Most importantly, you are telling the world that anyone saying the same thing is in a risk of losing their tongue, regardless of correctness of the information.
That makes it cheaper for people to argue against the information than to argue for it.
And that increases that chance that people will finally consider him a liar.
That makes it cheaper for people to argue against the information than to argue for it.
Not necessarily. It makes it cheaper for people to argue against whatever slim fraction of the information they can put up as a strawman without risking their own tongues. But it’s hard to put up a real argument against an opposition that you can’t really even quote.
And that increases that chance that people will finally consider him a liar.
Not if that strawman is easily blown away by whatever samizdat eventually conveys the full information.
Yvain explains some of the mechanisms better than I could in points 5 through 7 here:
The effectiveness of silencing someone really depends on how common such silencing is for a given regime. For example, if a regime silences all critics (regardless of whether they tell the truth or lie) an individual act of censorship doesn’t carry any information about whether the censored info was true or false.
On the other hand, tons of claims are made against the US government every day, and no action is taken against almost all of them. If the government suddenly acted to silence one conspiracy theorist, far more attention would be paid to his claims, and the action would likely backfire.
This leads to an interesting possibility for a misinformation campaign: Let people speculate wildly. Silence the guy who says what you want your enemies to think.
Unfortunately, you can only do that so much before it gets noticed.
How is that quote a spoiler? Also, how long does a work need to be out before spoilers are no longer an issue? Is it ok if I tell you that Macbeth dies at the end?
Charitably, it might be viewed as a minor spoiler in that it implies that the character is alive in that book, which is not the first one of the series. (Although that is not a necessary implication: he could possibly be saying it in someone else’s flashback, for example.)
Charitably, it might be viewed as a minor spoiler in that it implies that the character is alive in that book, which is not the first one of the series.
Hmm, that’s a good point, given that Game of Thrones does have a high death rate of major characters.
Also, how long does a work need to be out before spoilers are no longer an issue?
“Spoilers for a work are okay after this time has passed” is an okay heuristic in a community where everyone can reasonably be expected to familiarize themselves with the work as soon as possible after it has become available—and nowhere else. You cannot generally expect that simply time having passed from the publication of a work means that people are familiar with its content.
The actual question one wants to ask is “am I communicating with an audience where I can reasonably expect that people are either already familiar with the work, or do not care about this particular detail about this particular work being spoiled”. This is a hard question in general, and sometimes “has this work been out long enough for spoilers not to be an issue” works as an adequate substitute question for it, but only sometimes.
Tyrion Lannister in George R.R. Martin’s A Clash of Kings
Most importantly, you are telling the world that anyone saying the same thing is in a risk of losing their tongue, regardless of correctness of the information.
That makes it cheaper for people to argue against the information than to argue for it.
And that increases that chance that people will finally consider him a liar.
Not necessarily. It makes it cheaper for people to argue against whatever slim fraction of the information they can put up as a strawman without risking their own tongues. But it’s hard to put up a real argument against an opposition that you can’t really even quote.
Not if that strawman is easily blown away by whatever samizdat eventually conveys the full information.
Yvain explains some of the mechanisms better than I could in points 5 through 7 here:
http://squid314.livejournal.com/333353.html
The effectiveness of silencing someone really depends on how common such silencing is for a given regime. For example, if a regime silences all critics (regardless of whether they tell the truth or lie) an individual act of censorship doesn’t carry any information about whether the censored info was true or false.
On the other hand, tons of claims are made against the US government every day, and no action is taken against almost all of them. If the government suddenly acted to silence one conspiracy theorist, far more attention would be paid to his claims, and the action would likely backfire.
This leads to an interesting possibility for a misinformation campaign: Let people speculate wildly. Silence the guy who says what you want your enemies to think.
Unfortunately, you can only do that so much before it gets noticed.
spoilers man..
How is that quote a spoiler? Also, how long does a work need to be out before spoilers are no longer an issue? Is it ok if I tell you that Macbeth dies at the end?
Charitably, it might be viewed as a minor spoiler in that it implies that the character is alive in that book, which is not the first one of the series. (Although that is not a necessary implication: he could possibly be saying it in someone else’s flashback, for example.)
Hmm, that’s a good point, given that Game of Thrones does have a high death rate of major characters.
“Spoilers for a work are okay after this time has passed” is an okay heuristic in a community where everyone can reasonably be expected to familiarize themselves with the work as soon as possible after it has become available—and nowhere else. You cannot generally expect that simply time having passed from the publication of a work means that people are familiar with its content.
The actual question one wants to ask is “am I communicating with an audience where I can reasonably expect that people are either already familiar with the work, or do not care about this particular detail about this particular work being spoiled”. This is a hard question in general, and sometimes “has this work been out long enough for spoilers not to be an issue” works as an adequate substitute question for it, but only sometimes.
Damn you.
Have you seen The Passion yet?
Some tellings of the story include the Resurrection; others don’t. (Notably, “Jesus Christ Superstar” doesn’t.)
this comment on the recent Reddit thread about intellectual jokes goes one better (and actually made me laugh out loud the first time I read it).