| "Who are you to determine what are/are not lies and what is/isn't truth?" is an important question to philosophers but it's irrelevant here. From what I can tell, your fundamental point is that truth is subjective, and governments that censor trivial things slide down a slippery slope to totalitarianism, so we should avoid that by allowing unrestricted free speech, which will protect us if the government turns out to be technically wrong. There's another point about the media but it is fairly close to conspiracy theory (for example, top pharma company boards don't overlap with mainstream media). Another issue is that some sides don't have experts. For example, the pro-ivermectin side doesn't have experts. It has a small number of confused doctors and a large number of ignorant people, and a teeny-tiny number of people who have the ability to run a large-scale controlled clinical trial, but aren't getting involved. Let's bring it down to a simple situation. The nation faces an existential risk. scientists convince the government they understand the cause and have a solution that will eliminate the risk. the process will involve temporary suspension of civil liberties that can be suspended when the risk is gone. However, Joe Rogan has an expert on his show that says the scientists are wrong. At that point, I literally just trust that I made the right decision electing a person who will make the right decision (in the case of an existential threat, it's OK to suspend civil liberties temporarily). What do you do? Listen to the expert as the world dies? |