Can speech (ex. lies) be considered dangerous?

[Dom]

Hear me out, as this is more of a philosophical discussion, not a political one.

I used to be a very strong and vocal free speech advocate in the past. In fact, I had very "conservative" views on free speech. But this was because I drew rather strong distinctions between actions and speech. I thought that people who commit actions are the ones responsible, not the messenger if they never specifically requested the person in question to commit horrible actions.

However, ever since then I've thought about this position of mine for quite a bit and made it more "prone" to examination and criticism essentially.

Like for example, if the person would've never committed the horrible action in the first place without the speech itself (regardless of whether there was a request to do something in it or not), then is it reasonable to conclude that the speech had no role to play in the action taking place?

By any logical metric, I don't believe it is a reasonable conclusion. While there is an argument to be made that the messenger can be separated from the action, I still think it is simplifying a matter where chains of events led to an unwanted, horrible action and what contributed to it happening.

Lies are something that make people do more *undesirable* actions than truth. Because their judgements for the actions that follow are based on information that is not accurate and that is a major problem. And I believe anyone who doesn't think this is a problem whatsoever is being dishonest to themselves and others. Spreading lies about a person can ruin their entire lives for instance. Whereas if you spread truth about someone and their lives are ruined as an outcome, there could be some judgement that the person deserved it, as it was truth that ruined their life (meaning they probably did something very horrible). Social consequences for example.

So it is self-evident that truth serves more purpose and benefit in pretty much all circumstances.

Based on these considerations, I've made the conclusion that there needs to be some systems or mechanisms that help us separate facts from lies because it also means that there will be more desired outcomes and actions by people if lies get eliminated. And vice versa, less unwanted actions. Although these need to be balanced and not invasive in any way. The only way you can truly oppose this in its entirety is if you believe that speech is completely separate from action, and chains of events do not exist whatsoever, which I do think is in contradiction with basic logical conclusions.

What do you think?

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

Depending on the lie in of itself, its a 50/50.

Some lies are better then the truth, thats a sad fact I've come to accept, on that same note, some truths are better then lying.

Here's a question I was asked by me friend in the past which, I do ask others from time to time.




If you have a best friend in school who you grew up with and were pals with for life only to discover his mother is well known among your own family as a drug-addict and a child abuser who also gets herself knocked up for free child care payouts, and one day said friends mother attacks you verbally and results in your own mother calling child protection services, would you tell your friend of the situation so their aware of what is going on and possibly save his life in the long run, or lie and say you don't know whats going on to prevent said friend from knowing what his mother did and possibly endangering himself?



For the record, I didn't tell him, but his mother did yell at me and she went to prison, I won't give details as honestly the stuff she did basically is on paper and was done before a judge but basically he was taken away by protection services, found to have abuse marks all over his body, lost a brother (as in, he died) right before him due to his own mother and he was starved. He never blamed me for lying to him about not knowing the truth and do a degree he admited had he knew what his mother did, he likely would of attacked her which is what I feared he'd do.

Sometimes, I admit, lying is the only path, and I know lies are not a good thing but if I need to lie to someone to prefer a situation that would have an outcome far worse by telling the truth then I will lie.

For politics, for family, for friends, they all have a situation where the lie is more acceptable then the truth, and the same is said also the otherway around where the truth is more acceptable then the lie.

[Triple G]

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

That´s not really new.

[Swarmfly]

Better a comfortable lie than the ugly truth.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Direct lies about a person(that can be proven they were known as lies by the person spreading them) are already actionable in law.

The issue you get into is you assume the person spreading the lie knows it's a lie. If a person believes a lie to be true, spreads that message, then someone acts upong what was spread. You cannot reasonably argue the original messenger is responsible since they believed what they said to be true.

Do so ends up silencing any type of freedom of information out side of "approved" sources. Which we all know are just as easily manipulated into spreading lies that they believe are truths.

A messenger cannot be responsible for someone committing an action because of words they said unless those words directly called for action.

You cannot reasonably say that someone saying "The Earth is flat and NASA is lying to us." is responsible for someone who may then go and harm or attempts to harm someone from NASA. The messenger said what they believed. The listener chose to take what they heard and act upon it.

Just to add, this would easily bleed into entertainment media. Remember the big scare over DOOM? What about Grand Theft Auto?

Those scares were based upon this same premise. That those games were responsible for people performing action that was portrayed in those games.

[Voroff]

引用自 Dom：

Hear me out, Can speech (ex. lies) be considered dangerous?(...) What do you think?

Yes, yes they can. Two days ago there was a topic here.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/12/4202490652506893306/
For who is tailored /destined those kind of news ?

After going in the very bottom of the page of the news outlet, we can see who is financing this crap. Will there be another colored revolution in El Salvador ?

does lies and propaganda cause harm ? Yes, most definitively. But you Dom, as our local exert propagandist on US-related topics with "some biaises of a neocon", you should know, no ?

[Acetyl]

Just listen and repeat. Say what the experts and media personalities say and you'll be safe. :^)

[Boblin the Goblin]

引用自 Acetyl：

Just listen and repeat. Say what the experts and media personalities say and you'll be safe. :^)

What's the difference between those experts and ones that you've cited in the past?

[Dom]

引用自 Mischievous Sly Succubus：

Depending on the lie in of itself, its a 50/50.

Some lies are better then the truth, thats a sad fact I've come to accept, on that same note, some truths are better then lying.

Here's a question I was asked by me friend in the past which, I do ask others from time to time.




If you have a best friend in school who you grew up with and were pals with for life only to discover his mother is well known among your own family as a drug-addict and a child abuser who also gets herself knocked up for free child care payouts, and one day said friends mother attacks you verbally and results in your own mother calling child protection services, would you tell your friend of the situation so their aware of what is going on and possibly save his life in the long run, or lie and say you don't know whats going on to prevent said friend from knowing what his mother did and possibly endangering himself?



For the record, I didn't tell him, but his mother did yell at me and she went to prison, I won't give details as honestly the stuff she did basically is on paper and was done before a judge but basically he was taken away by protection services, found to have abuse marks all over his body, lost a brother (as in, he died) right before him due to his own mother and he was starved. He never blamed me for lying to him about not knowing the truth and do a degree he admited had he knew what his mother did, he likely would of attacked her which is what I feared he'd do.

Sometimes, I admit, lying is the only path, and I know lies are not a good thing but if I need to lie to someone to prefer a situation that would have an outcome far worse by telling the truth then I will lie.

For politics, for family, for friends, they all have a situation where the lie is more acceptable then the truth, and the same is said also the otherway around where the truth is more acceptable then the lie.

I think that occasionally truth is hidden to protect some person. That may get into a territory of whether that's considered lying or not but I understand your point.

引用自 SlowMango：

You cannot reasonably say that someone saying "The Earth is flat and NASA is lying to us." is responsible for someone who may then go and harm or attempts to harm someone from NASA. The messenger said what they believed. The listener chose to take what they heard and act upon it.

You can in some ways perhaps say that the lie contributed to it if the judgement of the action is based on the lie that was spread.

That doesn't mean they are necessarily responsible of it legally speaking but if we were to draw a map demonstarting the chains of events, I do think the lie that was spread should still be there mentioned.

But to sum it up, I think access to trustworthy and truthful information is important because then people's actions are also based *more* on accurate information, so there's good judgement. I also think that it is a good objective overall as it improves the sanity of the public. But I'm not entirely sure what would be the best way to achieve that.

[Acetyl]

引用自 SlowMango：

引用自 Acetyl：

Just listen and repeat. Say what the experts and media personalities say and you'll be safe. :^)

What's the difference between those experts and ones that you've cited in the past?

Be more specific and elaborate. I don't dislike you SlowMango, but you've really depleted a lot of patience and goodwill.

[Boblin the Goblin]

引用自 Dom：

引用自 SlowMango：

You cannot reasonably say that someone saying "The Earth is flat and NASA is lying to us." is responsible for someone who may then go and harm or attempts to harm someone from NASA. The messenger said what they believed. The listener chose to take what they heard and act upon it.

You can in some ways perhaps say that the lie contributed to it if the judgement is based on the lie that was spread.

That doesn't mean they are necessarily responsible of it legally speaking but if we were to draw a map demonstarting the chains of events, I do think the lie that was spread should still be there mentioned.

But to sum it up, I think access to trustworthy and truthful information is important because then people's actions are also based *more* on accurate information, so there's good judgement. I also think that it is a good objective overall as it improves the sanity of the public. But I'm not entirely sure what would be the best way to achieve that.

Access to all information is the best way.

Once you start restricting access, you literally open the door and invite governmental censorship in to sit at the table and have dinner.

There's a reason the more strict/tyrannical a government gets that more information they censor. Free flow of information is the biggest thorn in their side when wanting to control.

[Boblin the Goblin]

引用自 Acetyl：

引用自 SlowMango：

What's the difference between those experts and ones that you've cited in the past?

Be more specific and elaborate. I don't dislike you SlowMango, but you've really depleted a lot of patience and goodwill.

You've cited experts before. You just said "trust the experts" in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

What is the difference between experts you cite and the ones you just mentioned in a tongue-in-cheek manner?

Quite simple to understand.

[Vote Quimby]

Oh God not another one. Dom do you qualify to Yale University? They only accept leaders(and cowards), not zealots.

[Thadeus]

Did Chat GPT write this? This is not how a human writes.

[Goldias]

Given that most leaders/warlords in history use speech to send people to die or commit war crimes... Yes speech can be dangerous.

But speech should not be a crime no matter how dangerous it is, because I don't like it when people can't speak their mind freely.

[Dom]

引用自 SlowMango：

引用自 Dom：

You can in some ways perhaps say that the lie contributed to it if the judgement is based on the lie that was spread.

That doesn't mean they are necessarily responsible of it legally speaking but if we were to draw a map demonstarting the chains of events, I do think the lie that was spread should still be there mentioned.

But to sum it up, I think access to trustworthy and truthful information is important because then people's actions are also based *more* on accurate information, so there's good judgement. I also think that it is a good objective overall as it improves the sanity of the public. But I'm not entirely sure what would be the best way to achieve that.

Access to all information is the best way.

Once you start restricting access, you literally open the door and invite governmental censorship in to sit at the table and have dinner.

There's a reason the more strict/tyrannical a government gets that more information they censor. Free flow of information is the biggest thorn in their side when wanting to control.

That's fair. I didn't suggest that free flow of information at its core should be stopped, and that people shouldn't have the right to express their thoughts. I just think that there should be some systems or mechanisms that make it easier to separate facts from lies. There are ingredients for a lot of problems if this is left completely unaddressed.