[AnimalMuppet]

But if we let people decide for themselves, they might decide wrong! And our position is clearly and obviously right! But people are stupid and will listen to lies, so we have to remove the possibility of them being exposed to those lies!

/s, in case it wasn't obvious...

People are more certain of their own position than is warranted. This is true in politics (as C. S. Lewis said, in practice no policy can be more than probably correct). It was true with Covid ("trust the science" when not enough science had been done yet; people talked as if the correct course was obvious and certain, and they were often wrong in hindsight). And it will be true again, and again, and again.

And from that false certainty, people regard contrary opinions/interpretations of the data as not just false, but morally wrong. And then they regard people believing the "obviously wrong" position as a sign that people are stupid and not to be trusted with the facts. (Unlike themselves, of course, who clearly can be trusted with the facts, because they reached the right answers!)

And people don't see the dichotomy between "people are stupid and evil, and can't be trusted with the truth" and "we (who are also people!) can decide what is true, and can be trusted to only tell them the truth". When you point a finger at someone, four finger point back at you...

[Nursie]

The issue with that approach to me is you end up saying every piece of information is as valid as any other.

We know some things are wrong, we have evidence that they're wrong, and believing in some of those things can cause people to take actions which endanger and even kill others.

So what do you do? I'm not advocating censorship as a solution, but simply throwing up your hands and saying "who are you to judge?" isn't really working either.

[cf141q5325]

>We know some things are wrong, we have evidence that they're wrong, and believing in some of those things can cause people to take actions which endanger and even kill others.

That concerns you as well. Thats the whole issue. There is no "reasonable default" to fall back on. That you have identified some rather obnoxious idiots doesnt mean you are suddenly smart enough to tell the rest of the world what to do. Especially since chances are you have fallen for sock puppets aimed at creating a reaction in you to get you to accept and call for authoritarian solutions.

Authoritarian solutions dont work. Just wanting them to work doesnt work, a short look into history shows that. Reality in the end is really complex. Too complex to just force other people around no matter how smart somebody feels on the topic. Because thats how stupid people always think of themselves, "smart enough" to understand the implications of forced actions just this one time.

edit: All of this not to mention that it always create a reaction in people. Which leaves us with conflict on topics we should be able to find a consensus.

[michaelmrose]

The is no single default but there are entire hosts of different defaults that will work across different communities and some norms that ought to exist across all communities. Hacker News wont let me abuse you verbally and if I make a credible threats of violence against you most places OUGHT to lock me up in order to prevent you from being murdered. Turns out there are TONS of reasonable defaults, some of which we can arrive at by simple logic others which we can arrive at by trial and error.

It would be shocking if communication was literally the only area of human endeavor which couldn't or shouldn't be regulated. Stranger yet to pose the idea on a moderated forum. Turns out authoritarian solutions do work.

[cf141q5325]

All of which have implications independent of the motivation. Implications which are really intransparent. Which might very well have more downsides then the initial problem, even before you look at the reaction you create.

Regulating communication is one of the most dangerous kinds of regulation, as it regulates what people think. And once you limit on your ability to think its very likely that you are about to crash into something, seeing as stupidity boils down to being unaware of another perspective. Its akin to blindfolding drivers of cars so they dont get distracted to reduce crashs.

[Nursie]

By your logic, we should never try to establish facts and "I didn't do it" should always be a valid defence for murder, as reality is really complex and making a determination of truth or facts is impossible. What's more in decreeing one version of events to be factual, and imposing a prison sentence on someone for 'murder', the state is acting as an authoritatiran arbiter of reality.

Just to add - I specifically said I didn't advocate censorship, and asked what actions might be taken. Do you have any ideas in that direction? Or is the idea of taking any action, however small (for instance better education in evaluating information) offensive to you in an axiomatic way?

[deadpannini]

It's not that we should never try to establish facts. Rather, we should never prevent people from challenging them.

[cf141q5325]

I agreed with you, i am just pointing out that you missed a perspective. When you say that the problems is idiots that would just need to be told what to do its a fetching argument. The problem is to identify actual smart people to do the telling. Being smart would entails understanding not just the facts but the consequences of actions. If you would understand them, and could communicate them, you wouldnt need to force people. If you need to force people chances are very good you are just overlooking a perspective that they see and you dont. Which doesnt make them right or smart, but a working solution never the less likely requires all the perspectives. Which means you understood the problem but missunderstood that that stupid person might be you. Thats why that doesnt work. Seeing as nobody thinks they are the stupid one. Figuring that out is the hard part and it doesnt seem to be solvable through force to me. Force doesnt select for stupidity but for power. Which just means chances are high you end up giving power to stupid people since they are more willing to boss others around.

Differently put, you are looking for somebody smart to fix the situation for you. I looked around and there dont seem to be any to spare so we will have to do with us idiots. And once idiots start forcing other idiots around, those idiots push back. Which leaves us with a lot of pushing and pulling in a worse situation all together.

>Do you have any ideas in that direction?

Most idiots seem to mean well so lets see if we cant agree on a consensus about the state of reality and our criteria for acceptable solutions till some smart aliens show up to run this shitshow for us. We wont find a solution for everything but i am confident we could get really far by just agreeing on a reasonable minimum.

I think the problem stems from the lofty goal of finding actual solutions that arent horrible and applicable everywhere. Which we dont have now. Best we can do is look at existing solutions for specific problems and see if we cant agree on improvements. Being motivated by understanding the cost and risk of authoritarian solutions. Which we can communicate. Which just requires a willingness to communicate which goes out of the window once you create a conflict.

tldr: Trying to dictate what people think was tried and failed multiple times before. Its a really really bad idea. Wanting it to work doesnt change that, since you can explain why it fails reliably. Its the same reason that makes the idea so tempting in the first place.

[Nursie]

I think we must be talking at cross purposes, I didn't say anything about "stupid people", or forcing people to have any particular viewpoint.

You seem to be lost in a sea of relative opinion, and of all viewpoints being equally valid/stupid. That's far from always the case.

Again, by this logic, we should never address crime because by it's very nature a court case is trying to establish what are or are not real facts about a case in the face of conflicting opinion. Are we too stupid to have courts?

If not, then we're not too stupid to evaluate reality. That doesn't mean censorship. I'm not advocating censorship. I just don't think we're on such a foundation of sand as your comments assert.

Edit: I am rate limited so can’t respond below, but I wanted to say in response - I disagree that we don’t have the ability to say some things are counterfactual, and I also disagree that admitting this implies censorship or other authoritarian action is either good or necessary. I further disagree that communication is sufficient on its own when propagation of counterfactual information costs lives. Is there another solution? I don’t know, but I do think better education has to form part of it.

Does scientific knowledge “dictate facts”? It tells us some things are wrong, while leaving open the possibility of further learning.

[cf141q5325]

Thats what censorship boils down to and why it doesnt work. The answer to your initial question is being able to communicate why something doesnt work. Which apparently i am to stupid to in this case. But thats a stupidity people can work on, while censorship has fundamental issues.

edit: was an answer to the first sentence before the edit

To the rest, the problem is finding a basis solid enough for authoritarian action on such a delicate problem as speech (which requires another level then say a court case). Its not either quicksand or a rock but a minimum required level on the spectrum. If you dictate facts, you are dictating that this description encompasses all perspectives and every additional one is wrong. More then that, you dictate that those are all the implications. Its claiming you reached the end of knowledge.

You either can convince people that you are talking about facts or you cant. The problem is communication and not lack of force. As the issue here is only solvable with the former without accepting an inevitable crash in the future. You bringing up censorship is counterproductive for this reason. Somebody (not necessarily me) being able to explain that should be an example for an alternative.

Should have had a coffee first sorry

[piaste]

> Are we too stupid to have courts?

I have a slightly different opinion from /u/ cf141q5325's. I think the problem isn't stupidity, it's hunger for power.

When you grant someone the authority to decide what other people should do, you can optimize for intelligence all you like, but the ones who will actually _struggle_ to get that position are the ones who want to be able to tell other people what to do.

Separation of powers is a partial remedy to this. You can either make the rules, or enforce the rules, but not both. (Democracy is another remedy, also partial.) We _can_ have courts because becoming a judge isn't quite as attractive as becoming a dictator.

A gigantic issue with the current 'fight against misinformation' is that it features no separation at all. When it comes from the government, it's typically designed, evaluated, and enforced by the executive branch alone. And when it comes from private entities, it's completely arbitrary and tyrannical according to whatever mood the CEO wakes up in that morning.

[rdtsc]

> We know some things are wrong, we have evidence that they're wrong, and believing in some of those things can cause people to take actions which endanger and even kill others.

It depends on the specific issue. But since we agreed we didn’t want censorship, we err on the side of caution present our evidence with hopefully better and more thorough research supporting it.

[Nursie]

And when that doesn’t work because either political or profit-driven mudslingers undermine it at every turn?

Again, please don’t interpret this as “we need censorship”, that’s not what I’m getting at.

The notional “marketplace of ideas” is clearly not functioning in the presence of a lot of people who are not interested in whether their ideas stand up or not, and a whole boatload of motivated mudslingers. I don’t know a good answer, but “present your arguments better and hope” doesn’t seem to be one.