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Comment by elektrontamer | Hacker News Reader

Sorry but I'm not willing to live in an insane orwellian world just so your grandma gets her vaccine. It's her family's responsiblity to convince her and if she still refuses shes an adult she has the right to refuse treatment and vaccines.

As for libel, it has always existed and always will. There are laws against it to protect people if they suffer any damage from it. It's not without consequences.

What you're proposing is so much worse. Imagine a tyrant government is after you and has control on information like you propose. How will you protect yourself from the goverment's false accusations?

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> Imagine a tyrant government is after you and has control on information like you propose

You're straw-manning. I never proposed anything like government enforcement against misinformation.

I don't think misinformation should be illegal, for the reasons you touch on: You certainly don't want government deciding the truth.

Who gets to decide what is misinformation is an entirely different issue. But I can at least hope you can agree that misinformation as a concept is unethical, right? People are literally dying because of misinformation. Again, set aside the question of "Well, who decides what is misinformation?" and consider just the mere concept of it.

> You're straw-manning. I never proposed anything like government enforcement against misinformation.

Tyranny is the only alternative to free speech. I just don't see it ending in any other way.

> I don't think misinformation should be illegal, for the reasons you touch on: You certainly don't want government deciding the truth.

Awesome! Then we can stop making such a big deal out of misinformation and protect free speech.

> But I can at least hope you can agree that misinformation as a concept is unethical, right? People are literally dying because of misinformation.

Yes lying is unethical it's been established thousands of years ago.

> Then we can stop making such a big deal out of misinformation and protect free speech.

As long as misinformation is costing people's lives, I will make a big deal out of it.

I recognize that I am raising a stink about a problem without proposing a solution.

> Yes lying is unethical it's been established thousands of years ago.

It took us way too long to realize that we agree.

Tyrany is orthogonal to free speech. You can absolutely abuse free speech to enact tyranny -- hell just look at Weimar era Germany.

Absolutist free speech would allow you to publicly plot the assassination of whomever you wanted to, or permit insider trading, etc.

Speech is a tool. It's utility and morality depends on the weilder of it.

Hmmm... I really wonder what the said tyrants did when they got into power? Oh that's right they imposed heavy restrictions on speech and all forms of media. And it's not like there was free speech before them, the Weimar republic tried banning them as well. It's almost like challenging ideas and defeating them on an intellectual level is far better than trying to supress them.

... Yeah but they didn't do that before they were in power. They abused misinformation to get to a position to then lock it down. That's indeed what I'm saying.n I'm not disagreeing that they lock it down once in power.

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