AllLiesSurvive
ThoughtStorms Wiki
Context: EvolutionaryEpistemology, TheLeftVsFreedomOfSpeech
Given enough bandwidth, all lies survive.
In other words, we used to have, of necessity, natural restrictions on the propagation of ideas or memes. That forced them into competition for survival. Out of this "natural selection" came the various mechanisms : "the court of public opinion" etc. that seemed to allow good ideas and factual knowledge to drive out the bad and the untrue.
The "internet experiment" we just did over the last 30 years or so, meant creating effectively unlimited storage for ideas, and unlimited bandwidth for disseminating them. And it showed that without these natural limitations, there is no natural selection, and therefore no pressure in favour of preserving truths rather than lies.
So unless we are willing to bite the bullet and construct new explicit mechanisms for eliminating / restricting the flow of false beliefs (ie. the kind of things that are called censorship), we are going to be swamped with them, to the detriment of our MemeticEcosystem
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