I care because there’s a lazy argument for censorship which goes: don’t worry, we’re not going to censor honest disagreement. We just want to do you a favor by getting rid of misinformation, liars saying completely false things. Once everybody has been given the true facts - which we can do in a totally objective, unbiased way - then we can freely debate how to interpret those facts.
His isn't talking to you and his point isn't to trust media. He's talking to people who want to ban 'disinformation' and his point is that the way media lies already precludes any simple bright lines for that.
It is quite questionable whether any of this target audience reads Scott, though.
It is quite questionable whether any of this target audience reads Scott, though.
At the very least it arms the audience he does have. That is, people who oppose censorship and read his piece will have a better understanding of this argument against it. And then upon encountering someone who is pro-censorship they can more lucidly argue the point and/or drop a link to this article.
To the extent that Scott is engaged in a crusade against censorship, his crusade has clearly failed. The epistemological problem presented by Media generally is a serious one, and while I have not read this article, none of Scott's previous work and none of the descriptions I'm seeing here indicate that he is capable of productively grappling with it.
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Notes -
He literally states his goal in the article:
His isn't talking to you and his point isn't to trust media. He's talking to people who want to ban 'disinformation' and his point is that the way media lies already precludes any simple bright lines for that.
It is quite questionable whether any of this target audience reads Scott, though.
At the very least it arms the audience he does have. That is, people who oppose censorship and read his piece will have a better understanding of this argument against it. And then upon encountering someone who is pro-censorship they can more lucidly argue the point and/or drop a link to this article.
To the extent that Scott is engaged in a crusade against censorship, his crusade has clearly failed. The epistemological problem presented by Media generally is a serious one, and while I have not read this article, none of Scott's previous work and none of the descriptions I'm seeing here indicate that he is capable of productively grappling with it.
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