THEM: I believe in debate, discussion, and argument. ME: Then you’re against censorship. THEM: Definitely. ME: Even “misinformation”? THEM: Oh no! That should be censored! ME: So, in these debates, discussions, and arguments, there’s… only one side?
I think this is the essence of what a number of people don't understand, which is that no human being can know what's really true, and we all have to try our best to learn and experiment. People think they are "following the science" when what they are doing is more like parroting what an official put on TV said about their opinion on what's the message which they want the viewing public to take away as their daily narrative. Yes, somebody somewhere is doing work in a lab. And there's a huge social system around that, with many people influencing things. It's not like you can go run the experiment yourself to verify. We are not living in 1700 where you can go drop cannon balls from towers yourself, or whatever. We rely on social systems and their integrity, but humans are pretty bad at integrity when their survival is on the line, so we need free questioning and sharing, otherwise there's no way to even begin to keep a check on things. All of it is always suspicious as misinformation. All of it. That's why we have to question, and that's likely why so often the ones objecting to the questioning are the ones who need questioning.
I think this is the essence of what a number of people don't understand, which is that no human being can know what's really true, and we all have to try our best to learn and experiment. People think they are "following the science" when what they are doing is more like parroting what an official put on TV said about their opinion on what's the message which they want the viewing public to take away as their daily narrative. Yes, somebody somewhere is doing work in a lab. And there's a huge social system around that, with many people influencing things. It's not like you can go run the experiment yourself to verify. We are not living in 1700 where you can go drop cannon balls from towers yourself, or whatever. We rely on social systems and their integrity, but humans are pretty bad at integrity when their survival is on the line, so we need free questioning and sharing, otherwise there's no way to even begin to keep a check on things. All of it is always suspicious as misinformation. All of it. That's why we have to question, and that's likely why so often the ones objecting to the questioning are the ones who need questioning.