Thank you for your response. I don’t think you are misunderstanding me. I can’t present certain evidence or even write too extensively on this topic (which is in part why I phrased everything as a non-specific question in the first place) as there are two publicly known cases where people in the country I live have ended up facing court for writing in a public forum on the internet—one was sent to prison for being the owner of a revisionist website that was hosted in the U.S.
most convictions appear to be for denying the use of gas chambers or for dramatically underestimating the number of dead
In a more general discussion of these examples (as specifics are legally tenuous), were there evidence to the contrary regarding the use of gas chambers or the number of the dead, what is the probability that the discoverer of such would be chilled in their speech from reporting this evidence, compared to were these convictions not in place?
I can think of an experiment to test this—how many people question these facts where the questions themselves are not illegal (the US for example) compared to where they are (Germany)?
The second question is that what is the probability the evidence will be judged on its own merits when people have been convicted for presenting it, compared to when people have not? I can’t think of any way to quantitatively evaluate this since we live in a world where people /have/ been convicted for presenting evidence to the contrary.
Leaving aside evaluations of truthfulness, or even the specific topic at hand, what is the effect on encouraging rationalism to society at large when some conclusions are a priori prohibited no matter what the evidence may find?
Eleizer writes in at least one (though it feels like many) of the introductory guides of the dangers of making conclusions before evaluating the evidence—and that this leads humans to reject evidence that doesn’t fit the conclusion and seek out evidence that does. Doesn’t using legal systems to prosecute conclusions set up a society-wide bias that forces true evidence to be rejected?
In the most general sense, any law which impinges on free speech has the potential to be detrimental to accuracy of beliefs.
For example, if I make a defamatory claim about someone and they take me to court, the onus is on me to prove that what I said was true (at least in the UK). This will discourage me from making a claim that I believe to be true but don’t have strong evidence for and so I cannot publish some true information.
In the US the burden of proof would be more on the person who I defamed to show that what I said was false (I’m not a legal expert, I got this from an episode of The Good Wife!). This is a lesser brake on free speech and allows me to say things which I am confident are true, even if my proof would be insufficient for a UK court.
However, there is a flip side. Completely free speech is not beneficial for truth seeking unless all members of the society can be trusted to communicate in good faith. Without any defamation laws everyone can say whatever they like about anyone else and no-one knows what to believe. I can imagine circumstances where if the burden of proof is overly on the defamed then people can make up things which are very hard to disprove and again the truth can suffer.
Another example would be that hate-speech laws discourage racism but also make it more difficult for people to discuss the possibility of differences between races.
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.
In the case of Holocaust denial I don’t think it would be too controversial to suggest that most revisionist theories constitute bad faith communication (I’ll be honest, I haven’t looked at any myself).
My personal preference on this wouldn’t be to ban holocaust denial, as the social norms where I am from are sufficiently strong that they constitute enough of a barrier to Holocaust denial entering the main stream but I can certainly see why people would make the opposite trade off. If any time someone discusses the Holocaust they risk being hounded by Holocaust denial trolls then I don’t think that this would be beneficial for society seeking the truth.
Generally I would prefer strong social norms to laws but until everyone can be trusted to communicate in good faith, laws limiting free speech are here to stay.
EDIT: This SSC post goes into this in much more detail, with an emphasis on how such norms might work in practice.
***
I can think of an experiment to test this—how many people question these facts where the questions themselves are not illegal (the US for example) compared to where they are (Germany)?
Just in passing, I think experiments like this are too noisy to provide useful conclusions due to numerous confounders. What is the base rate of acceptance of conspiracy theories in each country? How many citizens know someone who lived in Germany in the 1930s-40s? How many citizens have physically been to Auschwitz or know someone who has? How strong are the social norms against Holocaust denial in each country?
The differences in the societies are so large that there is probably more noise than signal for the original question, even if you included multiple countries on each side.
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 for your response. I don’t think you are misunderstanding me. I can’t present certain evidence or even write too extensively on this topic (which is in part why I phrased everything as a non-specific question in the first place) as there are two publicly known cases where people in the country I live have ended up facing court for writing in a public forum on the internet—one was sent to prison for being the owner of a revisionist website that was hosted in the U.S.
In a more general discussion of these examples (as specifics are legally tenuous), were there evidence to the contrary regarding the use of gas chambers or the number of the dead, what is the probability that the discoverer of such would be chilled in their speech from reporting this evidence, compared to were these convictions not in place?
I can think of an experiment to test this—how many people question these facts where the questions themselves are not illegal (the US for example) compared to where they are (Germany)?
The second question is that what is the probability the evidence will be judged on its own merits when people have been convicted for presenting it, compared to when people have not? I can’t think of any way to quantitatively evaluate this since we live in a world where people /have/ been convicted for presenting evidence to the contrary.
Leaving aside evaluations of truthfulness, or even the specific topic at hand, what is the effect on encouraging rationalism to society at large when some conclusions are a priori prohibited no matter what the evidence may find?
Eleizer writes in at least one (though it feels like many) of the introductory guides of the dangers of making conclusions before evaluating the evidence—and that this leads humans to reject evidence that doesn’t fit the conclusion and seek out evidence that does. Doesn’t using legal systems to prosecute conclusions set up a society-wide bias that forces true evidence to be rejected?
In the most general sense, any law which impinges on free speech has the potential to be detrimental to accuracy of beliefs.
For example, if I make a defamatory claim about someone and they take me to court, the onus is on me to prove that what I said was true (at least in the UK). This will discourage me from making a claim that I believe to be true but don’t have strong evidence for and so I cannot publish some true information.
In the US the burden of proof would be more on the person who I defamed to show that what I said was false (I’m not a legal expert, I got this from an episode of The Good Wife!). This is a lesser brake on free speech and allows me to say things which I am confident are true, even if my proof would be insufficient for a UK court.
However, there is a flip side. Completely free speech is not beneficial for truth seeking unless all members of the society can be trusted to communicate in good faith. Without any defamation laws everyone can say whatever they like about anyone else and no-one knows what to believe. I can imagine circumstances where if the burden of proof is overly on the defamed then people can make up things which are very hard to disprove and again the truth can suffer.
Another example would be that hate-speech laws discourage racism but also make it more difficult for people to discuss the possibility of differences between races.
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.
In the case of Holocaust denial I don’t think it would be too controversial to suggest that most revisionist theories constitute bad faith communication (I’ll be honest, I haven’t looked at any myself).
My personal preference on this wouldn’t be to ban holocaust denial, as the social norms where I am from are sufficiently strong that they constitute enough of a barrier to Holocaust denial entering the main stream but I can certainly see why people would make the opposite trade off. If any time someone discusses the Holocaust they risk being hounded by Holocaust denial trolls then I don’t think that this would be beneficial for society seeking the truth.
Generally I would prefer strong social norms to laws but until everyone can be trusted to communicate in good faith, laws limiting free speech are here to stay.
EDIT: This SSC post goes into this in much more detail, with an emphasis on how such norms might work in practice.
***
Just in passing, I think experiments like this are too noisy to provide useful conclusions due to numerous confounders. What is the base rate of acceptance of conspiracy theories in each country? How many citizens know someone who lived in Germany in the 1930s-40s? How many citizens have physically been to Auschwitz or know someone who has? How strong are the social norms against Holocaust denial in each country?
The differences in the societies are so large that there is probably more noise than signal for the original question, even if you included multiple countries on each side.
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.)