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MrMind comments on Open Thread March 21 - March 27, 2016 - Less Wrong
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Comments (160)
He's a witch. Burn him already, on balance of probabilities.
Except, do we want to censor commercial speech per se. If people are being paid to say interesting things, why not? If people are talking rubbish and spamming, shouldn't we have a mechanism for silencing them irrespective of whether they're getting money?
I'm ranting insanely about the thyroid-bee in my empiricist-bonnet, totally for free! Why not ban me?
If someone turns up saying "I've just discovered X and I love it", the information I gain from that is quite different in the cases (1) where they really have just discovered X and love it and (2) where they're saying it because someone paid them to.
Indeed, the fact that these people are presumably being paid isn't the point. The fact that they are promoting something dishonestly is the point. The fact that they're being paid is relevant only as evidence that their promotion is dishonest.
Because your ranting is not in fact particularly insane, and because your participation in the LW community is not confined to ranting about hypothyroidism.
If you talked about literally nothing else, and if it transpired that you're only promoting your theory because someone paid you to drum up sales for thyroid hormone supplements, then you'd probably be contributing nothing of value. (Whether banning you would be a good response is a different question.) I mean, it might turn out that actually what you're saying about thyroid hormones is right (or at least enlightening) even though you were saying it on account of being paid, but the odds wouldn't be good.
What if I was so convinced I was right that I started a 'Rational Thyroid Treatment Corporation'? (Just teasing now, sorry)
And actually there wouldn't be any point, since the bloody stuff is cheap as chips. I think that might be the problem. There's never been anyone to fight its corner for it.
Which is verging on conspiracy theory. Except that there's no conspiracy, just perverse incentives.
Which is what we say when we want to say 'conspiracy theory'.
I used to know some Socialist Workers. And one of them used to refer to people as 'lumpen'. One day I asked her if that was what Socialist Workers said when they meant 'common', and she went red and said 'yes' in a very small voice.
Which increased my respect for her a lot. Unfortunately she ruined it all about a month later when at the end of an argument about the correct method of determining wage levels for firemen she completely lost it with the immortal words 'Under Socialism there WOULDN'T BE FIRES'.
If you would then hire Nigerians to promote it on LW, we would have a problem.
Nigerians! How could RTTC afford Nigerians? I paid Tammy Lowe £50 for what appears to be a three year supply of magic thyroid panacea, including several hours of her time and mine. And if I did start making my own and then spend the money to promote it properly, I'd just get undercut. There is no honour in a perfectly competitive market.
ROFL...
To quote Karl Marx on who constitutes lumpenproletariat:
The issue is not with commercial speech. The issue is with misrepresentation and deception.