What is truth?

A complaint from the regulatory classes about the outbreak of free speech on social media:

This is an extinction-level event for the idea of objective truth on social media – an organism that was already on life support, but was clinging on in part because Meta was willing to fund independent factchecking organisations in order to try to maintain some element of truthfulness, free from political bias.

As with Pontius, it’s necessary to ask well, what is truth?

The truth* is, as with markets more generally, that it’s a process not a thing. This is before we get to how those appointed editors of objective truth near exclusively came from one side of the political argument and so on. And before the evidence we’ve now got that so many of their declarations (laptop, lab leak, etc, etc) were not in fact true.

Markets more generally work on try everything, do more of what works. The pursuit of truth on everybody gets to say whatever and in that way we zero in on what appears to accord with reality. The Wisdom of the Crowds in fact. The only tried and tested method we’ve got of avoiding the echochamber of groupthink.

This is true even in science let alone more general subjects. Everyone knows that continents go up and down until they don’t, in fact they float around.

Truth is a process, everyone gets to take part in that process. Gatekeeping simply delays, diverts or even prevents that process.

You know, free speech, even on social media. It’s the only thing lies, distortions and propaganda fear.

Tim Worstall

*See what we did there? Ahahaha.