

Ask HN:  Why not criminalize unsubstantiated assertions made in public? - amichail

You could still hold opinions/beliefs, but you would need to explicitly say that something is an opinion/belief.
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jamesbritt
"You could still hold opinions/beliefs, but you would need to explicitly say
that something is an opinion/belief."

Or people could understand that everything anyone says is an opinion/belief
unless accompanied by verifiable backing.

There are unintended consequences of trying to guarantee something. For
example, I know people who consume anything available for sale, because, you
know, if it was bad for you the government wouldn't allow it to be sold.

I'd rather not encourage people to be less critical in their thinking
regarding the assertions of others.

Also, debates over evolution tells me that getting people to agree on what
"substantiated" means is a staggering challenge.

Better to have the occasional PSA that tells people, "BTW, some people make
shit up. Be skeptical of what you read and hear."

~~~
amichail
There is no debate over evolution if we restrict ourselves to reputable
scientists.

Most people are not capable of critical thought and should not be encouraged
to think for themselves.

~~~
ErrantX
> Most people are not capable of critical thought and should not be encouraged
> to think for themselves

Can you hear yourself talk - seriously?

That lack of capability and you _stopping_ them are such different things. The
second you deliberately discourage someone from individual thought your
crossing an awful moral line.

Even if a person makes a poor mistake at least it is _their_ choice. Yes you
might have made a better choice for them, in your opinion, but crossing such a
line for genuinely helpful reasons just one time is a dangerous precedent to
set.

You comment is basically the basis for all justification of oppression in the
history of the world. That's the kind of things that good critical thinkers
should realise it it important to avoid (making me almost suggest your a
victim of your own fallacy).

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tdoggette
It's my opinion that you haven't thought your ideas through.

~~~
amichail
It's hard to think through something that would require an experiment to
determine its effectiveness.

It's pretty obvious that free speech without limits results in a lot of
nonsense that many people believe.

~~~
mbrubeck
And the government are just the people to decide which truths are actually
true!

~~~
amichail
Reputable academics would decide whether someone is guilty of unsubstantiated
statements.

Even if this is limited to scientific matters, it could be an improvement over
unrestricted free speech.

~~~
jamesbritt
And "reputable academics" would be determined by ...

... turtles all the way down.

~~~
amichail
PageRank-like measures would be helpful for this purpose:
[http://peterrohde.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/pagerank-in-
acade...](http://peterrohde.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/pagerank-in-academic-
publishing/)

------
russell
The first amendment to the US Constitution pretty much covers that. There
isn't anything much than the government deciding what is true and what isn't,
what can be said and what cannot.

