by fao_ | 2025-05-02 11:31:24+00:00
> We have to put up with uninformed opinions, in order to leave space for dissenting views.

I think your comment is great at conflating "allowing criticism against the government and speech on a sidewalk" with "disallowing unconsidered speech in certain private spaces because of the danger that some kinds of information has". You're very clumsily conflating two discrete things here.

First, you assume that people spouting complete nonsense without investigation into something can be productive. I fundamentally disagree with this, based on experience. I have encountered people with what essentially were delusions of grandeur — they had very limited and grossly incorrect physics knowledge, with no mathematical foundation, and they stated that they saw falsities in Einsteininan Relativity. They then proceeded to argue that, were Einstein alive, they would be entitled to a debate with him, as would presumably everyone else with misgivings from ignorance. They had absolutely no understanding of what Relativity was, no understanding even of what an electron is, and the entire discussion of trying to explain anything to them was essentially a complete waste of time, as they had neither the mathematical basis, nor the understanding of physical law and experimentation, to understand the vast amounts of evidence in support of Einstein's theory of spacetime and relativity. Every single sentence out of their mouth was either mildly incorrect waffling from ignorance, or complete and utter nonsense.

I for one, do not think that this debate was productive, and they argued that me finishing on the note that they should, in fact, avail themselves of the knowledge of physics so that they can understand the tests that have been done for themselves, was an "argument to authority". From the outset, there was absolutely no possibility of meaningful debate, because they had chosen to remain ignorant despite the internet being flooded of places where they could learn even a modicum of basic knowledge. This is what it means to "do research" and "learn". I argue based on these experiences that you do, actually, owe people around you to learn about something before spouting inane garbage on the matter.

Secondly, I argue we can allow dissenting views without leaving room within society, for popular subjects of misconception, such as holocaust denial or the hundreds of right wing grifters trying to sell people on the idea that vaccination is evil, to be given platforms.

There are people who engage in debate, not truthfully, or honestly, to discuss ideas and learn, but instead to spread their misinformation, hoping to catch people in the crowd that they can profit off. I assert that this is one of the reasons why a myriad of right wing ideas are taking hold right now. Vaccine denialism, holocaust denial, transphobia, etc. are rife — because it comes down to scientific misinformation and profit. People who are already ignorant, finding that it is monetarily fruitful to spread this ignorance in the name either of ideological malfeasance (such as in the case of transphobia — one big example being the christofascist Heritage Foundation injecting millions of dollars into the UK) or just purely out of self-interest (Jordan Peterson being a notable name there).

And all of it is remedied through people who are misinformed of the scientific evidence "shutting the fuck up and learning". The root comes from people abusing platforms to spread their ignorance, and then people parroting that without research. I think that there is room for people to say whatever they want in a public space (in a shopping mall, on a sidewalk), but I do not believe that it is right nor in the best interests of society, for these people to be given room by universities, by public theaters, or by online platforms. These people feed off waffling in front of an audience, only way that we can beat this epidemic of literal bullshit is by denying them that audience, starving them of social oxygen and saying "no, learn more before you deserve a space to speak publicly about this".