[jstewartmobile]

> Dueling implies that someone who is _better at one thing_ (hurting others) is inherently Right

I don't think it does. Revisit the story of Jeffrey Hudson, and how winning a duel changed his life. What it does imply is some personal risk in making unsubstantiated claims against people.

Try looking at the glass as half-full. Under the present system, true claims are suppressed well enough by the pay-to-play nature of mass media. Re-introducing some aspect of personal risk--one that couldn't be mitigated by mere cash--would, hopefully, let the air out of entire industries of manufactured controversy, which fuel everything from needless wars to societal decay.

As for the challenge, there are worse things than death.

[watwut]

From all I know about past press, it was full of manufactured controversies. It also fuelled wars.

The notion of journalistic objectivity was not even popular.

[jstewartmobile]

Never sold it as a panacea.

School us on the booming gossip and accusations industry in colonial America.