Do we really need defamation laws?
Why don't we just teach children to think critically? (What if a significant proportion of parents refuse?)
Are people so deeply irrational that that won't work?
Why don't we just teach children to think critically? (What if a significant proportion of parents refuse?)
Are people so deeply irrational that that won't work?
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@Hyolobrika absolutely. People will not only instantly believe defamatory lies that confirm their current opinion, suspicion or general worldview, but will also resist any attempts to refute them. A threat of severe consequences and a requirement for official retractions are the only way to keep them at a sane level.
@Hyolobrika and critical thinking 1) is rare and pretty much impossible to "teach" most of society in current cultures and 2) doesn't even work that well for people trained in it, our monkey brains are too susceptible to biases.
@Hyolobrika I think it's reasonable to have them. It's not actually illegal per se, it's just grounds for a civil suit. Consider the alternative methods of recourse for this issue: most of them are (or have become) illegal. You can't tell someone "Pistols at dawn" any more: even if that were legal again, people care less about honor than they did and it does not mean much to be branded a coward.
> Why don't we just teach children to
Sentences like these rarely work out how you'd hope. Really the sentiment is "Why don't more people think this way?" and the answer is that they don't, and you can't fight human nature. But to answer the question more directly:
> Why don't we just teach children to think critically?
You know why already.
> Are people so deeply irrational that that won't work?
What we think of as "rationality", everyone taking their actions based on syllogisms and math and facts and science, is not how anyone makes decisions. People don't think too hard about most things and behavior is either reinforced or penalized and that's feedback. Rationalization is more often retrospective. I think I told you about the split-brain experiments. People just do stuff, then you ask them why they did something and they perceive remembering a reason while they fabricate one.
> Why don't we just teach children to
Sentences like these rarely work out how you'd hope. Really the sentiment is "Why don't more people think this way?" and the answer is that they don't, and you can't fight human nature. But to answer the question more directly:
> Why don't we just teach children to think critically?
You know why already.
> Are people so deeply irrational that that won't work?
What we think of as "rationality", everyone taking their actions based on syllogisms and math and facts and science, is not how anyone makes decisions. People don't think too hard about most things and behavior is either reinforced or penalized and that's feedback. Rationalization is more often retrospective. I think I told you about the split-brain experiments. People just do stuff, then you ask them why they did something and they perceive remembering a reason while they fabricate one.
@p I'm not suggesting we solve such problems with duels again lol.
Being good at violence is not the same thing as being right.
Being good at violence is not the same thing as being right.
@Hyolobrika
> I'm not suggesting we solve such problems with duels again lol.
You have to provide recourse somehow. This was one of the ways we used to do it. I'm not saying that you have been suggesting duels, but I am saying that if your hypothetical society does not permit someone to get recourse, then that society is in danger. Truth and who is right don't matter: only whether or not your society violates the sense of justice for a critical mass.
You have to think about second-order effects more often if you want to think about society, and if you are talking about laws, you are talking about society.
> Being good at violence is not the same thing as being right.
Nobody said it is. But being right and having a functioning society are also completely different matters. Being right doesn't matter.
If you are driving east, and you want to make it to the coast, but the coast is west, this matters to you, right? You're going the wrong direction. To everyone else in society, it doesn't matter if you are going the wrong direction as long as you stop when the light is red and go when the light is green. You see the difference. Violence certainly cannot create truth, but if you slap someone that runs a red light, they might not do this again.
Anyway, this is fun stuff but I am trying to keep most conversation light until I've got my code out the door.
> I'm not suggesting we solve such problems with duels again lol.
You have to provide recourse somehow. This was one of the ways we used to do it. I'm not saying that you have been suggesting duels, but I am saying that if your hypothetical society does not permit someone to get recourse, then that society is in danger. Truth and who is right don't matter: only whether or not your society violates the sense of justice for a critical mass.
You have to think about second-order effects more often if you want to think about society, and if you are talking about laws, you are talking about society.
> Being good at violence is not the same thing as being right.
Nobody said it is. But being right and having a functioning society are also completely different matters. Being right doesn't matter.
If you are driving east, and you want to make it to the coast, but the coast is west, this matters to you, right? You're going the wrong direction. To everyone else in society, it doesn't matter if you are going the wrong direction as long as you stop when the light is red and go when the light is green. You see the difference. Violence certainly cannot create truth, but if you slap someone that runs a red light, they might not do this again.
Anyway, this is fun stuff but I am trying to keep most conversation light until I've got my code out the door.
@Hyolobrika to some level, yes. But defamation is much simpler, since it has a direct target and can be easily proven wrong.