"Please give me a historical example or two of when the censors were on the right side of history?"
Why are you so focused on censorship?? I haven't at any point, mentioned or condoned censorship. This is just a very common knee-jerk reaction to ANY suggestion that we need to do something about the information crisis that we're facing. Th…
"Please give me a historical example or two of when the censors were on the right side of history?"
Why are you so focused on censorship?? I haven't at any point, mentioned or condoned censorship. This is just a very common knee-jerk reaction to ANY suggestion that we need to do something about the information crisis that we're facing. The line where I talk about consequences, if you'll notice, is accompanied by several very clear, specific examples of material harm.
And the problem is, I *can't* give you any examples from history, because we are in a completely unprecedented situation. It is already well established that there should be consequences if you shout "fire" in a crowed theatre with, say, 200 people inside, cause a panic, and someone dies in the resulting stampede, right? This is uncontroversial. We can all see the connection between cause and effect.
But if you shout "election interference!!" into a megaphone that instantly reaches hundreds of millions of people, and you keep doing it over and over again for six months, and in the resulting panic, a bunch of people try to hang the vice president and storm the Capitol and 4 (?) people die, that's just free speech, right? We just shrug our shoulders and pretend that there's no connection between these events whatsoever. It's just insane.
And this is before we address the question of deep-fakes and foreign interference and AI.
The world has changed. In terms of information, it has changed more in the past 20 years than it did in the previous 200. And if you think we can deal with the challenges ahead by just being "responsible adults," you are simply not paying attention. Which is especially strange given that, as I said earlier, you can already see preliminary versions of the harm they can cause around you right now.
Consequences, in the case where you cause some clear, material harm, say, should be the same as the consequences that currently exist. Again, I don't know what you're so afraid of. If you tell somebody to kill someone, and they do it, you can't just cry "free speech." You're liable. As you should be.
That's not to say that you can't express a controversial opinion. You're allowed to say, for instance, that vaccines are dangerous. But if you do so repeatedly, with zero evidence, and have no specialist knowledge, maybe we should at least put a disclaimer stating this on your claims *before* they're released to millions of frightened, occasionally irrational people during a pandemic who are absolutely not qualified or responsible enough to appraise those claims accurately.
And to be clear, I include myself in those people. I consider myself to be pretty smart, I have a solid scientific background, but I'm not a doctor. 'm humble enough to understand that I can't appraise information about cutting edge vaccine technology reliably. I don't have a strong enough background to compare different testing protocols. So what I need, what almost everybody needs, is some indicator of how trustworthy the person I'm listening to is and how well verified their claims are. Again, the online world COMPLETELY LACKS these measures. This is the problem I'm pointing to.
I think that people who take advantage of this problem and cause harm by doing so should face consequences for the harm they cause. Again, this is THE SAME SITUATION WE HAVE NOW for offline speech.
"Please give me a historical example or two of when the censors were on the right side of history?"
Why are you so focused on censorship?? I haven't at any point, mentioned or condoned censorship. This is just a very common knee-jerk reaction to ANY suggestion that we need to do something about the information crisis that we're facing. The line where I talk about consequences, if you'll notice, is accompanied by several very clear, specific examples of material harm.
And the problem is, I *can't* give you any examples from history, because we are in a completely unprecedented situation. It is already well established that there should be consequences if you shout "fire" in a crowed theatre with, say, 200 people inside, cause a panic, and someone dies in the resulting stampede, right? This is uncontroversial. We can all see the connection between cause and effect.
But if you shout "election interference!!" into a megaphone that instantly reaches hundreds of millions of people, and you keep doing it over and over again for six months, and in the resulting panic, a bunch of people try to hang the vice president and storm the Capitol and 4 (?) people die, that's just free speech, right? We just shrug our shoulders and pretend that there's no connection between these events whatsoever. It's just insane.
And this is before we address the question of deep-fakes and foreign interference and AI.
The world has changed. In terms of information, it has changed more in the past 20 years than it did in the previous 200. And if you think we can deal with the challenges ahead by just being "responsible adults," you are simply not paying attention. Which is especially strange given that, as I said earlier, you can already see preliminary versions of the harm they can cause around you right now.
Consequences, in the case where you cause some clear, material harm, say, should be the same as the consequences that currently exist. Again, I don't know what you're so afraid of. If you tell somebody to kill someone, and they do it, you can't just cry "free speech." You're liable. As you should be.
That's not to say that you can't express a controversial opinion. You're allowed to say, for instance, that vaccines are dangerous. But if you do so repeatedly, with zero evidence, and have no specialist knowledge, maybe we should at least put a disclaimer stating this on your claims *before* they're released to millions of frightened, occasionally irrational people during a pandemic who are absolutely not qualified or responsible enough to appraise those claims accurately.
And to be clear, I include myself in those people. I consider myself to be pretty smart, I have a solid scientific background, but I'm not a doctor. 'm humble enough to understand that I can't appraise information about cutting edge vaccine technology reliably. I don't have a strong enough background to compare different testing protocols. So what I need, what almost everybody needs, is some indicator of how trustworthy the person I'm listening to is and how well verified their claims are. Again, the online world COMPLETELY LACKS these measures. This is the problem I'm pointing to.
I think that people who take advantage of this problem and cause harm by doing so should face consequences for the harm they cause. Again, this is THE SAME SITUATION WE HAVE NOW for offline speech.
I hope that you have time to watch this.
https://youtu.be/kuQ8Bv330C0?si=BpWjgatjWUMnH9wh