It’s pretty clear from this blogpost that Larry Sanger has abandoned a pursuit of truth and neutral point of view and instead does not like how reality fails to conform to his personal biases and preferences about the way the world is.
If nothing else, the rambling about global warming and MMR vaccines makes it obvious. It’s not neutral to spread many times disproven lies. Especially how he wants to spread it, without saying that it’s not true, because that’s not neutral. He just forgot that saying that something is true is also not neutral.
I understand the caution, and we need to be more cautious in today’s world. And I do in controversial topics quite frequently. For example, giving points for women during university admissions just for being women in Norway seemed outrageous. And when I feel that way, I immediately start to check its validity, especially that the article “forgot” to mention how many points. At the end they give out 1 or 2 points on a scale of 50, and not to just women but also men, where they are underrepresented. The article just lied about that we should have outrage. It’s a lie.
Larry Sanger wants such lies on Wikipedia. He should be way more cautious when he’s outraged. Also 100% of people who commented under this article on Reddit should do the same.
Organizations can't have commitments to truth. Only people can. And there is no mechanism that ensures that editors and admins have a commitment to truth.
OK, I can't argue with that. Timothy Snyder might make a similar correction, "markets can't be free, only people participating in the market can be free" is something he says frequently.
If only people can have commitments to truth, which organization, institution, or media do you think has a leader that seems to have a commitment to truth, especially truth in their institution? Who is our gold standard of "as good as it gets"?
It’s pretty clear from this blogpost that Larry Sanger has abandoned a pursuit of truth and neutral point of view and instead does not like how reality fails to conform to his personal biases and preferences about the way the world is.
If nothing else, the rambling about global warming and MMR vaccines makes it obvious. It’s not neutral to spread many times disproven lies. Especially how he wants to spread it, without saying that it’s not true, because that’s not neutral. He just forgot that saying that something is true is also not neutral.
I understand the caution, and we need to be more cautious in today’s world. And I do in controversial topics quite frequently. For example, giving points for women during university admissions just for being women in Norway seemed outrageous. And when I feel that way, I immediately start to check its validity, especially that the article “forgot” to mention how many points. At the end they give out 1 or 2 points on a scale of 50, and not to just women but also men, where they are underrepresented. The article just lied about that we should have outrage. It’s a lie.
Larry Sanger wants such lies on Wikipedia. He should be way more cautious when he’s outraged. Also 100% of people who commented under this article on Reddit should do the same.
What organizations, institutions, or media do you think have a greater commitment to truth, or even just a commitment to truth?
Organizations can't have commitments to truth. Only people can. And there is no mechanism that ensures that editors and admins have a commitment to truth.
OK, I can't argue with that. Timothy Snyder might make a similar correction, "markets can't be free, only people participating in the market can be free" is something he says frequently.
If only people can have commitments to truth, which organization, institution, or media do you think has a leader that seems to have a commitment to truth, especially truth in their institution? Who is our gold standard of "as good as it gets"?
3 replies →
Imagine sharing this link unironically thinking the content makes great sense.