[zozbot234]

Because "sunlight" includes the norms of a free and intellectually-open society, which didn't develop until well after those thousands of years. Censorship itself is not even that bad merely due to how it might deal with the YouTube fruitcake du jour; it's really, really bad because it's openly destructive of these hard-gained shared norms, in so many ways.

[quazeekotl]

Maybe, but the argument is that mere public existence of an idea effectively promotes correct ideas and demotes incorrect ideas.

That is absolutely not in evidence.

[WalterBright]

Sure it is. All kinds of ideas died when information became readily available, even when the authorities tried to suppress them.

For example, the idea of a nobility class.

[james-mcelwain]

Past results do not guarantee future performance.

[tomhoward]

This is a pretty low effort comment, but more importantly is conceding the several upthread assertions that freedom of speech has historically been effective at correcting bad ideas.

If your claim is that we shouldn't expect this to continue in the future, that's a whole new claim that you need to support.

[james-mcelwain]

I mean, a teleological view of history and ethics is just so absurd that it disturbs me that professed "rational" scientifically minded people believe it. There's no basis for believing just because things "tend" to get better that is in itself a causative argument about some intrinsic nature of humanity.

I mean, even the example used ("the noble class") is preposterous on face because:

1. The Russian Revolution? Germany 1849? Even the American Revolution? None of these are about ideas, or "shining the light on ignorance" -- they're about putting the nobility up against the wall. If there's some kind of teleology at play here, it's not that we thought about it in the marketplace of ideas long enough and decided to do away with the concept.

2. Nobility still exists! At best, this just means we live in a secular society, where we no longer believe the Word of God justifies massive inequality.

[WalterBright]

> Nobility still exists!

Only as formality in some countries. In America, there are some people who call the Kennedys "America's aristocracy", call JFK's white house "Camelot", and make references to members of the Kennedy family being "entitled" to office, but there's no legal basis for it.

Apartheid in South Africa is also gone.

[tomhoward]

All the events you list happened in the wake of the enlightenment, the period when ideas challenging the validity of the dominance of the monarchies, nobles and the church were disseminated and popularised in large part due to the invention of the printing press - i.e., an instrument of free speech.

[zimpenfish]

> All kinds of ideas died when information became readily available > For example, the idea of a nobility class.

America literally has a nobility class right now. The UK isn't far off.

[WalterBright]

> America literally has a nobility class right now.

Literally nope. For example, there is no law that says the word of one group of people is worth more in court than another group. There are no laws saying only certain people can be in power based on their ancestors. There is no law enshrining divine right.

[zimpenfish]

> For example, there is no law that says the word of one group of people is worth more in court

And yet.

> There are no laws saying only certain people can be in power based on their ancestors.

And yet. Just because there are no explicit written laws does not mean this doesn't happen every single day in multiple ways.

[WalterBright]

Common people with nobody parents routinely wind up as Presidents, Senators, Representatives, and SC Justices.

[aantthony]

My comment wasn't about whether people knew these practices were occurring. People knew they were occurring.

The mere public existence of an idea (like in some dusty old book that nobody reads) is not sufficient to change majority option, no.