[abe_m]

That is unfortunate, but also, I'd rather choose the situation where truth about abuses of power by authorities can spread with the trade off that some wing nuts are also making up stories out of whole cloth, than the one where truth is crushed under power of authority.

[scarecrowbob]

As a person who a lot of folks would consider, to use the kids' term, "noided up", I don't know if I agree.

My experience has been that in general the fact that there are so many folks able to get traction with their poorly-informed ideas and who face little or no consequences (rhetorically) for being show wrong time-and-again has led to a situation where we can go from "limited hangouts" to "we just publish facts and folks ignore it thinking they are just like all the other dumb things people say".

Like, it's incredibly hard to talk about how many horrible things the US has done and published abut over the years (I am thinking of Pheonix, Bluebird, Artichoke, etc) without sounding like a crank even when the government itself is the primary source.

Authoritarian governments crushing truth directly, but that doesn't mean that liberal governments don't have heavy layers of propaganda to maintain their control.

As a principle, "YOLO anyone should say whatever and never face rhetorical consequences" probably just results in the same destruction of the truth, as you might see in this thread.

[abe_m]

Many "liberal governments" of the West certainly have some authoritarian elements to them. I don't see that as a conflict with advocating for free speech. If the government is running the propaganda, who is supposed to push against that other than dissidents protected by free speech? It certainly won't be the government or "the authorities".

I don't understand what "YOLO anyone should say whatever and never face rhetorical consequences" means. Who should be enforcing these consequences? What even is a "rhetorical consequence"?

As ever, the problem with creating an authority to regulate what is truth, is who is going to be that authority, and how are we going to prevent it from being corrupted by human nature.

[scarecrowbob]

You don't need a ministry of truth to have a bit of shame when you say say something incorrect or to recall what really bad and false positions people take or to remember when you've put out bad ideas that were incorrect.

[abe_m]

Oh, I think I see what you're saying. If I'm understanding the thrust of your argument:

I do think it would be good if people would be more humble in what they think they know and be more willing to engage with the argument presented by the "other side", and not be so tribal. More introspection, and less blindly doing as they are told, while acknowledging "doctors", "scientists", "reporters", are all actually humans that have human emotions, various incentives, varying knowledge, who sometimes do stupid things, and sometimes things with malevolent intent. They are not all-being, all-seeing, all-virtuous non-humans, so don't take everything at face value.