RE: Spreading "misinformation" and "conspiracy theories"... This is a phrase I am hearing/reading more often these days.
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I agree. That is my concern anytime I hear someone talk about policing the "misinformation".
Who becomes the police that decides what information is true, and which is false? Why should they be considered the "arbiter of truth"?
Have their actions shown them to be consistently trust worthy?
As you hinted at there have been some notoriously bad/evil people in the past that were certain they were speaking the truth and simply trying to stomp out the "misinformation".
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But there are some things that are empirically true no matter what someone thinks or are you saying empirical truth is relative to the one positing information.
If someone says, "Academics are wrong 1+1 is really 3 join me in exposing the truth" - that's empirically wrong. Am I an "arbiter of truth" for pointing out that they are spreading misinformation?
While I agree with you. Framing and perspective can change a lot of things.
1+1 could be concatenation if it is strings. Thus it would be eleven. (11).
If it were binary the first digit is worth 1, and the second is worth 2 so add them together you get 3. Yet you used a mathematical operator so anyone that tried to push that narrative would be making crap up. 1+1 in binary would be 01 or 10 depending upon whether you are using Little Endian or Big Endian but the value would still be 2. Making what you are talking about correct.
I can't think of any case where 2+2=5 is true though. :)
"empirically true" requires carefully defined constraints and rules of discussion. If those are defined then yes there are things that are certain.
If they are not true then perspectives can make things be out of alignment. It thus becomes important to set up definitions and expectations before debating/discussing something.
Also people hide behind TRUE frequently. TRUTH itself is subjective. What you consider truth will be based around YOUR knowledge, the things you have observed, etc. Since there are things all of us don't know as we learn new things our TRUTH can shift.
The things that don't shift are the things we generally refer to as FACTS. While TRUTH and FACTS are often treated as synonyms they are actually not.
Isn't philosophy a fun thing... it keeps us mentally dancing.
Damn... nice response, well done. Wish I would have lead with 2+2=5. LOL. I hate Philosophy 😁
I think that statement is bang on and where we end up in the weeds. If I think back to many of my arguments(err discussions) they fluttered between my TRUTH and FACTS. My TRUTH is biased based on my understanding and knowledge.
Appreciate your answer. Enjoyed it a lot.
I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about this. Can you tell? I love philosophy. :)
Yes, you can tell. I was being facetious, no offence. I really do enjoy good thought-provoking discussions. I still find myself egotistically and emotionally bound to certain topics but I'm learning. Although I could be biased ;-)
Me too friend. We all make mistakes. All we can try to do is learn and improve or likelihood of keeping them in check, or noticing and reigning them in as early as possible.
I took no offense. I enjoyed it. If I took offense so what... it is part of life. A mature person wouldn't cancel or hate you for being offensive. :)
It can be easy to momentarily forget that our truth is simply that. Ours. We can lose track of the FACTS and start to apply our own bias in interpretation.
It's not completely avoidable as we are human. Yet we can become aware of it and hopefully keep it from steering us wrong too often.
You are just getting to know me. I have a real pet peeve when it comes to absolutes (most often are not true) and generalizations (really just a different category of absolute).
It makes it hard for me to think of anything that I believe should be censored for being misinformation.
There is no one that I absolutely trust. This includes myself, because I debate internally with myself frequently, and thus change my mind frequently.
There is an upside to this maybe.
I'll listen/read/watch anyone talk about ANYTHING. I can do so without fear they are going to corrupt my mind. I can listen without believing them. I can also listen and think some parts of what they are saying don't make sense to me, yet I might see some parts that do.
Instead of zoning in on something I disagree with and then tossing out the entire thing I can sometimes still find some bits of value in the whole.
Since I don't believe anyone completely EVERYTHING is potentially misinformation as far as I am concerned.
The key is whether someone is knowingly telling you something they know is false. That is what we call a lie. "knowingly" is the keyword there.
If a person believes what they are telling you is true then they are not lying. They can still be incorrect, but it isn't a lie.
The issue is there are things in critical thinking known as logical fallacies.
Appeal to Authority Fallacy is a big one. It is used frequently.
CDC says "X", Experts say "Y", Scientists say "Z".
Then you treat XYZ as truth without considering they could be wrong. That is an appeal to authority fallacy. More often it applies when someone says "Celebrity says X" and Celebrity has no background in X so what they say doesn't matter at all.
The basic gist of a thing is that because a person states something does not mean you should blindly trust them and not consider verification. Questioning is not a bad thing. Asking questions doesn't even imply disagreement. It could be simply seeking clarification.
Argument from Popularity Fallacy (aka Bandwagon) is also very common.
"Most people believe X to be True", "There is a consensus that Y is true".
Truth (Facts) are not dictated by popularity.
If 1 person knows the truth about something that contradicts something that every single other person on the planet has been assuming to be something else. That doesn't make that 1 person wrong just due to consensus.
Furthermore, if you study the tool known as the scientific method. Perhaps the most important thing in it is asking questions, and always challenging. Even challenging your own ideas. The goal is to produce better and better models that explain more and more observable data. Consensus does not matter when it comes to the scientific method.
When people push consensus in relation to science that is not science. That is politics or a new pseudo-dogmatic religion. It is trying to get people to not think or ask questions because they don't want to be seen as the odd person, the one challenging the POPULAR narrative.
There are other common fallacies
Argument from Emotion Fallacy is common as well. "This is true because it made me feel some emotion." "You are selfish because you won't support this idea X that I believe in."
Misinformation... says who? Sounds like an appeal to authority waiting to happen to me.
And as to censoring people for speaking...
That is something I'd physically fight someone to protect against if I had to. Even I truly despised what the person was speaking.
Now if you setup rules that people can voluntarily agree to such as "If you are entering my property you cannot use profanity, pornographic language, etc" and a person could choose to enter or not without it being a negative impact on their life... I am fine with that.
Make your rules very clear before the person chooses to enter. Not after.
If you are going to make them after then allow the person to leave with no harassment if they choose.
The problem becomes if that place can coerce through fear and intimidation people to behave a certain way. If the service/property is REQUIRED for the person to survive then it is no longer truly voluntary.
IF the location is passing laws that force things upon people or influencing laws then it is kind of necessary for everyone to have access.
As to misinformation...
Do you realize how many things have been called nuts, conspiracy theories, etc. that within a short, or even long period of time ended up being the truth?
A lot. It has been happening more lately.
What is it called by the official narrative for years before the truth comes out?
Misinformation
So if you think you can police misinformation I can assure you that you'll also likely end up in many cases censoring the truth.
If you want to counter what you perceive as misinformation I am fine with that as long as you don't censor it. Counter it with better information. Look at what they say and without calling them an idiot, a conspiracy theorist, or other ad hominem attack actually try to convince them with civil discussion.
I am 100% supportive of that. If you are civil and you treat them like they truly believe what they are saying instead of treating them like they are lying then you might indeed make the world a better place.
If you treat them like the lying enemy. That'd make you much like the brown shirts of world war 2. The brown shirts believed everything they were doing.