a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by johnnyFive
johnnyFive  ·  2853 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A post-truth thought experiment

For me, this is different from a moral standpoint: being wrong isn't the same as saying something one knows to be untrue.

Blurring those is societally dicey, and we've already seen why. When politicians are terrified of being lambasted for being wrong, the irony is that it makes them more likely to lie.





illu45  ·  2853 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    When politicians are terrified of being lambasted for being wrong, the irony is that it makes them more likely to lie.

Can you expand on this?

johnnyFive  ·  2853 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Sure. They'd rather lie and risk being caught in that (because everyone knows politicians lie) than be caught in a mistake. We allow politicians to use their opponents' mistakes as a bludgeon all the time, and for years.

illu45  ·  2852 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Sure. They'd rather lie and risk being caught in that (because everyone knows politicians lie) than be caught in a mistake. We allow politicians to use their opponents' mistakes as a bludgeon all the time, and for years.

Hm, I've never really thought about it that way. I guess there's a fine line between holding politicians accountable for their mistakes and lambasting them for those mistakes.