[DoubleDerper]

"There is a fire in the theater" when there isn't one creates a chaotic stampede. People die.

The theater is the political culture war. Millions of human lives will die in the chase for politically charged click bait.

In no sane world should this not be punished severely.

[rayiner]

Centrally planned governments with ministries of truth cost nearly 100 million lives in the 20th century. People die when the government decides what’s the truth.

[tootie]

You're describing what happens without checks and balances. An independent judiciary routinely determines what is and isn't true. It is arguably one of the most fundamental functions of government to determine agreed upon truth.

[cauch]

People dies when politicians lie. People dies when politicians decide what's the truth.

What is proposed here is that the truth is decided on a judicial trial based on facts and proofs.

If you think it will not work because the politicians control the judicial system, then this new law is 100% harmless, because they can already very easily arrest their opponent by just saying "they killed an old lady, let's have a trial to see if they are a murderer".

[caseysoftware]

> decided on a judicial trial based on facts and proofs

Lawyers are expensive. Lawsuits are painful and time consuming.

If you can tie your opponent up in court - whether they win or lose becomes irrelevant - because you prevented them from spending time and money in the campaign. Further, if you have a friendly (or they have a hated) journalist, now you have coverage and headlines that are negative towards them.

[cauch]

Sure, but you can already tie your opponent up in court by accusing them to be drug dealers or having embezzled party money.

It does not happen, because there is a political cost of the public opinion of doing that.

If indeed your opponent has done nothing wrong, it will be obvious to the public and clear that you are a piece of sh*t. If you have enough power that you don't care about that, then you already have plenty of other ways, way easier and efficient, to get rid of your political opponents.

[rayiner]

It’s much harder to do that, because it requires evidence of physical conduct. It’s much easier to just label something that’s an opinion to be an assertion of truth that can be prosecuted.

[cauch]

Don't miss the forest for the tree. There are plenty of sentences said by politicians that are easily ground for attacking them for libel. So, if you find excuses to reject some of my example, you can just do a little bit of effort and you will find yourself other examples where politicians had opportunities to attack their opponent based on a superficial accusation.

And also, this is not how it works: you cannot start a trial just by labeling an opinion to be an assertion of truth, the same way you cannot start a trial by just saying "I consider that grass blades are human, so my political opponent who has mown their lawn are murderers". You can bring the case to the authorities, but they will be the one deciding if it's an offense or not, and your political opponent will not be tied up in court until then.

[constantcrying]

>People dies when politicians decide what's the truth.

Politics exists to resolve factual disputes.

>What is proposed here is that the truth is decided on a judicial trial based on facts and proofs.

Which is literally a totalitarian idea. It removes politics and resolves all questions in a centrally adjudicated bureaucracy.

>If you think it will not work because the politicians control the judicial system

If this law comes into pass they don't. A court can jail a politician for whatever it deems false.

[calf]

> What is proposed here is that the truth is decided on a judicial trial based on facts and proofs.

Justice systems are not designed to decide on such broad and open-ended questions that arise in politics all the time. Questions like mask-wearing or not, WMDs in Iraq, Wuhan COVID origins, whether capitalism is harmful or not... does God exist... The list goes on. A much better proposal is to improve public education, fund journalism, enforce transparency in government, separation of corporate lobbying from the state, etc. A final arbiter on "truth" is chilling to democracy, and besides it, violates Godel's Incompleteness Theorems. It's also anti science.

[cauch]

Nobody is asking the justice systems to answer these questions.

I think the problem in the discussion here is that some people see that _in some cases_ we cannot tell what is true or not, and conclude, incorrectly, that the law we are talking about is pretending that in such case, someone will have to say "it's true" or "it's false". That's ridiculous.

If there is no way to know if it's true or false, THE JUSTICE SYSTEMS WILL SIMPLY SAYS "WE CANNOT TELL, CASE DISMISSED".

This idea that there will be a "final arbiter" that will flip a coin for open-ended question is just really really really stupid: the justice system IS ALREADY EXPOSED TO THAT and does not act in this stupid way.

For all of the examples you have given, there are other laws that would allow people to sue. If someone is forced to wear a mask by their boss, they may try to sue based on "abusive employer" laws. If someone believe the capitalism is harmful, they can certainly sue based on "assault and battery". ... They can try to sue, but they will get their case dismissed, not because the justice has answered the question on mask-wearing or whether capitalism is harmful, but because the justice has concluded it's an open question.

But it is not what the law we are talking about is about. It is not "deciding if X is true or false", it is "had the politician indeed the believable proofs that what they were saying was recognized as truth".

You make 2 errors:

1) you don't understand that the conclusion is not "this is true or this is false", but "this is true, this is false, or this is not possible to tell if it's true or false".

2) you don't understand that it is not because it is impossible to know if X is true or false that someone cannot lie about X. It is impossible for me to know how old you are, but if I say "I know that calf is 21 years old", then, I'm lying. Even if you are 21 years old, I have lied, because I did NOT know it. And it is easy to prove it, even if you are 21 years old, as you can demonstrate that I'm not in position to even know who you are.

[pessimizer]

It is entirely legal to shout fire in a crowded theater, and the case in which that was mentioned positively was one that jailed people for speaking against the WWI draft.

It is not, however, legal to lie when you've sworn in court to not lie, whether or not people get hurt. The rationale for making deliberate lying illegal for politicians is because they're your sworn representatives in government, or vying to be, not because it hurts people. Any number of legal things you can do will result in claims of hurt from other people.

[leereeves]

I think the key question is: would you support this if it was going to be established by your political opponents, whoever they are.

[constantcrying]

Obviously not. Every single person who supports this would instantly recoil if their opponents would propose the same exact thing.

The dishonesty here is just completely disgusting.

[slibhb]

> The theater is the political culture war. Millions of human lives will die in the chase for politically charged click bait.

"The culture war will result in millions of human deaths" is one hell of a prediction.

It's the culture war because it's not a real war! Casualties from people arguing on the internet are very rare.

[thegrimmest]

You can live in a free society, or you can live in a society with a ministry of truth. All human organizations are susceptible to corruption.

> this not be punished severely

Punished by whom? Under what authority? Which comes to power how? Until these questions can be answered, there's no point in saying what "should be".

[cauch]

Punished by the same people who punishes all the other infractions.

The same way doctors are punished if they are abusing their patients, or drug dealers who are selling drugs, or rioters that burn cars, or ...

No one is going to build a brand new parallel tribunal to just process the infractions on this law, and it will never fly as it is a clear violation of power separation.

If now you are saying that the current judicial system is controlled by the politicians in power, then this law is harmless: they can already arrest their opponent by just saying "they killed an old lady, let's have a trial to see if they are a murderer"

[thegrimmest]

So you're suggesting that politicians lying be tried (with prosecutorial discretion) by a jury of their peers in order to determine whether a lie was told? How would this law be written? Would politicians be imprisoned for giving a deceptive compliment? eg. "No, that dress doesn't make you look fat at all"

[cauch]

You realize that lies are already illegal in plenty of other situations. For example, lawyers and doctors cannot lie or deliberately deceive. Or you can be prosecuted if you lie when under oath. You know that no lawyer or doctor are arrested for saying "no, that dress doesn't make you look fat at all", right?

It is just extending the laws that already apply to parliament or judicial system to a broader set of situation easily identifiable. Pretending that it is equivalent to be able to raid a political opponent because they said "that dress doesn't make you look fat" is just ridiculous.

We already deal with these situations, and there are easy and proven solutions to avoid misuse.

[calf]

This is just an engineer's disease argument, using "extension" to do all the intellectual work of justifying the position. It's a pseudo explanation and works like how all misinformation works, using specious logic. Ironic given the topic of this thread.

[willcipriano]

How "truth" works today:

"I see homeless people every day on the way to work, I'm having trouble making ends meet, the economy sucks."

"Fact Check: False, The economy is fine, take a look at NVIDA shares!"

[rootusrootus]

Two anecdotes followed by an opinion, responded to with another opinion and anecdote. There is not any meaningful argument about 'truth' going on there.

[rayiner]

And you trust the people making these decisions to agree about what’s an opinion and what’s an assertion of fact? When they can put their political opponents in jail by blurring that distinction?

[willcipriano]

Real life example: https://x.com/paulkrugman/status/1712494317024026761?lang=en

[rootusrootus]

The "reader added context" below that post seems on point. It is an opinion, not a fact. I assume the graph is accurately representing truth. It is a decent demonstration of the old saw about lies, damn lies, and statistics, but it is real numbers, real dates, and the metric is described specifically. Excellent for misleading, but still truth.

The assertions that "we won" or it is "over" or it was "at very little cost" are all one man's opinions, however.

[salawat]

"Numbers don't lie" is a truism, but is practically undone by "People use numbers to lie."

[pessimizer]

"Winning the war on inflation" isn't a statement of fact, it's a jingoistic military metaphor.

[Towaway69]

Is it humane to have homeless people in a society that is financially booming?

Lying is apparently a trait that differentiates us from other animals. Humanity is another.

[constantcrying]

Homelessness is a choice. Just compare Germany where there is a right to housing to the US. All homeless people in Germany are homeless by choice, usually because they are severely mentally ill.

Btw. guess who has more homeless people Germany or the US.

[thegrimmest]

There are no traits that distinguish us from other animals. We're just a little bit smarter than apes, elephants, and dolphins, which has pushed us past a tipping point into civilization.

Our societies are still ecosystems, and cannot escape from the rules thereof. Competition, hierarchy, and economic inequality are emergent properties of ecosystems. There's nothing inhumane or immoral about an ecosystem.

[gadders]

A little bit? Like, computers designed by dolphins are only 16-bit? I'd say it was more than a little bit.

[thegrimmest]

A bit as in: on the spectrum of civilization-capable organisms, between bacteria and human beings, we're only a bit ahead of dolphins, which is where the tipping point happens to be. Aside from dolphins et al, this space was also occupied by our hominid ancestors.

It took us ~50,000 years to get to computers. We're not biologically different from humans then. Civilization itself is a new mechanism of transmitting information that dolphins do not possess (because they've not passed the tipping point) which allows transmission and accumulation across generations exponentially faster than DNA and culture (which dolphins do possess). We're also anatomically rather more suited to building things than dolphins.

[slibhb]

How many homeless people you see on the way to work is a worse measurement of the economy than the stock market.