I think experiments like this are too noisy to provide useful conclusions due to numerous confounders.
Thank you. I think you are right. I did not sit down and think through this idea before proposing it. Such an experiment would not just be useless, it would probably be worse than useless. I think it would give meaningless data that could easily be confused for meaningful. I appreciate the correction.
So the choice of where to draw the line on free speech includes a play-off between allowing accurate evidence to be presented and preventing bad faith communication.
I think that this is wise, but perhaps it just comforms to my own opinions. You made not about libel and slander—both of which I agree with your positions on. The difference, as I can fathom it, between being able to sue someone for saying something that is untrue (whomever the burden of proof is on), and making questioning parts of an event illegal, is in the quest for truth.
In the case of a legally protected event, you can never prove whether or not what you are saying is true. In the particular case we are speaking of, even to present true evidence that is 1/googleplex against being false is itself a crime, and the evidence inadmissible in your defense.
I can’t comprehend how rationality can hope to propagate in an environment that values social nicety over truth.
I can’t comprehend how rationality can hope to propagate in an environment that values social nicety over truth.
The point I was trying to make was that social nicety is a prerequisite for truth, or if not social nicety per se, at least good faith communication.
In general I’d agree that society values nicety more highly than is strictly healthy. To propagate rationality in such circumstances you focus on the battles that you can win. I’m not optimistic about rationality propagating fast but I don’t think focusing on extreme and emotionally charged hypotheticals will get us there any faster.
Maybe give it another 30 years and we’ll see where we are!
(Of course if this is less hypothetical then this discussion would be a very different one.)
Thank you. I think you are right. I did not sit down and think through this idea before proposing it. Such an experiment would not just be useless, it would probably be worse than useless. I think it would give meaningless data that could easily be confused for meaningful. I appreciate the correction.
I think that this is wise, but perhaps it just comforms to my own opinions. You made not about libel and slander—both of which I agree with your positions on. The difference, as I can fathom it, between being able to sue someone for saying something that is untrue (whomever the burden of proof is on), and making questioning parts of an event illegal, is in the quest for truth.
In the case of a legally protected event, you can never prove whether or not what you are saying is true. In the particular case we are speaking of, even to present true evidence that is 1/googleplex against being false is itself a crime, and the evidence inadmissible in your defense.
I can’t comprehend how rationality can hope to propagate in an environment that values social nicety over truth.
The point I was trying to make was that social nicety is a prerequisite for truth, or if not social nicety per se, at least good faith communication.
In general I’d agree that society values nicety more highly than is strictly healthy. To propagate rationality in such circumstances you focus on the battles that you can win. I’m not optimistic about rationality propagating fast but I don’t think focusing on extreme and emotionally charged hypotheticals will get us there any faster.
Maybe give it another 30 years and we’ll see where we are!
(Of course if this is less hypothetical then this discussion would be a very different one.)