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by Chris2048 3395 days ago
> correct side

yet the 'incorrect' side has to be suppressed, lest anyone take it as correct?

1 comments

If a particular argument or fact or line of reasoning or model has been clearly demonstrated to be false, or poorer, then ... well, I'm still thinking about it, but it introduces some very significant issues. At the very least, the argument that such views must be given a platform is weak.

There's a long tradition of arguing for a "marketplace of ideas", which points vaguely in the direction of John Stuart Mill and "On Liberty". Turns out Mill didn't originate, or use, that term, and had some pretty specific things to say on the matter, well worth reading.

The "marketplace" argument originates, so far as I'm aware, with Francis Wrigley Hirst, an economist, free-market advocate, and editor of The Economist newspaper, itself an organ ideologically premised on promoting free-market ideology (reference its own Prospect for that).

There are some very profound differences between commodity ecnomic goods and services, and information, which both make the markets analogy a poor one, and pose some significant issues with information playing within markets.

Susan Gordon has an excellent essay on Mill and the term, which I recommend. It's IMO incomplete (there are additional and strong criticisms which can be made), but good, and quite damning, so far as it goes. Otherwise, I'm still researching and thinking on the question, though I'm inclined somewhat far away from the "marketplace of ideas" position.

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9710146591/john-s...

(Full doc on Sci-Hub: https://sci-hub.cc)

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.223109

> clearly demonstrated to be false

What if the mechanism for doing this is tainted?

> the argument that such views must be given a platform is weak

Maybe, but the argument is suppression of those views.