools you can use when you want people to see your perspective, things like empathy and persuasion. You don't just have to fatalistically accept that people think differently than you, you can absolutely attempt to change their mind, in ethical ways.

> No, it means you need to accept that you don't control people.

Not wrong, but when others' mis- and ill-formed view of the world starts effecting others then some kind of action needs to happen:

* https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html

* https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canada-measles-outbreak-vacci...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccines_and_autism

* https://www.google.com/search?q=vaccine+autism

It's not about belief or control. If you're harming the social organism by spreading verifiable falsehoods (vaccines cause autism) then you should be rooted out and treated like the cancer you're choosing to be. I can't yell fire in a theater. I'm somehow alive despite that censorship. People need to grow up.

Where can I read about the constitutional rights of "the social organism"?

Do we really have to go over the history of ideas that were once considered falsehoods but are now accepted as truth?

Your argument rests on the presumption that we have some kind of Oracle that can divine true information from false.

> rooted out and treated like the cancer you're choosing to be

It's cool that you think humans have changed in nature significantly from the time of the Inquisitions, but when you speak like this about people it's pretty clear we haven't.

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