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by wwweston 1802 days ago
"Ministry of Truth" references are the opposite of illuminating; they're reflexive association of any attempt to arbitrate truth with totalitarian oppression.

The fact is there is no such thing as rule of law without lots of institutions and individuals (private and public) taking responsibility for arbitrating truth. And there's no freedom of speech without allowing them to do it.
2 comments
refurb 1802 days ago
This is not true at all. The rule of law, within the confines of the judicial system, does NOT define truth. The system weighs evidence and determines whether the preponderance of evidence indicates guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Someone could murder someone, but due to lack of evidence they are found “not guilty”. But that’s not the same as “the truth is this person did not commit murder”. It’s simply a finding that the state didn’t prove its case.

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wwweston 1802 days ago
> The system weighs evidence and determines whether the preponderance of evidence

A formal process of examining evidence marshaled in the service of arguments supporting/refuting a claim sounds practically equivalent to most forms of determining truth. Because it is.

Not only that, but there are segments of the law where truth is explicitly invoked, ie "truth is an absolute defense against defamation."

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refurb 1802 days ago
But truth isn’t always black and white or falsifiable, so that’s why reasonable doubt comes into play.
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throwaway316943 1802 days ago
If you believe so strongly in the ability of institutions to ferret out untruth then surely you’d be ok with the application of such knowledge. We have the ability to do real time analysis in communications such as email, text and cell phone calls so why not just delete any offending words from those communications in real time so that lies never spread? That way you have perfect freedom of speech, it’s just that your phone calls will be edited in real time so the other person never hears the banned words. Better yet, instead of just deleting then it could reword it ina simulation of your voice so that they only ever hear the accepted truth.
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